Bald-headed
Ch. 38

I sat by the window in the lounge chair and thought about today. Happy and sad, beautiful and heartbreaking. My conflicting emotions kept me quiet for hours.

I'm not reading to anyone tonight. I can't, because poetic introspection will make me cry.

Later, the hallways became silent except for the footsteps of the night guards. At eleven o'clock I heard familiar voices that for some reason I expected. The footsteps I know very well.

Dr. Frandi peeked inside.

"I've noticed your lights on. Do you mind if I come in?"

"No," I said, shaking my head.

He walked in and looked around the room before sitting a few meters away from me.

"I heard," he said, "your day is a pleasure with Mr. Sugi." She smiles.

He is interested in us and the relationship we have. I don't know if his interests are entirely professional.

"I think so."

He tilted his head at my answer and looked at me. "Are you okay, Mom? You look a little moody."

"I'm doing fine. Just a little tired."

"How is Mr Sugi today?"

"He's fine. We talked for almost four hours."

"Four hours? Mom, that's amazing."

I can only nod. He continued, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like it, or even heard of it. I think that's what love means. You two were made for each other. He must love you so much. You know that, don't you?"

"I know" I said, but I couldn't say anything more.

"What's really bothering you, ma'am?

Did Mr Sugi say or do something that hurt your feelings?"

"No. Actually he's amazing. It's just that right now I feel alone."

"alone?"

"Yes." Yeah."

"Nobody's alone."

"Nobody's alone."

"I'm alone" I said as I looked at my watch and thought of his family sleeping in a quiet house, where he should be— "and you too."

Although the end always comes too soon, nothing is lost that day, only earned, and I am glad to have received this blessing once again.

The next week, my life was back to normal. Or at least my life. Read to Sugi, read to others, wander the hall. Lying awake at night and sitting near my heater in the morning. I found a strange comfort in the predictability of my life.

On a cool, foggy morning eight days after she and I had spent our day together, I woke up early, as was my custom, and paced around the table, take turns looking at photos and reading letters he wrote years before this.

At least I tried. I was unable to concentrate properly due to the headache, so I put the letters aside and sat down in a chair by the window to see the sunrise.

Sugi will wake up in a few hours, I know, and I want to be refreshed, because reading all day will only make my head hurt more.

I closed my eyes for a few minutes while my head was throbbing and subsiding alternately. Then, opening my eyes, I saw my old friend, a creek, flowing near my window.

Unlike Sugi, I have been given a room where I can see the river, and it never fails to inspire me. This is a contradiction - this tributary - is a hundred thousand years old but is renewed at every precipitation.

I spoke to him that morning, whispering so that he could hear, "You are blessed, my friend, and I am blessed, and together we meet in the days to come." The ripples and waves swirled and whirled as agreed, the pale light of the morning rays reflecting the world we shared together. The river and me. Flowing, away, far away. It's life, I think, to watch the water. A human being can learn many things.

It happened while I was sitting on the chair, just as the sun was first peering over the horizon. My hands, I noticed, began to tingle, something unprecedented. I started to raise my hand, but I was forced to stop when my head throbbed again, this time hard, almost like my head was hit with a hammer.

I closed my eyes, then squeezed my eyelids tightly. My tang stopped tingling and began to numb, quickly, as if my nerves were suddenly severed somewhere in my forearm.

My wrist was locked as the piercing pain shook my head and seemed to flow into my neck and into every cell of my body, like a tidal wave, crushing and wasting everything it went through.

I lost my sight, and I heard what sounded like a train roaring a few inches from my head, and I knew that I was having a stroke.

The pain ran through my body like a bolt of lightning, and in the last moments of my consciousness, I imagined Sugi, lying on his bed, waiting for a story I would never read, lost and confused, unable to hold back at all.

Same as me.

And when my eyes closed for the last time, I thought, Oh my God, what have I done?

I was unconscious for days, and at the moment when I woke up, I found myself hooked up to a machine, the hose went into my nose and throat as well as two bags of fluid hanging near the bed. I could hear the vague hum of the machine, buzzing constantly, sometimes making sounds I couldn't recognize.

One machine, beeping with my heartbeat, strangely calmed, and I found myself lulled to never land again and again.

The doctors were worried.I could see the worry on their faces through narrowed eyes as they scanned the charts and adjusted the machine. They whispered their thoughts, thinking I couldn't hear.

"Strokes can be serious" they say, "especially for people his age, and the consequences can be severe."

The grim face will precede their prediction— "lost speech ability, loss of movement, paralysis." Another chart notation, another beep from the machine was strange, and they left, without ever knowing that I heard every word.

I tried not to think about these things afterwards, but instead concentrated on Sugi, bringing his picture into my mind whenever I could.

I did my best to let me bring my life into his life, to make us one more.

I tried to feel her touch, hear her voice, look at her face, and when I did, tears filled my eyes because I didn't know if I would be able to hug her again, whisper to her, spend the day with her talking, read, and walk.

It's not what I imagined, or expected, it's going to end. I always assumed I would go last. It shouldn't be like this.