"He himself could not think of a life away from his house and garden, which perhaps he continued to see in his own way, perhaps even saw as whole and perfect, the way we fail to see the tarnishing that has gradually come to flats or houses where we have lived a long time."
-V.S. Naipaul
The Enigma of Arrival

Monday
I find it funny that this might be the last book I read. I read the words, so youthful and unaware of the weakness of old age. It is not that our perception changes, I can still see the cracks in my life: bitterness, regret, lost faith. Mr. Naipaul, it is that I no longer have the strength or will to mend them.

It has been so long that I have taken the same medicine. The effects are dormant. Dr. Weiss told me to keep taking them, as if hope was the secret ingredient that I've been missing. As if hope will mix with the chemicals to create some potent elixir of health.

If not for my daughter I might have given up already. I asked her to go away today because I had no more strength left to argue. She has a life that needs to be lived. She came late last night, brought me some soup from the Chinese restaurant we used to go to so much. Mother and daughter, together on 805 north Paulina. That was a simple place, functional. Little porcelain cat shaped money banks, their paws waving to the people on the street. I remember we were there when I told her that I was leaving her father. I can hear the kitchen so clearly, the clanging pots, the clumps of food hitting oil, and the soft drone of the ventilator fan. I remember finishing a bite of egg drop soup when I turned to her to tell her the news.

"Do yer know if we hat ta pay the parking meters after five?" yelled a southern man who had just burst in the door. That ruined the moment. She found out later that night when Harry told her, and I will never forgive him for that.

But she came today to visit me. I told her that she should drive back home and that I didn't want to argue. I told her that there was no point to stay with me, that I was feeling fine. I reminded her that she too had a life to live. If she did not go back she should not feel like she was failing me as a daughter, she would only be failing the chance to have other opportunities for herself. I should not like to see that.

We began to argue at that point. We argued about what is important in a persons' life. How can you convince someone that already has their mind made up? Were we wasting time? I think so. I told her that I would be fine until Friday if she felt the need to come again. Then I told her that I was tired and too weak to argue. She left shortly after that.

Now if only I can make it till Friday.

"And yet it was astonishing to me to come upon it one day, a working hotel in a busy street ... The hotel had lived in my imagination rather than memory like something from earliest childhood ... Like dreams rather than memories, and yet suited to the occasion, for me: for on that day space and time had become one. Both space and time separated me from my past at the end of that day."
-V.S. Naipaul
The Enigma of Arrival

Tuesday
This must be another test, testing my will and strength. I have tried to be strong for much too long, but I do it alone, and in my solitude my strength can only go so far. I was proud of many things in life, including my strength, but I also carry a deep sense of regret.

I regret that day I ran from Chester. When I try to pin a date on that day I feel like it must have been over 60 years ago, before I entered Samuelson Junior High School. There was that creek by my house, remember? It wound its way by the Dietz's house, the Bancrofs, and scattered further for unknown miles and miles. The homes stood high on opposing cliffs, their roofs toying with the blue sky. When I waded through that creek, skipping from stony patch to stony patch, I felt as if the creek was cowering from the homes around it. It was as if the creek had something to be ashamed of.

Chester sat on an offshoot of clay and rock. He was picking at berries in his hand and was flicking them into the creek. I remember his torso looking crooked, like the bend of his back had switched places with the gut in his stomach. His clothes were faded and torn, but patched numerous times. His face was a spattering of color, reds, yellows, and deep blue shadows, but Chester's face also displayed aged lines that gave him an authority that betrayed the color. In all his appearance was not unlike a clown but more like a taunting mentor.

I remember freezing when I saw him; again. He couldn't have been any closer than a dozen yards, but he seemed infinitely closer. I stood there, trying to be strong. It was then that Chester let out an exaggerated grin. Sharp, chiseled teeth protruded out at endless angels. His gums and teeth stained red from where he had seemingly cut himself with those perpendicular stairways of teeth. His back, still bent forwards, snapped up to attention, sounding the cracking of bone that would guarantee paralyzation in anyone else.

