My head continues pounding, and the air is thick, like trying to breathe custard. I’ve sweated through my shirt; it sticks to my back like Saran Wrap. I think of pills, little candies of pleasure and relief. I can’t remember if I have any at home. Goddamned Jenny, not prescribing me more. I try to imagine the calming whoosh of a Valium. The mounting clumsiness as the brain’s messages are transmitted more slowly. The calming happiness. The warming embrace. Maybe I can will myself into a more placid state just with the idea, the memory, of pills.
A piece of fuzz lands near my feet. Then another. I wonder if it’s snowing. Not actually snowing—it never snows in Los Angeles, except at The Grove at Christmastime when they launch fake snow from the roof of the movie theater with these cannonlike machines. Have two flakes coasted on a gentle breeze for six months, only now coming in for a landing? No. A mother chases a toddler blowing dandelion fluff. I should have known. Nothing floats effortlessly in limbo—not for six months.
From underneath my armpit I can see the dachshunds pass by again. I can just see their little feet, their short legs, eight of them in total, like the octopus’s, but they move at such speeds they look like more, like million-legged millipedes out for an afternoon stroll. Seeing how they deftly maneuver around huge obstacles and through loud noises, coupled with the idea of pills, slowly brings me some calm.
Lily would never tolerate The Grove. Not anymore. Not in old age. She would not have the wherewithal to navigate such a crowd. She would cower, with her head down, until I found a safe place for us to sit. She would be like me now: helpless, spinning, afraid.
As Lily aged and her reactions slowed and her eyesight became less crisp, Doogie’s predecessor warned me that she might develop something he called Enclosed World Syndrome. I told him I hadn’t heard of Enclosed World Syndrome, only New World Syndrome (the introduction of a modern, sedentary lifestyle to indigenous peoples, along with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease—you’re welcome, Native Americans). I don’t know if Enclosed World Syndrome is an official syndrome or something this vet made up, or who is even in charge of anointing syndromes officially. But Lily did rather quickly come to find comfort only in smaller and smaller concentric circles with our house at the center and, coincidentally, so did I. Or maybe Lily’s aging coincided with the end of my relationship with Jeffrey and the stalling of my writing career. “How’s Jeffrey?” “How’s the writing going?” These were questions that had irritated me to my core. Not because of their illegitimacy, but because I had no response. How was Jeffrey? We can’t go two days without fighting. How was the writing? I haven’t written anything in months. It became easier to avoid people than to have to explain that I was struggling. My Enclosed World Syndrome got a little better, partly out of necessity, when I became single again. Lily’s never did.
Since the arrival of the octopus, I find myself spinning a familiar cocoon. It’s impossible to talk about what I can’t bring myself to say. If I were to join friends at a noisy bar or in a crowded restaurant and anyone were to ask, “How’s Lily?” what on Earth would I say?
“Well, there’s an octopus on her head.”
“There’s an ostrich in her bed?”
Any conversation would only unravel from there.
Slowly I lift my head and take in my surroundings. There’s a shirtless model outside of Abercrombie & Fitch. Nordstrom is undergoing some sort of storefront remodel. Crate & Barrel is pushing patio umbrellas in bold, striped fabrics. Someone who may or may not be Mark Ruffalo is making a beeline toward Kiehl’s. Slowly, the pounding in my head stops. Slowly, my body temperature lowers, my normal heartbeat returns.
I wish there was a way I could see from my phone if the octopus was gone. Some sort of app connected to a series of nanny cams to spy on every room in my house. Something that would allow me to look at Lily asleep in her bed, her head unencumbered by that beast, her mind deep in the sweetest dream. Or maybe I’m glad that there’s not. Maybe it would just be one more thing on my phone for me to check obsessively, taking me out of the moment, taking me away from life. Maybe I would use it as permission to stay clear of Lily in my magical thinking that that’s when the octopus will leave, even though I know deep down it’s going to take a lot more than a trip to the mall for him to go.
When I get home the octopus is still there. My heart sinks, despite my brain telling it not to. I saddle Lily in her harness and grab her leash and we head out on a walk. Our old walk, the one up the quieter street with the hill. The one we used to take daily before our syndrome made us hermits and our outdoor excursions became limited to the shorter route that looped us quickly back home.