*

In May of 2023, I was a participant in an international poetry festival at the U/Mass Lowell Campus, in Lowell, MA. Many of the poets and writers there were from South America, and it was a pleasure to meet, read, and talk with many of these folks. In May we were confident that the dreaded virus was not a threat. The reports from the media indicated that the numbers had greatly diminished.

During this festival, many of the panels, etc., took place indoors, and for a number of hours. Many of the participants were without masks, and I was one of them.

Painting by Denise Penizzoto.

Two days after the said event, I woke up with muscle aches and flu-like symptoms. I tested myself and the line was brazenly bright red. This was a straight-no-chaser moment. I was a home for the virus. Friends left food at my door, etc., but I live basically alone with my cat Klezmer. People told me to take Paxlovid, but I brushed them aside. I thought, ” I can sweat this out, like other times when I was sick.” But those other times were when I was younger, not a 68-year-old man – who should know better.

So as it turned out this saga turned into an elongated Long Day’s Journey into Night. I was feverish, experiencing chills, cold sweats, coughed up copious amounts of phlegm. I lost a lot of weight in a short time, damp tissues surrounded me on my bed. I looked like something out of a Lucien Freud nightmare.

One night I was fitfully sleeping. I woke up, and there was a gaudy man in a cheap polyester sports jacket. He looked like some snake oil salesman from the Twilight Zone or a “Crazy Eddie” ad. And he was real as day. His thinning hair seemed to be slicked down on his scalp by a wave of Vitalis. He said with a cracked smile through a TV screen of sorts, “Elegant and Eternal, Elegant and Eternal.” What was he pitching? A boat ride to hell? Elegant coffins? I shot up from my pillow and there he was again – in my frightened face. “Elegant and Eternal, Elegant and Eternal.” I got up shaking. I took a shot of whiskey to stabilize myself, then went back to bed.

Later that night, I found myself in a vivid dream. It was a pastoral scene, walking with my late wife Dianne, flowers abounded, the air perfumed, a hint of music was in the background. I was incredibly happy, and I did not want to leave. Just as I decided to stay, my cat jumped up on me, and woke me up from this dream. I guess he knew something was wrong. Cats are that way.

I finally recovered, but it took me most of the month of May.  Since then, I have thought about this incident a lot, and the two paths that were offered to me.