Not waving but drowning
On Saturday we rearranged my apartment. Heavy furniture and appliances hauled, shoved, shaken out, beaten. I had a dining room nook by the window, a footstool by my bed. But I woke up with blood spattered in my sheets and little bites on my legs, and everything turned upside down. It seems silly to panic over bedbugs. They're gross, but they're tiny and, after all, just bugs. But when they're in your home, they could be anywhere. Your favorite books, records, photographs, sheets, chairs, rugs, blankets, could all be hiding eggs. Exhausted from no sleep, I frantically took all my cloth belongings and stuffed them in bags and brought them to the laundromat. I threw out almost everything that had been on my floors: Boxes for moving, clothes for selling, my knitting kit. Rugs swept off the floor and bundled in garbage bags. The cats hurriedly nudged into carriers and brought away. This morning the exterminator came. He mopped his forehead with his shirt and shrugged when I asked him if it would work. Clouds of chemicals fogged the rooms when I left, and I remembered too late to put my aloe plant on the fire escape. I don't want to go home, no, I don't want to face anything. Why when things fall apart do I orphan myself? The discomfort in my home is obvious, but why do I extend that sense of alienation to my friends? I feel hated and forgotten, and while I "know" it's absurd, it persists. Stifle the rolling of your eyes and facetious comments; I'm tired.