I’ve been back in Berlin for nearly a week, and yet it feels like I’m not anywhere at all . . . such is the dreaminess of my experience! Or perhaps dreamlessness would be more accurate, since it seems I cannot truly sleep for more than two or three hours at a time, nor can I stay awake. When does the dream end, and when does the other side begin? I dream a dream, and upon waking, enter yet another one, this one more familiar, something resembling a life I remember from long ago, though I can’t quite be sure of anything these days . . . I convince myself I have been asleep, and yet I am not quite awake either.

Here on my desk in what resembles my Berlin apartment, in what I believe is waking life, and writ upon a little notebook in what appears to be my own handwriting, is a list of domestic and corporeal tasks I am to perform as soon as possible:

• ophthalmologist appt.
• dermatologist appt.
• ortho appt.
• routine physical
• bloodwork
• text J, J, and R
• send C play notes
• email Uncle N
• email A $$$
• KLM refund €€€
• flowers for balcony
• laundry!

Last night I left Elina’s birthday party at TRAIN BAR (a bar which is, yes, in an old train car), around two, passed through Kleistpark back into my neighborhood, did my best to fall asleep without any drugs upon returning home, and awoke at five in the morning to see an ophthalmologist near Viktoria-Luise-Platz, about a thirty-second walk from Jess and James’ apartment. It was chilly and a little drizzly out, so I wore a hoodie beneath my black leather jacket. I got there precisely at seven-thirty, just in time for my appointment. I was proud of myself for actually being on time, which is crucial in Germany. They love punctuality, and God love them for it. The receptionist said, “Ahh, Herr [Starsailor] . . .” and took my insurance card. She scanned it using a little machine and asked me to follow her into an adjacent dark room to perform a quick eye examination. With my left eye I read a horizontal line of letters and numbers with perfectly clarity. With my right, I saw nonsensical blurry shapes, each indistinguishable from the one which came before it . . .

The reason for my visit was this: I suffer from central serous retinopathy (CSR), which is an acute and temporary disease of the retina that appears whenever my body and mind are under a particular kind of psychic pain. Because I am outwardly as calm as a lake on a summer morning, stress mysteriously manifests itself in my right eyeball. Why my right eye, I could not tell you. A dark fluid forms a “blister” and pools around my retina, beneath the central macula, and distorts my vision into a sort of funhouse mirror effect. In the center of my vision, I see a veil of shadow. Were I to place a hand over my left eye, what I would see through my right eye is truly bizarre . . . faces become stretched and warped, small text is near-illegible, and there isn’t anything I can do about it until my body calms down from whatever mental malady or great sadness I happen to be suffering from at the moment. It is especially harrowing at night, when the world itself becomes a shadow of its lighted self. I have written about this strange phenomenon many times. These days, I can count on CSR showing up at least once a year to fuck up my life for a month or three. Usually it spontaneously resolves, probably through sheer will of wanting to see the wild world again through clearer eyes. And then I am very glad indeed . . . until it inevitably happens again. And then I find myself back beneath the dark constellation of Aquarius, a loveless hell where alone I suffer in silence . . . am once again bound upon a wheel of fire, that my own tears do scald like molten lead! Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. (Well, just kidding . . . kind of . . .)

Yes, and so today I had the good Herr Doktor gaze into the depths of my rare green eyes all the way to the parts extreme, to my poor ailing retina. This took place inside his vast and beautiful historic office with high ceilings and crown molding and beneath gentle yellow lighting. Outside a storm raged. He had me place my chin on a little plastic chin rest, lit up my eyes with a bright light, and used a small circular magnifying glass to examine me. He did not seem too concerned. He then led me to an adjacent room where he instructed, in German, to have the lab tech there speak to me in English. She kindly had me rest my chin in front of a large machine, into which I pressed each eye, one at a time, against a sort of rubberized telescopic viewfinder. Far in the distance I saw an image of a farmhouse before a green field and beneath a cloudless blue sky. The image inside changed into a green reticle centered upon a field of blackness. She said, “Please look into the target shape.” The screen was then flooded with zigzagging red lasers and I knew from experience she was taking hundreds of images of my eyes within five seconds. The machine whirred . . . it sounded like the machine Deckard uses to distinguish between a replicant and a human in BLADE RUNNER.

Convinced I was human after all, she sent me back to the doctor next door. He pulled up the images on his computer. There it was, of course: the telltale pooling of liquid against the retina in my right eye. The left eye was completely normal. I braced myself for bad news, that it was finally permanent, that I would forever see through a glass, darkly . . . and that I would spend the rest of my life going slowly insane as I experienced normal reality in my left eye, and increasing psychedelic distortion in my right. It’s enough to make a stranger stare.

I recalled A SCANNER DARKLY, in which Bob Arctor’s addiction to the self-annihilating drug Substance D(eath) causes two hemispheres of his brain to compete against one another to interpret objective reality with limited reliability:

“It’s as if you have two fuel gauges on your car,” the other man said, “and one says your tank is full and the other registers empty. They can’t both be right. They conflict. But it’s—in your case—not one functioning and one malfunctioning; it’s . . . Here’s what I mean. Both gauges study exactly the same amount of fuel: the same fuel, the same tank. Actually they test the same thing. You as the driver have only an indirect relationship to the fuel tank, via the gauge on, in your case, gauges. In fact, the tank could fall off entirely and you wouldn’t know until some dashboard indicator told you or finally the engine stopped. There should never be two gauges reporting conflicting information, because as soon as that happens you have no knowledge of the condition being reported on at all. This is not the same as a gauge and a backup gauge, where the backup one cuts in when the regular one fouls up.”

