the lying days

An ambulance is pulling into my apartment complex just in front of me. Lights flashing, sirens off. I follow it to my building, where the ambulance stops. Two other ambulances are there, and a fire truck. Lights flashing, sirens off. The engines have all been left running and it’s louder than you might think it would be. It makes my head hurt. Somehow I get a strange feeling that they’re there for me. My windows are dark and I’m sure I’ve only just come home from the coffee shop where I work most nights, but anyway the thing is that everything is a struggle right now. Nothing is easy. I imagine the EMT’s climbing the stairs, knocking on my door. Maybe the super will let them in. I wonder where they’ll find me. I wonder if I’m going to be okay.

And I’m just standing there in the cold, without a coat, and a fireman walks toward me. You okay, miss? he asks. Am I okay? I ask him. I quickly say yes. He asks if I live in that building and I tell him I do. It’s the guy in apartment 210, he says. Heart attack, probably.

I live in 209. 210’s my neighbor, a real piece of shit, if you ask me. Walter, I think. Anyway, I don’t want to go upstairs—not knowing a guy’s just had a heard attack next door.

I decide to get a hotel room for the night. Strange, maybe. But there are some cheap hotels up near the highway and I figure forty bucks for a peaceful night won’t be too bad, and anyway I could use a change of scenery. His name’s Walter, I think, I tell the fireman before I leave.

I drive back out of the neighborhood and the noise from the fire truck and the ambulances slowly fades away. My heart is racing. Everything feels wrong.

The guy working the counter at the hotel gives me sort of a weird look when I ask for a room. It’s nearly midnight and my eyes are a little bloodshot. Truth is, I haven’t been sleeping lately. Truth is, I can’t do much of anything these days. The room’s cheap, and it’s not too awful. Dingy wallpaper, but the bed seems clean and there’s a television. I don’t have TV at home. I turn on a Seinfeld rerun and I take off my clothes and get in bed. It’s a funny episode, I guess, but I don’t laugh. I could have sworn the ambulance had come for me. I wonder when they will.