Eigenzeit

What will it be like when the world is accessible?

Friday

Accompanied Lucian downtown amidst a humid drizzle to file some paperwork. The government building was a luscious pink, as if titanic wedding cakes had once been manufactured there. A family of pigeons left their mark on the facade. The ramp’s incline was steep for the wheelchair, but Lucian said he didn’t mind and the machine’s adjustable ballast came in handy. Afterward, high tea on some municipal boulevard. Lucian’s endless queries about allergens didn’t bother our server. Her eyes could have set ragweed aflame. Those eyes, a basilisk, I thought. Her name tag: ASTRID. 

Post tea, I tried to ferry my way back to work, but Lucian had stolen my keys and my phone and wouldn’t permit me to hustle away the week’s waning hours. Later, he threw my bullet journal into the bath. “To-do, to-do, to-do,” he groaned. It evolved into a melody: doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. Took a passenger boat around the island, without work to occupy me, and bore witness to the sun eking out a few rays before nightfall. Later, inebriated.

Saturday

With Lucian and Fanny in the rurals. The city at times feels too planned, like it is the closure of a mathematical proof more than the flex of a high modernist aesthetics. Yet one comes to the country and, in the course of experiencing its fissures, ends up appreciating the urban plan. Fanny said she was tired of my waxing on about these matters. “Your arrogance is a hardness” was her take. She wanted a ham sandwich with a thinly sliced pickle. Lucian grew tired. The cracks in the pavement rattled his chair and, in turn, his hips and the dreaded vagus. Visiting Fanny’s elder father is a monthly requirement, though, and we wore sleek jade to make an occasion of it. It won’t be long before the laws are enforced in these parts, the pavement smoothed over, the steps converted into ramps. Progress, a trundling wagon. It cannot arrive at every locale simultaneously. It takes as long as it takes.

Fanny’s father took us to a riverbank, brought a picnic. Ham yes, pickle no. Lucian fell asleep. My autism was soothed by the motion of the water, the eddies by the shore. I took an hour to myself and felt no shame. Reread “Nasturtium Alley.” Middling work. My arrogance leaves me too brittle to sleep.

Sunday

An old movie is showing at the Rockridge, our Art Deco escape. We decide last minute to go. Due to unforeseen renovations, there’s a step that Lucian’s wheelchair can’t handle. When I tell the ticket seller, she assembles a militia to help. I carry Lucian like a newlywed to the staff office, which has a sofa for reclining. Meanwhile the staff and a few volunteers hoist the chair over the step. The thing weighs five hundred pounds, and someone pulls a muscle. No analgesics on hand. Just gin. A volunteer runs to the pharmacy, while I negotiate the chair into the theater and get Lucian settled. Since it’s Sunday, most pharmacies are closed, and by the time the staff member is back, the movie start time has been pushed back an hour. I offer to mollify the restless crowd, but the usher says it’s not my responsibility, he is happy to do it, and if I hadn’t noticed, the crowd isn’t restless.

A large group in the front is lying down due to orthostatic intolerance. The theater has special cushions for this purpose. “Your arrogance is a hardness.” Fanny’s words sting me like a wasp hiding in my shoe.