Mrs. Dalloway's Coffee Break

Monday evening, as I was riding on a bus, returning home from work, I received a brief text message from my bank, asking me to please check my credit card status and balance right away, since they suspected unusual behavior and were under the impression that someone other than me was using the card. I hurried home, not wanting to check the balance on the bus, and opened my bank account on my smart phone. Indeed, someone had made purchases on my expense, and the balance was negative, by a lot. Panicking, I forwent my usual after work routines, such as snacking and taking a shower, and dialed the customer service number attached to the text from the bank. Of course, the time being what it was, no one was there to pick up my call although they claimed it was a 24/7 service, and after fifteen minutes of panic growing inside, listening to horrible renditions of Eighties soft rock, and, it being me, starting to fume at the ears because no one was fucking picking up from the number ...

I had to wait for the doctor to give me an ultrasound afterwards. The wait felt like a long time, and while lying there in the dimly lit room, I alternated feeling worried and bored and on the verge of a panic attack and peckish and sleepy, and after crying a little, for having to wait so long, for being there alone, for fearing the results that, while horizontal on the examination table, felt, for the first time, both looming right in front of me, and inevitable, and apocalyptic, I started wondering if I could shield the fluorescent light from my field of vision with one or both of my Caterpillar boots, and I was just giving it a try, with both my feet up, in a fine right angle, with one eye closed and bare-breasted, when he finally arrived. It all started about six or seven months ago, when I started experiencing a strange pressure, almost like a hurt, on my left side, around the breast area. The pain would be intermittent, like it still is, and would only last for a few seco...

Do you ever have those days when you just want to tell Henry David Thoreau to shove it? I had one of those days yesterday. I had a long over-do appointment with my doctor, concerning the fact that I went cold turkey on the sleeping pills in April, right after my disastrous horror show with the Fiend from Hell, masquerading as a dentist, checking my teeth and telling me she was afraid the new was not good. (More on this, check The Mellow Instrument .) I had put off the appointment as long as I could, ignoring both my man’s and my friends’, not to mention my parents’, advice about it, letting their “But jesus, shouldn’t you hear what the doctor has to say before just terminating the treatment on your own?” go in one ear out the other, secretly fearing a similar scolding once I finally got inside the nice doctor’s office with the ficus and the stethoscope and the tongue depressors just waiting to get to action. So, yesterday was the big day, over two months after the fact, an...

”Okay, I’m gonna go in with the ultrasound now. It sounds a little bit violent to the ear, and maybe a little annoying inside your mouth, but really it is just real mellow. Just tell me if it hurts. But it shouldn’t hurt. Wait a moment, I’m entangled. Damn these cords back here! Okay, there. Okay, you’re doing fine, a little more, a little more - why won’t you come off! A little bit more – Hey! Hallelujah, we’ve got actual gaps between teeth here! Okay, let’s take a break. You okay?” “Fine. Actually, I was thinking that any man who uses the word ‘mellow’ about a dentist’s tool, cannot be evil to the core.” “Well said!” (Laughter.) Yep, I finally had the dreaded dental hygienist’s appointment to have my teeth cleaned. I couldn’t eat a damn thing before going in, all I could do was think again and again about how the X-ray had shown multiple fragmenting in the enamel, also known as early signs of cavities, times I don’t even know how many. That had been April. This was June....

Like, when you were so used to yourself puffy, and hadn’t noticed when the puffiness began, and within days you can see the bags under your eyes disappear. Like, when after not taking the first one, you stay awake the whole night, saying to yourself that this is what you expected. Like, when you lose ten pounds not doing anything, but remember how the doctor had warned that you might gain some weight. Like, after not sleeping at all for four consecutive nights, you become fed up with it, drink a bottle of wine and sleep the dreamless sleep of a drunk person, only to realize in the morning, the withdrawal is causing some serious side-effects. Like, after a day of trying to stay very still in bed, swearing that it didn’t add up to your feeling this sick, and you are not getting your period, and there is no other explanation, but the cold turkey. Like, when there is no such thing as peace at home anymore. Like, when you swore to never eat another pill again, becau...

One It is a little before noon, and Alexandra has wandered inside a mall. The doctor she just saw was a man. A man, and so mean to her, she is having trouble collecting herself now. She sits on one of the benches where the mall teens usually hang out, and stares in front of her, vacantly. When she calls her husband to tell him what happened at the doctor’s, she has a hard time creating the words, they just won’t come, and instead, she starts sobbing, feeling her face distort into a horrible grimace. Just walk out of the goddamn mall, Alexandra, her husband says, but she can’t answer, or stand up, or say anything to him. She just sits there, crying. Just get out of there, I’ll come get you from out front, ok? No, not okay, but she is mute, she is unable to speak. People are staring. She is humiliated, but there is no way she can stand. Alexandra? Alexandra? Jesus, okay I’ll come get you. Don’t move, just wait for me to come get you, ok? Can you do that for me, darling? Will you wai...