24 Hours, in Senses--Or, Fantasia

Here are your keys.

Three weeks after hitting a deer, decimating my radiator and its surrounding parts, I got my beloved car back from the collision center. I gave Gonzo--my car--the walk-around, admiring her new hood, side panel, and grill. I gave her a nice pat, hopped in, and drove home. She felt like new. The gearshift was smooth, the turn of the wheel felt oiled.

At home, I breaded small chunks of chicken and put them in the air fryer. I unpackaged udon noodles and cut vegetables for a quick meal. Hungry, I slipped a rogue udon noodle in my mouth after adding the bulk of it into a pan. It tasted disgusting. Can udon noodles go bad? Maybe they just need to cook, I thought. To get the aftertaste out of my mouth, I dipped a piece of carrot in hummus. In hindsight while preparing the rest of the meal and checking the chicken, I realize that I didn't have the taste of carrot in my mouth. I didn't have the mouthfeel. My mouth wasn't in that state of still remembering a food I had just eaten. Did I even taste the carrot? I wondered. Carrots usually taste pretty strong. Did I even taste the hummus? Paranoid, I walked to the cutting board and took a pinch of chopped green onion and put it in my mouth while stirring the noodles in the pan. I can feel the heat...but is there flavor? Do I have COVID? Being amid the minority of people who have not had COVID, I found myself romanticizing the possible fact that my threshold to COVID realization would occur while standing barefoot in my kitchen, tasting things. I stood for a moment, pondering, wooden spoon in hand. Then I turned to my copper cup of Moscow Mule and its strong ginger and realized that my tastebuds were in fact perfectly fine. The dark, brown-flavored tendrils of the drink were in my nose and in the back of my throat. I felt the roof of my mouth remembering it. The meal was complete and I handed over a bowl of noodles with chicken to my husband. I popped a piece of chicken in my mouth. It had no flavor. The noodles, smothered in spices and gathered in a group-love of vegetables, tasted awful. I looked at my husband. This is disgusting, I said, poking at the food with my fork. I never think food is disgusting unless it's mushrooms. He took a bite. It's not that bad, he responded, always pleasant and playful. Is something neurological going on? I wonder to myself. I chucked my food into the garbage, made some soup, and it tasted fine. My tastebuds were fine.

The next morning, I got into Gonzo, turned on the heat, and chose a podcast for my commute to work. Driving in the pre-dawn darkness of the meandering River Road, on high-alert for deer, the commercial before the podcast sounded especially fast. But sometimes they're supposed to talk fast like that. I dismiss it but then the podcast started. Everyone spoke very fast. Am...am I hearing things too fast? Or too slow and my brain is making up for it? I wonder stupidly to myself while thinking about time vs. sound ratios. Figuring that it was a malfunction on the podcast's part, I changed to a different podcast with a host whose voice is always mindful and slow, even worse than NPR. She spoke fast, as well! Then I realized that the speed-up function of my podcast app was set to 1.5x speed. Fixed. Everyone sounded fine now but then suddenly I was cold. Now on the interstate, I realized that the air from the vent was chilly. What? Turning knobs and dials fixed nothing. I turned them all off, relishing in the heated seat for the next 20 or so miles.

Do you have access to weapons? I asked the frantic man on the other end of the phone line. Yes, I'm a combat vet. He also lives alone. I am a crisis worker, which is to say, I help people who are at the end of their rope. They want to end their life. Or they want to end someone else's life. Or they're just thinking about doing these things. Or maybe they mutilate their body in some way that makes sense to them. Or they don't have the motivation to make better choices for themselves because of trauma or mental illness. But we also get calls from frustrated parents because their child doesn't want to go to school. Regardless, my job is to maintain safety and provide support. I listened to this combat vet wail into my ear about a woman he loves. I listened to the process of him no longer being a stranger. I offered him the support that crisis provides but he declined. He denied being suicidal despite making a threat earlier in the day. That is how I got involved. He was future-oriented, talking about his children and how he works second shift next week. While grounding him with facts and validating his feelings, I looked beyond the computer at my desk, out the window, and across the road to a hillside of trees that were turning color and capturing the mid-afternoon sunlight so perfectly. I looked back at my notes on the computer screen and they appeared italicized. I looked closer. They're not. I let him weep into the phone and I responded appropriately. This is called active listening. Police have already been involved with him today and after counseling him for an hour, they deemed him safe to be home alone with weapons. I told the officer that I'd reach out to plan for safety. During a break in his crying, I was upfront with him about my prerogative: to keep him safe. We developed the plan and in the mean time, he must answer our call at 5:00 pm. If you don't answer our call at 5, we'll send police and I will be forced to 302 you. Which is to say, I will force him to have a psychiatric evaluation against his will. This often leads to hospitalization. He had calmed down by the end of the call. He agreed to everything. We ended our call.

