ashes of roses

"But how can one be allergic to dust? It's just particles, right? All particles of other things, really. Then again, I once had a conversation with a child who was sneezing and sneezing, and I asked him, allergies? And he said no, it's pollen - so of course I replied, that's what allergies is, most often, I thought. I'd seen the bushes sprinkling yellow behind a few houses in the village. But he insisted, no, it just gets stuck in my nose."

Linada nodded patiently to hear all this, awaiting Flora's final conclusion. Fine-tempered curiosity was a physician's favorite trait, because it meant that the patient would actually appreciate an explanation. Even if Flora wasn't strictly a patient, she was brilliant conversation.

"So the dust...it just gets stuck in one's nose. Yes?"

The dead skin and the rest of it - mucuous membranes and cilia, all of those bodily defense mechanisms that Flora constantly has to remind children are wonderful but not impervious, so please, please wash your hands, and don't put your hands (Architect forbid, your hands into your mouth, then) where someone else was standing on the carpet, for goodness sakes, because you don't know where their shoes have been, even if it's just outside, because there are animals outside, and animals--

"Machina experience a dust allergy as a general fritzing caused by debris getting into our joints. That's a physical reaction; a matter of logistics." Flora smiled to see it so smartly termed as such. "You, however, would find that the mold, the mites, the dander...all have a potential to activate your immune response."

"But that doesn't happen to everybody!"

"Some people are sensitive," Linada noted.

"Some people are sensible," replied Flora, "is what it sounds like to me. Now, that could be the sneezers, or it could be the ones that don't care."

"Did that child particularly care?"

"Jonathan? Well..." Flora paused to reminisce. "His neurotics were reserved for other things, I think."

Oh, to speak of neuroticism, indeed.