fevered dream

When I was about 10 years old I almost died. I had contracted a mysterious disease that caused me to have an extremely high fever and large pinkish spots on my body, and no doctor could diagnose what it was. I could not eat, and I didn’t know that I was near the big exit. The minister came to visit me in the hospital. I was so hot that I cooled my hands on the steel frame of the hospital bed, and in my sleep I had a fantastic dream. In this fevered dream there was a very high-pitched squeal coincident with an extremely base rumble, and the incongruity of these tones approximated an infinitesimal atom orbiting a massive planet. I know this is weird, but I was on death’s doorstep as a young boy. I’ve painted this dream, made a woodcut representing it, and this photograph brings the incongruity of that dream to mind. In the end my father, who was not a doctor but was very knowledgeable and imaginative, looked into his crystal ball and asked if maybe I could possibly have contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The doctors started to treat me with a serum that was known to help with that particularly rare malady, and I got well. I believe that the high fever changed me forever.