A Narrative as Pointless as the Day it Depicts.

I am sitting in the waiting room of a new doctor; Dr. Jones. It is very blue here; blue paintings on blue walls, blue cushions on the chairs, cheap, blue-flecked carpet. Even the young man next to me is wearing a blue t-shirt. He is fat and his hair is oily. He looks at me too long; I want to change seats. I chew my lip distractedly, pausing when the metallic taste of blood washes over my tongue. For maybe ten minutes I try to make myself stop, but before I realize it I am biting again, about to make the other side bleed, too.

I don’t want to see another doctor, to explain and answer questions all over again. It is a tedious process to begin with, and I don’t have the patience for it today. I am preoccupied.

“Elsie?” The nurse mispronounces my name, like they all do. I barely notice; just stand and follow her. Following nurses is second nature to me now. Anyone wearing scrubs could questioningly call out any name beginning with “El”, and I would probably follow them right into a big white van before I realized what’s happening.

The doctor meets us in his office. My headache sprouts fifteen minutes into the appointment. I need to pee. The leather sofa is sticky, and I want to go home.
I tune in and out of the conversation about my many medications, happening mostly between my mother and Dr. Jones, but I am less absent-minded than the doctor himself.

“Have you read that book?” His question penetrates my anxious thoughts.

“Oh, um, what was the title again?” I pretend I had at least been paying some kind of attention.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You’re interested in criminal psychology?” Apparently this had been discussed. I nod. “You might like that book, then. It’s all the rage now.”

“Oh, I haven’t heard of it.” I say. “I’ll look it up.”

“It’s Swedish.”

“Ah.”

Silence.

“But I don’t remember the author’s name.” Dr. Jones considers this with a deep frown.

“Oh. Well. I bet I can find it if I Google the title.” I assure him, because he seems concerned that this lack of information may devastate me.

“I’ll write it down.” My mother says, and does so.

More silence.

“Yes, you should look it up.” The doctor nods, as if deciding for sure that this would be a good and proper course of action.

“I will.” I lie.

Silence again, brief but long enough to make me feel awkward. Which, I suppose, isn’t that hard to do.

“Hmm, it seems like we were talking about something important before...” Dr. Jones says mildly, his eyes floating somewhere between the wall and the ceiling.

I pull my mouth into a half-smile, but I can feel my forehead frowning. Mom and I exchange a puzzled glance. Is he kidding? We had been discussing the adverse effects of the stimulant medication he was considering prescribing me. To me, this seems an important enough topic to remember, especially considering that he is a doctor and I am a chronically ill patient, and we are sitting in his office. He is holding a clipboard with a paper full of notes he had been taking throughout the appointment. Surely he is joking?

“Ah!” He gestures sharply with his hands, like a conductor. “Right! Which prescription. Well, really there are several options...” Oh, yes; I think to myself. This is a doctors’ appointment, not a Book of the Month club meeting.

I leave the office with a refill script, some samples, and a follow-up appointment. No revelations, no progress; just like it’s been for years. I feel blank; a heavy, sort of gray indifference that leaves my mind clear. Not ‘clear’ as in ‘clean’, or as if it has been de-cluttered. More like a wide space from which everything has been emptied out, leaving me only with a vague sense of awareness that anything was ever there at all; like the faint cutouts left behind by boxes on a dusty floor. I think one of them contained hope once, but I don't remember what it looked like.

I’ve been told I should write a memoir about living with lupus, but I’ve never really considered it. Leave the memoirs to the people whose stories have some resolution; who have overcome, who have learned peace and acceptance or experienced miracles.
Mine would just be several chapters like this, pointless narratives about equally pointless days. A mass of anticlimactic words strung together in story form; a cluster of random details that, ultimately, mean nothing.

Sometimes even I don't care anymore.