Written by Meg Todd
Artwork “New Year New You” by Mali Fischer
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It’s my birthday. I woke up with that in my head and it’s been sitting there ever since, left of centre. Ominous. Like a sinkhole. If I go too close I could get sucked in. And now I have to make the trip to the bathroom—I let that sit there too. Push it aside as long as I’m able. Because simple things have become overwhelming.
But then I can’t hold on and with one hand I push myself up, supporting my weight on the bed, the wall, the bathroom door. With the other, the taped and tubed one, I clutch Ivy’s thin cool neck. Ivy has to come with me. It’s not easy because she’s unwieldy and tippy and doesn’t always do what’s expected. At the same time, her presence is comforting. Strength through an appendage. A soul-mate. A lifeline.
Slow shuffling steps are manageable. I wouldn’t say the room is spinning. More that my brain is sliding. A steady sideways movement that makes my stomach reel. Nevertheless. We make it, Ivy and I. I hitch up the unruly gown and pee into the plastic potty they’ve secured under the toilet seat. And then I wash my hands in the sink and see again that these are not my hands. It’s not my face in the mirror. Eyelids swollen to line up with the bridge of my nose, hands puffed thick and waxy-white. There’s no sign of veins. No sign of blood flow. I lift the front of the flapping gown and see that my belly is still swollen. My navel has disappeared. I noticed it this morning. That was my first time in front of the mirror since I arrived two days ago. It’s not my body, I told them. This is not normal! Oedema, they said. It is normal. Nothing to worry about. And the pumping continues—bag after bag of saline and antibiotic emptied into me via Ivy. It could also be the infection, they added as an afterthought. So that now I’m not sure which is more significant—more worrisome—the infection or its cure.
Over the past weeks in my new place I’ve stuck yellow Post-its on the smooth surfaces—the rusted fridge, the all-but-one-burner-functioning stove, the bathroom door, the smoky mirror. Take a chance! You only live once! I’ll take them down if I meet someone. If I find a friend. If I get to know someone well enough to ask them over. The woman behind the refreshment counter at the movie theatre had seemed promising. So had the guy at the bus stop, the one who handed me a flyer for cheap roses and asked how I was doing.
Fine, thank you, I said. Do you want to have coffee sometime?
Seriously? he asked. And then he turned and handed a flyer to a woman in a fur hat.
I acquired my first friend by direct approach, choosing a girl who looked nice with shiny hair and a promising smile. Will you be my friend? I asked. That was grade one and we were all new at it. By grade three I realized this was not the way relationships generally developed. The organic method was superior.
I met Neil on the internet. Back when I lived in my hometown. Back when relationships and life in general loomed ahead of me in a mysterious and hopeful way. Like a lottery ticket. Something you could imagine expanding into something greater, something wonderful.
Now, looking at the yellowing wall across from my hospital bed, I think about yellow. I heard once that every room in every home should have something yellow in it. This would guarantee positive energy. But maybe I got it wrong—maybe yellow isn’t positive at all and what’s necessary for a happy house is chartreuse. Or pink. Maybe pink Post-its would better enforce my self-directed message. I had a pink comforter when I was little.
Actually, I mouth silently to an imagined listener, fever is interesting. It’s not as bad as you might think. Because a high temperature, although debilitating and potentially dangerous, is also quite pleasurable. You have no choice but to sink into it. And there’s so much to pay attention to—I’m having the most incredible visions. Larger than life because real life is more landscape-like, isn’t it? With upper and lower borders that don’t really register. But when you have a fever everything is bigger than floor-to-ceiling. Larger than the cinema even. This last part my mind directs at the woman behind the theatre refreshment counter. She had intense red-red hair. Brighter than real. I asked where she got it done. But my words were misinterpreted as a request for extra butter.
I close my eyes. And this time I’m following a steady line of people down a narrow corridor, following them blindly, happily, all of them so big and dark and steady. They surround me completely. I’m conscious of this even as I’m aware that I’m only semi-conscious. The whispering starts too. Just the tops of words. But I can pick out my name. The rest doesn’t matter. Someone is talking to me, calling me in a soothing, self-assured voice. The first time it happened, I opened my eyes and looked around, searching for whoever was speaking, but now I relax and listen, try to hear deeper into the words. Try to hear the implication. And also don’t. Because it might be more than I can bear.
Neil said he wants to be a pilot. To fly bush planes up north or water bombers over forest fires. Or float planes. Imagine gliding on water, he said.
What about risk? I asked.
What about it, he said.
My life in the new city has been exhausting. It’s not just the finding of the basement suite. It’s not just that the place I’ve moved into has hot water that runs out halfway through a shower and a toilet that requires a plunger for big jobs. It’s also been the finding of a new grocer, new bank, new internet provider. New doctor. If I had a proper doctor I wouldn’t be here, would I? These are the complications of my new life. And now I’m crying. Because why did Neil stop texting? Hadn’t our conversations been hopeful? It’s my birthday and here I am in the narrow metal bed with nothing but the hand-cleanser alcohol smell that makes my nose hurt. Nobody’s called. Of course they haven’t. My phone is lying on the cracked kitchen counter in the basement suite plugged into the wall receiving calls. Or just charging.
