I wake up slightly hungover and more than ready to get home. Strung out after four days facing my own anxiety and the fact that some women never leave high school, I need some serious solitude. I phone a cab and wait outside in the crisp morning air, dying for coffee.
The cab pulls up and the white-haired driver gets out. Red suspenders hold up dirty brown pants and a stained blue dress shirt stretches over an enormous belly. Sparkling blue eyes magnify curiosity behind enormous glasses.
“Where are you off to this fine morning, young lady?” He peeps at me in the rear view mirror and tips his grimy white baseball cap.
“Home to Victoria. I missed my bus yesterday so I was staying with a friend.” I’m taking shallow breaths because the air in the cab is custard thick with that sickly-sweet old man smell. It doesn’t feel right to open the window. I don’t know why.
“And what do you do in Victoria, young lady?”
“Well, I’m a teacher by trade but I don’t teach anymore. Now I’m a writer.” There, I said it without air quotes. Yay me!
“And why is it that you no longer teach, may I ask?”
“I have MS. I would love to —”
“I know how to cure that. It’s one of two things.”
Jesus. “Oh yeah?”
“Absolutely. It’s either a yeast overgrowth or a magnesium deficiency.”
Haven’t heard those before.
I try to stare out the window as he pontificates nonsensically but he keeps eyeballing me through the rear view.
He tells me he sells essential oils and I want to laugh, but I can barely breathe.
The longest ten-minute cab ride finally ends. He hands me a card with the words ‘wellness advocate’ under his name before he gets out to open the trunk.
He lets me get my own suitcase as he starts telling me about his prostate. Seriously. I finally cut him off and say I need coffee. He makes sure to tell me that he’s going to get coffee too, but in the car.
I’m sitting in Starbucks with my headphones on and see him drive by, glasses peering through the window. Several minutes later, I spot him in my peripheral vision. He’s come inside and he’s trying to get my attention. Oh for the love of all that’s holy.
Thank god for technology.
**********************************************************************************
This is an excerpt from a short story I wrote after the writing retreat I went to in September. This dude just may pop up in my fiction at some point – who needs to make characters up when these kinds of people show up in your life? I wish my powers of description could do him justice, he truly was something else. His card is still on our fridge – haha!
Just to be clear:
1) There is NO CURE for multiple sclerosis.
2) Warriors find it really annoying when people suggest they know how to fix us, if we just follow their latest fad. Most of us have tried many, many different therapies and medications. MS is a complex disease that affects every person in a different way on a different day. If you have something to suggest, I’m all ears – if it’s done with sensitivity and respect.
Do you have stories of people giving you the magic cure? I’d love to hear them!
Have a wonderful week!
❤️ Amanda
Walk a Myelin My Shoes 