She

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

chapter twenty-seven

  WITHOUT FEAR

  SHE WAKES UP to a chilly Thanksgiving Monday and snuggles under her blanket and sheet. She’s spent two years at Spenta, attending every weekly session, with only summers and Christmases off, diligently working on her homework, submitting to biannual reassessments, enjoying the fruits of this different life of hers, making new friends online, especially on Flickr. She’d been tentative about joining groups. She hadn’t understood what they were all about at first, but a Flickrite had invited her to join one, and then she’d searched for “Akaesman” and had found a neat bunch of people in the Flickr group “AS-Kicking.” They discuss treatments, support each other through their problems, have weekly photo theme contests, and distract themselves from Akaesman’s shenanigans through sharing their photography with each other. The first thing she looks forward to doing every morning is to check on the latest group discussions and upload a photo to the group pool; just thinking about it raises a smile on her face.

  But today, suddenly, she doesn’t want to get up. The thought of logging in to Flickr weighs her down. And Smokey strangely is not banging at her door. And then she remembers. Her cat was banging around the house all night instead, waking her up hourly, raising her ire. Yelling at her didn’t stop her yowling and bouncing off the walls; chucking pillows down the stairs as her cat careened by didn’t work; holding a pillow over her head to block out the noise only made her feel suffocated. At last she had slept, but the morning sun has other plans. At least the clocks haven’t gone back yet, which means the dawn is late.

  With a sigh, she heaves herself up and pauses to stare at the floor. She flops back and lies there for a while, heat erupting through spots on her skin that turn red and swell up. She usually grabs the tea tree oil cream at that point. Instead she lies there, thinking about the cream, thinking about how she has to keep the heat down to save on energy yet has to turn it up to at least twenty degrees Celsius to stop these eruptions, to stop her body and brain leaking energy. She really should go get that cream, but she’s cold and maybe pulling the covers over is a good thing. She twists herself back around and pulls the covers over, letting the malaise keep her in bed.

  Another hour or two later, she awakens again. She still doesn’t want to get up. Smokey is still quiet. She doesn’t like that and throws her covers off to go find out why. Smokey is curled up in a corner of the couch, very very still. She hesitantly stretches a finger forward and prods Smokey’s side.

  “Yow!” her cat cries.

  Relief floods her, and she leans against the couch watching her sleeping cat. Finally she pushes herself off and into the shower. A shower will wake her up. It doesn’t, and now she’s late taking her medications including the ones the Spenta medical consultant had prescribed to increase her energy and to slow down her rapid heart rate, stabilize her fluctuating blood pressure, even out her breathing, reduce her physical stress, the stress that causes her hands to shake, her internals to shake. She has to take it with breakfast, for it causes her stomach to rebel in outrage when swallowed without food. And if she doesn’t take it with breakfast as part of her routine, she’ll forget it altogether. Spenta has shown her how much better she functions, how much more energy she has when she follows her routine, when she structures her days, all of her days.

  She eats her breakfast.

  She swallows her Spenta-prescribed pills, her Grandmother-prescribed supplements.

  Grandmother has come around to her going to Spenta. She hadn’t wanted to tell her grandmother at first, fearing her judgement, yet her mouth blurted it out the day after her assessment on their regular shopping trip. Grandmother had instantly ridiculed what she’d called her irresponsible use of money. “What,” she’d asked, “is illuminated therapy?” She’d mumbled her reply but hadn’t backed down, much to Grandmother’s disgust. The week her constant irritation left was the week that Grandmother had studied her and said, “It’s done you good.” Grandmother’s severe strictures against church when growing up keeps her mouth shut though about joining a church and, more so, joining a Bible study group. She can’t face Grandmother’s absolute rejection.

  Malaise clings to her all day. As she looks out the window while going through pre-sleep prep, seeing the round moon reflecting the sun’s brilliance, she hopes that Tuesday will be better. It has to be, for it’s Spenta day.

  But it isn’t. She’s begun a new habit of clearing the table and counters, of putting dirty dishes into the dishwasher (or emptying it of clean dishes), and turning it on once it’s full. But she can’t turn it on, for the detergent door won’t close. It springs back up every time she tries to click it into place. She ensures the block of detergent isn’t in the way. Puzzled, she tries again. It doesn’t work.

