Pretend you’re blind. Close your eyes and don’t open them for two days. Flat on your back. And if you move your head in any way whatsoever the room lurches and whirls. It reels so fast you feel your eyeballs spin in their sockets. Your ears ring in time to the rotation. You have the warm drools.
Oldest son calls from New York
“Are you sleeping this late?”
“Sick.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“Dizzy.” Saying it makes you more so.
“From what?”
“Vertigo. Google it.”
“OK. It says, extreme dizziness, nausea, inner ear disorder, often accompanied by nystagmus, jerky eye movements and tinnitus, ringing in the ears.’ Oh great, I have that.”
“How long does it last?”
“Um—no known cure, remain immobile, treat with motion sickness medication. Oh, that’s not good.”
“What?”
“You can’t have this.”
“How many days?”
“Can take eight or nine months to subside.”
You want to cry but it’ll only clog up your inner ear. It looks like you’re going to miss your writing workshop today. The one for which you cut up sixty orange sections. And it looks like you’re going to miss the birthday party tonight. The one where you’re the only guest invited.
You have to go to the bathroom so you carefully roll sideways, eyes closed. Don’t open your eyes because you will be sorry. Seeing the room thrash and spin is much worse than just feeling it. Your feet touch the ground, but the room tilts. The force of the whirl rips you out of bed. You lurch up off kilter and fall flat on the floor. You decide to crawl. The dog at eye-level trots shoulder-to-shoulder, ever faithful by your side. You arrive just before the vomit, thankful the porcelain is steady. You shake and sweat and coil up--cheek on the cool tile floor. God, you feel ninety and scared as well. You are in trouble.
“Can you help me?” you plead into the cell phone. You sound like a bad commercial for Oldster Alert, ironic since commercials are what you do for a living. Your friend does not pick up. You call another friend, the one who is deathly afraid of sick people.
“Can you help me?”
Yes, blessed saint. She arrives with Dramamine, drops one then two into your mouth without reading the dosage. She holds water to your lips then backs up nervously. “You look awful.” She is a blunt blessed saint. You picture yourself: black T-shirt, pallid skin, hollow purple eye sockets, disheveled hair tangled on a crooked pillow, like any moment you will spring upright and project green vomit.
Your friend glances furtively toward the door. “Well, if you’re OK then I’ll let you rest.” She rushes out--runs practically and leaves the back gate open, the gate that prevents your dog from wandering into the street. But that does not happen because your dog is loyal and you could not lift your head from the pillow if the bed was ablaze.
You feel around for the cell phone, hold it at arm’s length and self-photo for later when you can open your eyes. Then you’ll laugh about it, right? The meds are not working.
Your body aches from lying in corpse pose, so you lock your head in position and rotate the remains. You’re amazed you’ve slept for most of the morning in spite of Latino music blaring outside your second story window. Painters hang from the neighbor’s house, ten feet as the crow flies. Hopefully they’ll cut the cord on the co-worker, the Blabberator who never stops talking, shouting over the boom box’s screeching violin, frenzied accordion, throbbing trumpet beat. He pontificates: ‘Habla blabla donde estero la cinestera, ha ha ha.’ Can you please go home now? You have to go to the bathroom again so you crawl past the window and brave a peek. On wobbly knees you hold onto the window sill, lift the blinds, and open your eyes for a half-second. Babble-boy hangs directly at eye level, gaping at you with large shocked eyes, just like your own. You drop and crawl to the vomitorium—not quite in time.
When the room swirls, your eyeballs orbit in your head like Daffy Duck cold-cocked with a fry pan. You’re sure if you looked in the mirror you’d see it, but you cannot because when you open your eyes even a slit, you are on that rocket ride at the County Fair diving toward the earth and back up again. Over and over, faster and faster, whipping around until you climb up into your bed and immobilize for five full minutes. Then it can stop—but only until you move again. On the crawl back you drag the wastebasket along—portable vomitorium.
The neighbors on the other side are planning a pool party. You know because people have been swarming all morning: mowing, blowing, skimming, dragging chairs, sampling gazpacho soup. They slurp, ‘Oh this is yummy. Does it need a dollop of sour cream? Chives?’ You salivate, in spite of or because of the nausea. You wish someone would bring you gazpacho soup.
Youngest son arrives with girlfriend and grandchildren, tipped off by the oldest. “You can’t get up? What’s wrong?”
“Vertigo. Google it.” They pull out their smart phones.
The girlfriend flops on the bed and rubs your forehead. “Poor thing. You look terrible. I brought pills that will fix anything. These will relieve the sickest cancer patient on chemo.” She shakes a few pills into her hand without checking the dosage.
“Oh no thanks, I already took something. What does the label say?”
“Open up.” She holds big white pills up to your lips with water and commands “Swallow.”
You open like a baby bird.
Your grandchildren sidle up with handmade get-well cards and hold your hand. “We love you Grammy. Get well soon.” They sound scared or wary, you can’t tell without looking.
“Don’t worry, I will.” They reach over with hugs. “Oh, but don’t shake the bed.”
“What the hell is all that noise outside?” Your son looks down into the backyard next door. “I’ll go tell them you’re sick and to keep it down.”
“No no, I have to live here.” Your family traipses down the stairs as you murmur, “Can someone please feed the dog? And close the gate.” You hear it slam then swing back open.
The guests arrive poolside and the lady next-door mikes up with an amplified squeal. ‘Welcome to the Lesbian Alliance
It’s amazing what you hear when you can’t see or move. You need a Grape Jello shot. You hear the familiar click-click-click of their automatic sprinkler system then, ‘Ohhh shit.’ The guests run for it and you smile uncharitably, full of mirth.
By Sunday you open your eyes slowly, steadily without the whirl. Don’t move your head. Focus on the wall and make it stay. You click on the TV and it doesn’t rotate. Your eyes no longer spin in their sockets unless you watch Tiger Woods putt the green. The little white ball zips by and circles the hole but you track it too quickly, then reach for the portable vomitorium. But the meds may be working because you lie back and gain control. Your friend who didn’t pick up yesterday, calls back—thirty hours later. “Are you sick?” But you no longer thrash and lurch, only stagger and wobble.
Late in the afternoon from your open window, sunlight breaks through the elm tree leaving patterns of heat on your upturned cheek. Leaves rustle and a soft breeze brushes your eyes, somewhere a screen door slams, you smell barbecue, a plane passes overhead and slowly you open one eye, then the other. The sunset is dusty pink and your tree barely rotates, a languid kaleidoscope. Elm leaves steady then stop. It’s not perfect but you take a deep breath, reach for pen and paper and begin to write.
Pretend you’re blind. Close your eyes and don’t open them for two days. Flat on your back . . .
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