Possibly still with a touch of fever

I did pretty good with coming to work sick. I was miserable and tired. I went through eighteen boxes of kleenex. My coughing was overwhelming. And I worried terribly about infecting everyone, but somehow no one seemed to catch what I had at all. It was all my own personal cold. I struggled and I survived and made it to this week where I felt fine.

And somehow that was more difficult. Maybe it was the sheer quiet of the library these days. I had nothing to contend with and the days sort of shuffled along without much spirit. Or it easily could have been the ever-presence of my managers, who, while relatively inoffensive towards me lately, were nevertheless always appearing from out of nowhere like spiders or something. I thought they'd gone home hours ago, but no, they were just off in some crevice somewhere, biding their time, waiting for me to start innocently looking up videos of Messi or John Oliver and then, bam, suddenly they're there!

"Hi." I'd say.

I try to stay on friendly terms with everyone.

I feel that people are less inclined to try and eat you if you're on friendly terms with them.

What I really think it was is that while I was sick everyone at work, patrons, co-workers, managers,  were all really happy to keep a good ten feet away from me, maybe even a little more if they could. And while hooting and coughing and blowing and sneezing I didn't so much notice, when they all came back to their usual distance I was suddenly aware: The closer people are to you the easier it is for them to eat you.