  “Argghhhh!” she screams, pushing the door up with her foot, hearing it bang against the upper shelf, the glasses clinking against each other. “Damn.” She swivels, stomps two steps across the room, and yanks open the fridge door, glaring at the contents. On her out days, she allows herself to have toast and butter and jam for breakfast instead of oatmeal, that way she can enjoy a large lunch at a restaurant. The thought of this small luxury disperses her frustration. She takes the bread out of the fridge, fishes two slices out of the bag, and plunks them in the toaster. She depresses the toaster tongue. It pops back up. She tries again. It pops back up. She chews her lip; the toaster’s cord catches her eye, and she sees the plug end lying on the counter. She plugs it in. She depresses the tongue. It pops back up. Frowning, she slowly pushes it all the way down until it catches. She releases it; it pops back up. Smug satisfaction escapes from that boxed-in part of her mind that she has, under the guidance of the Spenta trainers, created and pushed Akaesman into. How can he affect her toaster from inside her? They’d said they didn’t fully understand how he works. She tries again; smug satisfaction morphs into pleasure.

  “Damn it!” she yells, even louder than the first time. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why is this happening to me? Isn’t it enough I have to put up with Akaesman in my f-f-fucking head all the time going nah nah nah. On and on and on. Never shutting up! Shut the fuck up already! Fuck Akaesman. Fuck Jim. Why’d he go and leave? This would not be happening if he hadn’t left,” she screeches at the ceiling. “Goddamn it. Stupid fucking friends. Traitors. Rats. All of them. Who the hell do they think they are? So precious, so fuckin’ important they couldn’t waste their precious time on me.” She stomps in time to her words, “Think they’re so fuckin’ normal, so fuckin’ important. They’re not!” She stops, leans back then bends forward, putting all her power into her lungs, screaming louder. “You’re all fucked! You hear me, you assholes? Fuck them! Fuck them! Fuck them! Fuck all of them. Stupid effing toaster.” Her voice drops to speaking-level decibels. “And where is God in all this? Si-si-sitting up high, like some s-s-self-important potentate who doesn’t soil his hands with us-s-s.” She breathes heavily, then suddenly winds up again. “Fuck him!” Her chest heaves in the silence for seconds. “He shouldn’t let this happen. I have enough shit to deal with. Why can’t I just make toast? Why does everything have to be such a big, effing deal? So damn difficult. Everything is just a goddamn effort. Even trying to brush my teeth. I hate brushing my teeth! I want to be normal! What’s wrong with normal? Why is it banned from me? How long is this going to go on? How long must I wait? Fuck you God!” She leans her hands on the counter, puts her head down, and inhales deeply, trying to think what to do, rage filling her mind, blasting any coherent thought out of her head yet energizing her muscles. “And why is it the only time I ever feel normal is when I’m angry? Huh? Are you listening God? Do you give a shit?”

  She stands there breathing noisily and becomes aware in her physical stillness that Akaesman has stretched his inky tentacles out of his box into her. She stands up abruptly, yanks the bread out of the toaster, spreads butter on it, then jam. If she can’t have toast, she’ll eat the crappy bread untoasted, and by this time it’s no longer fridge-cold anyway.
>
  Swallowing the last of her cold bread and jam, she sees the time. Something stirs, something tries to push the stirring away. She takes her new iPod Touch 4S out of her pocket — all her clothing now has pockets so that she can carry her iPod with her wherever she is — and thankfully it finally has, at last, a useful calendar home screen, which is telling her now that she’s late. Her appointment had been changed for this week, a holiday week, to an earlier slot. With her fight over the toaster distracting her, she had forgotten. She rushes up to brush her teeth, to finish dressing for the outdoors, trying to remember if it’s raining today, but then realizing it doesn’t matter as her umbrella is bent out of shape and her rain jacket is so old, it’s no longer waterproof. Jogging back down the stairs, she pauses to peek at the table to see if she had remembered to take her pills. She doesn’t see any waiting for her. Good. As she turns away, she spots Smokey’s empty dishes. Her heart lurches. How could she forget? Stupid, stupid, stupid. What kind of cat companion is she? Jim was right. She can’t take care of a cat!

  She rushes to fill the bowls, trying not to cry, expecting to see Smokey come running. But she doesn’t. Worry drying her eyes, she trots into the living room, sees her cat curled up in the corner of the couch. She holds her breath and waits. Smokey’s side rises. She releases her own breath in relief and hurries to the front door to shrug on her jacket and race out to Spenta. In her dash to the streetcar she doesn’t notice far-off streaks of light breaking through the lowering clouds.

  Orit isn’t phased by her lateness, and her calm demeanour calms her down. The session goes well until Orit switches to coherence training. They’d been doing this for the past several weeks, a boring but effective session designed to stop her brain from acting as one unit and instead to have each area do its thing yet still be able to communicate with other areas of the brain. Apparently having too-high coherence between parts of the brain causes slow processing and excessive energy waste.