I read recently that a gut feeling is your body telling you a truth. At my job, I am mostly matter-of-fact and only sometimes worried, but usually over nothing. My gut was 90% worried at the end of that call. I ran the situation by my colleagues and a delegate--a person who deems whether or not it makes sense to 302 someone. Everyone agreed with how I handled the situation. I am always grateful for my colleagues. I filled out 302 paperwork just in case he didn't answer our call at 5, which would be an hour after my shift ended. I spent the remainder of my shift anxious, second-guessing everything. Comparing my modus operandi with other colleagues'. My stomach felt like pulp. I repeated the directions for follow-up to my colleagues. They soothed my worries and told me to go take care of my car. During my shift, I realized that the low coolant may have caused the lack of heat in my car.

I went to the nearby auto body store. I believed that I knew which coolant to get: Asian car, 50/50 ratio. Looking at the wall of coolants and thinking about all the chemical differences between each colorful jug, I decided to ask a clerk just to make sure I was getting the right kind. I told him what my car had recently gone through. What color is your coolant? You can't mix colors. Are you telling me that when they replaced your radiator, they didn't top you off with coolant? I looked at him with the same confusion. I told him that I didn't know the color of the coolant, that's how low it was in the oblong reservoir. Frustrated, I went back outside and popped the hood. Lifting the reservoir cap, I saw blue droplets. An exchange of relief and laughs later, I'm driving away with a full reservoir of blue coolant. Before my commute home, I stopped to get gas. My nerves were tingling. I inserted the nozzle and daydreamed about the comfort of being home but then switched gears to thoughts about the combat vet. Suddenly, the automatic pump clicked, indicating the tank was full. No, I whispered to the bright blue horizon. I definitely need more than $16 of gas. Taking a deep breath, I exhaled as I got into the car. Half a tank of gas. I decided to go back to work to see how the combat vet was doing. My car's dash read 5:00 pm.

How is he doing? I asked the colleague tasked with reaching out to the combat vet. I don't know yet but I'll call now, she said, indicating that it wasn't time yet. Wait a minute, I thought. It was 5:00 in the car. In a twilight of confusion, I realized that the car's clock was fast. In anguish and shaking, I watched my colleague dial out and in her sweet, maternal voice, spoke to the only person who could have answered. I heard her greet him by name. He was fine. He was still alive.

Next came the usual self-deprecation. I laughed at myself and my silly worries. I zoomed up into the clouds from which I can stand and laugh at all my stupid problems. This is something I'm good at. I let myself breathe and all the endorphins settled into their blood-nests. I squeaked out a thank you and turned away, attempting to compose myself and not cry out of relief. I turned to another colleague who is fun but a bad influence. Earlier in the day, she threw a pack of cloves at me and spent the shift asking me to smoke with her. I'll have that clove now.

I only smoke on occasion, mostly socially. We stood in the parking lot and she actively listened to my small frustrations. The clove shook between my fingers and at one point I stopped pacing to prevent myself from gagging on my nerves. I hoped that the blue coolant would get me home. I hoped that my car refusing more gas wasn't indicative of further complications. I hoped that the combat vet would adhere to my advice.

I texted my husband that I was finally heading home. I had an uneventful ride home, the low angle of the sun through the windshield warming me. I listened to the same song on repeat. The clove lingered in the dark depths of my mouth. River Road, dappled in golden oranges, yellows, and greens glowed just as it would have if everything did happen to go to shit. Finally parked in the driveway after a day of small overwhelms, I opened the car's door and the soft, golden head of my beloved dog in all his romp-and-tumble ways, warmly greeted me. I placed my hand on his head and breathed.