Pigeon Breeder's Lung

There is this cough that won't stop. This tightness in the chest that feels as though someone is slowly but steadily cinching a belt around your ribcage. You are gasping for air — not dramatically, not suddenly, but gradually, like a room in which the oxygen grows imperceptibly thinner. Your body is reacting to something in the air. Bird proteins, medicine says. Microscopic particles from feathers and droppings that put your immune system on high alert.