“Huh?”
“Ma’am, do you want red, green or gold foil wrapping paper?”
I looked at the Christmas wrap and was struck dumb, unable to choose.
“Ma’am?”
My eyes stung and watered. “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know anything?” I pleaded.
I nodded gratefully and wiped at my eyes with my scarf.
Esther sleepwalks through her last days in New York City yearning to soak up the city’s magnificence but unable to. It was “difficult for me to decide to do anything in those last days” she reports ominously.
I walked to a diner, every step thundering in my head. I quickly shot up in the bathroom. My thighs were covered with bruises ranging from bright purple to dull yellow from the injections. I was like a junkie except I never got high. The best I could hope for was that my head would pound a little less. I looked around but could not find an electrical outlet.
Ravenous, I ate a whole order of pancakes and drank three cups of coffee, stopping only when I became nauseous. I pulled out my migraine journal while I ate. It had become increasingly illegible. Some entries I couldn’t even decipher. I scratched in the latest entry: # 8 December 15, 2 p.m. severe left sided migraine with light aura, and hunger, Imitrex injection. I had had this migraine for 5 days in a row. Each morning I woke up and spent the day on tiptoe hoping the pain wouldn’t return but eventually it hit me. It was as if I was destined to suffer as punishment for some unknown cosmic transgression.
Back home, I dropped my coat on the floor, threw my packages in the closet and resolved to finish my paper. It was due in two days and if it wasn’t completed, not only would I miss the publication deadline, I would not graduate as planned. I sat at my desk tormented by the same indecision that had overwhelmed me in the record store. I only had to write the concluding paragraphs but instead I kept revising the entire paper over and over, agonizing over every word.