chapter six.

well the echinacea tea did nothing. not that i was hoping it to. but today i’m actually sick and all i feel like doing is moaning and complaining. the boyfriend left me with a full fridge – he brought tons of pre-cooked meals, that he cooked, just because he knew my refrigerator was empty and i’d rather not eat that go out and drag my sorry carcass to the grocery store. so i have tofu pasta and fake meat stuff and carrot juice and whatever else. i’m not complaining. i’m wondering what i did to deserve such a nice guy taking care of me like that. not many men could pull off being this caring with me: i’d be afraid they’re getting clingy and i’d push them away. i guess he knows how to dose it well: only smothering me with attention when i’m too out of it to realize what he’s doing, or too weak to stop him. and really, who doesn’t want a mommy substitute when stricken with a stupid flu cold crap virus?

so i’m eating healthy and inhaling the eucalyptus he put in the humidifier, although i can’t smell anything. i’d probably feel better if i was pumped up full of meds. or at least full of sweet sweet codeine. had a doctor prescribe a syrup filled with codeine at one point and i spent the entire weekend in bed, drooling perhaps but happy as a clam, if clams really are as happy as we assume them to be, that is. it was a revelation. with angels singing and harp music coming out of nowhere, if you’ll believe it. an “ahhhh” moment of bliss. my brain is always running on overdrive, not that i’m so smart, i’m not saying my brain is spewing improvements on the theory of relativity, no, my brain is more about shitting on my personality and destroying whatever i’ve managed to build since our last conversation, but it’s always there, always active, always chattering and buzzing and clicking. and codeine, along with many other substances it turns out, can turn my brain into mush, can stop the inner dialogue and leave me a helpless child, but even better, because a child knows only his universe, whereas i’m making a conscious decision to go back to the feeling of non thinking, and i know how much better off i am. i’m a drooling giggling buddha in a bed.

i’m out of codeine now, and the boyfriend cannot get me more. i’ll have someone else drop by and bring along a few things to help me get through this stupid stupid virus. i can hear the boyfriend still, saying how i have to rest and be normal for a while if i don’t want this to stick around, and i have to eat well and take care of my body and not smoke and not take drugs or at least not abuse anything, and then my general health will improve and i won’t be as susceptible to all the viruses flying about and how about a glass of milk honey i never see you drink milk and you need calcium for your bones and this and that and blah blah blah. that was last night, a long time ago. he doesn’t repeat those things anymore. he doesn’t even sigh. i don’t tell him about every little symptom either. no point: he gets more upset than i. i don’t get upset, i get down right whiny. i hate being sick, just like anybody else. but i probably complain more than most. i can stand sharp pain, any sharp pain, any time. i can take a fist in the stomach and only wince. i can get an uppercut and only shed a few silent tears. i can take a beating and get up to beat the beater. but being congested? it drives me nuts. headaches too. the throbbing, the hours of throbbing, the dull but constant oh so constant pain. i’ve been stabbed before. i broke an ankle. i had my forearm broken in two places. i’ve had appendicitis. i’ve had kidney stones and i’ve had a fractured jaw. well i took all that better than i take any stupid cold virus, any idiotic flu bug. give me an emergency and i can react. give me fear and i will become cold and driven and i will take the best action possible, because i’m at my best when i feel that my life is in my hands and in mine only, and my actions will determine whether i live or die. but this? having to sleep propped up because otherwise i’ll choke on my own mucus and cough without end? having to keep a kleenex under my nose if i put my head to the side, because i really want to sleep and yet i’m dripping watery crap? argh. kill me, kill me now.

and i’m cold too. it’s not cold here, but i’m cold in my bones. and i hate being cold. i’m wrapped in blankets and they don’t really help and i ran the shower with hot water to bring some humidity into this place so at least maybe my throat would get better, and i’m wearing layers of comfy clothes, or at least clothes i usually find comfortable but right now they feel itchy and i’m annoyed at everything, including myself for existing and you for being you. there’s no use: i’m just not a good sick person. i hope that i’m never really sick, hospital sick. because i would never be a patient patient, and i sure as hell wouldn’t have the right attitude. i’d end up being deserted by all the doctors, and with only the evil nurse to wipe me clean. hospitals are nothing to laugh at, really. they are a frightening disease-ridden place and i’d rather die at home that have to spend weeks eating the poisoned food and listening to the poisoned tongues. perhaps i should enquire about a morphine home delivery stratagem, so i can die here (not now, i’m not that much of a drama queen, i know what i have is only a cold) and still die in peace. because when i think about it, the only reason i can see for people going to hospitals voluntarily is the pain relieving drugs. you sure as hell don’t go there for the company.

