Well, my living room won't have a photo spread in Southern Living anytime soon, but I'm happy with what I've gotten done so far. Meanwhile, here's the promised gothic version of the brain-eating virus story. I really enjoyed writing it -- and spending so much time with my old Roget's Thesaurus. Why settle for a three syllable word when there are five and six syllable alternatives pleading to be utilized?
The Viral Brain
© 2020 Misha Mueller
Fear is the unknown, the familiar distorting into the unreal, the mundane deforming into the alien. And when that abnormality is ourself, that is the most unbearable. Who is brave enough to watch her own slow transformation into. . . wrongness? To sit by, idle, feeble, hopeless, useless?
It began – if a genesis can be appointed at all – on a benignly sunny morning. There was, perhaps, a slight chill as the dawn mists stole into the dips and hollows of the waking farmlands, but if so it was only the remnant of the darksome night sullenly relinquishing dominion to the first thin rays of sun. Such things ought not happen on clear morns, we feel. Dark deeds require dark night, to paraphrase the poet. Where is that clichéd dark and stormy night?
I arrived, late I do admit, at the local library where I am employed to find a co-worker, R—, waiting at the curb. An unusual occurrence. There could be no reason for her to sit there at the edge of the parking lot, legs splayed to catch the solar warmth, lost in deep reverie of less-than- pleased musings to judge by her expression. Doubly odd, as hers was normally as bright a disposition as this developing day. She immediately cheered to her usual self upon seeing me emerge from my auto.
“I left my keys at home. Well, I hope I left them at home. I don’t have them. I can’t think when I had them last. They might actually be on my desk.”
I paused before replying. Her own silver auto was plainly parked in the space which she preferred. “Yet you drove here?” I finally asked, trying to make sense of the predicament while finagling the tricky door lock. It seemed to take me much longer than was right. I did not attribute much to that, only a brief dark thought toward that “darned catch.” I should have given it more weight, that simple bolt turned Gordian knot, but I was ignorant of what it signified.
If only humanity could peer beyond tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow, not to gape in horror at the large looming tragedies. Knowing those serves us not but will only hasten our dread before its necessary time, and perhaps even stunt the Darwinian flight or fight reaction which could avail us if utilized in just the correct instant. No, let us see the seemingly small, the insignificant, the most minor of events which propagate the avalanche of calamity. Those merest flaps of the butterfly’s wings which we may be able to dodge and thus avoid woe.
Ah, well. We are shackled to the moment. And though the dourest pessimist may fancy he knows what troubles the future holds, noone could foretell such an event as this unfolding. Or would scoff at his own prophesy if he did. “Surely there are greater ills threatening our blue marble?” he sneers and returns to his doomsaying.
“It was only a key, only a lock!” you cry.
And you are correct, save for that qualifier “only.” The tricksy lock, the forgotten key – simple symbols of great pending menace.
R— it seems kept her keys all separate: car, home, work. I wondered she had not been caught out before, even weekly basis. But it was her system and though odd to me sufficed for her. Today being the exception.
I have bored you with enough detail, I know, and I do apologize. It is important for you to get the taste of the hazard, the look and smell and nonthreatening threat of it. I will only say the day continued for poor R— as it started for her. It seemed the division of keys had doubly failed her as she had forgotten her house key as well. She learned of that when she noted she had no lunch, the insulated bag left behind with work key and house key and wallet. Because she thought to go home for lunch, but couldn’t; then settled on a fast food meal, but was likewise thwarted.
I came upon her tea cup in our bijou staff kitchenette’s microwave. The cheery ceramic piece, and presumably the liquid inside, was cool to the touch. After alerting her to the whereabouts of (and need to reheat) her beverage, I wasted several minutes cursing the perverseness of the printer only to find, on investigation, the paper drawer, empty and pulled out. It seems R— had begun to refill the drawer but lost her thread of thought between printer and supplies cabinet. I found her cold tea in the microwave again later in the day.
She was very glad to go home for the night (her family should be home to let her in) and to be frank we were almost as relieved as she. (Although her misadventures continued with a long rigmarole of hamburgers without buns and awkward cheeses. Listening, I do not think many of us grasped all of the tangled details. We expressed our dismay at her plight and steered the conversation into other directions.)
