Future Living

"Begin with an encapsulating statement, then proceed to descriptive detail."

"I can't."

"Well, what do you intend to do?"

"I don't know.  I'll just write and see what happens."

"That's not the way to do it." 

"We'll see."

The day went much as predicted.  Early on, I took my mother to the Ear, Nose, and Throat office to have her hearing tested.  That is what my mother said, anyway.  But there is no use in trying to tell people how to live their lives, and I've given up trying.  Who knows how another person should live?  All of life is simply a cosmic folly ending in the grave, regardless of eschewing animal fat and alcohol, drinking only water and eating your vegetables, meditating, doing yoga, and getting in your steps.  At some point, the Great Spiritual Leader will stick his tongue in a young boy's throat to the shock and awe of his minions.  

"It is an ancient greeting," they will say, "and great blessing."

People's minds simply tend to go.  

We got to the ENT on time, then sat in a great lobby as a women in uniforms entered through a door to call out patients' names.  My mother got up for all of them.  

"No. . . they are not calling you."

"What did she say?"

"Albert."

We were the last in the lobby when the woman opened the door and called out my mother's name.  She sat still.  

"That's you," I said. 

She was taken into a room for a hearing test.  I sat in a second lobby.  In a bit, my mother came out and sat with me.  I was looking at a poster that said people with hearing loss are three times as likely to fall.  I pointed this out to my mother.  

"Huh."

We were called into a room.  My mother sat in an exam chair.  I sat in the corner behind her.  

"Hi, I'm Priscilla," said a very pregnant woman.  "I'm the P.A." 

Of course, I thought.  

She went on to ask my mother some questions that my mother couldn't hear.  Priscilla repeated them with more emphasis.  

My mother's response was, "I don't know.  My son thinks I'm losing it."

Priscilla glanced at me then went through the results of my mother's hearing test.  She had moderate hearing loss in the low frequencies, moderate loss in the mid frequencies, and worse loss in the higher frequencies.  

"So. . . is that normal?" my mother queried.  

"You were tested last year and you show a predictable loss of hearing in each of the frequencies."

I could tell my mother was taking this as good news.  "Predictable."  

"I've had pains in my head, here and here," she ran her fingers around the right side of her skull as if playing a piano."

"Is it a sharp pain, a dull pain?"

"What?"

"What kind of pain do you have."

"Sometimes, you know. . . ."

My mother launched into a narrative that didn't really answer the question.  Priscilla glanced my way.  I sat stone faced.  I just shrugged and shook my head.  

"Do you have any ringing in your ears."

"Some, yes."

This does not align with what she tells me, of course which is that some nights she wakes with a terrible roaring sound in her head.  

"Well, your ear canals are nice and healthy and we ran a pressure test and your ears are fine, so the pain is not coming from your ears but from some other source.  Last year you saw Doctor Turner.  He prescribed some medicines for you, a gel to rub on your jaw.  Did you use that?"

"I don't remember." 

She hadn't.  

He also said you should get a mouthpiece for sleeping.  Most pain in the jaws and head come from grinding your teeth.  Did you try that?"

"Honey. . . I have partial plates. . . I don't have any teeth to grind."

"You can still be clenching your jaws in your sleep.  You might try the mouthguard."

My mother was silent.  

"As for the hearing loss, we can schedule an appointment with the audiology department where you can test different hearing aids to see how they work.  You can even try some for a few days at home.  Would you like us to schedule for you now."

Pause: "No."

"O.K. Well when you are ready, just call our office and they will set you up."

We were done.  I walked her to the car and drove her home.  I said nothing about the visit.  Her choice. When we got back to her house, my cousin asked, "How'd it go?"

"Alright," said my mother.  

I just shook my head.  "They said she has hearing loss and could use hearing aids, but she didn't want to try them."

"I thought that is why you were going?"

I just shrugged.  

"They try to trick you," my mother said with vitriol.  "When you walk in, everyone talks in low tones so you think you can't hear.  They just whisper. . . shshr shsh shrm. . . . "

"Yup," I said.  "It's all just a scam.  My mother can hear fine.  I'm going to the gym, home to shower and eat, then I'll be back in a bit to take mom to her therapy appointment.  

And that is what I did.  

When we got to the therapist's, there was not a chair for me in the therapy room, so I turned around to go back to the lobby.  A fellow I know from the gym, a poli sci prof, was sitting with his daughter who had a damaged knee, so I sat down and we began to chat.  In a little while, though, the therapist came out and said to come on back.  That is how she says it--"Come on back."  Not simply, "Come back," which is why I suspected incorrectly that she was from the midwest.  

