Adika

The alarm sounds far away; I roll over to turn it off. As I do, I swallow causing pain to flare in my throat. Holy shit, it hurts. It feels like I’m trying to swallow white hot marbles with thorns on them. A dim memory comes to me of waking in the middle of the night as I swallowed in my sleep and pain forcing me awake for a few painful minutes before I fell back to sleep. Yesterday I was feeling rundown and achy but I thought it might be a cold. I’m not sure what this is, but it’s not a cold.

It hurts to hold my...