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Mark left first and despite all of this he wished me good luck. He said he came back for some files he had forgotten. I thought the sound of the door would have woken me out of my stupor, but I was as stunned as I was ten minutes before and was counting on the movement of the city to shake me out of it.
I was walking fast, towards the hospital, my head down, resigned I suppose, vacuous, ashamed, expressionless, looking blankly at the cracks I sometimes wished would snatch me. But on that day I hated them, I was winning them over with big, bold steps. There was no way I would become a swallowee. Avoiding them gave me a sense of purpose because otherwise I just felt lost and empty. And irritable, and angry. On three occasions I stopped to inflict some gratuitous pain onto those cracks in the pavement, with my heels. I would push down on some crumbs of asphalt with the malicious intention of making the openings bigger, regretting that the street had no nerve and that it didn’t care for its wounds. I failed lamentably in my attempt to make the city suffer, share some of my pain. That was not how I had envisioned this particular morning would unfold.
I couldn’t quite believe that in less than an hour I would be facing my doctor. I started to think about it, and the more I imagined it the more unwell I felt. I was getting hot even though the wind was cold and strong. I think that his warmth was invading my body, already. I wanted to run there, get it over with and come back home, to change my clothes and cook something, for Mark. At the same time I couldn’t wait to be there, admit everything and run away with him, or run away alone, that seemed more probable. I was very aware that nothing would happen, or that everything would happen but that it would all happen to me only. I had wanted him so much and I wanted him then, there was no way around it, each time he had entered my thoughts he had become desirable. And he was in my thoughts very often. I could see the entrance of the hospital, took the elevator and stopped in the lobby of the 10th floor for a while, walked around to calm myself down, picking up leaflets, and the secretary saw me and told me that I was right on time, that I would be seen straight away, it would be a matter of minutes, he had been looking forward to seeing me again, she added. Nine words.
Except where stated, all material copyright © Emmanuelle Dauplay.