Queer old Me - EP11
“Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days?”
Queer Old me is an evolving queer memoir—written in real time—by a non-binary author navigating cancer, desire, and identity. It’s a sex-positive (sometimes raunchy), literary record of illness, intimacy, and becoming.
Start here | Previous episode | Next episode
The hospital had woken me up that morning.
“¿Señor?”—and a good morning to my non-binary ass.
“We are calling to confirm that your surgery will take place Friday next week. Do you have a pen and paper?”
“I—I—I—” I stammered. I rose out of bed and hit my big toe against my nightstand. Fuck, shit, fuck! I searched frantically for a pen anywhere or even paper. My house seemed to have been robbed of all writing utensils.
“¿Señor?” The voice was insistent. “Maybe you could use your note app on your phone? Could you manage that?”
“Of course. Sorry! Yes, right. On it!”
I noted down everything that was said to me, things to do, things to bring, times and locations. He repeated everything twice and took long pauses in between.
“¿Lo tienes todo?”
“I think I do.” I repeated everything back to him.
“Good. Have a nice day sir!”
When we hung up, I stood still for a while. And then I went back to bed.
Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days?
I phoned Cutiepie.
“The surgery is in eight days.”
“And a good morning to you! Ok. That’s a Friday, right?”
“Sorry. Yes, good morning. It’s a Friday. Yes.”
“You OK ba-by?”
“It feels like a truck just ran me over to be honest. It’s one thing to know something is going to happen, it’s another to have a time and a date and actual fucking instructions.”
“I’ll be there every step of the way ba-by! You’re not alone in this. What time is the surgery?”
“I don’t know. I was told to show up at the hospital at seven.”
“Seven? As in AM?”
“Afraid so.”
“Ba-by, are they for real? Let me calculate the whole thing.” He stayed quiet for a bit. “So, you’re about an hour away from the hospital, that makes it a what, a five AM wake-up call? Fuck! I’d better spend the night at yours then.”
“Yes, please.”
“But we’re not watching one of your musicals. Do you hear me?”
I emptied the portafilter and refilled it with ground coffee, tapped it flat and locked it into the machine. I placed my mug under the drip and walked away, forgetting to press the button. I switched on the TV and clicked on YouTube.
Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days? An ad played before the video would start. I picked up my phone and opened Grindr. I skipped the ad. Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days? I opened Instagram and scrolled while I listened to the news. A war here. A genocide there. Donald Trump. Another genocide. Inflation. Donald Trump. Climate change. Corruption. Hate Crimes. Donald fucking Trump. Another war. Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days? I switched the TV off and buried my phone in the sofa. On the way to the bathroom, I stopped by the kitchen and pressed the button on the coffee maker. I got naked and found refuge under a hot shower. The heat almost burnt my skin. I stayed until it ran cold. I dried naked in the living room, staring at my TV screen. A rectangular black mirror that never reflected me, its chasm calling out to me. It dared me to switch it on. I couldn’t. Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days?
When I closed the door behind me, I didn’t know where I was headed. I walked down the three flights of stairs. It was midday. I looked right, I looked left. I went left. Left led to a metro station. A metro station led to a train station. The train led to Aranjuez.
I looked outside the window at the scenery I knew well passing me by rapidly. My chest tightened, my breathing became heavy. I was trapped. Trapped in a moving vehicle that wouldn’t stop, that I couldn’t stop. What am I doing on this train? I want out.
I took a Lorazepam. I did some circular breathing and I repeated the same motto in a quiet voice: “I am an adult. I have the power. I am an adult. I have the power.”
My breathing steadied and my shoulders dropped.
Aranjuez had an automated bathroom that belonged to what we thought the future would look like forty years ago. It was fully chrome and the size of my living room, the wall dripping in automated cleaning liquid. I assumed the entire place was doused in antiseptic between each visit. But when one has to go, one has to go. I watched a fat man wash his hands and look sad—I ignored him the same way I ignore him every day.
“¡Hola, guapo!”
