Do I need it?

No; only in winter; when it is very hot; but that is all... also when it rains, when I rain: the comfort: a hat: calms the waves.

But do I need that?

I don't need.

I follow you around; films, bars, bed, back again. You clutch my hat, to your breast, gentle, tender. You lend it; weekends, evenings, an afternoon in Autumn, no matter how I try, winds up back at your place. Under the sink, within the laundry, under your pillow.

Beneath the house.

The flutter when you are far, doing god knows with my hat. It calls me; I cannot reach for it. You aren't close.

Wearing my hat, tell your friends of the tingling feeling it leaves in your ears. How it reassures. You laugh; it rolls along the curb, you'll chase.

Protect. Must keep.

Not by instruction; compulsion.

My hat, your hat.

"Not now. No. You wait. Bide your time."

My mother's voice echoing inside my head, as I walk the halls, each room more depressing than the last, guiding me. The hospice is an interesting place, full of people waiting, always waiting; some for peace, others for a quiet end to their intense curiosity. The question that has silently plagued most of their lives, finally to be reconciled, what happens? Will I feel it?

My name tag says "Lucy", loosely it is correct, but that's the best I can do while I am here. It is strange to be tangible, feeling the fluids slide through you, around you. Bile lurching, blood warm and gliding so fast you can almost hear it. I feel sick; I sit down, rubbing my temples. I apply and reapply the sweetest, cheapest perfume I can find so no one notices. Sulfur. Same for green concealer. Did you know green cancels red?

Room 305, my patient, my Prize. Bernard is ill, in many ways, fluid in his lungs, a heavy heart of a life mislead. Now a crippled shell of a man, once he ran this town so to speak, taking what he could from those less fortunate, from those more innocent. Thirty-four victims to date, and not any sense of remorse or wrongdoing in a single bone of his failing body. 

"Bernard," I say with a sweet, sly smile, flicking a bit of ash from the back of my hand.

"Loose," he replies weakly, smiling himself.

"How are we today?" I struggle to retain my manic laughter at what comes next.

"Right as rain." we say in unison, he's not the most spontaneous sort, not any more.

He coughs.

I run my hands along the guard-rail on the bed, as I do, I lean in close, sure he sees my true eyes, yellow-gold and flecked with black.

"It's so hot..." he whines, begins to sweat, never realizing.

I am the fever.

"I've waited long enough, I'm coming home."