Open Blocked Nose ⭐ Updated

For a moment, nothing changed.

Leo looked at his reflection. His eyes were red. His upper lip was shiny with menthol. There was a single noodle from the soup clinging to his shirt. He had never felt more defeated.

Leo smiled, took one more perfect breath, and fell asleep three minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He didn’t care. For now, in the silent, sacred hour before dawn, his nose was open, and the world was full of air.

Desperate, he turned to the neti pot. He filled it with warm water, added the saline packet, leaned over the sink, and tilted his head. The water went up his right nostril. It did not come out the left. It hung there, suspended in the vast, clogged wasteland of his sinuses, like a tourist trapped in an elevator. He snorted. Nothing. He tilted his head the other way. Still nothing. For a terrifying second, he felt like he was drowning on dry land. Then, with a wet, pathetic glug , the water finally trickled out—carrying with it exactly zero congestion.