Lactose intolerant

The day started with cleaning Potter’s puke. Given, he had been snacking on grass during his walks yesterday, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nevertheless, I was worried, till I took him on his morning walk again and his poop came out all healthy looking. Cool. I could still be a dog sitter.

Back ‘home of the dog’, I had more things to worry about. I hadn’t been able to get any of my work done given the emotional wreck I had been this weekend. All that quiet and lone company, albeit the doggo, after weeks of non-stop hanging out with friends brought back the dread I had been fighting off. It still feels like everything I  am doing, I am doing just to distract myself from.. I don’t know.. clawing my insides out, for example.

Staring at nothing, unfortunately, doesn’t stop time. It is time to meet a friend again, this time to watch an orchestra playing. But first, I need to change into a formalish looking attire and have to run to another friend’s place where all my clothes and my stuff are.  This is my 18th day of ‘couch surfing’ with friends. I  pack up, say bye and thank you to the doggo, look up a lyft ride, call the friend to see if you really had to dress formal as the back and forth seemed too much, but apparently I have accidentally booked the ride and my driver is outside already. So I hop in, get to my other friend’s place, only to find the extra keys are not in place so I am like,okay, maybe this is a sign that I should just go to the center I work at as it is closer to here anyways, get some personal work done, till the highschoolers arrived for the first Nepali youth meet up I had arranged for at the center for later that day.

I go to the center, don’t get much work done as apparently I am not done staring into the space and fucking crying. But 40 minutes before the scheduled meeting, I go into the bathroom and my reflection talks me out of this mess to prepare for the meet up. I have the welcome message on the board, the tables are moved, introductory games ready, schedule ready, the questions ready, wrap up activity ready, the pizzas are here.

No one shows up.

I wait 15 long mins, start calling people up, some of them have valid reasons, some don’t pick up, some say they can’t make it with the same conviction they had said they would. I spend two hours there nonetheless, doing some more staring, dragging myself around to put things back in place. I erase the board, eat two slices of the damn pizza, wonder what to do with the rest of the two 16″ pizzas, call friends to ask if they want it because it won’t fit in the center’s tiny fridge  but they are either out or going out in a while so I decide to just take it to my friend’s home, my home for 3 more days. As I look for a big plastic bag that can fit the pizza boxes I am trying to think how I will carry that, along with my heavy backpack with my laptop and files with student poems and other papers, and also my other tote bag that I had been carrying around which had my more than a week’s worth of freshly laundered  underwears, socks, an extra dress, house sandals and some food. I find a big enough plastic bag but then I can’t find my tote bag. I recall I  had put it down by the door side of the house next to the center as I was trying to open the shutter gates, almost four hours ago. I step out. It’s gone. I look around to see if it has been trashed somewhere nearby on the road. It’s nowhere. Who would take a bag full of my underwears and socks? Would they use it?

It is about to rain. That’s the last thing I need today. To get drenched. I rush to the train station without my totebag and without an umbrella as it starts to drizzle, carrying the pizzas, sure that there would be someone on the train asking for food. There is no one on the BSL asking for food. One ragged old man with jeans torn so bad you could see his soiled looking black boxers coming out of the torn parts, but he wasn’t asking for food, just tapping the air to the music insidr his head. He got off the the 15th as well. We stepped out from different doors so he was around 15 steps ahead of me and I could see him, or sadly probably his stench, parting people walking in his direction like the Moses guy or someone had supposedly parted the sea.

I transfer to the L and watch the train approaching with its scrutinising bright yellow lights for eyes and a thought passes by. It lingers a little longer than the times before this. The tracks. The train. The jump. The speed. Seconds. Milliseconds perhaps. No. That’s not me. Not the past me. I don’t know about the future me. Stop. What is happening to me?

The at-that-moment me, waits for the train to stop and gets in.

Lost to the void again till a guy catches my attention. He is asking for food or money or anything anyone can spare him today. That’s my guy. I raise my hands to get his attention. Take out one of the pizza boxes and hand it over to him. He holds it and says something. I try to focus and realize he is saying, ‘I can’t take this pizza. I am lactose intolerant!’

What?

I hear my cheerful almost automated voice reply, ‘Oh okay, I am sorry!’

What?

I can’t. I just can’t. I am that useless today that even a homeless hungry guy doesn’t want what I have to offer. I rest my forehead against the side of the cumbersome box, hiding my face and trying to fight off the laughter brewing up inside me. Some humour this is. It spills into a stupid grin as my stop arrives. I step out to ‘thank god no rain or gloomy grey’ but a glowing pinkish cloudy evening.

Lactose intolerant!

I let loose my laughter and for the first time today, step fully outside of the void and breathe.