After close on a month of coughing almost non stop and cutting off all contact with others, Dash ordered the lights in his quarters to be turned on.

“Lower lights by 5%,” Dash ordered, still too bright, “another 5%”, almost bearable, “try 10%”. His eyes could cope with that and he slowly forced himself to sit up on his bed.

Had he been missed? Had he been pronounced missing? Had he been replaced? Had it even been noticed he had been gone for the past month?

Dash looked around his quarters, the tissues were piled up, the dining area was covered by lemon peels, and honey was dripping everywhere.

“CIO Personal Log, well, the coughing has subsided. At long last, the computer tells me its been a month since I last stepped foot outside of my quarters. Whatever I had, it was certainly persistent. I need to clean myself up and shave. I look as though I’m the love child of a Yeti and a Wookie if they were real and could mate and give birth to what is little more than a skeleton.” Dashel paused, “I don’t know where I stand on the colony, or even if I have a position here anymore. The coughing attacks started without warning and the last thing I wanted was to infect someone else. Maybe, however, I should have let someone, Captain Parker, perhaps, know what had happened.”

Finishing his recording, he stumbled on unsteady feet to the sonic shower and turned it on.

“Computer, begin playback of messages,” he said, after putting playback to a volume he could hear over the shower.

-Dash Jamison, CIO
OOC: In a case of art following reality, a nasty cold/flu thing has gone through Brisbane … a local school was closed for a couple of days, it then went through my extended family (my sister, her husband, their two sons and then mum), and then finally me. During this time, Dad’s been in hospital for elective surgery, and for a few days, I was the only one who could visit him in hospital. He’s now recovering from the surgery and I get to be his chauffeur. I’m now down to the coughing stage … with a coughing ‘fit’ overcoming me for half an hour at a time without warning. Thanks for your collective patience with me.

-Russell