“It is as if one hemisphere of your brain is perceiving the world as reflected in a mirror. Through a mirror. See? So left becomes right, and all that that implies. And we don’t know yet what that does imply, to see the world reversed like that. Topologically speaking, a left-hand glove is a right-hand glove pulled through infinity.”

“Through a mirror,” Fred said. A darkened mirror, he thought; a darkened scanner. And St. Paul meant, by a mirror, not a glass mirror—they didn’t have those then—but a reflection of himself when he looked at the polished bottom of a metal pan. Luckman, in his theological readings, had told him that. Not through a telescope or a lens system, which does not reverse, not through anything but seeing his own face reflected back up at him, reversed—pulled through infinity. Like they’re telling me. It is not through glass but as reflected back by a glass. And that reflection that returns to you; it is you, it is your face, but it isn’t. And they didn’t have cameras in those old days, and so that’s the only way a person saw himself: backward.

I have seen myself backward . . .

Back in my own tenuous reality, I said to the doctor: “Is it bad? Are you worried . . . ?”

To which he replied: “No. It is minor.” He smiled. “It is not necessary to treat it, unless you really want cold laser therapy. But this procedure seldom works. It would be better for you to simply find a way to relax. Easier said than done, I know. But that is the best way to convince the liquid to return into your skull where it belongs.”

There was a sort of poeticism to that . . . “convince the liquid”. I felt a relief. He sent me home to relax. I did not have to check out at the reception desk. In Germany, there is no bill . . . you just leave. Let’s hear it for socialized healthcare.

Back on the rainy streets of Berlin, I took a leisurely walk to the nearest bus stop. I had an hour to kill before my routine physical, which was five stops away. The bus arrived minutes later, and I boarded it, taking a seat in the middle. I glanced over and saw an empty coveted Big Daddy Chair:

. . . but decided to stay where I was.

At the general practitioner’s office, which was a fine place, clean and modern, I checked in at the front and took a seat upon a wooden bench that look like it had been got from Muji. A German girl who vaguely resembled my first girlfriend sat to my right reading THE GREAT GATSBY in English. A woman came to get me a few minutes later. This was the good Frau Doktor. She was quite tall and smiled at me. She said, “This way, Herr [Starsailor] . . .” and so I followed her into an examination room and took a seat. She asked me if I smoked or drank alcohol and I said no. She asked if I ate meat or fish and I said no. She asked if I exercised, and if so, how frequently. I said yes, and usually three or four times a week. This pleased her. “Very good!” she said warmly, and led me to a nearby examination table to take my vitals and press against my organs with her hand. She told me my vitals were great and that my organs seemed normal. “That’s excellent news,” I said. “I love it when my organs are normal.”

Unfortunately, I had neglected to fast . . . and so I was not able to get any routine lab work done. She asked me to come back the following week and eight in the morning, and to cease eating at midnight, and to stick to water or black coffee. I said, “Other than that, alles gut?” and she said “Yes! You’re good to go,” and led me out of the room. I once again glided past the reception desk and was back on the street. It was still cold and rainy. I hopped on a nearby bus to Kurfürstendamm, where I would transfer to another short bus ride home. I got off the bus and saw that Muji had just opened minutes prior, the Muji across from Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, with its war-broken spire, and the beacon of West Berlin:

. . . and which can be seen in the opening of WINGS OF DESIRE:

With nothing better to do with my life just then, I went inside to get out from the rain and look around for a while. Not wanting to carry anything in the rain, I instead made a note of things I want to get there next time and then headed for the nearest bus stop which would take me home.

Back in Schöneberg, I walked two blocks and took a right onto my street and spontaneously decided to stop off at a cafe across the way from my building. I figured I ought to celebrate my own good health, and besides, it was lunchtime anyway. I got a cappuccino and a glass of cucumber water and Eggs Benedict with avocado. I managed to charm the nice server. From my little table in the warm dining room I watched a freak rainstorm shower my street with frozen water.

Back in my apartment, I peeled off my clothes, ran a cold bath to soak my jeans in cold water and denim detergent, made a cup of green tea, and changed into my pajamas. I felt exhausted just then. Julia was coming over around five, so I decided to take a nap till then. I dreamed of a person far away across the ocean, awoke exactly five hours later in a haze, and buzzed Julia into the building. She asked about my latest excursion in America, and I told her so. We then watched RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, which she loved, and talked again for a while. She left around ten and I went back into my living room and fell asleep on the couch till one in the morning. I made coffee and took a bath . . . and now it is five in the morning, so I ought to go to sleep for the final time today. Tomorrow I will do nothing except relax . . . doctor’s orders! I also have to do laundry, but will do it in a relaxing way. I’m considering flying to Tallinn next week if I can find a cheap flight. Hey, why not . . . I’ve always wanted to visit Estonia. If Emel is in town, maybe she will put me up for a few nights. But then with her you never can tell, which is very Estonian of her. I respect that.

Some of the liquid in my eye has already been convinced to return to my skull. This always happens to me whenever I have some Health Issue: once a medical professional confirms the symptoms of my woe are temporary, that I am not permanently disfigured after all, my body begins to heal itself.

FINALLY . . .

Here are some pictures I took and were taken by other people at little sister Elina the Estonian Girl’s birthday party yesterday, which was split between my apartment with Elina and Boyfriend Leon and Fellow Estonian Eliis, and then aforementioned TRAIN BAR with a bunch of other freaks she knows:

And so saying . . . good-night!! ☆彡