The Ghost of My Flu
I have a cardinal rule when it comes to the office: never, under any circumstances, take a sick day on a day or a day. It just looks too suspicious. Management has a nose for these things, and taking a long weekend is the quickest way to get flagged as someone who is shirking their responsibilities. I pride myself on being subtle. I am honestly very good at faking sick days, though I realize that is not exactly a skill I should be putting on my resume or bragging about at a dinner party. It is a calculated performance. My trick is all about the setup. It is about the long game. I start the process two days before I actually plan to disappear. It is a bit like theater. If I am aiming for a day off, I start regularly. I will wander into the breakroom while the coffee is brewing and let out a dry, rattling cough that sounds just annoying enough to be noticed but not dramatic enough to cause an alarm. I might lean against the counter and mutter something about how my kid has been feeling under the weather or how I have been fighting off a weird, dull ache in my stomach since that night. I plant these little seeds of doubt in the minds of my coworkers and my manager. I make sure to look just a little bit pale, maybe rub my temples once or twice while I am staring at my monitor. By the time the actual day arrives, the narrative is already established. When I finally hit send on that email, I keep it short, professional, and slightly vague. I say I have developed a fever and want to stay home to avoid spreading anything to the team. It sounds responsible. It sounds like I am being a team player by protecting everyone else from my germs. They always reply with something like, 'Oh no, get better soon!' and I feel a strange, twisted sense of pride that my little trick worked perfectly. Once that email is out there, the real fun begins. I immediately turn off my work phone, slide my laptop into the back of my closet where it stays dark and silent, and I breathe a sigh of relief. My apartment feels like a sanctuary of freedom. I have spent these stolen days doing all sorts of things. I have gone to the beach when the crowds are thin and the water is quiet. I have caught a matinee at the movie theater, sitting in the dark with a massive bucket of popcorn while the rest of the world is stuck in meetings. I have even sat in a cozy coffee shop just three blocks away from my office, sipping a latte and watching the morning rush hour unfold through the window. That coffee shop incident is actually the most nervous I have ever been. I was sitting there, feeling quite smug with my newspaper, when I looked up and saw my boss walking past the window. He was on his way to get his own mid-morning caffeine fix. My heart did a literal backflip. I froze. I was terrified he would glance through the glass and see me sitting there, perfectly healthy and far too happy for someone with a supposed fever. I buried my face deep behind my newspaper, pretending to read an article about the local city council, and waited until he turned the corner and disappeared into the crowd. That was way too close. Even though I do not feel any guilt about the time off, I definitely get nervous. The anxiety is part of the cost of doing business. I will be sitting at the beach, soaking up the sun, and I will find myself constantly checking my phone, terrified that a manager might decide to call me to 'check in' or ask a question about a file. The thought of having to answer the phone makes my stomach churn because I would have to immediately snap into character. I have practiced my sick voice so many times in the mirror that it has become a conditioned response. It is a shaky, breathless, congested tone that sounds exactly like someone fighting a losing battle against the flu. It sounds so real that I sometimes scare myself. It is like I am a method actor, constantly refining my craft for an audience of people who trust me implicitly. Every time I get a response wishing me a speedy recovery, I feel this weird rush. It is a mix of relief that the lie held up and a strange satisfaction that I am successfully navigating the corporate landscape. I go to work every day, I put in my hours, and I play the part of the dedicated, hard-working employee who just happens to be a little prone to mysterious, short-term illnesses. It is a strange existence, but it keeps my sanity intact in a world that is always demanding more from me. I am just a ghost in the machine, and I like it that way.