Cough, cough cough. I was up all night coughing and barely slept. My head was pounding, and my whole body felt heavy. Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been weak because of my tonsils. Now that I’m older, even the tonsils decided they didn’t want to stay with me anymore and left. But as soon as the cold winter wind starts blowing, I always come down with a coughing cold.
I still had to cook for my husband, who eats all three meals at home like clockwork. But there I was, lying down, coughing like I had whooping cough. If I just tied a white cloth around my head, I’d look exactly like an old village grandma.
In my dream, my late mother appeared and pulled my hand, urging me to follow her somewhere. I woke up drenched in sweat. So this is how it happens—death isn’t such a big deal after all. You just fade away like this.
I wrapped myself up from head to toe like an Arab woman in a hijab and dragged myself outside to buy medicine. My legs were shaking, and it felt like waves were crashing against the back of my head. My vision blurred as I stumbled forward. I sat down in a shabby neighborhood café and sipped a hot chocolate. Across the street, a row of pigeons huddled together on a sunny rooftop, looking just as miserable and cold as I felt.
I watched a young, healthy couple walk by, stuck together like glue. I just stared blankly at them. It gave me a strange feeling. Some of my husband’s friends, as if it were a trend of the times, have divorced their aging wives and remarried younger women. And I thought: how bored and tired my husband must be, living with an aging wife like me. On top of that, he has to hear me coughing all year round. Even for me, living with one man my whole life hasn’t been easy. I don’t say it out loud, but deep down, maybe he wants to leave me too, tired of his sickly wife.
If he ever falls for a younger woman and insists on leaving, what could I really do to stop him? I’m not some young and pretty princess. Do I really have the right to lie in bed and wait for him to bring me medicine? No. It’s only right that I get up and take care of myself. So I stumbled off to the pharmacy.
Even my tonsils, which stuck with me all my life, left me because they were tired of my old body. What guarantee is there that my husband won’t do the same? Life feels so unfair and bitter sometimes. An older woman can’t beat a younger one. An unattractive woman can’t beat a pretty one. A weak woman can’t beat a healthy one. An average woman can’t beat a successful one. That’s just how the world works. There’s no one to blame. You just have to figure out how to crawl on your own.
I made spicy fish stew, neatly sliced some steamed eggplant, and laid out the dinner table.
“You got up?” my husband asked.
“I figured I’d better pull myself together before you divorce me,” I said.
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
He scooped a big bowl of rice for me and said,
“Eat up and get better soon.”
“Thank cough you~ cough cough,” I replied.
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