Madagascar

        The forecast is for another day of steady rain, but all morning the sun keeps breaking through the clouds like a swimmer fighting not to drown. I have my first treatment in a month scheduled for later this afternoon. I can’t get motivated to do anything in the meantime. I keep shuffling from the desk back to the bed, unable to focus on anything. I keep going back and forth between reading online about the pro-Palestinian protests and the Trump hush money trial, and reading a book about the build-up to World War II. It’s no wonder I’m feeling down. The book is mostly about the pacifist movement and the hypocrisy (not to mention anti-Semitism) of Churchill and Roosevelt. It’s depressing but interesting. I learn that for years the Germans planned to send all the Jews to Madagascar. At least they would have had lemurs there. 

        Also weighing on me are all the anniversaries this year. My last girlfriend dumped me five years ago. A few months later, Jasmine died. I’ve been living in the Imperial Arms for ten years, and been in Portland for twenty. And exactly thirty years ago, I dropped out of college after trying to kill myself. I know it’s not good to dwell on the past but with my days being so empty, history eagerly rushes in to fill the void. 

        At 1:30 N. picks me up and drops me off at the front entrance. There is a new policy that I have to check in downstairs before heading up. An attractive woman around my age is working the desk. I heroically fight the urge to stare at her cleavage. She looks at my chart and frowns and says, “Have you been here before?”

        As I tromp through the corridors, people keep stopping in front of me, or else they walk right at me, eyes transfixed on their devices. A guy cuts me off as we’re getting in the elevator; we ride up to the fourth floor in awkward silence. I am the only person wearing a mask. 

        In the hyperbaric room, both J. and S. greet me with cheers. They are busy putting people in the chambers. One of them I recognize from before, an ancient man who worked for years as a lobbyist. I’ve tried to get him to talk about it but he’s pretty out of it. 

        I slip immediately into the old routine. Change into scrubs, hop up on the slab. Socks, blankets, blood pressure, glucose, grounding bracelet. J. recites the familiar litany of questions –“Piercings, products, lotions, potions? Any new tattoos?” -and slides me into the tube. The roar of oxygen starts up and the movie comes on. It’s Laura, which I apparently left behind when I went home over a month ago, expecting to come back the next day. Gene Tierney looks like a china doll. Dana Andrews looks like he’s chiseled from granite. The film was released in 1944. The war had been going on for years. It was obvious by then that the Jews of Europe would not be going to Madagascar.