Transient Social Disease

You can see it coming a mile away. Even with the earliest symptoms, the feeling of dread, sleeplessness, anxiety, neuroses, you know it's going to be awful. And may the deity of your choice forbid it actually flare up into a full blown episode once you've contracted it. It can strike at any moment, while you are driving, while you are asleep, amidst the throes of passion. It does not care. It has no remorse, no conscious and no predictable nature. Your only saving grace is that you know it cannot last long. That the infection, while painful, is temporary. You know exactly from whom you acquired this throbbing swelling rash which has the capacity to unexpectedly degrade to ulcerated bleeding lesions. And yet you cannot help but hold some level of contempt for them. Despite the fact you know they had no choice in the matter. And you cannot wait to transfer it to someone else yourself, which makes it even more difficult to maintain that level of contempt for long. Pager duty is a transient social disease. And I hate it. One night left.