places for numbness (my nose!) that I feared my brain sensors had become hopelessly scrambled, and it was really my leg that had fallen asleep and not the bridge of my nose.
I reacted as I have in the past to these sorts of events: with an attempt to resume normal activities. I went to get myself a glass of water. (I do not know why a glass of water is always offered as a cure for strong sensations, but so it is.) However, on the way to the kitchen, I noticed a rug out of alignment. Tugging it straight required moving the chair that stood upon it. As I did so, I noticed a tear in the cushion fabric that had been mended with strong tape, and I left the cushion upended while I searched for the special tape the landlord had provided. I went opening drawers to find the tape and came upon a file for which I had been searching over days and weeks. I opened the file and tried to read a paragraph but noticed that the paper, too, had become bowed in shape, which caused me to remember the water. But on the way to the kitchen once more, I felt the need to straighten a window shade. But what about the crooked calendar that hung on the wall?
I stopped. I looked about. The rug, the chair, the drawers, the calendar, the window shade—the litter of my obsessions.
I sat down and held my head in my hands, hating the very fact of my existence. For I was caught, once again, in the spider’s web of compulsion. And I did not know if, on this occasion, she would eat me (so to speak); that is, did not know when this particular episode would end, if the night in its entirety would be spent picking lint from a suit jacket, or perhaps I would be doing so into the morning light, perhaps into the days ahead. And even as I pondered these questions, I felt my eyes wander to the trash that had to be put out that night, a task interrupted by the thought that the landlord had not paid the scavenger bill as he had promised, a thought that in turn was interrupted by the idea, once again, that I ought to have a glass of water. It was as if I were trying to write a sentence and had become distracted by the thought of the em dash, and why not an en dash; and why must the question mark contain a period, implying finality, when all one wishes is a momentary pause for doubt or wonderment (the question mark should be placed here, but I do not want it!); that is, if one tried to write and became seized by what creates, shapes, and ends sentences—thereby making it impossible to write; or, applying the metaphor, to live.
In this state did I pass the night—all the long hours until the patient’s next session.
Wednesday morning dawned. The attack was yet in full form. My arrival at the N Judah stop was something of a victory in itself, the entire house ransacked in search of a missing quarter for the fare.
As I rode downtown, a terrible question came to me: What was about to transpire in the room toward which the streetcar was ineluctably carrying me? What would happen in the therapeutic hour that was rapidly approaching? Does it matter? Patient and therapist would inevitably return to the question. And everything hinged upon the skill of the therapist. If she did not guide the patient well! If she could not help her cross the river of blood ties! If she could not lead her to a self-created existence! Oh, God, if I should lose my icon, my champion, what would I do? Shout? Tear open the door? Threaten the therapist? Harm her?—
A screech. The streetcar stopped at Market and New Montgomery. The doors opened; I stepped down. I approached the building, and the gargoyles seemed to mock me: You wish to avoid something? they seemed to say. Why, then, come up here and hold the roof! Similarly did the cherubs roll their eyes in hilarity at the sight of me: What a loser! they chuckled. You’ll never make it!
Not even the white purity of the marble could wash away the dark influence of my affliction. It seemed the crows had gained entry, had gotten past the podium without its guard. I had become one of them, I