eat outside, so I walk back to the apartment with it and eat it in my kitchenette.
I could call Marjory. I could take her to dinner tonight, or tomorrow night, or Saturday night, if she would come. I know her work number and her home number. One is almost a prime, and one is a nested multiple of pleasing symmetry. I hang the spin spirals in my apartment where they twirl in the air leaking past the old windows. The flash of colored light across the walls is restful and helps me think.
If I call her and she goes with me to dinner, why would that be? Maybe she likes me, and maybe she is worried about me, and maybe she feels sorry for me. I do not know for sure it would be because she likes me. For it to be the same in opposite directions, she would have to like me as I like her. Anything else would not make a good pattern.
What would we talk about? She does not know any more about brain functionality than I do now. It is not her field. We both fence, but I do not think we could talk about fencing the whole time. I do not think she is interested in space; like Mr. Aldrin she seems to think it is a waste of money.
If I come back—if the treatment works and I am like other men in the brain as well as in the body—will I like her the way I do now?
Is she another case of the pool with the angel—do I love her because I think she is the only one I can love?
I get up and put on Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D . The music builds a complex landscape, mountains and valleys and great gulfs of cool, windy air. Will I still like Bach when I come back, if I come back?
For a moment, fear seizes my whole being and I am falling through blackness, faster than any light could ever be, but the music rises under me, lifts me up like an ocean wave, and I am no longer afraid.
FRIDAY MORNING. I WOULD GO TO WORK, BUT THERE IS NOTHING in my office to do, and there is nothing in my apartment to do, either. The confirmation from the bank manager was in my stack this morning. I could do my laundry now, but I do my laundry on Friday nights. It occurs to me that if I do my laundry tonight as usual and then sleep on the sheets tonight and Saturday night and Sunday night, I will have dirty sheets on the bed and dirty towels in the bathroom when I check into the clinic. I do not know what to do about that. I do not want to leave dirty things behind me, but otherwise I will have to get up early Monday morning and do a wash then.
I think about contacting the others, but I decide not to. I do not want to talk to them, really. I am not used to having a day like this, apart from planned vacation, and I do not know what to do with it. I could go see a movie or read books, but my stomach is too tight for that. I could go to the Center, but I do not want to do that, either.
I wash the breakfast dishes and stack them. The apartment is too quiet, too big and empty suddenly. I do not know where I will go, but I have to go somewhere. I put my wallet and keys in my pocket and leave. It is only five minutes later than I usually leave.
Danny is going downstairs, too. He says, “Hi, Lou, howyadoin’,” in a rush. I think that means he is in a hurry and does not want to talk. I say “hi” and nothing more.
Outside, it is cloudy and cold but not raining right now. It is not as windy as yesterday. I walk over to my car and get in. I do not turn the engine on yet, because I do not know where I will go. It is a waste to run the engine unnecessarily. I take the road map book out of the glove compartment and open it. I could go to the state park upriver and look at the waterfalls. Most people hike there in summer, but I think the park is open in the daytime in winter, too.