The flu has to be the most annoying illness ever designed. It’s not serious enough to get proper sympathy, but it’s just bad enough to make everything miserable. You’re not bedridden in the dramatic way that a movie might show, but you also can’t do anything normal without feeling like your body is holding a quiet protest. It’s a strange middle zone between health and collapse. The nose decides to turn into a tap, your throat starts to sound like sandpaper, and the head feels packed with cotton. Yet, somehow, people expect you to “power through.” It’s the kind of sickness that demands attention but doesn’t get any. Maybe that’s part of the flu’s twisted sense of humour.
Every time I get it, I tell myself it’s just a small thing. Then, within a few hours, I’m regretting that optimism. There’s something theatrical about the flu — it always arrives with a quiet cough that seems harmless, then slowly takes over everything like an uninvited guest who keeps extending their stay. The body tries to fight it with half-hearted sneezes, as if hoping that enthusiasm alone will send it away. I’ve tried all the usual tricks: steam inhalation, hot soup, random herbal teas that claim to “boost immunity.” None of them seem to make a real difference. What does seem to work, ironically, is doing absolutely nothing — just lying there and waiting for the body to get bored of being sick.
The most frustrating part isn’t even the physical discomfort; it’s how it distorts time. A single day with the flu feels longer than a workweek. You try to nap but wake up feeling worse, and every small task — like standing up to make tea — starts to feel like a full workout. The mind slows down to match the body, and suddenly even simple thoughts take effort. You start measuring progress in sneezes per hour. People text to ask how you’re feeling, and you find yourself replying with strange levels of detail about mucus colour and throat dryness. The flu turns normal adults into part-time medical reporters.
There’s also the weird social aspect. If you go out, people look at you like you’re carrying the plague. If you stay home, you start feeling like a hermit. It’s a lose-lose situation. Everyone pretends to be understanding, but no one really wants you around. I can’t even blame them; no one likes being near a walking cough. But there’s something faintly absurd about how we all handle it — acting as if the flu is both trivial and terrifying at the same time. One sniffle in a meeting, and suddenly the entire room wants to work remotely. Yet when you take a day off, someone inevitably says, “It’s just the flu.”
By the time it finally fades, you don’t feel grateful — just relieved that the constant congestion soundtrack is gone. The body returns to normal, pretending nothing happened, and you start making plans again as if you weren’t a biohazard two days ago. The worst part is knowing it’ll come back eventually, right when you least expect it. Maybe that’s why the flu is so annoying — not because it’s painful, but because it’s predictable. You know the pattern, you know the cure (time), and still, you fall for it every year. There’s something oddly human about that cycle — trying to beat something that can only be endured.