When an adult suffers from а child disease, it is extraordinary painful. Just as it happened to me at the late Soviet time when I caught measles, was bedridden for three days with a fever heat of 40C and was going to die. But then a doctor came, diagnosed the rubeola, I was taken to a specialized hospital and alive and kicking in a couple of days.
I will never forget those three days – an awful headache, general muzziness because of high temperature and in three days no thoughts but those of fast and desired death. In the hospital I met a man of about 50 who told me his case history. Further narration is from the first person.
I’m not young already and all my age mates often club to start complaining of their illnesses – some have ulcer, others – pressure problems, etc. And I sit like an asshole and can’t keep the ball rolling since don’t have any serious diseases. There finally I fall ill, which made me really happy. “They will cure me” – I thought – “so at last I will have a good reason to beat gums with my aces”. I found myself in a contagious isolation ward of Botkin’s...