I tested positive again this morning. Both lines were pale, but they were certainly there. There wasn’t any doubt. I threw away the accoutrements but saved the test itself, writing the date on it with a Sharpie.

I’ve saved every positive test since they started being positive. I have no idea why. I have no means by which to properly compare anything. After awhile they sort of wash out a bit. They’re sat on a counter in the kitchen, in ascending order by date (all scribbled on in Sharpie). The first one, the one that told me I was sick, that’s the boldest of the bunch. Bright red, confident lines. Each as intense as the other. If it had been pale, I might have been tempted to take a second, just to be sure. But I felt kind of shit anyway, and that line by the ‘T’ was SO FUCKING RED, I didn’t see the point of wasting any more.

Then I ordered some more tests.

Then I checked the fridge and the cupboards and everything to see if I was ok to stay inside for 10 days. It turns out I had enough wine and whisky. As long as my smell and taste held out, I thought I’d be ok.

Then I thought my throat felt more sore, and my back ached that bit more, and all the little indicators that prompted the test that morning were a lot louder than they had been. Hypochondria after the fact is a thing, apparently.

I remember picking up that first test and grabbing the Sharpie. I wasn’t going to post a photo. I’ve posted and seen too many photos of tests at this point. We all have. It won’t be long before there’s an algorithm in our photo apps to collect them all together for some sort of twisted plague-nostalgia slideshow. For whatever reason I thought I should save the test. And if I was going to save it, I might as well date it. I keep at least four different Sharpies in different places on the ground floor of the house for just such important occasions. That I was able to find it without any issue is proof that the system works.

My symptoms change daily, sometimes during the day. From cold to flu to chest infection to some terrible muscle and back trauma. I feel like I have a fever and then I don’t. I don’t feel that sick, but at the same time I’ve never really been sick like this before. Or not at the same time at least. It’s confusing. And I know I’m getting off lightly. Crazy lightly. I’ve got an autoimmune disease and while this thing seems to be playing hopscotch with my immune responses, it’s doing so with a forgivingly gentle hop. It’s unnerving.

None of those positive tests, with their strange gradients of red lines, provide that level of detail. The story they tell is of a single state. They are representative in the most limited sense. Yet I’m still keeping them. Not forever. Just until the status changes. When it drops from two lines to one they’ll all go in the bin. Why keep them in the meantime? Like I said before, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I knew where to find the Sharpie.