Wondered if that would be going too far. He was taking short, shallow breaths, aware that breathing more deeply would rattle the phlegm in his lungs and start another round of coughing. He’d heard somewhere that, once you got old, you could easily cough hard enough to crack a rib. He believed it. Every time the coughing started, he felt like an old bellows with its handles being pumped too hard: air rushing out, rattling back in again , shaking things loose and starting the whole cycle all over again. Each coughing spell was exhausting; afterwards, he would feel as if he was unable even to lift his arms. He stayed as still as he could, breathing flatly through his nose. It had started as a cold on Sunday; by Monday, he could feel the weight of it shifting into his chest, settling there, and he knew he was really sick, the kind of sick that is more a forced march than a nuisance. It was five o’clock on a late June morning, a Thursday, and there had already been light outside at four-thirty; he could see it edging in through the blinds in thin stripes, the night lightening to a pale grey.
