Revision posted 5/12.
He's running on sheer habit as he staggers into the kitchen. The dog is already at his heels, panting eagerly. Time to run, time to play, time to breathe! Time to live! He groans, head pounding, and clips collar to leash. He's out the door, walking, but his legs plod heavily, haphazard as if they are no longer his own. The illness sits in his chest, tearing at his lungs, and he feels it stretching out, reaching through the rest of his body.
He comes to awareness at the end of the street, with no memory of finding his way there. The night is a haze of colour and motion. The blur of taillights sweeps him into vertigo, and he stops to hurl over someone's garden fence. He does his best to straighten up, limbs trembling, and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. His eyes grind against his skull as they move, so he lets his vision go slack as he heads off again, staring at a fixed point somewhere on the ground in front of him.
A turn into the park gives his eyes a rest as the thick lights die out behind him, but he continues to stare into nothing. He lets his other senses pick up the slack; ears prick up at the sound of a squirrel in the branches against the muted sounds of the city. There are footsteps on the path behind the line of trees to his right. Flaring nostrils tell him tales of gasoline, garbage, and dog shit. The streetlamp at his back casts his shadow into his fixed eye line, and he watches as the shadow flexes long fingers restlessly.
Idle hands, he thinks. Idle hands. The phrase repeats like a stuck record. Frustration grows as he finds himself unable to form another thought. He wants to scream.
The dog tugs at the leash, and moves him on. He lumbers, and thinks it would be better to fall, to take to all fours and run like a wolf in the trees. A shiver sweeps the thought away. It's cold for September. He tugs the hood of his sweater over his head, and hunches against the chill. He sees his breath dance on the air, and thinks that running as the wolf would warm him up, too.
There are engines and breath, there is motor oil and body odour, his own kinaesthesia, and shadows sweep at the edge of his vision. Finally there's warmth, and he finds himself home, the rest of the walk nowhere in his memory. He struggles to recall, and finds on reflection only a moment-to-moment consciousness; the fight or flight awareness of an animal born to be both predator and prey. The leash is slack in his hand, and he holds a dim memory of turning its captive loose, to run and play and breathe and live as the world intended.
He wraps his hands together, feeling their chill. Half-blind, vision swimming red, he digs through a cabinet and pulls out a roll of duct tape. He wraps his clothes tight to him, taping down sleeves and pant legs, anywhere the chill can creep in. The cold is outside now. Inside, a fire builds.
He's thirsty. His thirst is so thick it gathers on his parched lips and stretches in slow ropes to the floor. It's a red thirst. His fingers find his face, and nails that he doesn't remember having scratch against drying skin. His strength goes suddenly, and he stumbles against the door jamb, slams into it with a whimper. He falls hard to all fours, and crawls deeper into the house. He gurgles through the pain as he moves, willing his body to action. Rest, he thinks. All he needs is rest.
He finds his way to his bed, eventually, and sleeps a dead sleep.
By the next evening, he's healthier. Pain becomes motion, his senses ring louder than ever, and he screams his joy to the night. He's running, playing, and breathing. He's alive!