The Accursed

 With the bus schedule, I’m going to be either a few minutes late, or a half hour early. I opt for a few minutes late, which will save me a half hour of precious sick time. 

The bus ride is fine. Check in is fine. I’m only seven minutes late. 

A man with no legs below his knees presses the blue button and speeds into the office in a fancy manual wheelchair. 

“Oh, you are remembering me? That is such sweet of you.” 

Courtney comes out and scolds me for being late. “From now on, don’t bother checking in downstairs.”

“But I thought I had to. You made a big deal when I wasn’t doing it.”

“Well, from now on just come straight up here and check in with Bree.” She wears scrubs covered with autumn leaves arranged thinner at the top and denser at the bottom, as if they’re falling in piles around her waist.

The appointment is fine. Courtney cuts off my cast with a scissors and says the wound doesn’t look too bad. I’m not paying full attention, like I’m only half there. I’m losing interest in this whole endeavor. It is, to be perfectly frank, all quite tedious. But where is the other half of me? Listening and hoping that KC swoops in to rescue me. 

But she doesn’t, there’s just Dr. Taggert, who is upbeat and says the wound doesn’t look too bad. 

“You were all healed up! You should go home more often! Whatever you do back there, you should do more of it!” I tell her it’s the healing power of motherly love. She doesn’t laugh, so I say some other things to try to make her laugh, and then she laughs. I forget what I say a moment after I’ve said it. She gives Gladys some advice about her 401K and slices off a bit of callus and flitters off. Oh I forgot, Gladys is there too. Gladys says things, Karen says things, Courtney says things as she wraps me up in another football. It suddenly occurs to me that they call it a football not because it resembles one but because it makes your foot into a ball. I also remember for no real reason that in the sport of football –association football, that is, or soccer- there is a kick known as a knuckleball, after the baseball pitch, which makes the ball wobble or move in an unpredictable fashion. This kick is also called the dry leaf, the dead leaf, or, in Italy, the accursed. I feel like my whole life is a series of knuckleballs. Or dead leaves. Or… you know. 

It’s none of those things, though. It’s not even cursed. It’s just a life. Even if it doesn’t feel like much of one at the moment. 

Goddammit, KC, I wish you were hanging on my arm blathering on about the Gauls, or Herculaneum, or Gilgamesh. I promise I would hang on every word. Or at least pretend to. 

Courtney shows me pictures of her dog, then says they don’t have an appointment for me next week yet, asks if it’s okay if Bree calls me tomorrow. When I leave I see that I only have six minutes to make my bus. I’m never going to make it. 

But surprise, surprise; I make it.