Motion Sickness

First it is just a quiet discomfort. A pulling in the stomach. A stale taste in the mouth. Then it rises: dizziness, shallow breath, cold sweat on the forehead. Your face turns pale. You want the windows open. You want to stop. You want out. And at some point — usually exactly when you need it least — the nausea becomes so strong that your body refuses.

You are sitting in the back seat of a car. Or in the rear of a bus. Or in a train swinging through curves. From the outside: nothing remarkable. Others laugh, talk, look out of the window. Only your body knows that something is wrong. It is in a state of emergency — even though objectively you are not moving in the slightest.