Staying at a château adjacent to the Lac Leman, gold trim and chandeliers.
We are having a party, lots of wine, beer, on the TVs are football games. England is playing Portugal, and across the front of the blue and white shirts of the England team is written “DOWNING”. The Portuguese also have a name.
Another crowd, of Americans this time, shows up. I don’t know this crowd, but one of them comes over, points to a TV.
“Who’s playing?”
“Portugal,” I reply.
But he says, “No, it’s Turkey.” And close up, I see he’s right.
I go over to a table to get more alcohol.
“Give me more wine.” a squat woman tells me, and I am annoyed. There is not much left, but I split the remainder. It’s fizzy. It’s actually ginger beer.
Tired now, I retire to my bedroom, but I am afraid this new party will keep me up. I lie down and hold up my hand. The cut on the back of my index finger is not healing. It is a vertical line, the length of the finger. I look closely and bend it; the cut opens out to reveal pulsing flesh and organs underneath.
Now Germany has a free kick and to celebrate, the team does a slide, face first, arms spread out. Some of the players get their head and bodies stuck, they are upside down in the grass, legs flailing comically in the air.
They complain that the ground is too soft to take a free kick, and to prove it they try the slide again. Three new holes side by side are created by the players heads. The ref is irritated. He puts a marker to the right of the third hole.
“You can take your kick from here,” he says.
The England team line up across the goal line. The goal keeper parries the ball but it ricochets off a teammate and bounces over the line despite the wall of players. We attempt to clear it, but it is clearly a goal.
Siobhan and I are at a hospital. We both have a disease. Cancerous? Siobhan has psoriasis, she has it spread across her bare chest and towards her arms and shoulders. You cannot see it on me.
The nurse leads us to a waiting room, more like a shower changing area with a curtain. She tells us to sit on the swimming noodles, one each.
Siobhan sits on hers, but I’m not sure I like mine. It is dark pink with a blue cap on one end so I push it aside and sit on the bench. I reach over to Siobhan. She has straight black hair and I give her a hug, her bare skin close against mine.
Over the balcony in the room below a naked woman with yellow flowing hair and full body dances across the floorboards, “I’m cured, I’m cured!” the woman sings.
The nurse comes back and leads us to a large room with hospital beds. A few patients occupy the beds. We pass the office of the doctor, he seems old, has graying hair, and is talking unintelligibly to a person in a dressing gown. We are shown to our bed, although it is not a hospital bed, but a bed from a guest house; a double for both of us, unmade, with the top sheet pulled down and across.
A game with a tennis ball, a soccer ball and a rugby ball. You had to get each ball over the line. Their coach was leading them to victory. No one was leading us, but when I tried to take a stand they did not explain the rules. It was raining, I kicked the soccer ball over their goal line. But it had to be the tennis ball first.
So I kicked the tennis ball over the line and they started laughing.
I punched one of the boys in the chest. He fell backwards, face down, head in a puddle. The rain poured down on him.
Should I pull him up? His long curly hair was bedraggled. I wanted to wait more. To punish him. He was wearing a coarse dark blue knit shirt. Motionless.
I turned him over. Unconscious. I pushed his chest with two fingers just below the sternum. Instantly he spurted clear water from his mouth. His eyes stayed shut but unprompted he spurted more water, coughed, then more water, again, and again.
