I had a copy of Brahms Clarinet Sonata #2 on the floor next to my bed. I drank way too much that night and, in a very collegiate move, vomited bedside without regaining consciousness. I don’t remember it happening.
When I woke it was to the unmistakable stench and squall of a chunky pool of oral excrement. It had completely buried the protective cardboard cover that miraculously kept even one drop of the bile to get onto the actual printed score.
As I cleaned up the mess I made the discovery, extracting the mighty Brahms Sonata after carefully wiping it clean. I believe I sprayed it with some kind of air freshener or maybe an aerosol deodorant. Whatever I did worked. There was no olfactory evidence whatsoever to suggest this volume had been vomited upon, and I eventually returned the book to the library with no comment.
I probably had the book for a couple of months after the incident, leaving time for any lingering scents of spew to air themselves out, or so I liked to think.
The incident was for the ages among my peers. I don’t remember now if my roommate or anyone else actually witnessed any of this. But no one seemed alarmed or incredulous about my tale. I may have provided evidence of a slight and unnatural curl in the protective cardboard wrapper.
As with my bedside pool of vomit, which was cleared away, the mass of puke next to the homeless person’s bedside was today cleared away, with a slight stain left on the ground. The person is also gone from that spot, having been a regular there for months.
…
I’ve reached a state of peace with the meds I take. 1mg of Lorazapam and 60mg of Nifedipine. Not so much at peace but certain that it has changed the way I work. I don’t feel oppressed by time, as has been my norm since I first became aware of its existence. Far from feeling like there will never be enough time I now pass the hours on this job feeling like hours do not exist.
That can change very quickly. Life can shift from serenity to solitary in an instant. Today I sit on this chair, a relatively free person, free to work, free to walk away and never return, just free to share this air with others around me.
Something could happen, though. I could be hustled away, for good reason or on account of mistaken identity, and stuffed into a 6×9 cell left only to the resources of mind and masturbation to maintain something resembling sanity.
I could travel to a inhospitable nation unaware that Lorazapam and Nifedipine are considered illegal narcotics, punishable by mandatory solitary confinement for the rest of my natural life.
I could be caught masturbating in a church, at a playground, on a bus or subway, resulting in my next status as a convicted sex offender whose penis gets lightly electrocuted and my ejaculata measured by sex offender inspectors for the rest of my life.
Things can change. I’m just happy where I am at this moment, and I hope you are too.
