The forest was hazier than usual. The once vibrant, forward colours seemed to blend into each other and fade in the background. Summer was ending and fall was falling. This is what happens every year, thought Lorelai.
But she knew this was merely a dire attempt to fan the flame of her fever-driven delusion.
She was sick. She never used to get sick, but Rose had mentioned another calf in the marsh was ill the other day (Rose described it much more graphically, but the phrasing was not something that Lorelai's stomach was ready for right now). Whenever one of the calves in the marsh gets sick inevitably it spread through all the other little plague magnets.
So here she lay. Sniveling and exhausted, praying that Rose would take a sudden interest in sleeping in. But her prayers were unanswered or unheard.
"Mo-om!" came the familiar call as the calf came over to her.
"Yeth," Lorelia managed.
"Are you sick," asked Rose, recoiling slightly and giving her mother a suspect side-eye.
"Yeth."
"Am I sick?"
"I don knowb."
Rose paused her questions long enough to take a deep breath in through her nose to test her airway. Satisfied that her body was unaffected, she continued.
"I guess I have to take care of you today!"
"No, no," said Lorelai stuffily, "I just need some rest and then we'll go."
Rose stomped a hoof sternly, "No. I am going to take care of you. Now lie down so I can make you comfy."
Lorelai lay back and resigned herself to being taken care of and whatever form that was going to take. She couldn't focus enough to resist adequately.
Her eyelids were heavy and she was just about to lose her fight with gravity when Rose came bounding back.
In Lorelai's dazed state she could have almost mistaken her calf for some kind of moss-bearded goblin. Rose spat the pile of moss and lichen at her mother.
"Here!" she said proudly. "I've brought you a pillow!"
"Thang-youb," said Lorelai, letting her eyes close as Rose scampered away again.
It wasn't long before she was back with another face-full of assorted forest floor.
She spat it lovingly at her mother, beaming again. "I brought you a snack!"
"Thang-youb," said Lorelai again, "I'm nob bery hungry..."
"That's ok, you can eat it later." Rose looked around, wondering what else caregivers do. At a loss she came close to her mother and lay her chin on Lorelia's nose.
Thinking the healthiest thoughts she could muster in the hopes that maybe health could transfer the same as sickness, the calf said, "there, there."
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