Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
The Email
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
In Lisbon, late at night, the very, very black River Tagus, harbor lights bouncing off its mirrored surface, drifts along with a calm that does not calm me. I am awake, restless.
When my plane landed this morning at Delgado Airport, I got the news. Tersely, with bureaucratic efficiency, the email reported that during my flight a colleague at the high school where I teach had fainted in the faculty room, falling hard. A doctor was called; Sam was rushed by ambulance and gurney-ed into the ER at Mass General Hospital. A pacemaker is in his future.
Sam is a niche player in my work life. We are the same age, but we aren’t personal friends. No beers together after the final school bell. If something important is going down at the teachers’ union or with school policy, we might talk by phone, but that happens rarely.
At faculty meetings, he was the box of donuts everyone liked. Sweet, kind, caring. A good listener with a big heart.
Sam’s heart attack has hospitalized my holiday.
At the National Tile Museum an 18th century blue-and-white ceramic tile mural depicts a doctor waving a syringe in the direction of a patient’s quaking buttocks. Through clenched teeth, I smile. Foreboding about Sam’s unhealthy heart hovers.
Lisbon’s Doll Hospital, founded in 1830, is a quaint, family-owned repair shop for vintage dolls. The bins of plastic and wooden body parts (limbs, torsos, heads) seem oddly hopeful as if to demonstrate that virtually every health incident—that’s what the email called it—is repairable. I can’t find any toy hearts.
Lisbon’s Pharmacy Museum is a temple to life-saving pharmaceuticals. The galleries are full-sized replicas of pharmacies dating back to when humans discovered that Nature’s bounty could medicate away maladies, that miracle drugs might someday delay Sam’s mortality.
Hospitals and holidays expect me to sleep with the lights on, shut out clamoring noises, pretend everyone is safely tucked in. For a worry-free vacation, I ignore the world’s damaged hearts—cracked, crumbling, curing, convalescing. Or fatally collapsing.
The midnight air is ruffling. The raucous, slurred voices of party-goers echo off buildings packed and stacked in tight embraces. Rattling trams roll by on steel rails. Car engines, gunning and gear-shifting, scurry up and down hilly streets.
An ambulance siren wails, full of heartache. The sound takes my thoughts to the hospital room in Boston, 3,186 miles away, packed with machines and medicines plugged into Sam.
Travel is a medicinal respite from the clunky facts of my life. On the road I am empowered, unfettered. What I do, where I go, what I think about, is decided by me—and only me. I can devour an entire Bacalhau à Brás or skip lunch altogether.
In losing control over his life, Sam has captured control of mine. If he gets through this, I’ll tease him about ruining my vacation. For now, sending an email is the only thing I can think to do.
Slumping in my chair, I open my laptop and stare at the screen.
