Author's note
In this story I used a lot of my personal experiences, and I think I have to break with my habit of not commenting on my stories in this case to clearly divide reality and fiction.
I would like to stress that the course of illness in this tale is not fictitious. It corresponds in detail to severe bronchial asthma that can't be treated with medication. None of the physical and psychological reactions that Gooseman has are invented (except for the glowing phlegm fragments).
The sometimes almost psychotic behavior -- including fear of physical contacts, claustrophobia, breathing air rivalry, panicked flight from places where major attacks happened, aggressive rejections, self-inflicted wounds, but also keeping doggedly at questions / jobs / anything that can keep the mind occupied -- isn't a rarity in this course of illness.
A. Kniggendorf, 18.02.1999
Credits
Big thanks to Elizabeth 'fatima' Bales for her help with English and keeping the descriptions of the disease effects understandable for people who haven't experienced them; to Christian 'CGfWiG' Grothoff for finding a better explanation of how Genomtoxin works than I did; and to all those whose reactions convinced me to publish this story though it was written with a completely egoistic motivation. All remaining errors in it are completely my fault.