When I awoke the morning after the surgery, it was too late to pretend that it had been a dream - though it had seemed like a dream due to the complete absence of fear. Occupying the lower third of my field of vision was the splint, a piece of grey plastic fastened to my nose to keep it in place while the broken bones inside healed.
I laid in bed for what seemed a long time; the dark walls in the apartment turned into shadows light and dark. For a moment, I thought the sadness had come to sit at the foot of the bed. But I turned and saw it was only the lone tree in the corner; I had watered it but it still needed more attention.
The man in the bathroom mirror, that one there with the black and white beard, tried to speak but I would not let him. Quietly - for what was there to say and to whom? - I dressed and stepped out into the grey morning.
Avoiding the crowded escalator that descended into the station, I opted for the elevator. A woman with a baby entered the elevator before the doors managed to shut. The baby made gurgling noises and the woman cooed in a foreign language but I could not see them as I had placed them behind me. The splint was affecting my eyes, pulling them down, narrowing their field of vision. To compensate, my hearing sharpened; life became all sound.
In the train car, the furtive glances rustled, the hushed sounds of eyeballs moving in their sockets and eyelashes fluttering. Newspapers creaked but necks craned heads above the papers to see this Creature that stood there under the electric light that was totally emotionally detached. The doors chimed, flung open, shoes thundered, coats flapped, and suddenly I was surrounded by backs and shoulders in a smothering crowd - cut off from all view. I breathed in the blind silence.
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