  The computer game for this one is simple, have a ball roll to the gorilla’s left arm — her right — and try to keep it on his left arm. It’s been difficult, but last week they’d had a breakthrough. Today though, it’s as if it’s her first time: she can’t get the ball up and over the back of his neck, from his right arm to his left. It remains stuck on his right. She tries all her tricks, looking at a particular place on the villa behind him, looking at his left neck, moving her eyes with the ball, not letting her eyes drift to the “wrong” side of it. But nothing works. The ball remains stubbornly still.

  Orit makes encouraging noises while her heart leadens, her malaise returns, and Akaesman’s satisfaction deepens. She rallies, but the stubborn ball soon quenches her rallying.

  As she removes the electrodes, Orit comforts her, “We all have setbacks, it doesn’t mean it’s permanent. It’s only temporary. Next week will be better. You’ve worked so hard, don’t give up now. And I know that it’s been a hard holiday for you, with being alone on Thanksgiving and unable to join your grandmother in serving the homeless with your fatigue issues and her not getting how hard that is on you or making an effort to sharing dinner with you at your place. But next week will be a new week. Don’t worry.”

  She listens but does not hear. She worries, and Akaesman rather likes that. She’s so thankful that she’s learnt to distinguish herself from him to the point that she can feel his personality and her own as two separate beings. Still, she doesn’t yet know who she is, these last few years having so radically altered her expectations, her skills, her sense of her place in the world, but at least she no longer believes she’s him. These thoughts push him back into his box as she exits the building, and he’s miffed. She walks down the street to the subway and home for a full day of television watching with a somnolent Smokey.

  The next morning, after another interrupted night of Smokey going bonkers, she wants even less to get up.

  Get up.

  You want to sleep, so sleep.

  Get up.

  Why should you?

  Get up.

  Fed up, she throws the covers back and gets up. Warring voices in her head does not a good mood make, especially after the thunderous paws running back and forth, up and down the stairs last night. What has gotten into her cat?

  She chews her breakfast in front of her computer, something she never does. She’s thankful she has more energy, more ability to sit in front of the computer. She can even search for something for up to a half-hour, a half-hour of blissful forgetfulness of her situation. Her new friends on Flickr have been urging her to get a DSLR as her photos have become better and better. They’ve been talking about what lens is best and laughing over the seriousness of Nikon diehards. Never would she have thought of herself as a photographer. Never would she have thought it would lighten her life. She may no longer have friends calling her up, but she has new ones chatting with her online every day, friends who don’t care about who she was or what she was supposed to be. It’s a thrilling feeling, and she needs that right now.

  But she can’t read the comments in their latest chat thread. She reads the first sentence over and over and over, as in days of old. Finally she comprehends it. She spoons up some oatmeal, lifts the spoon up to her mouth, closes her lips over it, and slowly pulls out the spoon as she tries to keep her eyes on the thread so as not to lose focus. It doesn’t work. She chews her oatmeal as she chews the words in her mind. The oatmeal is meaty, the words indigestible.

  She thrusts her chair back to stand up, letting it wheel against the bookshelves, as she stomps downstairs to finish eating. She then goes to the couch for a postprandial nap, with a snoozing Smokey at her feet. Napping is one of Orit’s six definitions of rest. The others are exercise, stretching, meditation, deep breathing, and listening to beta-wave inducing music, none of which she’s in the mood for.

  It doesn’t help. She tries to read the last of Robert Sawyer’s WWW trilogy that she’s in the middle of, but she’s back to reading over and over in endless futility until understanding finally surfaces. On top of all that, little streaks of pain pull her muscles tight, bad enough to make her stop trying. She looks over at her clock and sees she has fifteen minutes for lunch and then she has to leave for Bible study. Maybe she should skip it. Clearly, the melanoid miasma has enveloped her reading areas. There’s reading in the Bible study.

  Go.

  Rest. It’s better to rest.

  Go.

  She goes.

  Her eyes almost shut against the high-pressure sunlight as she steps out. Streaks of pain turn into shards lancing up her neck into her skull, down her arm into her finger joints. She walks to the church and her Bible study group anyway. But that second voice had been right. Bible study is incomprehensible. Maybe if she had known the story about the blind man in Mark 10 before Akaesman showed up, she’d be able to follow, for then she wouldn’t be dependent on her current abysmal reading level. As usual, she didn’t read the passage before the study. She berates herself for her inadequacy, for not reading the passage beforehand. Asha always does, she says mockingly under her breath, suddenly wanting to lash out at this woman who’d brought her here.

