I Forgot about the Pandemic

A visit to a London doctor

That was just it for me. This was as far as my life would go. If I had been privileged to see the book of fate at twenty, it might have scared me. But I didn’t. I was not surprised by the news. You only get so much in life before payback time. And I had it all.

The doctor sat in his chair, leaning forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on his knuckles. He could have been a lawyer with bad news. A bank manager about to tell me he’s going to call in my overdraft.

“It’s not the best of news.” Was all he said.

He said some other stuff, but I never caught it. I knew I had to walk out of his office on my own two feet. Not show my legs trembling. When I got outside, the sun was shining. Above the London streets, pigeons wheeled around in a winter sky. I watched until the noise of a passing London bus brought me out of my daze. On the side of the bus, the advertising banner read: Laugh and the world laughs with you.

There are a lot of people going to laugh at this joke. I rested on the bench. The hustle and bustle of Euston all about me. Children were running after pigeons, those fed on crumbs a few feet away. Sitting there, I realized how fraught life was. Traffic, bumper to bumper, diggers digging up the road, car horns, sounding out impatience, men yelling across the street. Everywhere there was noise and bustle and confusion. It had to be confusion, people talking on cell phones, hailing cabs, stamping their feet when none pulled over. I noticed all this because it was happening in slow motion, as if I were no longer part of the rush. I’d stepped outside the confusion and watched everything clearly. Nothing missed my attention. Not the old woman sorting through the rubbish at the entrance to Euston station; not the woman smoking her cigarette as though it might be her last, and who, in this world, would bet against it?

Kids on a small patch of grass, playing with a white paper bag. Lifted and swirled around in the twist of London air. How they danced and laughed to catch it, their hands high, hoping it might come down to them but instead floated elsewhere. A mother was reading a magazine, rocking the pushchair that held another child, too young to join in the fun.

I knew I had to get back up onto my legs. Make them walk me into the station. The car would have to stay where it was. I knew driving the car was impossible. I felt sorry for Mr. Fasquelle, the doctor one who put me through the tests. It wasn’t my luck to have a curable cancer. I get away with every trick in the book. That’s the joke. He told me I’d know about the treatment in a couple of days.

Still, the dull echo of information continues to run around in my head. Remember how it is when you’ve had your head under water, and later you can’t hear everything clearly; how it sounds so echo-like? His voice in my head sounded like that.

In the train station, I had to speak into a grid in the window. “You’ll need a mask if you’re going to board a train, mister.” That’s right. We are in the middle of a pandemic.

“Yes, yes, I have one here, thank you.” I pulled it out of my pocket.

I felt the bump of the train leaving the platform. Why I should have wondered about Heaven right then is quite beyond me. Was this the train that would take me to the pearly gates? There weren’t many people on it, must have been a good week for living. I felt a sudden shiver. Is this the train to hell?

I take it all back, all I’ve done wrong. All the bad practical jokes. The inability to be a good father. The ridiculous husband, a worse lover. I take it all back. I will be a much better person right now. This very second I’m a better man.

Stop the train!