The Day It Came

In her usual fashion, my mother insisted on leaving an hour before the appointment was scheduled. “The traffic will be insane”. I got to the concrete Stalinist “1st May Square” (interesting that it hasn’t been renamed yet) 45 minutes early. I decided to get something to eat, in the place I would always go to after getting the painful allergy vaccines years ago.

I was sitting outside, eating potato cakes with mushroom sauce. It was a third extremely hot day in a row. Suddenly strong wind took off. Clouds of dust, from sunburnt soil, dug up for numerous roadworks taking place, went up. Twigs and seeds from the trees above started to fall into my food. I slowly walked inside. It became dark. Grey clouds have covered the entire sky. The meal was finished and it was time to make the move towards the surgery.

The air was filled with dust. I couldn’t see where I was going, my eyes were stinging. I could barely breathe, I was covering my face with the palm of my hand and striding forward. It started to rain. I managed to reach the surgery door without getting run over. I briskly walked up to the third floor and headed immediately to the bathroom. The dust was sticking to my sweaty skin, it was everywhere. In my nose, on my eyelids, down my back. I washed my face off and with eyes still stinging, headed towards the office. It all felt very peculiar. My mind couldn’t keep up with processing what was going on around me. I sat down.

The storm broke out. The corridor was being flooded with water and a psychologist was looking for a bucket to place under the open loft window. No – it simply wasn’t watertight she said. She was there. “Hi, I’m almost finished, just give me a second.”

Same office, yet everything seemed to look very different. I was sitting there feeling completely removed from everything (I’ve been feeling a lot like that – am I going insane? I have to come back to this thought…). Not really talking about my issues, more like skimming through things. Not really getting deep into anything, not really saying what I think and feel. Worried that there won’t be enough time to cover everything.

We will be able to see each other every weak during the holidays. A very good consultant clinical psychologist who has been in psychoanalytical training for four and half years, for approximately £8.40 an hour. This wouldn’t happen in London. We know each other already – no need for traumatic and lengthy tales of one’s life from birth.

When I left, everything was calm. The clouds of dust straight from “Grapes of Wrath”, the surreal special effects to the painfully bad movie of my life were nowhere to be seen. I took a long walk to my old flat. In the park, the ground was littered with broken branches and fallen trees.

I rang my friend’s intercom. I asked if he’s home and stood there waiting for the answer, which never came. I met my brother’s lodger on the way up. Two windows got broken, no flooding though. It was only then that I realised the seriousness of what took place. My mother called. After dropping me off, she was supposed to go to her twice weekly aerobics/workout classes. When she noticed what was going on, she headed straight back home instead. I insisted to keep all the windows open.

When she was driving, a huge tree went down right in front of her car, the branches slid down the side doors. She narrowly escaped being crashed to death. All around here, trees were falling down like matches.

The next day, the sun has eased off. The weather is quite pleasant now.