Nosebleed

And suddenly it's there. A warm drop, then a second. You raise your hand, and your fingers are stained red. No fall, no blow, no obvious reason — and yet your body opens a door you didn't open and lets out something that was supposed to stay inside. Sometimes it's a thin trickle, sometimes a rush that startles you. You tilt your head back or lean it forward, you press, you wait. Eventually it stops. But the question lingers: What was that just now?

The medical explanation comes quickly. The nasal mucosa is densely threaded with fine, fragile blood vessels. Dry air, a pressure spike, a hasty blow of the nose, hormonal fluctuations, sometimes elevated blood pressure — any of these is enough to rupture one of these vessels. That's true, on the level where medicine is true. But it doesn't explain why right now. Why you, specifically. Why again and again.