“Thanks Milo.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied as I finished pouring the tea.

“Guess what–my friend has hanahaki disease,” said Bella. “His name’s Greg.”

“You don’t say?”

Bella was the neighbors’ kid. She was staring at the tea I had just poured for her, but it was too hot to drink yet. I wasn’t fully awake. I always woke up early on Saturday, in an attempt to keep my sleep cycle stable for work. When Bella had rang my doorbell I was still getting my bearings.

“Yeah, he went to the doctor for it. He’s been prescribed bloomycin–have you heard of it?” I shook my head. “I guess he’s getting treatment because for him it was worse than normal.”

“Won’t taking medicine for it get rid of his crush?” I sipped my coffee. It was amazing. The clarity, not the coffee. I tried not to drink any until I’d already been up for a while, which supposedly made it more effective, but excuses like a visitor were all I needed to drink it whenever I wanted.

“I looked it up, that’s just a myth. Hanahaki is a parasite, not a…”

“Normal physiological reaction,” I suggested.

“Yeah. So getting it treated doesn’t change much about your crush. I think he was exaggerating it anyway.” She went on to describe Greg: his involvement with some school sport, his infatuation with a cheerleader. I did my best to pay attention.

I’d let Bella in when she knocked, that morning, because I felt guilty for having not talked to the neighbors in a few weeks. I was close to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Brookes. The Brookes had hit a rough patch after a tragedy a few years earlier. I’d happened to move in next door around that time, and when I heard about what happened to their son, I’d wanted to help. After doing chores around their house I’d become good friends with both of them, and also their daughter Bella.

I had a predisposition to helping people, I liked to think. As though anyone else’s joy became my own. It helped me make friends, as well.

“Are you listening?” asked Bella. 

“Of course,” I said. “Are you cheering for Greg and… “ I hadn’t caught her name, “...the other girl?”

“Greg’s one of my friends. I hope the best for him.”

”A friend from school. A good friend?” Maybe she brought him up for a reason. She wasn’t cheering for the cheerleader.

“Friend is a bit strong, I guess. I don’t think we’ll talk much after we all go off to college, but… his suffering still matters, you know?” I approved of the attitude.

“Now’s the time to get into the habit of regular contact,” I said. “It worked for me and my highschool friends.”

“They live like forty minutes away, right?”

“They could be neighbors,” I said, pointing across the way to the Vesta’s home. “Doesn’t matter how close. Without regular time together, we wouldn’t be friends.” The Vestas were always calling the homeowner’s association, but they never came to the meetings, and more than once a young Bella had lost a ball or something else to their yard. She would understand what I meant: they were the neighborhood jerks, nobody’s friends regardless of proximity.

“Sounds like a lot of work,” she said. “I’m not sure it’s worth it.” Bella had an independent streak.

“Well, it would be easier if you ended up going to the same school. Speaking of which, have you decided yet?”

“I’m not even close,” said Bella. She started rehashing some considerations that I had a hard time focusing on. Good considerations–closeness to her parents, prestige of the school, the program she might get into–but I was still drinking my first cup of coffee and I’d already heard these things. I also hadn’t slept well.

She asked me about mechanical engineering and the local college. It was a program I’d dropped out of, in the end, but I still had some answers for her. As Bella spoke she waved around her hands with an animatedness that was a effective on me as the caffeine. The thought made me smile.

I noticed that Bella was holding a large ring with twine and feathers attached to it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, this?” She threw her long braid behind her head. “It's a dreamcatcher. It’s also why I came over in the first place.”

“Weird,” I said, setting my coffee down. “A random dreamcatcher?”

“Yeah,” she replied as she held it up. “Is it yours?” 

“Nope.”

“It blew in on the wind, so I thought it might be from your yard.” Bits and bobs sometimes landed in the neighborhood. We lived in a windy part of town.

“I’ve got nothing but the one wind chime hanging up, in fact. You might want to check with the Settlers up the way.”