i hate doctors. i hate clowns too, but that is probably besides the particular topic… although sometimes if you’re not careful you can walk through the children’s ward and come face to face with a colorfully painted antichrist demon who’ll squirt water at you and go flap flapping away (one hopes) in his big ugly shoes – and if that happens, just run the other way, don’t do what i do and start screaming demon! demon! kill the demon! while jumping at the clown’s throat. even though they look and feel and smell like only a demon would, it turns out that sometimes clowns take over a human and imprison him (or her! it even happens to women!), choke him and take his place in life. of course, then it is merciful to jump at them and release the human from the clown’s fury, but then you want to hold off on the jugular bite, to avoid killing the human along with the beast. although if you ask me the human inside the clown is just as guilty for having allowed such a beast to take possession of him, it was later revealed that the courts do not agree with me. and killing the clown beast will only land you a longer stay in the hospital. you’ll get to discover a whole new wing, where you’ll realize that the rest of the hospital walls seem freshly painted by comparison, and the other nurses, angels. you’ll discover that some drugs are very very… very good, and that some just turn you into a useless zombie, without even the fun of being aware that you’re a zombie. frightening substances, those. you’ll meet people who are quite a lot more fucked up that you, and yet you understand where they’re coming from. the terrifying part is that you know exactly where they’re headed too, and nobody will believe listen hear. you’re in the crazy house you must be crazy and then the accidents will start happening and they’ll all turn to you, all the white shirts will turn to you and assume you had something to do with it because you predicted it, but no, you only paid attention to a few other patients and you shouldn’t have because white shirts don’t want their authority challenged and now you’re in for the zombie suit if you’re lucky, the zombie room if you’re not. and in the zombie room you can see clowns approaching from all sides. you know there are walls but somehow the clowns don’t heed them, they go through, like you go through air, and they advance, coming closer, getting closer, until just before they touch you, you scream a horrible scream and an orderly opens the door and he screams too, as you scoop out your eye ball out of your skull and throw it at his head, here, you take this, you take it and you see the clowns too because i can’t be alone seeing them anymore i can’t take it and let me out you fucking clown sucker. and he screams and the clowns vanish and you finally sit down on the floor and there is wet hot blood bubbling from your eye socket to the ground and then more people come but at least they’re not clowns and you feel a needle or perhaps not even but you hear them vaguely, as if through a thick layer of cotton, and you figure out that they’ll sedate you first, before taking care of your eye or of your bleeding fingernails, where you clawed at the walls in terror, trying to escape the clown visions. you close your eye and enter a dream world of vague shapes and sounds, all muted, all soft and imprecise. when you wake up you vaguely understand that it can all be blamed on a bad cocktail of pills. turns out the little pink ones and the big gray ones should not be given with the green injections, at least not to people who have a history of psychotic trouble, and they make you sign papers and you sign because you know you could sue their asses off but really at the end of that line of signatures there is freedom and bandages and a prescription for morphine, but you can get that from your local pharmacist because you’re going home. you’ve become a medical error and they want to sweep you under the rug and forget that you ever existed. your eye is gone but you feel empowered and it was the left one and you never liked it as much as the right one anyway, and who needs perspective and hey now that you think of it perhaps you can hold off on that one signature and there you go, they’re throwing money your way, and perhaps you won’t even have to work again wouldn’t that be sweet? and as you walk out of the office you hide a drug compendium under your jacket. and as the cab they paid for takes you home, you hum gently, as you let your head rest on the wet window, and you inhale this smell of wet pavement, mixed with the driver’s tobacco smell and the foreign cooking smell that seems to emanate of the old, worn, fabric cushy seats.

i believe my point was to say i hate doctors. well i do, and perhaps this explains that. in any case i need to be so sick i’m unconscious before i can go see a doctor. or rather, before anybody manages to make a doctor see me, cause i certainly don’t go of my own, and i certainly have to desire to look at a doctor. fucking prick bastards. i don’t trust them. i’d sooner trust a veterinarian, and even they are mostly pill pushers. not that i mind pill pushing. but i want a choice in the matter. i want to pick the pills, i want to know what they can do before i pop them, and i don’t want to be in any kind of situation where i can be medicate against my will. i don’t care if it’s for my own good. the last time a doctor injected stuff in me for my own good i ended up scared literally shitless, and all they do is open the little blind on the little window of the little door leading to the little padded room and take notes. oh boy do they take notes. what i drink, what i eat, who i speak to and what i say and on what tone. what i refuse to wear, how often i take a shit, how often i pee and where, how many showers i’m allowed to take, what the doctor said is the maximum restraint they can use on me and for how long and who gets to decide when that’s going to be. so yeah, i don’t trust doctors.

i dated one, once, way before i had reasons to justify my hatred. i had to stop seeing him after a few dates because he was creeping me out. he kept looking at my arms, trying to make my veins pop out, because it despaired him that he couldn’t see my veins, and therefore couldn’t inject me with anything easily. apparently he got off on seeing nice juicy veins into which it would be easy to plunge anything. well that was weird enough. i was afraid to fall asleep next to him and wake up hooked up to some huge machine, my blood being pumped out and replaced by some motor oil (the motor oil is because it seemed rather obvious to me that he treated his new car with a lot more respect than he did me – seems only logical that if his infatuation for me had gone up a notch he would have wanted me, too, to have superior motor oil going through my pipes). hell, i was afraid he’d slip something into my drink to make me sleep and have his way with me. which, honestly, would have been the only way for him to get laid. by me anyway. i’m sure there’s tons of little bimbos out there who are ready to get on their knees for the six figure income and the social status of being a doctor’s wife. well good for them, but i’d rather lock their hubby in a box and shove swords through it.