Yes, we were callused. We empathized, for who has never experienced a day of domestic chaos. But at heart it was her bedlam not ours.
J—’s day of disarray was not one epic day of pandemonium, not at first, but instead little incidents sprinkled here and there like Hansel’s wasted breadcrumbs. He one day left wet laundry in the washer forcing him to rewash everything the next day. On another he prepared a lunch only to leave it on his kitchen counter; he at least had means to purchase a replacement meal. He remembered his mother’s birthday – until the actual day, recollecting his intention to phone her when it was too late to do so politely.
His quotidian grand mal after so many petit mal installments was, like R—’s extravaganza of blunders, the mundane swollen to the outlandish, much like those dreams where the everyday dissolves into lurid distress. He woke early, thought it was Sunday and drifted serenely back to sleep only to lurch horribly awake to the realization that it was Wednesday and he did, indeed, have to greet the bleak, grey morning. He felt rushed, always just a few minutes behind time. He dropped things, and couldn’t find things, and stopped what he was doing to search, and having located them he forgot what he had been doing, and so set the items down only to lose them again. He waited too long to start the coffee and did not dare risk driving while sipping because he recognized this as exactly the sort of day that would inevitably involve spillage and he wanted to delay that disaster as long as he might and hopefully spare himself an intense scalding. So he went without his usual morning liquid. Unfortunately his auto would not be talked out of its octane brew, so J—, now truly late, had to stop. His antics in the reluctantly dispersing fog – stained a pestilent yellow by the sodium lights above the gas pumps – served as encore to his earlier theatrics: he could not find the required payment though he rooted through his wallet a number of times. He surveyed the lot around his feet, what he could see through the damply clinging vapors. He even peered under his vehicle as best he could without risking the knees of his trousers on the oleaginous asphalt. Despair nearly crushed him.
And suddenly he knew. He had removed his bank card from his wallet and placed it in the jacket pocket so he would have it to hand when needed. He paid, refreshed his parched vehicle, and continued on, now extremely late. He was chagrined at his brief yet baseless desolation. He could not explain even to himself from whence derived that brief yet terrible despondency.
(Sometime during his increasing misfortunes, R— posited the idea these were not isolated events. We were wrong to write them off as merely (exceptionally) bad days. There was something almost sinister behind it. In short, R— thought these cataclysms were symptoms of a virulent disease, a mental malady. She also asserted this infection was contagious; it explained why we none of us suffered in the past (or at least no more than could be explained away as the occasional normal bad day) but now saw the signs of affliction everywhere. For it was not limited to our small work clan.)
S— succumbed next, although she described fewer indicators in herself and more she encountered in others. Perhaps she contracted a milder strain. I think it more likely her critical nature blinded her to that in herself which she saw so abundantly in others. Whatever the truth of it, her diagnoses of the virus in the clueless shopper, the tailgating u-turner, and the confused barista showed how prevalent the disease had grown in just these few weeks.
There was poor P—, who quite suddenly seemed unable to perform the basic actions of her hobbies, at least not in the correct order to grant her the agreeable results to which she was accustomed. Poor P—, who left a dozen and a half eggs to boil until the pot was nearly dry. (I leave you to image the size of a pot capable of holding so many and the amount of water required to boil them.)
You will think poorly of me, I know, when I admit that I remained a bit detached through it all. I trust my co-workers noticed nothing amiss in my behavior, not with so much else occurring. I had no “bad days,” not such as they exhibited. I might forget a small thing now and again: a knife with which to cut my chicken at lunch (I remembered the chicken), toothpaste at the grocery store (I never wait until I am totally out to replace items like that so I can always get it next time I shop). If R—’s virus theory was correct, why, I had some natural immunity. But in truth I did not believe in the virus, though I never denounced it out loud.
Hubris. You will not be surprised to learn that when I was stricken (and I was), I was struck hard.
It was my habit to shop on every second Thursday evening after work. And I would do so before going home, knowing I would not care to venture out again once returned to my comfortable abode. This was a habit of many years, something which required little more conscious thought on my part than breathing. And abruptly I was unable to execute it without almost comical mishap. I would leave work without my list. (One attempt at shopping for two weeks’ provisions without a list convinced me it was an unreasonable challenge.) I would remember my list but forget my natural fiber carryall. (I allowed myself to accept the store’s plastic bags only the once as I hated to throw them away but saw no value in keeping such fragile and therefore useless totes.) Once I even forgot to shop altogether until I was home, preparing dinner, released from the structured clothing of employment into relaxed night clothes.
