Bless You

I took a sip of the spicy broth in my ramen.

It went down the wrong tube.

Not a gentle “oops” sip. No. This was full-throttle, throat-on-fire, immediate-regret, why-is-my-body-like-this chaos.

I am coughing. Wheezing. Trying to rejoin the land of the living.

My eyes are watering. My lungs are reconsidering their commitment to this relationship.

And through the haze of near-death-by-ramen, my partner says—

Wait for it.

“Bless you.”

Bless me.

Sir.

What part of my throat actively melting sounded like a sneeze?

I couldn’t breathe, and yet somehow I also couldn’t stop laughing. Which, if you’ve ever tried to laugh while choking on spicy broth, it's an aggressive choice.

Anyway, I survived.

Barely.