Day 209 - Sneeze

 SNEEZE

Prompt - Sneeze : Write about things that make you sneeze.

What makes me sneeze?  The obvious things of course - pepper, dust, a common cold.  There are all kinds of small nasal irritants about which might provoke a convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and mouth, which is all a sneeze is.  It feels like little could be gained from listing them, for I am not aware of any special causation that I face that isn't also shared by the majority.  We're all familiar with the sensation of sneezing, and the situations in which it occurs.

Of greater interest are the times when one sneezes for no apparent reason; and the bigger question that arises for those in the vicinity, of the quality and quantity of the sneeze itself.  I mention the former being conscious that I am a more frequent sneezer than some.  It can come upon me quite suddenly, with only a second or two of warning, from no obvious cause.  Nobody else is sneezing, only me.  My partner often finds this hard to understand, since she isn't affected in the same way - but has to endure the consequences of the impact it has on me...#

Which brings me back to that bigger question I mentioned.  Why is there such a huge range of variations in the ways in which people sneeze?  They can range from the lower velocity, near soundless, almost imperceptible, delicacy of the more 'polite' sneeze, through to loud, uncontrollable explosions that cast moist breath out into the atmosphere for several meters.  The latter are ones you hear on a bus, in a queue, across a supermarket, and wonder who and why and how there is such a noise being blasted out into the world.  Those are the sort of sneezes I have.

Too often.  They seem to come upon me at almost any time (not good when you're sitting in a concert hall or cinema!), and usually in threes.  As soon as one sneeze had been completed it feels like there's another right behind it, and another to follow that one.  And then they are gone.  If I try to stifle them too much it can feel genuinely painful, as if the force of the explosion is occurring within rather than being expelled.  Get the blocking action really wrong and my head hurts, my ears hurt, my chest feels like it's been punched.  So better out than in is a saying that genuinely applies here.

Except others may not agree.  My wife certainly doesn't.  A loud sneeze from me merits a tut.  The second one of 'those' looks.  And third an accusation of "putting it on" or the comment "there's no need for that".  As if I was doing it on purpose.  This has become ritualised between us, so that it no longer has meaning, except in symbolic terms.  It is far less of an irritant than whatever the bloody thing was that set me off to begin with!