Two years ago, my mother said divorce. We’ve never been compatible, she said. She was folding towels neatly in half and then into thirds. And now that you’re grown, she said. As though this was a complete sentence. As though it explained everything.
Buddhists claim that all life is suffering. They make it sound like a solution.
My body failed me right after I dropped my Safeway bag of trash into the bin. I closed the container lid and then I collapsed. The sun wasn’t quite up. It was raining. I woke up on the ground, the neighbour peering at me. And then I woke again in the adjustable metal bed.
Why didn’t you go to the doctor? the nurses asked. An early course of antibiotics could have alleviated your symptoms. They told me there are walk-in clinics for people like me. People like me, I thought. People who are new to a place because the previous place has become intolerable, and who get sick and have to pee too often and then feel hot and cold at the same time but think they’re fine until they collapse beside the garbage bins and are found by neighbours they’ve never met who drive them to the hospital because they wonder if they might be stuck paying for the ambulance if people like me can’t afford to pay.
I’m averse to risk-taking, I told the nurses. And then I vomited.
The first two days they fussed over me. Take a deep breath. Another. Hold this under your tongue. Are you nauseous? On a scale of one to ten, ten being unbearable, how’s your pain? Have you passed gas? But now, as my bodily functions settle, as I stop shivering and then sweating despite blankets or lack thereof, the nurse visits have thinned to cursory.
A bath would be nice. My hair is sticking to my head.
Another trip to the bathroom is necessary. They have to measure my urine. I have to drink. Have to void. Flush the kidneys, they say. Daily directives. My mother never said no to anything. Or yes. You’re the one who has to live with the consequences, she said. She used to decorate my chair birthday mornings. The cake was marble. With Neapolitan ice cream. Everything comes to an end. Or all good things come to an end. I read that somewhere. I take hold of Ivy’s neck and get up. Directives make things so much easier.
And then later. I close my eyes and there’s a surprise. Shoes everywhere. And everything has been moved—the bed, the rolling tray-table, the monitors. There’s so much space! And so many people! Sitting on the floor, or standing, or leaning against the walls. They’re impressive. Much more impressive and more real than real people. It’s not easy to manoeuvre Ivy around the shoes and the outstretched limbs, the supine and semi-sitting bodies. But the people aren’t fussed. They don’t move or get up to help, they don’t ask if I’m going to the toilet. They don’t want to know if I feel faint or if there’s pain. They have their eyes closed, or they have them open. But they’re not looking at anything. They’re here for my birthday. Or they’re just here. I like it either way, and I stumble along with Ivy, trip gently over feet and legs until I find an empty bit of wall where I sink down and draw my knees to my chest, no longer minding that the gown has failed yet again, exposing one complete shoulder and half of one breast. Nobody minds. They come by occasionally, one or two at a time. They lean in close with their carnival-sized faces to look at me. I can see every red spider-webby line in their bloodshot eyes, every wrinkle in their overblown faces, every stain on their horsey teeth. I let them look and I look back. I recognize none of them. In the entire throng of people there’s not one familiar face. Just people I’ve never seen before but know just the same. I look at them and they look at me, and we have no sense of disappointment.
I open my eyes. There’s a note taped to a pickle jar filled with carnations. Landlord replaced hot water tank!!! Hope you’re OK. Your neighbour, Dan. The flowers are white and stiff. Sturdy. Like they’ll never give up.
And then I realize that Ivy has come undone. The bag is empty and the tube hangs suspended. For a moment I am bereft. A nurse must have come. Must have separated me from Ivy. Like an infant from its mother. The umbilical cord that once was pulsing and alive is now untethered, drained and useless. Which means my body is functioning on its own.
But I don’t get up. Not yet. I close my eyes again. The people are still here. Still around me. They’re starting to float, light and wavy, almost see-through. Vague and diluted and watery. And I think of a swimming pool. Or a lake. A lake in the early morning, still and pure and inviting. Dangerous maybe, but in a good way. A way that makes you want to jump in even though you’re not really sure you can swim. I’m smiling because it’s beautiful. And because it’s my birthday.
Meg Todd’s short stories can be found in numerous literary journals, including Prairie Fire, The Humber Literary Review, Grain, EVENT, and The New Quarterly (forthcoming). She was a finalist for the CBC short story prize, Room Magazine’s fiction contest, New Letters’ Robert Day Award and The Puritan’s Thomas Morton Memorial Prize. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and lives in Vancouver.
Mali Fischer is an artist and illustrator who grew up on a tiny island in Washington State and later moved to Vancouver, BC to attend Emily Carr University. Her drawings are, in part, inspired by the landscapes of her childhood, everyday mundane beauty, and a desire to calm her anxious mind. Find more of Mali’s gorgeous artwork in our SPRAWL issue (58.3).