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So Reader, you could only imagine the horror in my heart when during TV hour on a Wednesday in the month of April the nurses dropped a bag in front of my beloved Polina that was about half the size of her usual med-day bag. Precious Reader, Polina had become a three-monther.
Now, prior to this day I had not actually spoken to Polina, though I desperately wanted to. I saw her every day for nearly a year before she became a three-monther, and on each and every one of these days, I would scan my mind for something to say, something brilliant, something that could transcend my physical handicaps, and I always came up blank. After six months of cultivating courage, I was finally capable of sending her an awkward smile from across the breakfast table (or at least as much of a smile as my droopy cheeks could muster). I was shocked by how easy it was to get a smile back. I concede it was courtesy smile, no doubt about it. It was a smile that said, “I’m weak, tired, and dying, and you are a freak, but, despite these facts, social courtesy dictates that I reciprocate your kind sentiment.” I decided to take it. And maybe, just maybe, she was charmed by my smile, or at least by the idea of social contact, which we were both so deprived of.
So breakfast became my training ground. I decided that I would use a system of smiles and glances to slowly break the ice and gather enough confidence and courage over a period of several decades to finally speak to this creature. I successfully suppressed any glimmer of a thought that I would not actually have decades to accomplish my goal. Every morning I waited for her to be ushered to her spot at the breakfast table, while I exercised my cheek muscles with a series of techniques that I had gradually developed to improve my smile. Every morning, when she finally arrived, I patiently waited for her eyes to randomly move in my direction, and when they did, I let out my best smile. Every morning she reflected it back to me. And I was delighted.
Eventually, I didn’t even have to wait for her eyes to randomly meet mine. She came to expect my smile, relish it maybe, and consequently when she took her place at the table her first impulse was to look over to me and receive it.
Soon I was glancing over at her several times during each meal. This was mostly to build comfort and desensitize myself to her beauty, but it was also to try to catch her looking back at me. I was, of course, fishing for any reason to tell myself that she saw some inexplicable beauty in me. But most of the time her head was down, absorbed in the process of eating and also probably her despair.
And it was amidst this dreamy little fairy tale that my agenda was hijacked — it was amidst this dreamy little fairy tale that Polina became a three-monther. After meds were distributed that day, I turned even more pale than usual, and Nurse Natalya immediately recognized it. She wheeled me off to a quiet corner, threw her arms around me and started to sob. “Igor, my little baby, I know about your smiley-gaga-face game,” she confessed through her tears. Her crying motivated me to cry. When we finished she dried us off and silently wheeled me back in time for TV hour.
The next day I couldn’t bring myself to smile at breakfast. I knew if I did there was a significant chance that I would make a wet scene. Furthermore, I knew she would instinctually turn to me in anticipation of her daily smile, and I knew it would break my heart to see her face when I refused to give it to her. My only solution was to keep my head down and ignore her. I would pretend the last two months of our game never actually happened. And perhaps she, like me, would begin to believe it.
About Scott Stambach
