Borrowed Air

There’s a sound my lungs make before dawn — a thin whistle, like air slipping through a cracked valve. It wakes me before the alarm does. I lie there, counting the seconds between breaths, waiting for the chest to open, waiting for the machine to start again.

Once, it was easy. Breathing. Like walking, or hunger, or love. A rhythm that didn’t need remembering. Now, it feels borrowed — as if each breath must be negotiated, coaxed, bargained for.

I drive for a living. Delivery runs, mostly. City to outskirts, outskirts back again. The cab smells of diesel and hand sanitiser. The radio hums even when I forget to switch it on. I used to like the hum — it made the world seem full. Lately it just fills the space where silence might tell me something I don’t want to hear.

It began as a winter cough, stubborn but ordinary. I blamed the cold, the dust, the cigarettes. Then it stayed. One morning I coughed until I saw stars. My ribs ached as if they’d been speaking too long. I promised myself I’d get checked, but the weeks rolled over me, soft and heavy as asphalt.

You learn to ration breath when you load crates all day. Breathe shallow, lift steady, don’t waste oxygen on talking. The boys at the depot joke that I’m getting old. I laugh with them — easier than explaining that sometimes laughter feels like drowning.

At night, the air thickens. The city slows, but my lungs don’t trust the quiet. They pull short, suspicious. I sit by the window, watching the glow of brake lights drift across the glass. Every exhale fogs and vanishes, a little proof of life that doesn’t stay.

The doctor called it irritation. “Maybe mild bronchial inflammation,” he said, scrolling through my chest X-ray like it was weather data. My numbers were almost fine. Almost. He told me to rest, to quit smoking, to “monitor symptoms.” I nodded, took the leaflet, folded it clean. Didn’t tell him that rest is a foreign word when the rent clock doesn’t stop ticking.

Now, even short flights of stairs feel like conversations I can’t finish. The body learns to hide its struggle — to cough into the wind, to pause like you’re checking your phone. Pride is a kind of illness too.

Sometimes, when traffic slows, I roll down the window and hold my hand out, palm open to the air. I imagine the wind scrubbing my blood clean, carrying away the tar, the years. I know it doesn’t work that way. Still, I keep my hand there, as if pretending might make it true.

The worst part isn’t the breathlessness. It’s the waiting — for the next wheeze, for the next small betrayal. The way the chest tightens when rain’s about to fall, the way I can smell exhaust and feel my throat close, like the city’s inside me now.

Last week, I caught my reflection in the side mirror — face pale, eyes rimmed red, mouth open mid-breath. I looked like someone halfway between here and gone. I almost didn’t recognise the man.

My wife says I should take a few days off. She’s gentle about it, but her eyes carry the weight of unspoken fear. I tell her it’s just fatigue. That word again — so easy, so harmless. Fatigue is what we call slow collapse when we don’t have the language for loss.

I used to dream in colour: roads, rivers, faces blurred by speed. Now my dreams come muffled, grey, like smoke behind glass. In them, I keep running out of air. I wake before I suffocate. Always before. Some mercy in that.

Yesterday, the foreman told me a man my age from the next depot collapsed mid-shift. Said his lungs “just gave in.” They’re calling it stress, overwork. I wanted to ask what that sounds like — lungs giving in — but I didn’t. You don’t ask those questions when you already know the answer.

Sometimes, I think about quitting the job. But then what? Breath doesn’t pay bills. Health feels like a luxury for people who can afford to stop. For the rest of us, survival comes one delivery at a time.

Still, there are moments — between red lights, between coughs — when I remember how it used to feel: to inhale without thought, to trust air like a promise. Those moments are small, but they’re what keep me here.

Tonight, I parked by the river after my last run. The water was dark, moving slow. I sat with the engine off, lungs adjusting to the quiet. The air smelled like rain and metal. For a long time, I didn’t move. Then I did something strange — I took the deepest breath I could, until my chest hurt, until my eyes watered. It felt like apology. Like gratitude. Like both.

When I exhaled, the window fogged completely. For a moment, I couldn’t see the world outside — just my own breath, my own proof, suspended. Then it faded.

I turned the key, the engine shuddered, and the night began again.




–––


These stories aren’t rare.
They’re just rarely told early enough.

Subhealth often hides in endurance.

The lungs, like any organ, adapt to neglect — until they can’t.
Breathlessness dismissed as fatigue,
a cough ignored, sleep cut short — these are not minor inconveniences.
They are warnings in plain language.

Chronic airway irritation, low oxygen saturation,
environmental toxins, and persistent overwork converge silently.
The result is not yet disease, but it has already left health behind.

Listening sooner — through testing, rest,
or even honest admission — is not weakness.
It is survival.


––– 

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
What matters most is noticing —
and choosing to listen, before silence deepens.

Lingzhi isn’t a miracle.
It’s a habit.
A quiet, daily way to care for the body —
before silence becomes suffering

Advisory
Lingzhi is a traditional food, long used to support balance and general well-being.
It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Individuals with existing medical conditions or those taking medication should consult a qualified healthcare professional before use. 


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