She could not shoo away the pesty fly that was as pesty as Mormon flies (those sententious dragon fly missionaries who had knocked on her door earlier that week—Nauvoo, Illinois, Mormon flies so succulent and "so fuckable," whom she had reluctantly rejected from her door). The migraine was intense and she could only lay there in her tomb. Her sterile thoughts were filth. Her harmonic bliss in aloneness was, in illness, devestating and lonely as one suffering in solitary confinement. Within her sickness earlier suppositions about the world discomfited her. They mutated into something less than worms and hid themselves in her gray matter.
Powerless—she who years earlier had been an avid racketball player, criminology and psychology scholar, and a forger of a new destiny, an individual who had made a success by embellishing her inner self in marketable products on canvas—here she was lying on a sofa unable to even successfully shoo away a fly. The weak thing she had become, she tried to suck it into her mouth. She tried to use the human mouth as a vaccum cleaner as this fly incessantly tried to land on the contours of her face. She put a hand over her face and turned on her side. "Come away with me!" she imagined MF as saying. "Come away with me, the two of us out of this pase place!" And again, as throughout her illness, the thought of him was as a light beyond the tunnel. She did not know the reason for it. She had only spoken to him once beyond the service she had initially given to the widower in her previous profession. They hadn't spoken at the funeral. Even though she could have met him again through parent teacher conferences she had delegated these sessions to Hispanic Betty.
The previous night had been an extroverted evening: a reception at a temporary art exhibition where many of her works were on display and then a speech she gave to art students, faculty, and others interested in her art at a university in Albany. She told them that successful art could be a natural propensity or from just learning to paint when not having a natural propensity for it at all (usually something in between) + dispensing with any conventions that stifled an unbiased and uninhibited desire to play in ideas and see the wonder of everything anew. She supported her premise with quotations from Emerson, Thoreau, and myriad artists. It was a typical speech presented and specifically catered to those who yearned to hear motifs stressing independence even if it bordered on the absurd. To her the self should be married and revered but seeking uniqueness in a forest like a post Taoist or post Transcendentalist was to seek it from an external force. Still such was her audience and she would prostitute herself to them a little bit.
As she was listening to Ravel's "Pavane pour une Infante Defunte" she heard the doorbell. She knew that she could not get up without the most trying effort so, staring at the fire alarm some seconds, she finally raised herself briefly. She pushed the "test" button and continued to press it for a long moment of a sonorous outcry. Was her door unlocked? She hoped it was and wasn't. She heard a door open and footsteps. She returned to the sofa. She wondered if it might be a bill collector, a life insurance salesman, or a well endowed and handsome rapist. A whole host of other possibilities entered her head. She told herself that whoever it was, thief or saint, if this person weren't scared away by the fire alarm, she would demand that he or she go buy her some asprin. Surely it wasn't Lily. She hadn't spoken to her for so long and she would never be able to figure out how to get to this city let alone her home. Was that it? Had she used Rita/Lily to fulfill her limited social requirements and then dumped her, figuratively, on the side of the freeway linking to Albany? Had she forgotten about her when there were other people in her life? Were all humans this way? Was there no such thing as caring? She heard further steps pursue the top story…or was she imagining them? She wanted to push the fire alarm again—it didn't make sense but in her pained mind the sound of the fire alarm would make robbers leave and Zulu witch doctors with instantaneous and magical remedies appear. She did not, however, have the energy and that fly kept buzzing around her ears. She kept swatting it but missing it each time. The footsteps were those of a man's. She heard boot soles clunking hurriedly up the stairs under her miniature chandalier. Were they Michael's footsteps? No, surely not and yet she hoped they were all the same. There before her, in leather boots,was Hispanic Betty.
"Fuego! Levantese, senora. Hay un fuego en su casa, dama."
"Oh, it is you, Hispanic Betty. There isn't a fire, you silly deranged fool."
"No, hay un fuego.I heard the fire bell."
"Oh, all right. Just trying to get your attention." She had to muster up all her strength to make her ideas cohesive and sensible. She smiled with the full manipulation of her white fangs. "Please go after some asprin. I swear I can't take much more of this without some relief. El dolor esta desmasiado. Por favor compreme unos asprina a la 7-11 convenience tienda." She closed her eyes. Words were arduous feats.
"Esta usted enferma otra vez?"
"Yeah, sick again. I thought you were on vacation. No desea ir el vacaciones?"