If I succeeded in getting to the store with list and carryalls – and that was becoming rare enough – I overlooked items on my list. I once got chicken and canned tomatoes and lettuce for a nice salad so that (with dried herbs and breadcrumbs already in my pantry) I could make a lovely Italian style meal. But what is an Italian chicken dish without fresh parmesan? And that is what went unnoticed by me as I perused my list. And those small things I might forget now and again, like toothpaste, they became my bane. (I see you try to hide your scoff but I do not exaggerate.) I forgot it, noticing only once home but I had enough to see me until my next excursion in two weeks. But then I realized I also forgot litter for the cat’s box, which was much more important as it was the second time I had passed the pet supplies aisle without a pause. Puss has only the one option for her lavatory needs and needed her fresh litter. And those of you with domestic felines of your own will nod understanding when I say I needed her to have fresh litter, too.
I felt the store, so commonplace, was cursed for me. I cringed when entering, knowing something unhappy would result and I was increasingly timid to discover just what it would be.
I did not understand to what horror all of this was mere prelude. My apogee came one evening. It was chill and dark now when leaving work, but a gibbous moon lit the roads for me that night. The journey began much as usual. I listened to a talking book to pass the time for driving at night can be tedious. The roads I took were narrow, winding through the rolling farmlands and here and there the occasional small settlement. I knew the barns and silos and clusterings of homes (nothing large or arranged enough to call a village) and unconsciously judged my progress by them. So I cannot explain how I became lost.
My mind will wander at times, following its own odd threads. (I see you nod though you try to mask it; you have noticed this tendency as I narrate.) I must have traveled down some reverie more deeply than usual for, as I gradually came back to myself, I felt unsure where I was. The buildings I passed, the trees, even the bends of the road were unknown to me. The longer I drove without glimpsing the familiar – anything would do! – the more my apprehension grew. I had not turned off the road. I was sure, at least of that. Had my fanciful musings taken me out of the present, of mind and body and auto and planet, for thirty minutes rather than three? It was the only explanation.
I must be far to the north, somewhere past where I should have turned. I do not know that road beyond the train tracks, but I was (and am) sure it does not go toward my home. It is a narrow road and the moon, though just as bright as when I started out, did not seem to illuminate but instead painted shadows across the landscape. The lanes to the farmhouses seemed pitted and unfriendly – and the houses themselves! No, I would not venture on those lands even for a few quick seconds to turn my auto back the way I’d come. But neither did I relish continuing north, increasing the distance between myself and the lands I knew.
I slowed. I sped only to slow again. I sped. I watched the fuel gauge; nearly half full but dare I trust it?
Usually I enjoyed the peace of this road, the lack of other motorists with their too-bright lights they don’t dim. Now I felt afraid of the loneliness. And yet perversely I imagined unseen watchers at every dark window, crouching behind hedgerows, and even lurking in culverts, ready to spring as I passed. I sped again, only to brake hard around a sharp bend I did not see ‘til too late, had not anticipated. Fear of the concealed imagined assailants provoked me to speed again as soon as the way straightened.
I became wild alone in my auto, apprehension growing to anxiety to alarm until I knew myself trapped in a living nightmare. I could not say what I feared, only that I felt fear, that it sprouted and flourished and transmuted in me until it was all I knew. It was not enough I had lost my way home; I could not have told a helpful officer (had one appeared) where I lived, perhaps even who I was. I believed myself damned to drive this road forever.
And just as quickly it was passed. I recognized a hay barn on the left, and soon after I stopped beside an old fashioned country store I always mean to visit. Even shuttered for the night it seemed comfortable and inviting. I drove home.
I have seen how easily a mind – my mind – can falter. I wake in the night and check that I know myself and reassured, for the moment, return to restless slumber. I make dark jokes of tattooing my name and address on my arm, just in case. The truth is far more frightening; I fear less of forgetting who I am than of utterly disremembering myself, erasing my own person from my mind.
For now I know R—’s viral brain hypothesis is true.
Comments