Every Day

I know what I have to do, even though I don’t really know what’s going on. Even though I have not been in this situation before, I have been in situations before where it’s been me against the body. I have been ill, seriously ill, and the only thing to do is to power through the day. At first I thought there was something I could do within a single day that could make everything better. But very soon I learned my own limitations. Bodies cannot be changed in a day, especially not when the real mind isn’t in charge.

I don’t want to leave the room. If I leave the room, anything and anyone can happen. Desperately, I look around for something to help me through. There is a decrepit bookshelf, and on it is a selection of old paperbacks. These will save me, I decide. I open up an old thriller and focus on the first line. Darkness had descended on Manassas, Virginia.…

The body does not want to read. The body is alive with electric barbed wire. The body is telling me there is only one way to fix this, only one way to end the pain, only one way to feel better. The body will kill me if I don’t listen to it. The body is screaming. The body demands its own form of logic.

I read the next sentence.

I lock the door.

I read the third sentence.

The body fights back. My hand shakes. My vision blurs.

I am not sure I have the strength to resist this.

I have to convince myself that Rhiannon is on the other side. I have to convince myself that this isn’t a pointless life, even though the body is telling me it is.

The body has obliterated its memories in order to hone its argument. There isn’t much for me to access. I must rely on my own memories, the ones that are separate from this.

I must remain separate from this.

I read the next sentence, then the next sentence. I don’t even care about the story. I am moving from word to word, fighting the body from word to word.

It’s not working. The body makes me feel like it wants to defecate and vomit. First in the usual way. Then I feel I want to defecate through my mouth and vomit through the other end. Everything is being mangled. I want to claw at the walls. I want to scream. I want to punch myself repeatedly.

I have to imagine my mind as something physical, something that can control the body. I have to picture my mind holding the body down.

I read another sentence.

Then another.

There is pounding on the door. I scream that I’m reading.

They leave me alone.

I don’t have what they want in this room.

They have what I want outside this room.

I must not leave this room.

I must not let the body out of this room.

I imagine her walking the hallways. I imagine her sitting next to me. I imagine her eyes meeting mine.

Then I imagine her getting in his car, and I stop.

The body is infecting me. I am getting angry. Angry that I am here. Angry that this is my life. Angry that so many things are impossible.

Angry at myself.

Don’t you want it to stop? the body asks.

I must push myself as far away from the body as I can.

Even as I’m in it.

I have to go to the bathroom. I really have to go to the bathroom.

Finally, I pee in a soda bottle. It splashes all over.

But it’s better than leaving this room.

If I leave the room, I will not be able to stop the body from getting what it wants.

I am ninety pages into the book. I can’t remember any of it.

Word by word.

The fight is exhausting the body.

I am winning.

It is a mistake to think of the body as a vessel. It is as active as any mind, as any soul. And the more you give yourself to it, the harder your life will be. I have been in the bodies of starvers and purgers, gluttons and addicts. They all think their actions make their lives more desirable. But the body always defeats them in the end.

I just need to make sure the defeat doesn’t take while I’m inside.

I make it to sundown. Two hundred sixty-five pages gone. I am shivering under the filthy blanket. I don’t know if it’s the temperature in the room or if it’s me.

Almost there, I tell myself.

There is only one way out of this, the body tells me.

At this point, I don’t know if it means drugs or death.

The body might not even care, at this point.

Finally, the body wants to sleep.

I let it.

Day 5999

My mind is thoroughly wrung out, but I can tell Nathan Daldry has gotten a good night’s sleep.

Nathan is a good guy. Everything in his room is in order. Even though it’s only Saturday morning, he’s already done his homework for the weekend. He’s set his alarm for eight o’clock, not wanting the day to go to waste. He was probably in bed by ten.

I go on his computer and check my email, making sure to write myself some notes about the last few days, so I can remember them. Then I log in to Justin’s email and find out there’s a party tonight at Steve Mason’s house. Steve’s address is only a Google search away. When I map out the distance between Nathan’s house and Steve’s, I find it’s only a ninety-minute drive.