Last Monday morning, I didn't feel all that great when I came to work in Williamstown. My head was achy and I was tired. I kept telling myself this was because one of our cats had died on Saturday, and my sinuses were not recovered from all the crying I'd done. Thankfully, it was one of those constantly-busy-without-being-overwhelmed days. Tripod had European visitors and a pot-luck lunch planned for them.

As the day went on, my head felt like it was being squeezed by a metal band, continually being tightened by really big bolts. I still figured it would go away.

I left work around 5 p.m., got into my car, and started driving home. I was exhausted. You know you're in trouble when you're worrying that the next day's headlines might read: "Woman found curled up in car with crock-pot." I really wanted to pull over and go to sleep, but I was afraid to stop. By then I felt the beginnings of an ominous little cough and tickle in my chest. Ugh, and a shiver.

Needless to say, by around 8 p.m. I was in the midst of a full-blown, out and out, classic flu.

There's not a lot you can do when you're that sick except sleep and try to keep drinking stuff. You have a lot of time to think; that is, when you're not unconscious. Here are some of the things that drifted up ...

I remembered years ago when my Dad had the Hong Kong Flu. He scared me half to death when I couldn't see him breathing as he lay on the couch. I went running off to get Mom. He was just deeply asleep, post-fever. One morning, a week later, my Dad went running to Mom when I had the same flu and he couldn't see me breathing.

There was a time when I was a kid, and I woke up in the middle of a feverish night having dreamt my body had exploded. Very "Visible Woman." It took a while before I realized I could move.

A snapshot image of my fifth-grade teacher, Miss Mary Trimble, came to me in my delirium. I remember Miss Trimble telling our class how she had been a small girl during the Flu epidemic in the early 1900's. She told us how her mother had bundled her up in her winter clothes, wrapped a bunch of gauze around her nose and mouth, and stood her out on the front porch to get some fresh air. I can't remember if Miss Trimble actually showed us a photograph, but I carry a very clear image in my mind of a small girl in a hat and tailored coat standing on a porch. Only her eyes were visible through a mass of white gauze.

Last year when I was sick in January, and couldn't make it in to work, I sat in bed for days. I had just started a quilt, so I "trued up" hundreds and hundreds of squares made of two triangles. Productive, mindless activity. Looking back, I was lucky not to have chopped off a finger or two.

One night my husband Ron came upstairs to see how I was doing. I was busy contemplating my position. Leaning forward, with elbows on knees (or similarly leaning forward with hands on a table) is called the "tripod position," which eases breathing. How strange. Work for Tripod, find myself in the tripod position.

"You look pretty sick," he said.

No kidding.

I kept feeling my face and my head, and they didn't feel like they were mine. I kept hoping this wasn't one of those strange voodoo movies where spiders and snakes move under the victim's skin until they emerge to frighten or bite her to death.

I remembered how my Mom always brought us warm washcloths for our faces when we were sick — to make us feel "more human." I thought maybe that would help. I got up and headed into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror for the first time. Who was that? No wonder I felt so odd — my body had been replaced by one I didn't know. Even though I was washing an unfamiliar face, the washcloth still felt good. I went back to bed.

We now have five cats. During the last few days I've been pinned down by any number of them. Cats are so helpful. My personal cat, Maggie, walks up the length of me, and puts her face up to mine to ask, "Lady, could we share some more crackers?" Our number-one cat Bill shoots me a look as I roll him away a bit: "Geez, I know you're sick but really!" Our neurotic middle-child cat Max is taking Erika's death the hardest — he is like glue. He takes up the most room in bed and sleeps the soundest. At least someone is sleeping soundly.

Just when I didn't think it was possible, I took a turn for the worse and ended up in the doctor's office. Loaded with antibiotics, a day or two later I was up and around, but still shaky. After an entire week of being sick, the following Monday I headed off to work. It's now that I face the biggest free-floating fear of all — will I be able to climb the three flights of stairs necessary to get to my desk at Tripod?

— Mary Beth