“The wind blows from you, past us, toward them. So it can’t be theirs.”

“The wind can change,” I said.

“Well, do you want it?” I carefully took the dreamcatcher from her.

It was very well made, with purple beads dotting it and what looked like a parrot’s feathers. A tightly-wrapped leather strip hadn’t been displaced by its journey on the wind. The ring underneath the leather was made of a heavier metal and was very resilient. I felt myself squeezing it and thinking about mechanical properties. It was probably iron or steel.

The Brookes had a parrot, and Bella’s favorite color was purple.

“This looks like something you made.”

“I may have spruced it up a bit,” she admitted. “I hope that’s okay.”

“Hmmm. I’ve already caught all my dreams.” She snorted into her tea, then coughed. “Don’t choke, now.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Well, I figured you’d like it, and it’s not like we have a use for it. We have way too many wind chimes already, so we shouldn’t keep things like this… but if you don’t want it, I could check with the Settlers instead.”

Bella’s mother liked to make wind chimes and sell them. Their house had a dozen or more hanging from it, because Mrs. Brookes made many more chimes than she sold. Even their trees had chimes on them.

I’d already been given one. It was the only decoration hanging up in my very small backyard. The idea of keeping something brought by the winds, or otherwise, appealed to me.

“I think I will keep it. Thank you.”

“Really?” She beamed. Bella talked a bit about how her mother had bought more supplies, and about how her father still couldn’t say no even if the side business wasn’t profitable. I told her it wasn’t always about the profit.

The conversation went on, until I noticed Bella had finished most of her tea and that my coffee cup was empty. I stood.

“Thank you for visiting, Bella. It’s almost time for my run, though, so I think we should call it here.”

“That sounds good,” she said. “You know, you haven’t visited us in a while.”

“I was just thinking the same. The weather’s nice. Maybe I could come over and grill some things, like old times?” For a while I’d done that for her parents, when they weren’t happy enough to cook for themselves. I hadn’t known how to cook back then, so grilling was what I always did for them.

“That’s a great idea.” I led Bella to the door.

“Tell your pa I suggested it, and then you can text me a good day to come over. Not Wednesday, though.”

“Soup kitchen?”

“That’s right.” I’d started volunteering right after I’d realized that feeding people made me happy. Considering what I was paid at work, it was a bad way to spend my time–I could work a bit more, in theory, and earn more money to give–but I kept wanting to go to the soup kitchen anyway.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Gotcha, gotcha. You’re too busy, you know?”

—

I went for my run, but it was painful. The air was dry and irritated my lungs. I tried to push through  it but I ended up jogging most of the way instead. I probably would have given up entirely if there wasn’t social pressure involved.

As my lungs started to painfully burn, I slowed down. It’s important to listen to your body, because it usually speaks with a soft voice. 

The same could be said about my running partner, Diana. She was too polite to run back and forth while waiting for me to catch up, too polite to leave me in the dust, and also too polite to ask me what my problem was. She was waiting under a tree. I could see the question on her face.

“I’m sorry I’m so slow today,” I said as I gasped. “The air’s really dry.”

“Hmm,” she said as she turned toward the next part of the path. Diana was a very motivated athlete, but my legs were longer than hers. Usually I was faster.

“Is it,” huff, “Affecting you?” I asked. As summer wore on I found it harder and harder to run. It felt like I was losing progress.

“Not really. Maybe you are coming down with something?” She seemed empathetic. “Don’t injure yourself.”

I’d met Diana at the local gym, at about the time I decided physical health was a rational thing to pursue. I’d seen her there a few times, but hadn’t spoken to her at first because that's an unaccountably rude thing to do to a woman at the gym. We’d finally become friends after I’d taken a free weights class that she led, and I’d realized how motivated she was.

An effective way to motivate yourself to go to the gym was to have friends who really wanted to go to the gym. Diana had been too polite to refuse my offer to align our training schedules, and we’d become friends after that.

