Magic & Reality

In line at the pharmacy, the woman behind me touches my shoulder and tells me that she loves my hair. I smile, and thank her, and she continues talking, and I continue nodding and smiling (but my head aches, and my face hurts, and my sinuses are pressure-filled and blocked; I'm tired and anxious and not paying any real attention). Behind her, there is a woman in a wheelchair -- her skin is very pale and thin like paper; it looks like, if I touched it, it would be soft (but, if I was less than gentle, might somehow tear) -- and her hair is very short, and would obviously be white, but she has dyed it a sort of pale-yet-neon cotton candy violet. (And she meets my eyes and smiles, in the way that people do -- something I have still not gotten used to, strange and delightful, like we're all members of some secret club.)

Time passes quickly enough, or at least, not slowly. The nurses are hurried, running behind, but they all pause for several minutes in my room to talk to me. I sit, wrapped in a blanket, drinking orange juice, spend the two hours lost somewhere inside a book. (And the nurse who got me started stops in at the end of her shift, and fusses over me, concerned that the infusion will make me sicker, or more quickly, despite the antibiotics I have waiting in my purse. She tells me to bring pictures from my trip, when I come in for my next infusion, and I ask her if she has an email address -- a stupid question, really, as doesn't everybody? -- and she writes it down for me; I promise to send her photos.) Later, when my IV machine beeps out its relentless alert -- FINISHED! FINISHED! -- the nurse who comes in to let me go beams at me, and says it's been so long since she last saw me (which is true). We talk for ten minutes, fifteen; she tells me her particular tricks for avoiding illness when travelling (saline nasal spray every couple of hours in the airplane, preventative Sudafed -- The real stuff, that you have to sign for when you buy it now, not that crappy substitute.) It's dark and halfway-raining when I get outside; I stop to wrap my scarf around my neck, re-button my coat. The city smells like wet grass, and dirt, and fallen leaves; I don't avoid the puddles as I cross the street.

Antibiotics are like magic; after just the first night's dose, I wake up feeling almost unbelievably better, just like that. If I had to get on a plane tomorrow, I would be okay with it. (As it is, I will be getting on plane in one week exactly; none of this seems real to me at all until it's happening, however -- it's all a sort-of-dream until I'm going to the airport, until I've gone through security, found my departure gate.)

Waiting in the small coffeeshop for a hot spiced chai tea, staring at the walls -- a series of weird and captivating paintings, animals and fantastic creatures, a feeling of fairy tales -- and the short-haired girl making coffees (freckles and a quiet smile, delicate wrists) says, to anybody listening, that she has a latte on the counter, free for anyone who wants it. (Made by mistake, or ordered and then forgotten -- I don't know.) Nobody takes it, so when my tea is ready I grab the second cup. Walk out the door and down the block, to the corner I passed on my way over several minutes earlier, and the old man is still standing there, selling the small local newspaper that the city's homeless (not only homeless, but that's what they identify themselves with most) sell. It doesn't ever seem to make much difference, the same people selling papers in the same places for years -- five years, ten. I go up to him, hold out the paper cup, and ask him if he'd like some coffee (and apologize for not having any sugar to offer, but the coffeeshop had sugar only in glass containers, the only packets they had to take away were of artificial sweetener). And he looks at me, a bit confused (this isn't a neighborhood I spend a lot of time in, and I've never seen him before; we've never spoken) and says yes, and thanks me (and says he never takes sugar in his coffee, anyway). He offers me a paper, but I refuse, and wish him a nice rest-of-the-day (though it's wet and grey and cold, and he looks like all of those things) and walk up the street, and behind me he calls out Thank you! again. (Half-turn my head, and smile, and continue walking.)

I spend the afternoon having my hair re-dyed, and cut -- reading a book that takes me to another place, skews my reality whenever I look up from it (when I read this on the bus, I end up stepping off the bus into a different world) and talking with the girl who does my hair. And it's dark, when I leave that small warm room; it's dark and raining cleanly, and it falls in oddly-patterned heartbeats against my umbrella as I walk. The bus home is crowded, and noisy -- a loud group of teenagers sitting near me, halfway-shouting about the small and nothing details of their lives. One girl talks about how it's so hard for her to memorize things -- small things, anythings -- how she doesn't know her own address or phone number; she can't remember things like that with any ease. (It makes me laugh quietly, staring out the window at nothing, at reflections -- too dark and fogged up to see anything but lights flashing past, beyond -- at the same time it makes me vaguely sad.) When I get home, it's not as late as the world outside would make it seem. (I drink tea and talk to strangers.) Later, when I unpin my hair and comb through it, getting out of the shower (pinned up so that I will not get it wet), I look down at my hands and see my fingers all stained blue; I wash them, rub them together over and over, the water running hot (but the color remains, stubborn on my fingers, like a shadow).