CAITLIN UPSHALL

Notes for the Dispatch 

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I’ve thought a lot about people finding me these last few months. My fainting spells and concussions put commas and periods in the middle of days. When people ask if I am lonely, I say no. I don’t know how to describe waking up with a head injury alone, how I crawl along the ground until I can stand and check for blood against my brow. I think of my closest friends who live hours away and paramedics trying to find my road.

So, in the event that you have to find me, here are some notes for the dispatch.

* * *

I should start by describing myself. I probably won’t be in jeans when you see me. It’s more likely to be a dress with tights—the kind my mother could never get me to wear—and high heels or boots or maybe sandals to pretend we never left the summer. We never left the days of going out for walks with friends and hearing each other through masks on quiet, warm evenings. I’ll be wearing a face full of makeup and jewelry and maybe a tattoo drawn on with sharpie just below curly hair that I spent far too long primping. I promised Cassi that I would get a skincare routine, but really I just like playing with glitter eyeliner. It’s the only part of my face you can see.

* * *

The door will be locked. It’s always locked. The last time I went to bed with the door unlocked was in February when I was sick. It wasn’t a concussion—that was in January. My fever comes the same week that a quarantine is announced for the new illness in our state. My mother invites me to stay with her so I won’t be alone, but I decline because I’m afraid of infecting her or grandma with whatever bug I have. I think that I’ll see her after the two-week quarantine is over, once I feel better. Instead, I don’t physically see her for two and a half months. I don’t physically touch another person for nearly six.

It wasn’t what you’re thinking it was. No one knew/knows what I had, but my phone remembers what I can’t.

* * *

My calendar shows each doctor’s visit and my notes are full of medications and instructions. My photo album is blank from February to March and my period tracker changes, as well. There’s no red icon or START DATE listed, but there are symptoms for 42 days. The unidentified viral infection changes its strategy too quicky for my body to counterattack. I start with “sore throat” and “shortness of breath.” On day 15, I add, “woke up choking” and “coughed so hard I vomited” to the list. 

* * *

I worry that I keep my neighbors up at night. I don’t know many of them, but I’ve met a few. There’s Shelly who lives above me—a few over and a couple up—or maybe it’s Sarah. Either way, she’s nice, just like the boys across from her who are always ordering food, even though I know they have a kitchen and they only work part time. I’ve watched them help her carry dirt up the stairs, so I think we’d be friends if we ever came within shouting distance of each other. Shelly or Sarah has a garden on her balcony and I swear it’s mocking me, but in a nice way. 

I tried gardening when I could breathe again. I decided to plant green onions and began a socially distanced friendship with a fat squirrel, who I named Robby. The name will be ironic later. After mild success with green onions, I decided to plant more vegetables and my mother stopped by to do a contact-less delivery of the dirt she had left in her garage. I planted potatoes and waited.

* * *

The apartment smells of candles now, but I swear an undercurrent of cough syrup wafts through occasionally. My bathroom becomes a pharmacy and I spend evenings downing cold medicine, which I will eventually learn should not be mixed with the steroids I’m prescribed, which will eventually culminate in me forgetting a whole day and a half and leaving the door unlocked. 

The texts help me remember, too. When I reread them months later, they feel too whiney and I delete them all, except for one:

To Mom: Can you please tell me that I am not going to die? Please tell me I’m going to get better.

That one doesn’t feel too whiny. That one feels worth remembering.

* * *

Weeks after my green onion success, I watch Robby burrow out of my clay pot with a potato spud clenched in determined chubby cheeks. I almost yell, but I’m afraid that I’ll start coughing again. In most of my dreams, I end up coughing. Instead, I give him a disapproving stare and hope this isn’t the end of our solitary friendship.

We haven’t gotten closer—the people who live here—but I think we’re starting to notice each other. Really notice each other. Our trauma bond looks like ignoring how many wine bottles we’re each carrying to the recycling bins and exaggerating our smiles so you can see them through our masks. It’s important to keep smiling, I tell myself, so it doesn’t feel as strange when we can see each other’s faces again.

* * *

When I’m weaned off the cough syrup, a part of me misses how quickly it knocks me out. That’s another thing about my apartment; I’m right by a streetlight that never quite turns off and perpendicular to parking lot full of high beam enthusiasts. There’s a daycare nearby; this time last year, I would wake up to the sound of little kids toddling along with their parents. Now, I fall asleep and wake to older sounds: the couple who fights outside on their walks; the woman who is trying and failing to train her dog; the young man who blasts opera music in his headphones and sings along. If you’re looking for a sleep-deprived, groggy woman, I’ll likely be illuminated.

Just take the third right off the road. Look for the garden and the nice boys. Count a few over and a couple down, knock on the door, and a fat squirrel will probably lead you to the spare key. 

He’s good at finding things.

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