6th Excerpt From Mind Emerging

            I telephone my case manager in the morning. She oversees my psychiatric care. After my coffee, I call to tell her I have dirty dogs and a dead boyfriend in my condo. She is quiet on the other end.

            In the pause, my goldfish swims three circles around his tank. I watch him. I count. I feed him a pinch of food.

            My case manager sneezes. I ask her if she is catching a cold. I hear her smile as she says no, relieved that I have changed subjects. She must think my mind has invented false things, a momentary glitch that my medication has not coated in pink. Pepto Bismol for the brain. The Pepto Bismol doesn’t work if I don’t take it as prescribed. I have a history of playing around with my medications. I don’t like to take them; they remind me that I am sick. And I am not convinced that they don’t affect my creative life. The doctor works with me to make certain this doesn’t happen. I still am not convinced.

            I tell her again that there are dirty dogs and a dead boyfriend in my condo.

            “Now,” she says, “What can you do for the dogs?”

            “Wash them, I suppose,” I say reluctantly, not wanting to do it because the dogs squirm and get me and the floor all wet. They hate being bathed almost as much as they hate peeing in the rain.

            “Do you have shampoo?” she asks.

            “Apple scented,” I respond.

            “Okay then,” she says.

            I think, what is okay?

            There are daisies littered across the wood floor in the family room where sits a blue floral couch muddy from their paws. The dogs have dragged them in from the front yard, clumps of dirt attached to their fragile roots.

            The dirt is not the only thing that needs tending too. The dishes are rusted with mash potatoes in the sink. The dusty drapes kiss the length of the window ledge. It is dark in the condo but still, I can make out the silhouette of an armed chair in the corner. I think to sit rather than walk to the bathroom and turn on the tub’s facet, a move toward washing the dirt off the dogs. The bathroom towels are damp with blood and I wonder if my case manager would find this bit of information helpful in assessing my mind.

            I have not worn shoes for four days. I have not been outside. Dust pills in little balls on the doormat. I have not eaten since potatoes on Tuesday of last week. My boyfriend died Monday when he packed all his underwear into his suitcase along with the rest of his travel clothes and left. He didn’t bother to shut the front door on the way out, hoping I would follow him. I didn’t follow him. I could not bring myself to plead with him to stay one more time, waiting for blue shadows to wrap themselves in my mind leaving me bright. Yet still, I keep his towels damp, pretending he has just dried himself from the shower and is in the bathroom shaving.

            I don’t know how to tell my case manager I missed his love, so instead I tell her Guy is dead.

            I still fixed my coffee this morning. I told her and she thinks I am fine because I have begun to prepare for the day. She doesn’t understand that preparation is no longer enough. It is no longer okay to drink a cup of coffee and go back to bed. I open a new bar of soap and don’t use it. I set the laundry detergent on top of the washer and leave it.

            I hang on the phone wishing I could ask her to come feed me strawberries and black beans, hoping she might have my life ready. Hoping her effort will keep me out of bed. A ready life means I’m not being consumed by mental illness. I am able to be out in the world head up, feet moving, having conversations with people. I threw pennies in the wishing pond at the park that is slowly being drained of water and I don’t know how to tell her I’m out of luck. Luck leaves me like a breeze that now stands still and doesn’t catch in the leaves of trees.

            I end the call and check the towels. I was mistaken; there was no blood. The little dogs have followed me into the bathroom. Maybe they will sit for a bath, after all. I turn the water on. They run away. I wish in that moment that they were cats and could lick themselves clean.

            I leave the bathroom for the kitchen where I will make avocado toast.

            The toast smells heavenly. The avocado is perfectly ripe.

            Today will be the day I change, I tell myself. I will not imagine what is not real. I will clean the toilet and the dishes in the sink. I will be brave and walk outside, shoes on. Am I fooling myself? Can change really happen this easily? I know the answer is no but I still keep close to the thought of it. Someday, I will think myself out. I will travel to the Grand Canyon and walk the rim without falling in. I will not want to fall in. Life will come to me in bursts. I will laugh in bursts. And I will cry when appropriate. Life without Guy is doable. He has been gone a week.