Thursday, March 20  

Sick

Vic wakes up sick.

sick: adjective 1. Suffering from or affected with an illness. 2. Susceptible to or marked by preoccupation with unwholesome matters. 3. Out of patience with.

As described by the dictionary, there are 3 kinds of sick.

First, the kind other people feel sympathy for. Headaches, cancer, flu. Vic lies awake until 3 am under the tricking light of the street lamp outside her new bedroom window. She stares at her hands in the dark. Considers what she has left behind. And what she has left it for. Namely, to lie in bed alone and stare at her own hands.

In the morning, she feels ill. Too many cigarettes and not enough food the day before leave her body wretched and marked with the striations of a restless night. She telephones her workplace, a banking software unit, and tells them she won't be coming in. She's sick. If not by the first definition, then...

Second, the kind people look down on as perversion. Vic’s got that kind of sick too. Vic thinks strange things during sexual moments that would, if they ever saw the light of verbalization, peg her as sick in the second sense. Thinking this, however, fills her with sudden, morning-time dread that she may never get to actively practice this second kind of sickness again. While she brews a large cup of tea, she acknowledges that she feels potentially cut off from any possible sexual source, and, she further acknowledges, she doesn't like that idea. Vic is very sexually motivated, often making important life decisions based on this one aspect. It freaks her out that the last time she orgasmed in the presence of another human being was definitely, at this point, over 60 days ago.

She is also preoccupied with love, which in itself is an unwholesome perversion. At least, that’s how it feels on the fourth day after she fucked off and left Rob, who was no good in bed anyway (clearly since he'd failed to help her to orgasm in the last 54 days of their relationship), to pursue this lying in bed, staring at one's hands kind of life she seemed to be setting up with.

Finally, the third definition. Sick of the kind people expect you take charge of yourself. As in, sick of it. As in, had enough. As in, time to make a change.

She’s definitely done that. Vic feels this morning like she is standing on the harrowing edge of some peak she has lifted herself to. She hasn’t decided yet what to do now that she’s here. Sit in lotus position and "leonard cohen" what’s left of her 20’s away? Or leap down the perilous edge. Or walk, humbled, back the way she came.