  Malevolence slits its eyes, puffs itself up, pushes through the box walls, and rocks her with anger and bitterness and resentment. She fights to push it away, not to let it into her own self, to prevent it from speaking out in tones of fury. Her lips clamp against the urge to bark hostility. The pressure builds; suddenly she gives way as the bleakness of her situation overwhelms her. Her lips part.

  “I want to see.” The powerful voice of the one leading the group today, reading from the Bible, breaks through her self-absorption. Her lips close over her unsaid words. Instead she replays “I want to see” in her head, feeling them resonate with her own desire. The malevolence is back in its box; the fierce feelings are gone.

  She returns home wrung out, those words continuing to resonate in her mind.

  You will.

  It’s another television afternoon and evening.
Another thundering paws night. Another morning of grey outside and grey in her heart.

  Thursdays are her music day. Thursdays are the days she practices what she’s learnt. She had wrapped up the email course on a high. Her instructor had encouraged her to keep writing her songs and to try and get them published. She isn’t ready yet for public consumption and playing continues to be so difficult that she no longer tries. But always, on this day, she writes.

  The blank lined page stares at her, and her blank mind refuses to divulge.

  Just write.

  Her pen remains frozen, poised above the page.

  Just write.

  She cannot.

  Of course, you can’t. It’s too much to expect. Go rest. You deserve it.

  She rests.

  She rests all that day, she doesn’t sleep all that night, she lies on the couch with Smokey all Friday, feeling like a Mack truck has hit her, feeling like a hangover, feeling that it’s useless to try. Depression pins her to the couch. The phone remains silent, the computer remains off, not even mail comes to her door. The air barely moves with no wind outside to penetrate the cracks in the house, yet in those moments when she turns the television off to try and sleep, she can hear the atoms moving, hissing on paths from nowhere to nowhere. She turns on Thousand Foot Krutch to blow those atoms away, playing the raucously melodic Bring Me to Life over and over.

  Friday night she sleeps not at all. She stares at the streetlight-lit ceiling. She hears Smokey thumping up and down the stairs, yowling at ghosts. The air moves across her face like wisps of smoke. Her feet heat up until the skin burns and dries. She doesn’t move. She barely blinks.

  The glow off the ceiling brightens above her open eyes. Smokey pads down the stairs heavily, jumps to the floor with a thump, and then it’s quiet.

  So quiet.

  A car engine roars to life. And after a minute, whines off into the distance.

  So quiet.

  A front door slams; a dog barks once.

  So quiet.

  Her bedroom remains shrouded in shadows that seep into her soul; the dresser sitting there ominous presses her body down; the ends of the white plastic-coated wire shelves at the wall facing the head of her bed are the only distinguishable presence as the morning sun pushes its way through the shutter gaps to light them up. The ceiling above her eyes grows brighter. But the gloom of the rest of the room, the gloom inside her, oppress her. Her mind stirs into thought. There is no future — only never-ending battles between herself and Akaesman.

  Srukar.

  She furrows her brow. Srukar. Yes, she remembers. But what has it done for her? Not much. Oh yes, it gave her spiritual power, it gave her the stillness to hear that good voice, the one that helps her function when her mind refuses to think, to work, to even know enough to go get breakfast. And yes, strange coincidences have happened, like finding Spenta suddenly and getting a person on the phone instead of the usual voice mail and not having to wait months like people normally do for an assessment. Or that vision of a golden future her mentor back in the convent had for her. It seems so long ago that day. She tries to calculate the years in her head. But her brain refuses to compute. Forget it. Why bother? Look at how far you’ve come, she can hear Orit saying to her, something she says fairly regularly during their sessions.

  Don’t give up now after all the hard work you’ve done.

  She supposes she has come far, worked hard, but contemplating how far she has yet to go … it’s too dreary. Why is she thinking of the future though? She knows the future for her doesn’t exist. Ever since that day, she has learnt to live in the moment, to forget thinking forward. What is it that Jesus said? Something about don’t worry about tomorrow, for today has enough troubles of its own? That’s so true. The day hasn’t even begun, and already it oppresses her. She wants to sleep in on Saturdays, but Grandmother’s new homemaker for her comes only on this day now. No other day is possible; she has no choice. She has to accept this necessary imposition, whether or not she wants it, whether or not she had asked for it, whether or not it works for her. She has to accept.

  A spurt of righteous anger erupts. Why? Why does she have to accept? She pushes the mourning back. She has to submit, for this is what was given to her, this is her present, this is necessary for now. But. She. Does. Not. Have. To. Accept. Her core muscles contract, and she sits up fast, the covers falling from her. The gloom recedes into the corners, and she hears Smokey padding up the stairs and then gently pawing the door till it bounces in its frame.

  ~~~*~~~