I, Gollum

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a true Lord of the Rings fan. I mean a real fan here people, a read-all-the-books-before-they-were-movies fan, an appencies readin' (dwarven geneology, anyone?), extended version watchin' (12 hours later), a behind the scences gawkin' (who is Treebeard patterned after, hmm?), a youtube fan video lookin' kind of fan. But why Deb, you ask, why do you love LOTR so much? Is it the burly, manly men of power, the humble domesticity of the hobbits, or the beauty of the elves that captures your heart?

Apparently, it's none of the above. It's a kindred my friends, a shared kindred of spirit with that most loathsome of creatures, the hated and vile Gollum. You see, we have the same cough.

Gollum, as you know, once led a fairly normal life. He was a part of something, a family and community both, until that fateful day when he murdered his friend and came to possess the One Ring. I am now convinced it wasn't this all powerful token of evil that brought Gollum down, oh no, it was the racking, irritating cough that soon followed.

You see, at least once a year, maybe more, I get a cold. It's a simple thing, I know, we all get colds from time to time so what's the big deal? Most normal folk find themselves recovered from the cold in a week to 10 days, 2 weeks if it's a real whopper. What's my recovery time, you ask? Six weeks minimum. 3 months more often than not. And for that 3 months I come to understand that feeling that drove Gollum to insanity: hacking, coughing, choking, day after day and night after night. Watching friends and family shrink from you in fear and loathing, wondering if I'm contagious, wondering if they too will become as I - a creature to be pitied and feared. But it's worse for me you see, I have a family to take care of, so I cannot, as Gollum did, slink into the blackness of some far, dark cave to hide my shame. Oh no, precious, I'm forced into the world above to carpool, to pick up and drop off, to grocery shop, to attend church and sports games, to visit with playground ladies and confer with teachers, where all can hear my horrid coughing. Even as I lay down at night, I cough and shudder and a voice comes to me in the darkness, but whether of wisdom or idiocy I know not which, and says to me "Still got that cough huh?"

For hundreds of years the creature Gollum lived and coughed under this burden. No wonder he liked his pretty ring, the one thing of beauty in his retching, choking life. And so I sit, coughing even as I type, wondering how long I will labor under this burden of illness, this wretched and painful gasping, wondering when this gargle of flem will be cured. Wondering when I, too, will be free of the One Cough.