Asunder

THE ALLERGIES

FOR YEARS I WENT TO BED EVERY NIGHT. This is when I was like everyone else in the world. I had a job, I knew people. I ate meals, bought gadgets, kept up with current events. I owned a sedan. Now my life is dry toast for breakfast and the allergies. That’s the entirety of it, all I can muster. Some think I have a disorder, a syndrome, something along those lines, but I know it’s allergies. I’ve been tested. The doctor confirmed it. What happened was I went to the doctor and said help. The doctor examined me. Then the doctor took me into his office and explained what was wrong. I couldn’t understand him, what he was saying. But it doesn’t matter, in the end, it doesn’t. I keep the windows shut but the allergies get inside anyway. They get in between the cracks in the walls or up from the basement or down from the chimney. The doctor said there’s no stopping the allergies. I think the only thing in the world I’m not allergic to is a down comforter, which is what I sleep on now. The bed I’m allergic to, even the dry toast I’m allergic to. I can never sleep in bed and never feel right after eating dry toast is how I know this. But now it’s all gone; the meals, the people, the gadgets, the job, the sedan. Now come evening I lay a down comforter on the floor and sleep on it. This is after suffering all day with the allergies. Sometimes, yes, my eyes work long enough to read a magazine or watch a little television. Sometimes I can listen to music for a few minutes before the ringing in my ears becomes unbearable. Yes, I am grateful for those days, it’s true. But I know it’s hopeless. I know I’m getting worse. Even the doctor said so. It was the only thing I understood from our conversation. What the doctor said was sometimes this sort of thing happens to people, these kinds of allergies, and in this particular case, out of millions of other cases, I happen to be the worst kind of people.