Carl the Death Driver / Ch-1 / Pt-2

He had the means for the higher cost of take-out food, with its extra service fees and occasional delivery tip. He also had the means for the inflated outlays that went with Helen’s Custom Buyers, a personal shopping service. Helen’s operated with a team of retired individuals who handled shopping duties for their homebound clients, filling online orders at local stores and managing deliveries. Carl paid extra for the delivery person from Helen’s to enter a side gate and push the bags full of groceries, household supplies, and occasionally clothing through the warped flap of an old dog door that spilled into a small laundry room. Carl had no mobility issues, he was just a self-imposed shut-in. When it came to meals, it was certainly much easier to call up for take-out rather than expose himself to public places in which he might eat among others, only to announce his life of isolation and amplify the empty feeling of eating alone. Compounding the alone part by way of witnesses was altogether avoided.

Carl continued to hand wash the last of his take-out containers along with his dish and utensils at the kitchen sink when his left foot went numb. He was trying to shuffle to his right to place items in the drying rack and came to realize that one of his legs was not in sync with the rest of his body, held back by his stiff and unresponsive left foot. Carl grabbed the tile counter and tried to redistribute more of his weight onto his right leg. Thousands of imaginary needles lightly poked and pricked the tips of his toes as he curled and stretched his left forefoot within the confines of a white leather orthopedic walking shoe. Carl visualized the internal world of his anatomy with nerve pulses misfiring in his brain. Expressed externally, this manifested as the localized tingling sensations that also provided the perception of burning along the sole of his midfoot. He attributed the numbness and everything that went along with it to the misalignment of a nerve. This was his snap theory for an underlying cause with the main culprit being his posture while eating earlier. He told himself to maintain better posture and avoid sitting in one position for extended periods of time. Maybe it was the laces of his walking shoes. Always overtightening to compensate for his narrow feet.

These were the thoughts that Carl used to block out the possibility of some greater health risk at hand. The frequent headaches he credited to lack of sleep, too much sleep, or dehydration. The repetitive burning sensation running down the middle of his abdomen as he struggled with sleep each night. Carl imagined a spice that accidentally went into the preparation of his meal at the take-out restaurant. The dizziness Carl experienced due to standing up too quickly or bending over for too long. Nothing is wrong with some low-level denial to fend off the anxiety monster associated with the possibility of these things being a precursor to something worse. At this point in his life, Carl was a veteran of numbness when it came to limbs, hands, and feet. Why should a foot that’s fallen asleep during dishwashing cause alarm or raise concern for a forthcoming stroke?

Friday night, with a little more than thirty-six hours left in Carl’s life, he looked through an online ledger of upcoming bills and the many linked financial institutions that automatically transferred funds from one account to another. These systematized transfers provided the regular balances required in his checking account to avoid bank fees and remit payments on the never ending and recurring household costs. The modern orchestration of money management magic, in which personal wealth flows from savings, pensions, small investments, and Social Security distributions to the various entities that keep the household pulse beating. Carl’s check-in on the blind stream of numbers associated with his name and zip code serves as peace of mind before sleep. It’s pre-sleep passive entertainment and a warm cuddle with his digital security blanket before nodding off to an altered consciousness. This show goes on with or without Carl’s viewership for years to come with little possibility of cancellation. Even the threat of inflation as a showstopper could only erode the financial autopilot Carl had created. True depletion of balances, enough to bring the cash flow machine down, was for a time well beyond Carl’s expected expiration from an actuarial purview.

The old Frigidaire refrigerator’s compressor buzzes throughout the night and provides bass to the endless cacophony of bubbling within the glass fish tank. The filtration system rhythmically pumps with a persistent thrum to circulate and aerate the pH balanced water. The downstairs thermostat is mounted near the main entryway and senses a whispering cold void seeping through the front door. Heat from a gas-fired forced-air system ignites with a high-pitched click multiple times throughout Carl’s rest. Deteriorated ductwork unevenly distributes this hot air throughout the old house, riddled with hidden leaks and plagued by too many dust barriers. Until the entryway thermostat’s demand is met, the upstairs roasts with dry air attacking Carl’s respiratory tract and disrupting his sleep. A small nightlight flickers from the upstairs bathroom. The timers attached to lamps downstairs have completed their cycle. The first floor is completely dark except for an ambient glow from the front porch lights, which reveals silhouettes of doorways and furniture. A Virginia opossum crosses the backyard and causes a security flood light to illuminate a massive lemon tree and the rotting fruit encircling its trunk. The awning windows to the back laundry room look out upon the lit up little yard and give passage to rectangular shafts of light coming to rest upon a gurgling 30-gallon water heater. A snap from the kitchen cuts through the soft symphony of ambient house sounds. The time has arrived for a 12-cup programmable Mr. Coffee to begin a steady percussive drip. In 30-minutes, radio waves from Classical California KUSC will resonate from Carl’s Pioneer SX-3600 stereo receiver in the den. The first movement of Moonlight Sonata fills the downstairs as a low light seeps into each window facing east. Muted musical notes jump from Carl’s nightstand and the ten-second sequence repeats until the old man is up and ready to start his last full day of life with a sharp headache and mild nausea.