I reacted. I don't know why but I reached into the water for a stone and threw it at him, hard. I remember seeing it ricochet off his shoulder, and I remember his body slapping back against the creek bed wall. I remember turning to run. Not worrying to step on the sure footing of the dry rock, I slid over the grimy moldy sections, falling once and cutting my knee deeply. But I got up and kept running. It was in that dash that I remember the feeling of weight passing through me. Weight not alluding to a vision or a specter, but rather a shivering feeling of weight beyond my understanding. It was not painful. It felt very much like watching a snake attack its prey, something so smooth and orchestrated that it eludes our understanding.

I turned around to look and see where it had come from, but there was nothing but running water and an empty creek. I looked down further, to where Chester was sitting and saw nothing. Had I been running so long that he had moved? No, the water was deep in the opposite direction and the cliffs high; his body was too twisted for that. I could still see his ledge and the berries around it. My legs took over at that point and kept me moving. Kept me running until I was out of that creek, through the neighborhood, and grabbing for my front door.

That day I lost all my strength. Later in life, it probably motivated me to regain that strength, but at what cost? With regret as my only motivator? Regret leading to bitterness at my own fallibility? Tomorrow I must consider the alternatives.

"Every fortnight now the hanged man's family came to have this communion with him - which no doubt explained their composure: they were believers. There was a simple message for each child - help Mummy, be good at school; and each child waited for his or her message; and became grave when the message came. What memories they would retain of these visits!"
- V.S. Naipaul
The Enigma of Arrival

Wednesday
Memories, at least they had that much to take away. There is the decency of receiving in that scene, decency my messages were not given. The birds that perched on my oak tree have gone quiet, or I would have claimed them as the only decent creature I know.

In my solitude there is one question that lingers, that binds me to this bedridden existence. In the morning, which pills do I take? There is the orange thin bottle with the white cap and the white fat bottle with the orange cap. When I wake up in the morning my body instinctively lifts a quivering skeletal hand towards the orange bottle. My head is violently lifted away by a persistent force that removes me of any clarity. So I rely on feel, the feel of the orange thin bottle. My fingers clasp the bottle tightly, the jagged grooves of the plastic providing comfort like an old cherished childhood toy. I take the pill and wait, wait for a restoration that lately never comes. That's when I look at the white fat bottle, so squat, plump, and cheery. Why would it not share some of that cheer with me?

I'm going to do it. I need cheer in my life. I need something to battle the idleness. Idleness will kill me well before my lungs collapse.

Collapse - That word brings such theatrics to my mind. A building collapsing, slowly at first, then accelerating into billowing dust. A man collapsing, bursting with joy upon arriving from a distant journey and into the embraced of loved ones. An empire collapsing, infected and diseased from the inside yet finally submitting to the health and prosperity of the outside. Are these grand visions a precursor to the collapse that my lungs will undertake on the quiet stage of my dying body? I think I'd rather not be in the audience for that.

I ask for this simple message to be received. Let this new set of pills lead me to a more simple solution.

Diary of a Friday

"Those rolls of hay now as black and as earthlike as the older bales that, at the other end of the droveway, had indeed, below their tattered plastic sheeting, turned to earth. Grass to hay to earth."
-V.S. Naipaul
The Enigma of Arrival

Thursday
I read those words today. Grass to hay to earth, like it really happens so simply. That's the version we tell children. Simple steps that can be taught through colorful happy images.

Goodbye Harry, you idiot. Today, I am excited. Excited for a second chance. I just started my first set, and I can already feel the difference. Today I started the Set of Pills. They have been calling me, willing me against those who think they know better. As if they were entitled to an opinion on the pain my body feels. Today I stand feeling renewed. There is energy in me that I haven’t felt in 14 months.

Hay to earth to full grown green grass.