That David was a hypochondriac was painfully obvious to all who knew him; he thought of himself as delicate. Not effeminate, per se, but fragile, pallid and easily injured. There was a coarseness, he felt, about those who could tolerate life without undue bother. Their ability to have a stomach-ache without an ulcer, parasite or cancer unsettled him.
Over the course of his adult life (dating from legal majority, ten years) he had been afflicted with tapeworms, liver flukes, pinworms and other varieties of nematode and flatworm too numerous to mention; mouth cancer, colon cancer, and a tumor in his neck; heart palpitations, flutters, skips and jumps. He had warts, psoriasis, alopecia; his prostate enlarged and shrank again on a bi-weekly basis. Heart attacks and strokes followed one after the other like machine-gun fire, particularly during holidays. He sprained his penis and discovered a rectal blockage almost simultaneously: it was the happiest day of his life, barring only that on which he contracted Ebola for the second time. AIDS and Hep A through C had become a lingering worry, but mononucleosis, arteriosclerosis and muscular dystrophy were just background noise to the litany of migraines, walking pneumonia, eye infections, ingrown hairs, gingivitis, labyrinthitis and kidney stones.
One of the greatest disappointments he had ever had to swallow was that he was forever denied yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, menstrual cramps and ovarian cancer; but he consoled himself with hemorrhoids, and the little-known fact that men can have breast cancer too.
Most people joke that they’ve put their doctor’s children through college. David really did. The month that he had diabetes (both Type I and Type II) and Lou Gehrig’s disease all at once paid for an entire semester abroad, and no quantity of blood tests could convince him that he would live to see the next hockey season (which, aside from his health, was his only real passion).
He lived in Portland, Oregon, and in fine weather would walk alongside the river looking at the cherry blossoms (watery eyes, sneezing fits) and the old men walking their dogs (hives and sinus congestion). He would peer at passersby through his tinted spectacles (not sunglasses – they make one vulnerable to conjunctivitis), and admire their seeming health.
And, the glasses blocked both UVA and UVB, which was, as he loved to tell others in the park, critical – because he had, at all costs, to avoid corneal abrasion. And he had a condition which prevented his pupils from fully contracting. Even if they did not take much pleasure from these encounters, he did. Thus the karmic balance of the city was maintained, and on the whole he spent his life fairly easily.
At the end of summer, when the air began to chill and the wind whistled through the narrow little tree-lined streets, David retired indoors to brood. He frequently had no one to talk to, and did not drink or do anything particularly suited to his age. To the great surprise of anyone close enough to him to care, he was actually, medically, and without doubt a sufferer from very acute and sometimes debilitating asthma, and was restricted to a set number of activities. A social life was made difficult, therefore.
But he had a parakeet, and he taught it little phrases. It learned to whistle Dixie, because he truly loved the movie Gone With the Wind, and would watch it with his bird perched on his arm; and it could greet the UPS delivery man and the newspaper boy by name. They liked the bird more than the man, and were distressed by his thin stooping shoulders and look of faint puzzlement, which hung about him like a fine mist. He greeted them cheerfully, however, and as soon as they had learned not to ask him, ever, how he was doing, all went swimmingly.
Owen, the parakeet, was always a happy little fellow, and truly loved David more than any of his family had ever done. It was, no doubt, partially due to the fact that the little bird could not understand any of his conversation; but it was unconditional loyalty, something most people cannot boast. David and Owen lived together in the greatest of harmony, and would whistle out the window in unison at the blue jays that congregated in the tree at the corner of the apartment building. Both of them took great joy in the impotent scolding of the jays, as they realized they were being mocked by that funny mismatched pair of birds that lived in the window across the way. It was the cause of great hilarity.
They shared meals, both pecking at bits of fruit, as the sun went down over the river. It was not a life of misery, by any means, and online medical dictionaries could cheer any hour that began to drag more than was bearable.
And, with that and with the hockey season, the winter passed away.
When the cherry blossoms came out again, David carefully wound a scarf about his throat and prepared to venture down to the bank of the river. He would not stay away long, for Owen would be lonely without him. Nevertheless, he looked forward to the fresh breeze, and a rare sunny day in spring. The glint on the water was, if eye-strain-inducingly bright, at least a pleasure after months of grey; David strolled down a little path through the park, almost humming with the sight of it.
He had not spoken to anyone besides delivery men for at least six weeks, and looked about him for someone with whom to exchange a few words. Surprisingly, on such a fine day, there was hardly anyone enjoying the weather outside. David could find no one who looked promising, and began to deflate. He had so looked forward to speaking with someone besides Owen, who, with all his manifold virtues, had a limited vocabulary. But nothing presented itself, and David wandered back home, with that faint feeling of discontent more common to forgotten theatre tickets, the end of good books, and too many hours spent sitting at a coffeeshop.
He had never felt this way before, that something was missing. How could it be? There was his never-failing ability to diagnose; there were Canadians, who despite his patriotism were really just better at hockey; there were movies and magazines, websites and newspapers, and always, at the end of the day, there was Owen, chirping just for him. He shrugged the feeling off, picked up some things at the grocery store, and went home in time for a rerun of a particularly good episode of the Simpsons.
The two of them spent an unusually peaceful evening. David was tired from his walk, and felt a headache, appendicitis, and a recurrence of his Addison’s disease coming on. He wanted nothing more than to rest and nibble some carrot sticks, and felt much better by the time he was ready for bed.
As usual, he carefully folded back the covers and brushed off his feet, before wriggling beneath the sheets with a sigh of contentment. Owen hopped sideways until he was as near to David as he could be on his little swing, where he slept with one eye cocked, and his feathers ruffled cosily. David turned his head towards him, and closed both of his eyes. They slept, listening to the distant sound of the river, and dreamed of Vivien Leigh.
