This is not a place I recommend you visit or aspire to be, but to drive that point home, perhaps I should take you on a virtual tour of its many destinations.

First there is Feverville. It’s a warm and cloying place where you can immerse yourself in the experience of a low grade temp.  A rise in temperature just high enough to make sure you are not left bereft of the accompanying chills. For what is a fever without those earth-rattling chills? Which reminds me, if you plan on coming here anyway, don’t forget to pack a sweater.

Immediately adjacent is Fatigue Island. This is not a location where you want to hang out indefinitely, believe me. You want to get out, the sooner the better, but there is no one else around to vote you off. And even if there was, time apparently moves at such a glacial pace that if you could muster up the energy to pack your bags, you would be doing so in such slow motion that it would be undetectable. Face it, once here, you are stuck for the duration.

Not too far away is Body Ache Development. It is called Development because no matter how many times you come by, there is always something new, something different going on. It’s an area that is filled with nooks and crannies where pain can take a hold. Rest assured, there is a special something here for every body, and for every part of that same body. Beginning at the narrow neck, it proceeds to a broader expanse called The Back. This is a wide area that can host lots of pain. And it does.

Then there are the byways, four of them, long corridors that can nurture little pockets of pain here and there. These are really dead ends for there is no jumping-off point. You can traverse them looking for a way out, but at the far and painful end you must needs make a U-turn. A U-turn that will take you back to a main component of this Complex:

Stomach Central. Here you can indulge in forbidden foods. Fried shrimp, French Fries, Coke, ice cream shakes and other sugary substances. They taste good and make you forget where you are for the moment that it takes to chew and swallow. They are classified as comfort foods only for that space of time, for once ingested they rebel, leaving you with remorse and regret as souvenirs.

None of these foodie temptations will get you home. There is no pain-free ticket to ride. No red shoes to smack together on hurting feet, no magic phrase to utter. There is only an intangible capsule called Time, and you must wait, desperately but patiently, to be ferried out and carried home.

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