I’d learned that Diana was at the gym every day because once-upon-a-time she’d been overweight. I’d inferred that she was always on the edge of gaining that weight back. She seemed disposed toward a heavier build, and was pragmatic enough to want muscle instead of fat. Diana was short, but quite strong and relentless.

I wasn’t nearly so motivated–but I tried not to drag her down as she pulled me up.

“Maybe I am coming down with something,” I said, feeling the familiar temptation to skip the rest of my workout. That I could refuse to give up once, was the reason I could refuse to give up every time. “You should just go ahead, don’t let me slow you down.”

“You always wait for me,” she responded.

“You aren’t usually far behind.” Diana started to go forward, so I stood up and got moving.

“Let’s take it easy this time,” she said. She walked, allowing me to keep up. I noticed she was standing a bit further away than normal. She probably didn’t want to catch whatever hypothetical illness I had. I should have brought my mask.

“Maybe it’s hanahaki,” I said as a joke, before realizing it was a dumb joke to make. I didn’t have a crush on anyone, anyway. Diana raised her eyebrow. “It’s a parasite, right? Contagious?”

“No,” she said. “Not contagious. It’s just everywhere.”

“Is that so?” We were walking slowly enough for me to mostly keep my breath.

“I know a bit about it. The Amorfloris parasite produces spores on the petals. They dry up and last for years.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Everyone has spores in their lungs, at all times. Humanity has lived with it for thousands of years.” Diana was a historian, I was pretty sure, or perhaps an evolutionary biologist. We didn’t talk about our work or hobbies much, unless you counted working out as hobby, which it was for me.

“What causes a flare up, anyway?”

“Infatuation,” she said.

“No, I mean, what’s the mechanism?” Diana shrugged her muscular shoulders.

“I know it can destroy your routine. If it’s hanahaki, you need to go to the doctor. Your lungs are too important to risk.”

“I don’t have hanahaki, I was making a joke. Someone brought it up earlier today.”

“Tell them to go to the doctor,” she said. I explained to her that it was a friend of a friend who was sick, and he was already getting some sort of treatment, but her look only became more skeptical.

“I think I’m good to run again for a bit,” I said, mostly to end the awkward conversation. She nodded and took off. I managed to keep up for a while.

—

Saturdays were probably my favorite day of the week. The exercise improved my mood, even if I struggled, or perhaps especially when I struggled. Unlike weekdays, I didn’t have to go to bed after my workout. But I did have other things to get done.

I made Saturday afternoons my day for taking care of household chores. I ran through a checklist I’d made when I moved in, one that I only updated every several months. Clean the toilet, change the sheets, that sort of thing. One thing that visitors often said was that my house was unusually clean for a bachelor’s. All I needed to do to make that true, was follow a simple schedule.

The schedule was easy to stick to because my afternoon reward would be videogames with my friends. The clean house, the fun; thus Saturday was the most relieving day of the entire week. That wasn’t to say I disliked work. I had a very compelling job, with intelligent and motivated coworkers. It was just that for whatever reason the thought of returning to work was exhausting.

“Dude, pay attention!” said Gavin. I’d let an opponent kill his avatar in the game.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “I ran hard today.”

“Nah, it’s not your fault,” He revived and went after the objective. “Not your fault that you love the treadmill.”

“Actually, it’s nice enough to run outside, now.”

“In the city?” asked Anna, my other friend in chat. “Isn’t that dangerous, what with all the cars?”

“There are trails,” I said. “Next time you visit I could show you one.”

“I’m not a runner.” I knew that, of course. I’d known Gavin and Anna forever, since we were little kids. We’d grown up in the same small town. It was a place that we’d run all over, getting into all kinds of trouble.

When I’d graduated high school and moved to the city for college–the nearest city–we’d all stayed friends. Anna and Gavin had stayed behind, but they weren’t all that far away. I still saw them whenever one or the other came to visit, and we played games once a week at least. I never saw them at the same time, though. I was the one holding the friend group together with my schedule. Most people wouldn’t think to schedule video games, but that was the only way I’d get to play them, just like it was the only way I would get my exercise.

