$65.00
The graphs began before the symptoms.
They were penciled in the margins of a one–sided picture lathe LP titled **“Vapor Ascendit Seedings.”** The artist credit read: **FLUSS ALLERGENS**. It came with a mix CD and a small sculpture shaped like a nostril carved from translucent resin, as if someone had cast the inside of a winter.
No one remembered ordering it.
The liner notes were not liner notes but medical advisories:
> Clogged skin and nostrils are often caused by environmental allergies, colds, sinus infections, or dry, congested skin from excess oil/sebum.
> Relief includes using saline rinses, humidifiers, and staying hydrated.
> If symptoms persist for more than 10 days, include facial pain or fever, consult a healthcare provider.
It read less like a warning and more like a prophecy.
---
## Graph I: Particulate Bloom vs. Nostril Diameter
Imagine a horizontal axis labeled **Airborne Intrusion (ppm)** and a vertical axis labeled **Breathable Radius (mm)**.
The line slopes downward, gently at first, then with a tragic enthusiasm.
At 0 ppm (an impossible purity), the nostril diameter is generous, cathedral-like.
At 50 ppm (late autumn in a drafty house), the diameter narrows.
At 200 ppm (a houseplant shedding pollen like confetti), the graph folds inward, nearly kissing zero.
In the lower corner someone has written:
> *“When air thickens, architecture contracts.”*
The lathe LP plays a continuous tone—like wind moving through a corridor of sinuses. It is not music; it is circulation. The sculpture sweats faintly in humid weather.
---
The protagonist—let’s call him John because the shipping label says so—develops a mild congestion the same week the record arrives. He blames the furnace. Or the cat. Or the invisible choir of dust mites rehearsing in the vents.
He sets up a humidifier beside the turntable. The mist rises like a white flag. The LP’s etched image—an anatomical cross-section of a face turning into a river delta—seems to glisten.
On the mix CD, a voice recites:
> “Saline is the sea remembering you.”
---
## Graph II: Sebum Accumulation Over Time
This one is baroque. The x-axis: **Days Without Gentle Cleansing.**
The y-axis: **Surface Luminosity (Grease Index).**
The line climbs in a smooth parabola, shimmering. At Day 1, the skin is balanced, matte like a museum wall. By Day 4, the shine is pronounced. By Day 7, the graph becomes illegible, overwhelmed by its own gloss.
In the margin:
> *“Excess oil is a diary the pores cannot close.”*
John studies his reflection in the vinyl’s lacquered surface. His forehead appears to host a weather system.
He considers the advisory again: environmental allergies, colds, sinus infections, dry, congested skin from excess sebum. The list reads like track titles.
1. Environmental Allergies (Live in the Curtains)
2. Cold Front Over Maxillary Plain
3. Sinus Infection No. 3 in D Minor
4. Sebum Cathedral
The sculpture—ostensibly decorative—has small perforations along its inner curve. When held to the ear, it whispers static. When placed near the humidifier, condensation gathers inside it, then drips rhythmically onto the mix CD case.
---
## Graph III: Hydration vs. Mucosal Resilience
A clean, hopeful chart.
x-axis: **Water Intake (liters/day)**
y-axis: **Elasticity of Inner Linings (arbitrary units of grace)**
This line rises optimistically.
At 0.5 liters: brittle discomfort.
At 1.5 liters: flexibility returns.
At 2 liters: the sinuses become small greenhouses.
Someone has drawn tiny leaves along the curve.
John begins carrying a glass of water from room to room. Each sip feels like tuning an instrument. The congestion loosens slightly, as if persuaded by kindness rather than force.
The LP continues its single-sided sermon. The needle traces the spiral and eventually reaches the center, where there is no locked groove—only silence and the faint hum of the room. The absence feels diagnostic.
---
The days accumulate.
Day 3: A mild facial pressure, as if someone is pressing two thumbs gently into his cheeks.
Day 6: A low fever? Or merely the radiator’s influence?
Day 9: The sculpture falls from the shelf and lands upright, nostril opening toward the ceiling.
John reads the advisory once more.
> If symptoms persist for more than 10 days, include facial pain or fever, consult a healthcare provider.
The sentence feels like the final track on a record you’re not sure you want to flip.
---
## Graph IV: Duration of Symptoms vs. Wisdom of Seeking Help
x-axis: **Consecutive Days Congested**
y-axis: **Probability You Should Call Someone Qualified**
The curve is exponential.
Day 1: negligible.
Day 5: a suggestion.
Day 10: the line rockets upward, nearly vertical, annotated with a small red cross.
Below it:
> *“Ten days is not an aesthetic choice.”*
On the tenth night, John dreams the LP is spinning without a turntable. The sculpture has grown large enough to inhabit. Inside it, the air is perfectly humidified. A saline tide washes the walls in gentle intervals. The mix CD has dissolved into vapor and reassembled as rain.
He wakes with a clearer head.
Or perhaps he wakes with the clarity of decision.
He books an appointment.
---
At the clinic, the waiting room smells faintly of eucalyptus. A poster on the wall displays a simplified sinus diagram—far less dramatic than the one etched into the lathe LP.
The healthcare provider listens, peers, nods.
“Environmental allergies, most likely,” they say. “Maybe a mild sinus infection starting. Keep using saline rinses. Run a humidifier. Stay hydrated. If it worsens, we’ll reassess.”
The advice matches the liner notes exactly.
John returns home and places the sculpture by the window. Sunlight passes through it, illuminating dust motes that drift like microscopic planets.
He redraws the graphs in a notebook, this time with gentler slopes.
---
## Final Composite Graph: Air, Water, Time
Three lines on one set of axes:
* **Air Quality** (wavering but improvable)
* **Hydration** (steady, rising)
* **Symptom Duration** (peaking, then descending)
Where they intersect, someone has written in small, careful letters:
> *“Relief is a collaboration.”*
The one-sided picture lathe LP never needed a second side. Its silence contains the unwritten tracks: saline, humidity, patience, and—when necessary—the wisdom to consult a professional rather than romanticize inflammation.
FLUSS ALLERGENS never tours. The sculpture remains still. The mix CD occasionally fogs at the edges.
Single edition of one copy, numbered.