The flu has hit Colorado hard lately.  I left work a little early today feeling hot and feverish with a sore throat. I knew I should have gone to bed but it was still sunny outside, a break in the middle of two days of storms before the next one came in.  I decided to take my dog for a walk and get myself cooled down.  The sun looked beautiful but the air blowing in off the snow banks was cold.  The thermometer was only showing 9 deg. F.  

I had on a vest and fleece, a sweater and a turtleneck and still felt the chill.  I started walking watching the clouds thin out into a smoke screen at the edge of a massive stormhead sitting to the northeast.  The fever must have been getting higher as I realized the touch of the cold air on my heated face was such an exquisite friction it was almost pain. 

I noticed that everything I looked at had an aura of electric blue topped with a dull flame red.  The mountains with lodgepole pines on them were stripes of dark dark green alternating with the orangey red of beatle kill.  Delireum made the stripes appear to be moving.

The snow fields had shadows from the clouds above moving rapidly across them.  I stood and stared for a while, seeing art nouveau zebras and tigers in the changing patterns.  Thoughts flowed through my mind not quite connected, more like melted together.  After a while I realized I had unzipped my jacket and vest and had no gloves on.  I had been outside in the wind for more than an hour and I should have been cold.  I wasn't.  This was not a good sign.  

Roland and I took off for home.  It was slow going as I just couldn't seem to focus enough to hurry.  When I got in the house and got my sweats on I took my temperature.  It was 103 deg!  I guess that explained my trip back.  What a vague strange afternoon walk.