“I meant that we could walk the trail. It’s pretty, and goes all the way to the campus."

“Probably not as pretty as the countryside,” she replied.

“Fewer shitting cows, that’s true.”

“I get enough exercise at work anyway,” said Gavin, “No way I’m going on a hike on my off day.” Gavin worked as a mechanic, and repairs often took him out to various farms. When he wasn’t fixing something he was working the fields along with his customers. He was a good mechanic, and perhaps he did a lot of physical labor because of that. His repairs lasted a long time; he needed other work.

Anna also worked on a farm–more accurately a ranch–but she handled logistics rather than repairs, wrangling, or irrigation. For the most part she did math, but when there was work, she'd do it. We had all done such work, myself included. I’d spent the summers working on a ranch in high school.

Physical labor was very healthy and fulfilling, and about once a year I missed it. Then I would go to visit Anna or Gavin, help one of them set up a fence or paint a deck, and realize that my office job paid four times as much and the gym gave me so many fewer injuries. I liked the gym, too, and at least there my back would remain intact.

When I’d become a college student I’d let myself get a bit weaker. At first that had worsened when I started my corporate job–but going to the gym had reversed all the damage, I liked to believe. I was in better shape than I’d be at any other point in my life.

Neither Anna nor Gavin cared how much I could bench.

“Speaking of work, I’ll be in town tomorrow afternoon,” said Anna.

“Isn’t Sunday the day of rest?” asked Gavin.

“No rest for the wicked,” she responded. Then: “Want to meet up?”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “I guess I won’t make you run.”

“Good. Coffee instead?”

“Quit planning dates when you’re supposed to be murdering people,” said Gavin. I laughed, which turned into a cough, but I hit the mute button fast enough to hide it.

“On second thought, I’d better not,” I said.

“Busy with something else?” she asked. At one point, I’d played games with them almost every night instead of just every weekend–every night except for those before an exam. I’d been making more effective use of my time since then.

“No, I think I have a cold.”

“Darn,” she said. Our game continued. “Next time, I guess.”

“Is it hanahaki?” asked Gavin.

“Why does everybody think of that first?” I asked, exasperated. “I’m already sick of hearing it.”

“Everyone gets it at least once,” he responded. I knew that to be false–I’d never gotten it.

“It’s the right season,” said Anna.

“How do you figure?” I said while saving Gavin’s life in the game.

“Spring going on summer. That’s the right time for flowers to bloom.”

“Spring is in the air,” said Gavin.

“Yeah, right. I looked it up. Hanahaki doesn’t change depending on the seasons.” I’d done a bit of research after my run. The disease was slightly more common in winter, but it had nothing to do with the parasite preferring the season. It was just that people were more prone to illness in general during those months, and that hanahaki could be worsened by other diseases.

“Don’t you work out with a pretty lady?” Gavin asked about all the women in my life, which was exhausting, or perhaps it just felt particularly exhausting at that moment. “Seeing her might have triggered it, don’t you think? In her workout clothes?” Diana did look good in her gym clothes, but I’d promised myself we’d only be friends before I’d talked to her.

“What a gentleman,” said Anna. She hadn’t read my mind–she was criticizing Gavin.

“And working out–it must be related to breathing hard!” He was oblivious to Anna’s insult.

“Breathing rate isn’t important for hanahaki,” I said. It was true that you’d breathe faster when in love, everyone knew that–but the parasites didn’t respond to things like that. “It’s neurochemicals and hormones that make people get it, when they are experiencing limerence. The neurochemicals match the parasite’s own hormones.”

“Experiencing what?” asked Gavin.

“A crush,” I said.

“Whatever, nerd,” he said.

“Well, do you have a crush on anyone?” asked Anna.

“No.”

“No problem, then,” said Gavin. “Well, except that you have a cold. Or lung cancer.”