I had been feeling feverish and achy for the better part of a week before I decided I was sick. Until then, I had convinced myself that I was merely tired, that I was feeling the accumulated stress of what had been a bad year. Not only was summer the most demanding season of my sales job, but I had also gone through a divorce. I thought I had taken the season and my wife's absence well; my body suggested otherwise and was now sticking me with a bug to prove it.
A coworker suggested that I stop by the local discount pharmacy and pick up a remedy that her sister's husband swore by. I wasn't interested in experiencing the jitters or lethargy over-the-counter remedies usually gave me, without affecting my ailment. Instead, I decided to stop at a health food store I often frequented on the weekends. I remember seeing several natural remedies in their health and beauty aids sections. Words like honey and citrus, garlic and zinc rang from my memory.
I parked my BMW a few doors down from the store and flipped up my jacket collar against the misty evening rain as I walked to their door. A bell tinkled overhead as the heavy door creaked open. A wave of scented herbs and spices rushed to me. Soft Celtic flutes and fiddles played overhead. The store was far less crowded than it ever was on the weekends; in fact, a cursory glance down the aisles suggested that I was the only customer there.
I was not completely alone, however. At the far end of the health and beauty aids aisle, a woman knelt, stocking the lower shelves. She was not one of the clerks I was accustomed to on the weekends. She was slender and somewhat tall for a woman, though no taller than myself. Her hair was reddish-brown, long, and curled loosely. She was dressed in an oversized cobalt blue sweater and long print skirt. She hummed with the music playing on the store's speakers.
"Is this good for a cold?" I asked, holding up a bottle of ginseng, rose hips, and Vitamin C.
"Are you sure it's a cold that's bothering you?" Her voice was accented. One of the accents from the British Isles. Irish, perhaps. I wasn't an expert.
"No," I admitted.
"You look pale," she said. She stood and walked toward me.
"I can't tell."
"Tired."
"Yes," I said. "Very tired."
"A little feverish?"
"Yes."
"The muscles in your shoulders and back: they hurt?"
"Yes."
"As if tense?"
"Yes. Like that." I held up my hand and tightened it into a fist.
She took the bottle from my hand. "This will not help you."
"What do you suggest?"
"Do you know how to make an infusion?"
"No."
She led me to a far corner of the store where the owners had set up several couches, a coffee machine, and racks of magazines featuring their products. She invited me to sit on one of the couches, then went back to the aisles for a moment. She returned with the several packets of herbs and a small perforated metal ball. She held up the ball in front of me.
"For teas ordinarily," she said. "But we will use it for an infusion. And an infusion is simply an herb or collection of herbs steeped in hot water until they release their medicinal properties in liquid forms. Your body absorbs liquids quickly and more easily than it does anything else."
"I'll have to take your word on it."
"Good."
She pinched items from each of the packets and put them into the metal ball. Some were powdered. Some were dried leaves. Nothing smelled unpleasant as they were. She dropped the closed ball into a large ceramic mug, then switched on the coffee machine to heat pure spring water she poured from a bottle.
While the water heated, she asked me questions about my job and life. I told her that I was a salesman for a company that, like so many other companies, had been painfully affected by the recent economic downturn. Sales were not going well. Our production plants were letting people go, as was our administrative offices. We feared that the sales department might be affected next.
She poured the hot water into the mug and told me it would take only a minute for the herbs to steep.
I told her about my divorce. Briefly. It was a story that I did not like to relive myself.
"Life adds and adds to us until our bodies cannot take more," she said, stirring the little ball around the mug by a chain attached to a silvery ring.
"So it seems," I said, more tired at that moment than I had been in a week.
"This will help," she said, holding the mug to my lips. "Be careful; it's quite warm."
I sipped. The infusion was tasty; sweet, without being sugary. Though it was hot, I found myself wanting to drink more.
"Yes, that's it," she said. "Let yourself take as much as you need."
I drank deeply. The infusion's warmth spread down my throat into my belly and began radiating out into my back and chest. Within moments, the mug was empty. She wiped my mouth with a linen napkin.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"Warm," I said. "But in a very good way."
