Watching The Line

If you’ve never seen an air bubble work its way through a long tube and into your body, then you’re missing out on a special kind of torture.

Illustration by Chelsey Pettyjohn

New York is the city that never sleeps, but when you’ve been up all night listening to your hospital roommate moan in pain while you yourself are tethered to a nutrition bag via a catheter in your neck, you come to realize that if it’s past midnight and you’re still awake, you better be healthy. If not, the towering buildings, the tightly cramped spaces, the eight million people who are everywhere yet all out of sight, become reminders of your confinement to the physical self. No matter how much moves and shakes in New York’s early hours, this city can also be the loneliest place in the world.

I spent two weeks in the hospital this summer and another five weeks after that bottled up in my apartment, not sleeping at night. Six years ago, when I was twenty-five, I had my gallbladder removed. This summer I needed abdominal surgery to fix a complication that had occurred over time. During recovery I was told I could not eat or drink anything until I healed.

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