"Your mother wants you there to tell me about her recent fall."

I've given up loving the therapist.  She talks too much about her husband while flirting with me.  She is not flirting with me, of course.  I'm not a fool. . . for very long. . . just a bit too long.

My mother tried to tell the therapist that something happens sometimes when she is walking.  It is like some force takes over her feet and they keep speeding up until she is going faster and faster until she can't keep up.  She illustrates this by swinging her arms and speeding up her rising voice in dramatic fashion.  

"It's a mysterious force," I say.  "It's called gravity.  The action is called falling."

The therapist chats with me, asks what "we" have been doing.  I tell her about Thursday night.  She wonders what I am going to do this night and the weekend.  I tell her I've had a very long day and I don't want to cook.  The Boulevard will be packed with Country Club College Alums, but I think I will try to sneak a seat at the sushi place.  

"You are such a foodie," she says.  

When therapy is finished I drive my mother home.  I had brought over the bath seat I had ordered from Amazon.  There were about thirty pieces that needed to be put together, and my cousin said she would do it while we were gone.  When we got back, the thing was sitting half done.  The smell of ganja hung in the air.  

"I put it together about halfway and had it backwards.  I had to take it apart and start over again."

"Yea. . . that is how it always goes."

So we sat down with the pieces and instructions and I helped to assemble it.  And when we were done, something was wrong.  The arms and the tubes they fit into did not align.  Shit.  We had to take it all apart again.  My forearms were starting to wear out from all the turning of screws.  When we finished, we only had to the back support to attach.  And. . . you guessed it.  We had to take it all apart and start over.  It was a true comedy of errors.  

"I should know better than to try this with a pothead," I said.  The across the street neighbor was there and getting a big kick out of it.  She must have been smoking pot with my cousin because she couldn't keep her hands off me.  She kept rubbing my shoulders and rubbing my back.  

"I've got a question to ask you.  It is for you.  I'm making fried chicken on Sunday and you all are coming over.  What time do you want to eat."

"Five," I said.  

"You're coming, right?"

"O.K."

"What else do you want?"

"Watermelon?"

This went on far too long.  Finally, however, the chair was finished, so I took it to my mother's bathroom and set it in the shower stall.  When I came out, the neighbor was gone.  

"Jesus. . . she was loopy." 

We chatted for a bit, but it was getting late, so I said, "I need to go try to find dinner."

My cousin had told me she needed to be back home to take her husband to the doctor by April 8th, so this was on my mind.  I had about a week before she left.  I'd put off thinking about it, but now it was sitting on my head like a weight.  

I found parking off the Boulevard and got a seat at the sushi bar.  The crowd from the night before was nowhere around.  Of course, I thought, they are having an event on campus.  The parade wouldn't start until later that night.  

At the bar, I could see myself in reflection.  I didn't like it.  My hair is long now, just beginning to touch my shoulders.  This was not my intention, only the result of not getting an appointment with my beautician.  But tonight was the end of it.  She was seeing me Saturday afternoon.  It wasn't simply the hair, however.  I didn't look right.  Somehow I was losing the fight with time and gravity.  It was inevitable, of course, if not comical, but comedy is not necessarily funny.  I wasn't laughing.  And so I tried not to look as I drank my sake and ate my meal and then decided to order another batch of sake and another meal.  It had been a two sake carafe and two dinner meal day.  Week.  Month.  Months.  

I don't know what I will do in a week when my cousin leaves.  I'm not sure that moving in with my mother is the answer, but I'd better find one quickly.  

Sitting at home with the first worm killer after dinner, I realized what I had seen in the mirror, realized what was wrong.  All joy had left my face, it seems.  I was looking at the face of a corpse, deadpan, void of animation.  There was no joy left in the body, nor, if it exists, in my soul.  There was simply a long, dark tunnel stretching far into the distance, and I had shriveled in the darkness.  "Find the way of the Buddha," I thought.  "You must forget about desire.  Desire is the root of unhappiness.  Accept the void.  Embrace the nothingness.  Listen to your breath and empty your mind.  Rejoice in mere existence.  Everything is transitory.  Let go.  Ommmmm." 

But I haven't told you my suicide story yet, have I?  Oh. . . maybe another time.  I have droned on here too long now.  Who knows what the future holds anyway?  

And yet, we have all lived through the future, haven't we?  It is mostly in the past.