Chapter 5. Common Cold

Waking up in the morning with a blocked nose and flushed face was never an amazing feeling.

"Tara, how many times do I have to tell you not to sleep late at night?" Was the second thing I registered after my stuffy nose and a burning body.

I grunted in response, not able to reply to my mother because of the burning feeling in my throat. I breathed slowly, trying to make my body calm but soon felt bile rising from my stomach to mouth as I rushed to my bathroom. As I emptied my stomach into the bowl, my mother rushed to me with a glass of lukewarm water and rubbed my back to soothe my pain.

My mother helped me to lie down back on my bed when I was done washing my mouth. After waiting a bit and regaining my senses, I brushed my teeth and washed up as my mother went downstairs to bring me some rice with curd.

"Here." She said as she handed me the bowl full of rice and the curd.

After a futile attempt to finish the bowl full of rice and curd, I handed it back to my mother and took a tablet to cure my headache.

Waking up after a few hours of sleep, I started looking for my mother with a blanket still wrapped around me but she was nowhere to be found. After a tiring search of a few minutes, I made my way to her room and sat on her bed, waiting for her arrival.

The ringing sound of Tara's phone reached her mother's ears as she came from the garden of their home.

"Why is this girl ain't answering her phone calls?" Maya mumbled to herself and called Tara but no one answered her call. Making her way to Tara's room, she peeked inside the room but no one was there on the bed or in the room. The phone was placed on the table near the headrest of the bed and its screen lightened up as someone messaged her.

Taking her phone in my hand, I made my way in search of her, calling her name occasionally but she didn't answer. Tired after calling her so many times, I made my way to my room which was my last hope to find her.

Entering my room, I saw a lump on my bed secured by pillows and with a blanket draped over it.

The ringing of her phone broke my trance and I picked up the call, coming out of the room in order not to disturb my baby's sleep.

"Hello, Tara? It's me, Kaya, remember? Are you coming or not?" The person from another line said.

"No, it's her mother speaking Kaya dear. Tara is sick today so she can't make it to whatever you two have planned." I replied to a friend of Tara about whom I never had known.

"Oh, Aunty, it's okay. Is she fine now?" The girl named Kaya asked in a worried voice.

"She is sleeping now," I replied as a sigh escaped from my mouth.

"Oh, no problem Aunt. Tell her that I called when she wakes up." She said politely and cut the call when I hummed in response to her asked question.

"Tara? Tara? Baby, wake up. It's evening now." My mother's voice called out as I groaned in my sleep. I didn't remember sleeping, the last thing I remember was that I was waiting for my mother in her room.

"What time is it mom?" I asked as I turned over and faced her with sleepy eyes.

"It's 6 in the evening." As she replied, my sleep was thrown out of the room's window and I sat on the bed as fast as I could but cringed when a wave of pain hit my head and neck and the insides of my nose twitched as I sneezed.

"God! Why didn't you wake me up? I promised my friend that I will meet her today. She must be waiting for me." I panicked at the thought of making her wait for me.

"Don't worry about that. She called you but you were sleeping. So I answered her call and said that you won't be able to come as you are sick." My mother with a smile on her face.

"Mom you are the saviour or else I had made a fool of myself in front of her. " I thanked her, sneezing in between my talk.

"No problem baby." She replied as she winked at me with a playful smile on her face.

"I am not a baby," I said as I contorted my face in disgust and whined as she called me a baby.

"You are a baby, my baby." She teased me with a laugh but stopped when I made a face of a hurt puppy.

"Ok, you are not a baby." She replied as she smiled, "What you'll like to have for dinner."

"I am hungry but don't feel like eating. This cold is so gross." I said as I again plopped myself on my mother's bed.

"I'll make you decoction (home-prepared medicinal boiled water used to cure a common cold)." My mother said as she made her way to the kitchen to have dinner for herself and decoction for me.

The decoction tastes so bad but I need to drink it if I don't want to have a cough after my cold is cured. I get sick easily whenever the weather changes or I shift from one place to another. I need to take my mom's advice about doing yoga and exercise seriously.

After half an hour or so, my mother came with a bowl of decoction and handed it over to me. Holding my breath, not that I can take that properly, I drink that and hand the bowl back to my mother as a hot, bald decoction invades my few working taste buds.

"Go to your room and take a rest." My mother said as she left again to wash the bowl and I made my way towards my room to sleep again.