A brush with terror

It begins, an angel tapdancing on the head of a pin, a feather's touch, a subliminal prickle at the back of my palate, I'm going to sneeze. Normally this would have me rummaging in my pocket for a handkerchief but I'm the sort of man who will try and find something to do in moments of tedium, so that, instead of staring at my frothing reflection in the bathroom mirror, I'm roaming the house while brushing my teeth, my cheeks are hamstered with minty foam, in fact I'm downstairs. My normal sang-froid evaporates along with common sense, so instead of moseying to the kitchen and the salivary watershed of the kitchen sink, I assault the stairs like a true Capricorn and arrive at the bathroom door - too late. A pyroclastic flow of mentholated detergent bursts from my lips, pebble-dashing the floreate tiles, polka-dotting the towels, window and mirror, making a delightful rosy counterpoint to the splashes of lime-scale. Then it's gone, the moment passed, I lean weakly against the wall contemplating how it could have been worse; the carpet, the sofa, the laptop, a full, nasal sneeze, powdered silica racing abrasively through my nostrils at one hundred and twenty miles an hour, twin streams of ejecta! I rinse, and go to bed.