A Short Story

By four in the afternoon I hadn’t stepped outside the door. I peered into the little shoe room by the front and runned a superficial tidying of the coats. There’s a particular draft that runs through this antechamber. I think the door never shuts, or people open it too much.
I still intend to go for a walk before the day ends. If they don´t mind.
I will wait for the cold to subside and for now I´ll write.
Today I will write all day. I say.
I straightened a few rooms, drank three cups of drip disgusting coffee, then two black teas with milk. Also stole one (or two) big slices of that apple pie resting in the fridge. They hide it from me. On the back of the second last shelf, behind the milk and yogurts. Oh! How easy it is! As if I cannot see. I do have that quality even if I am not believed. They say ´it´s not good for you, no dough, no sweets.´ I think that´s bullshit, so I eat.

When my hand tires or my mind can’t string a sentence, I lay my notebook half shut, with my beautiful gold pen tucked in as a page-mark, over the stone table. I don’t know what stone it is, it looks cheap, a chunk of highway ripped up and brought indoors.
I pause the writing in setting the notebook on the asphalt block and move myself to the rug.
I migrate just a few steps away, this tapestry was once white. Now only wished, we all pretend at it.
I say that it isn´t a rug at all, but a bunch of Komondors lying side by side, some even on top of each other, either dead or taking a nap. My go-to line when people pass by, especially children, they get it and laugh. The other passengers don’t, they don’t even smile.

So I lay down on the komondors mat.
I read something or I stare into the paperback.
I fall asleep.

I like to read more than one book at once, they tend to be three, so I have options and I have no need to resign.Today I married myself to Wuthering Heights, fourth read. It´s always good to keep at least one that is familiar in those three. This time Heathcliff seems kinda nice, more compelling than in any other read; tangled and male. I can help him. I think. I could take good care of Heathcliff .
I am starting to note that this is not a passing cold.
My cough turned dry, violent at times, scraping my throat.
And the chest. Oh! The chest. It rakes, it aches.

Migraines come and don´t go. My eyes, as if someone, probably Angélica (fucking Angélica), removed them completely and then returned them callously to their place leaving no more than ache.
Cherry on top, the tiny rubber ball in my skull. That is my own diagnosis but I describe it better than any doctor will, because guess inside whose head is it? What I have is a small rubber ball that´s loose in there, it bounces through space, rebounding any spare working cell left in my brain.
I have no doubt that I caught this in here.
One of the passengers, the one with—
—
Augh I forget.
Well her. She felt this way. She wouldn’t stop screaming. From the bottom of her lungs to the last corner of this place. We all heard her howl. That gave me migraines for sure.
A few days have passed without me writing them down.
A fever has been keeping me company for three long days, the rain has maintained its own steady presence. Its rhythm, erratic and shifting, make the mornings, and the afternoons, and the nights something more bearable than other days.
Nights and days in bed or an armchair, which is almost the same. I change locations now and then, this activity lends me a brief sense of direction. Minutes pass, hours, and maybe days if I’m lucky.
I got up for breakfast today, that didn’t happen yesterday.
Each night I write a Do list for next day; last one read:

Do
Get up for breakfast.

So far, that ‘s it.
It pleased me to tick it off so early in the day. I arrived at the dining room at seven a.m., lights were shut, curtains closed. No one appeared until around eight-forty. Breakfast starts at nine.
Normally a situation like this would irritate me, it’s my time after all, if there is something that I hate is wasting it. But no. I sat comfortably, in the dark, motionless. My throat didn’t hurt, I noticed that.
After half an hour, the kitchen radio turned, the way a programmed lamp snaps to life. Perhaps one of those Alexas, I thought, though the device and I could compete in wear and years, so probably not. How was this on? I have no explanation and I am not looking for one.
Ojalá, by Silvio Rodríguez, came through flawlessly, as if the man himself were in the room. And that song, what a perfect song. It makes me feel things I don´t recall. I know the lyrics and sing them along, without doubt or any hesitation at all.
The little girl arrived, the music stopped.
I finished breakfast, took my pills with grape juice.
I saw him.
I grew weary and lay over the table. I wasn’t tired, but I needed some sleep.

Written by Isabel Gallaher