Vertigo

It persists all day.
The ceiling feels like it’s right before my eyes, yet it remains untouchable.

My eyes and my body move in opposite directions.
My body sinks into the sofa, while my thoughts, like popcorn, keep surging upward.

I begin to collapse in a clockwise direction of π (3.14).

I can’t tell if it’s the effect of the painkillers or an overdose of thinking.
Words begin to submerge the memory of my brain—overloaded.

38.5°C.
The fever won’t break.
How many days has it been?

Can this persistent heat burn away every memory before today?
Scrap them, then discard them, letting them leave my body for good.

None of this is real.
My feelings aren’t real, but the fever is.

That experience… it shouldn’t have existed.
The coffee cup from a second ago is already empty.

I am still in this apartment, doubting memories that never were.
Why does this illusion exist?

No winner, no loser.
Like a lemon effervescent tablet dropped in water—
a brief soda effect, appearing only to vanish in an instant.

—

The phone makes a sound.
A friend proposes a project, but it feels surreal.

The same process, two completely different stories.

“Alix, I’m sorry. I don’t want to hear about this.
It’s not about you—I just don’t want to hear these things being said.”

I know. It’s fine.
I know my other friend would say things even harsher.
I know it all too well.

—

The ticking of the clock replaces the silence of the apartment after you hung up.
I watch the time countdown, a sudden impact crashing straight into my chest.

Vertigo attacks.

I stare at the digital clock, entering a state of hypnosis.
What should I be hypnotizing myself into?

You mocked my tuna salad dinner.
“Alix, you are such a Frenchman!”

I remember you saying that.
But aren’t you the same? American!

—

Nausea.
From the vertigo, a wave of sickness rises.

Emotions begin to ambush me—
the feelings I’ve been tossing aside.

They were sitting right there, on my locker.
But they’ve been waiting to strike.

For what?

I know there is a place
where a new seat has appeared
and a voice has vanished.

Time resets.

But life is like this;
it’s not just the documents and to-do lists on the desk that need handling.

My organs and senses are also “project milestones.”

In the constant reshuffling of every letter I know,
even sugar can become a lethal weapon.

—

The untasted dinner drives me to the bathroom.

The ghost-like fever forces me to check in with painkillers every six hours.
A delirious clarity continues to erode my sanity.

—

The paths in the fields are carved into two distinct tracks by the harvester.

My gaze follows those tracks.
Have I been here before?
What did I do here?

It all seems like a hallucination.

My dog disappears into the waist-high grass.

Suddenly, I can’t hear anything.

The scene of the day I brought him home flashes back.

“No, no, no, not today.
I’m not ready to lose him.
Not today. Don’t play this joke on me.”

Moving through a labyrinth of uncertainty,
like the anxiety of being lost in a jungle,
I call out the name I spent so much heart choosing for you.

No sign of you.

I know it’s not today.

Then I see you, looking so happy.

My world goes quiet.

—

The vortex appears.

A crowd of people is pulling me upward,
because once I get close to that vortex, I’ll be hypnotized.

Language blurs.
Thoughts fracture.

The novel Apartment 16 foretold this for me long ago—
the time, the place, the characters.

Precisely.
Terrifyingly haunting.

—

“Hey Alix, are you still there?”

Didn’t we already hang up? I think to myself.

“Get some rest.
Let me know after you check in with Mindy.
I’m heading out.”

Separation anxiety.

Why is the doorbell ringing so suddenly?

—

Six hours have passed.

The painkillers are about to erode my sanity
once again.