Such is my misery in this small and squishy space that I must call upon you for succour. Covid-19 is a cast of curses, which everyone speaks of. But who can I speak to about my own troubles, which already make me feel like rubble?
I have colleagues. They are my family, just as the lawn is part of the house. Yet they do not understand me. Save one who suffers as I do.
My landlord, through whom much of my hardship pours like a surging river, is powerless. Even careless. Long have I lived in his house, but short is the time I have left if this assault continues unabated.
I have gasped and groaned, huffed and puffed to no avail. Which sane person would ignore a cry for help? The landlord merely puts his hand on his round belly and rubs and sighs and growls.
The cause of my suffering is the evil the landlord lets into the house. It is small but mischievous and malicious. It makes life more than miserable. It could even make life impossible, both for me and my landlord, whose fates are irrevocably bound.
Only a colleague, who is also a neighbour, understands the pain that rains on me. She, too, is drowning in the malice of the barbaric intruder.
She often falls ill, and wants to rise but cannot muster the will. A few days ago, she shook so violently in terror, that I felt the tremors myself.
This tale is neither driven by methamphetamine nor madness. Neither has Shakespeare's Puck put any potion on my eyelids, to misguide love or hate.
But now, truth must lift the mist of your puzzlement. I, this storyteller, am but the lungs of a man. And my neighbour is but an enfeebled heart.
We, both human organs, are being viciously hurt by particulate matter.
You see, more than a week ago, the World Health Organisation released a report that said air pollution inflicts great harm on human health, "at even lower concentrations than previously understood".
So what was bad before is even more perilous now. If before a pebble could hurt us, now it would smash us.
And this particulate matter that is poison to your body has its origins in your homes, too. Or it journeys into your dwellings from everywhere, sailing "through not only the walls of the lungs and into the bloodstream, but around closed doors and into homes", as the BBC puts it. Spawns of darkness, messengers of death.
If you think I exaggerate, so be it. The WHO report was yesterday's headlines anyway. Best to be forgotten, as more of other worries come our way.
But if you want to know what these things are, if you really care for your family, go read them up. And find out what you must do. Mr Google is of immense help, and of little cost.
As for me and my neighbour, aargh!
The writer is NST production editor