when i think about it, all the years between now and before have melted together in some shapeless year goo, and i don't know for sure what happened when and why and how. my childhood, yeah, i know the outline, i can tell about what age i was when this or that happened. teen years, still not so bad - the grades help, i guess. oh yeah, when that happened i was in ninth grade, so that would mean i was... yeah, okay. but after school? it's all one long year of years. i don't know how long it's been since i moved here, i don't know how long i stayed in the apartment before this one. i don't know how old i was when i dumped the doctor, or when i had the affair with the cute but older, sexy but broke writer. with him it was purely sexual, although it made me laugh my head off when he said "you like my penis, don't you? say you like it!". oh please. i can suck your penis, i can lick your penis, i can stroke and kiss and squeeze and take it in, this way and that. i can rub various substances on your penis, i can squish it with my mystery orgasm muscles. but like it? tell you, "oh honey, i so adore your penis!, it's the most beautiful penis in the world"? ha. hahahahahaha. no way. too funny. like women care about penises. i mean, i do, in the sense that i may or may not derive pleasure from the said appendage, but to find it pretty? better looking than another one? wow. whatever you need to believe to get it up, honey. i for one do not need compliments on the freshness of the color of my labia. although to get one would make me laugh for a while, and that would not be a bad thing per se. in any case, the writer was a funny guy. i ended it one night, because i'd gone to his place for sex - that's all we did - and we ended up watching a horribly long movie before having sex. and then, get this, he wanted to cuddle. oh boy. that was not the agreement i had entered into. still, i didn't want to hurt his feelings, or lose a good source of lay. but even as he slept, he clutched on to me, he curled up and snatched at me. well, sorry boy, i ain't your mamma. i got dressed and left. he woke up, saw me to the door, didn't say much. i think we both knew we'd passed a line, and there was no going back. never saw him again. but worse, i barely ever thought of him again, except for his need to be told he had a gorgeous penis, and that i oh so adored it.

thinking back, i've had all kinds of men in my life. none quite like the current boyfriend, and that's probably his ace in the hole as they say in america. there was one, for a few months, who was supposedly a rebel. not that being a rebel required the extra two hundred pounds of flesh he carried around. or that a rebel can't have hair or nice teeth or at least a winning personality. and i don't think a gait is a prerequisite either. i file that guy under "what were you thinking, girl", as did most people who ever met him, i guess. he wasn't the kind who wanted to be told about the beauty of his organ, no - what he wanted was to slap me on the ass and call me a bitch while going at it. the first time he did it, i exploded. i disengaged, and rolled around, and could barely look at him. i shook with laughter. i couldn't believe that his big turn on was to belittle me insult me slap me. well it was. and i learned that well before i finally showed him the door and he finally took it for good. i guess i only started being violent myself after he had been history for a while, or we two would have been in fights worthy of a concept album. he threw stuff at me, including his fists. he never hurt me though - even then i had my limits. but he tried and succeeded at making me miserable. not that i hold a grudge - i can see easily and coldly now that he was just a poor sap, weak and witless, and he was trying to bring me down to his level and shed tears of rage when he found that he couldn't. i'm not very willing to participate in my own downfall. not unless i get to decide the time and the place.

what would you do for a klondike bar, i sing to the boyfriend sometimes. he always say "not much, i don't really like klondike bars", and that has always seemed to me a lot more sane than any other answer, televised or not. that's why i like my man: he's full of sanity. and full of bullshit at other times. i guess he's a pleasant mix of the two, and that's what i need. that, and another pair of lungs, and new sinuses. clean sinuses. the kind that never get congested, full of phlegm and unknown brown substances. a new nose to go with that please, because mine if chafed and unhappy. i wish i could remove my sinuses and steep them in hot water for the night (maybe on a coffee mug heater thing), and put them back, all clean and relaxed and comfortable. hell, while we're at it, i'd like removable arms, because when i lie in bed with the boyfriend, one of us always ends up with one arm too many, one that needs to get tucked under (and ends up bloodless and painful) or folded around or just sawed off. a removable limb would prevent the potentially hazardous loss of blood - especially in bed: i don't want blood squirting everywhere if we can avoid it with just one armectomy surgery or two. seriously, i don't know who decides what gets researched and what doesn't, but clearly those scientists don't know what they're doing, and they don't know what the people truly want. the people want removable parts and self cleansing sinuses. oh, and you know that bepto-pismol add, where the pink goo goes down the esophagus and coats everything in a nice thick pink layer of ease? well i want them to invent a liquid that actually coats like that and makes you feel like the tv commercial makes you think you'll feel. they've got quite a way to go (short of telling us to drink melted candle wax). and i want that same type of liquid to coat my harsh dry scratchy throat.

i am the one white cat of queen beruthiel, and i approve the first third of this novel.