“Hi.”
“¿Qué os pongo?” The waitress’s hand rested on my upper arm for a little too long.
“Un café americano para llevar, por favor. And a croissant.”
“To take away?” She repeated, mimicking a sad face. “Coming right up.”
Much like the bathroom, the old cafe located inside the even older train station was looking at the future from the past. There was a massive cash register that did everything itself. It offered change and receipts without the flirtatious waitress having to do anything.
“Es que es una maravilla, sabes?”
“How do I get to the gardens?” She looked at me amused.
“¿Los jardines guapo? ¿Hoy?”
“Sí,” I replied politely—Bitch, I do what I want.
She gestured for a while, touching my shoulder, my arm, leaning against me. It was simply a right and then a left. I thanked her with my most charming smile and headed out.
I remembered the seminarian talking to me about the gardens in Aranjuez.
“You should go one day. It’s inspiring, it’s more than that: it’s majestic.”
“Majestic, huh?”
“It’s considered one of the greatest gardens in Spain.”
One of the greatest gardens in Spain was bare and dry when I got there. Not a flower in sight—typical.
I sat on a bench and took in the “view”. I drank my coffee slowly, staring at the parterre of flowers that hadn’t bloomed yet. Eight days. That was all I had. Eight days. How do you make a difference in your life in eight days?
I couldn’t come up with an answer. The people I loved knew I loved them. I had told them repeatedly enough. So what? More sex? More flesh? More food? More sugar? More, what exactly? What could I possibly experience in the next eight days? It would either make me sadder because I would never be able to enjoy it again or fill me with regret because I had wasted years not doing it. How do you spend your last eight days?
I took another sip of my coffee.
The sun was shining the way I liked, enough to kiss my skin but not enough to make me sweat through my shirt. The sky was deliciously cerulean. The moon hung, fully round, in that sea of blue; impervious, stately. Birdsongs filled the air, like a concerto of warbles and chirps. Next to me, the brown paper bag contained the croissant I had bought. I opened it and took a bite. I hadn’t had pastries in over a year. The buttery goodness melted in my mouth. A flock of birds swirled off the rooftop at once and flung themselves in the air. A ballet of precision and grace. A peacock turned a corner and cocked his head. He approached me tentatively. I risked throwing a little bit of my croissant, reluctantly so, and he pecked at it until it was all gone. Then the bird looked at me again.
“Beauty, if you want more of my croissant, you’re gonna have to fan your train. I ain’t giving my croissant away for squat!”
The bird cocked its head again. He was probably thinking “What is this fool? I ain’t doing my courtship display for a mere croissant. Fucking humans!”
The peacock turned around and left me and my croissant. I leaned against the stone bench and returned to the sky. Chaos once told me she could get lost in its infinity and lose entire days in reverie. My brain doesn’t switch off that way. Things need to get done. Sooner rather than later. Now, preferably.
There was a burly man dragging his sons and his fishing material. The oldest of the two looked about eight years old and he was lagging behind, seemingly purposefully. The dad stopped and turned around. He went up to his son, his body as a weapon. He looked down on the child, raised a hand menacingly and said “maricon!”. That was all I heard “maricon!”—muthafuker!
I put down my plastic cup and took off my backpack. My eyes did not flinch. The man didn’t hit the child. He walked away huffing. The young boy made himself as tiny as he could and tried to pick up the pace.
I left the park and returned to the train station. I didn’t go flirt in the cafe, I sat on the platform and waited patiently to be taken home.
I spent the return journey glued to the window. Coming back was always much easier for me. I liked endings more than I did beginnings. The day was almost over. Seven days left.
New episodes Every Wednesday.
This is beautiful and heartbreaking, La. The way you weave "eight days" like a mantra through the piece—it pulls the reader into that suffocating headspace where time becomes both too long and not long enough. The peacock moment, the "maricon!" in the park, the automatic car wash... every detail lands with quiet precision. And that final image of the garden without flowers—it stays with you. Thank you for writing this. ❤️