German staging of Verdi’s A Masked Ball on 9/11 with naked cast in Mickey Mouse masks
Yesterday I rushed from the apartment from a kiss at the door like a teenager caught by parents for the very first time, sneaking out the back as if dashing out a window, Black Crowes slipping out of me as I cheerfully walked barefoot, grinning, she never mentions the word addiction, in certain company.. along the alleyway to meet my friends down the street. Strangers catching my eye and smiling back, lighter. It was a nice day, though it hadn’t started out that way.
I had a fever the night before last. My body, finally exhausted, broke down into a haze of heat and hallucination. I lay drenched in a pool of quiet pain, two cats huddled over me, whiskers in my face, a plastic bottle of juice luckily next to the bed. When I could finally stand, I’d missed a job interview, couldn’t find my voice, and had to lean on the walls to take a shower. The world was pulling at my nerves, searching for signs of anyone home, but I felt invisible, as if all my senses had detached some time in the night. I bumped into edges, forgot where I’d put things down, and generally felt as if I’d suffered brain damage. By the time I was stable enough to leave, it was almost noon. Not only had I missed a job interview, I was late for Lung’s celebratory Canada Council Grant dim-sum. Ten points for surviving alone, minus several hundred for sucking at life.
(Thankfully, sort of, he and Claire had been waiting on my call, and perfectly understood once they saw me. When I look pale, I look pale.)
Everything after that was roses, however, minus a persistent, nagging bit of headache. Dim sum was excellent, the company as fun as the food was delicious, I met up with a nice young man and we seem to be coming to some sort of relationship, dinner was amusing argument that wasn’t really, visiting friends was a treat, and someone ran to meet me, something I haven’t seen in years. For the life of me, I never would have thought it possible while lying in bed the night previous, cursed, huddled with the blankets like new best friends, certain any mirror I found would shatter upon the impact of my reflection, so much was the heat radiating off my face, wondering if there was even one person in my own city I could call if I needed rescue.
Reviewing life and the real world as if it were a massive multiplayer game.