You've called in sick. For a change, you are actually ill, as opposed to sick of work. Your head is aching, your skin is clammy, the pillow seems to alternate damply hot and glacial.
You call your baby sister; ask her to pick up some Panadol, soda water, and (your secret vice) condensed milk that you'll suck straight from the tube. Just enough willpower to feed the cat, leave the keys in the letterbox, and tumble back into bed.
While you're waiting, you drift into and out of sleep. You hear the aimless chatter from the crèche across the street; smell the wattle through the open window. The room is getting very hot, so you peel off your sticky pyjamas and wrap the sheet around you. You've relaxed, started to enjoy doing nothing, when you hear they keys in to door.
You don't expect your sister to even come into the room, you told her you'd be sleeping. You don't call out, don't even turn your head towards the hallway, you just enjoy the feeling of the sheets against your skin, the motes of dust in the morning light.
You hear the refrigerator open, the clanking of bottles as she puts away the soda water. Her footsteps are soft in the hallway; she must have left her usual clacking heels at home today. The door to your bedroom swings open, and the house falls strangely silent, as is expectation were roused.
"What is she doing?" you think. You really are too tired to talk, so you let your eyes slide fully closed. There is the click and hiss of a bottle opening, the soft gurgle as she pours you a drink. Perhaps she is putting the tablets by the bed as well?
