I FALL

I stand up from the couch. I am knee deep in piles of papers and boxes and my new paper shredder.
I stand up from the couch with a shoe box marked "machine directions" a shoe box I keep full of warrantees and directions for all of the things I have bought through the years. I've weeded through the box eliminating literature for the things I no longer own. I stand up with the box marked "machine directions" to carry it to my front-hall closet and I as I approach my small front hallway near the front-hall closet, I fall.

I fall backward without a fight (since there are no muscles in my legs to stop me) (I feel like they're there but they're not there) and I fall backward with quiet abandon, the way one might release and let go into a swimming pool or a pile of stacked mattresses. I fall, and as I fall I try to hold my head up (leaning it forward) but at impact my head bounces on the hard parquet floor with one simple thud.

It takes a while for me to understand what has happened. I lie there.

And then, I call (outloud) for help (to who?) because I'm in shock (more than anything else) -
like I've been mugged in my small front hallway.

I get myself up (in the way that I do now - it's complicated) and lie on my bed in the dark and call my sister.

Am I dizzy, am I nauseous? she asks.

No, I'm fine. I just don't want to do the wrong thing here, I'm not sure what to do.

Well, you shouldn't go to sleep. You need to stay up.

For how long?

Well, you're supposed to stay up for like ... 24 hours but how do you feel?

I'm a little in shock. I'm tired. I biked to the park today, I did some swimming and some cleaning... I'm tired of this stuff I have to do, but I guess ... this is my destiny.
Wait, I think my chicken is done.

I sit up to check on the oven -

wait, wait now I feel dizzy and nauseous.

OH CHARLIE! Do you want to call an ambulance?!

No, I don't think I want call an ambulance (imagining the exhaustion of going to the hospital- the paperwork- the bills!  I'm still in my bathing suit from swimming). I think I'll be fine.

We decide that she'll check in with me later in the evening and all fears recede as this new uninvited fear takes center stage.

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