My ground-floor bachelor apartment reeks of sweat and nicotine, and sometimes drunks stumble in looking for the taxi service one door over from mine. The phone rings five times before my answering machine grinds to life. "Monday. Inbox. Full. Delete old messages." I sink further into my cocoon of blankets and glare at the yellowed plastic phone and, by extension, the owner of every other phone it's ever been connected to.
	Eventually I rise to my feet and unsteadily make my way over the the phone. I step over reminders of my broken life; empty bottles, cans, clothes, and boxes of books from my bookshelf which I started to organize two weeks ago and gave up on. The answering machine clicks and groans before playing me some poor-quality recordings.
"Thursday. At. Two-Fifteen PM."
"Eugenides, this is Dr. Anwar. You missed our last appointment, but we can make it up if you come in at 9am on the 6th. Hope you're feeling better, bye."
"Monday. At. Eleven AM."
"Hi Eugenides, it's Dr. Anwar. This is the second appointment you've missed. I can reschedule one last time for Friday the 10th at 1:30pm. If you miss it, I will be terminating our professional relationship and contacting the authorities as I have reason to believe you pose a risk to yourself. Take care."
"Friday. At. Three PM."
"This is Dr. Anwar. You have missed your second rescheduled appointment and I regret to inform you that I will no longer be treating you as a patient. I called the police, okay? They will pick you up Monday morning and take you to the hospital... I'm sorry it had to come to this. I hope your inpatient doctor has some success with you."
"Monday. At. Six AM."
"Genie, it's mom. I woke up this morning and your father didn't come home from work last night. Call me now."
	My heart skips a beat, but I am levelheaded. This could be indicative of a problem because my father is nothing if not predictable. However, there are many reasons for a homicide detective to have to do paperwork well into the wee hours of the morning. He is working on a huge case right now, I reason, and has been working ten hour days at the station for weeks. The plaid comforter falls from my shoulders as I lift the handset and dial my mother.
"Mother mother bo-buther, banana-fana-fo-futher, me-my-moe-mother, mother." I say somberly as soon as I hear my mom put the receiver to her ear.
"Hey, Genie," mother replies, the tension in her voice palpable. She sounds like she's carrying a pillary stone around her neck. Weary.
	I know I am a burden to her. I hate how she is the one who has to face the consequences of my illness. She is paying my bills right now, since I stopped working to die and rot and turn green alone in bed. Now she is worried about father and I am worried about her. The stress cycle begins again.
"Did you call the precinct?" I ask her, anxiously trying to rake my fingers through the mats in my hair.
	Mother berates me over the phone. Of course she called dad's work. Of course she called dad's friends. Of course she called dad's relatives in the city. Nobody has seen him. My dad is very easy to spot. He has the same pale grey eyes as me, the same dark skin and the above average height; I am 5'11 and my dad is 6'4. He is a big man with salt and peppered black hair and a big mustache. Unlike me, my dad is bulky. He stands out in a crowd not only for his height, but for his huge bull neck and broad shoulders. None of his clothes were missing from the house, so not only is he a giant walking around the city, he is also wearing a blue police uniform. In short, the man is hard to lose.
	I promise my mother I will be there soon and I hang up the phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flicker. I turn to see a clown in the room. It's Ronald McDonald and he is ominously pointing toward the kitchen. This is a hallucination, I know, but I believe that it is my weird brain trying to tell me something in a weird brain way. I tread across the threadbare shag carpet, my white sports socks picking up static electricity, my comforter trailing behind me.
	My kitchen is the nicest room in my apartment. A previous tennant painted the dark brown paneling white in here and put up yellow curtains that pick up the yellow in the crappy, stained linoleum. You can actually tell it's daytime outside in here. I look over my shoulder and Ronald has gone. My cat cries plaintively beside his empty bowl and I am overcome with guilt and shame for having not fed him today. He looks at me very sullenly and meows again. I give him the last of the fancy feast and throw the can in the garbage because I am not motivated enough to recycle. I blink and the cat food can is back in my hand. Again, I throw it out.
	I am shaken out of my reverie by the sound of a car door closing on the street in front of the apartment. I hop up onto the kitchen counter and peer out the blinds stealthily. Two cop cruisers have pulled up in front of my house, and two cops in each vehicle step out. At first I get excited, thinking they have news about my dad, but then I remember that it's Monday morning and Dr. Anwar has damned me to the psych ward. I grab my blanket and the cat and I crawl under the sink and draw the curtain.
	Under the sink, the kitchen garbage presses against my face and I have a box of Borax up my ass crack. My heart beats wildly and I don't know what to do. Everything I knew about the law has left my head in an instant. Can they come in without a warrant? I think so, to stop a suicide, and Dr. Anwar has made them think I am on a chair with a rope around my neck. This is incredibly stupid. If I had been about to kill myself on Friday, couldn't I have done it over the weekend?
	As I rhapsodize in my mind about the flaws of beurocracy, my front door slams open.
"Don't move!" shouts a cop and I jump, almost hitting my head on the bottom of the sink and slightly squeezing the cat, who sinks his claws into my thigh in response. A song begins to play, and as I strain to hear it, it increases in volume. The cops' boots on the linoleum match the beat perfectly. I realize soon that the song I hear is not real, and just my brain's interpretation of the sounds around me at that moment. The trumpet is a lady cop yelling into her radio as they sweep the apartment.
	My legs start to cramp painfully and the cat is getting restless. I can't help but wonder what would happen if the police approached somebody actually on the brink of suicide in this manner; shouting and stomping. Personally, I think I would panic and die faster. My lungs begin to get sore from taking shallow, silent breaths, but I don't move a muscle, keeping my saucer eyes on the curtain that separates me from the needles of the mental hospital and the jostling of careless police.
	A small mercy is that I parked my car around the back of the building last time I was out. "What does she drive?" Asks the female officer into the radio
"I'll look in the parking lot." another officer volunteers.
	I focus as hard as I can, trying to put a psychic barrier around my car so that the police don't find it. I don't fully believe it will work, but it's all I can do without giving my position away. In just a few seconds my head starts to ache, but I am too afraid to give up in case I am making a difference.
"Oh my god!" a police officer reels out of my closet-sized computer room. "Somebody puked in here!"
	I recall a few boozy nights this week, but the details are hazy. I haven't cleaned this place in a month. I hit my head off the underside of the sink again when I hear the first two officers converge in the living room.
	"I searched the entire parking lot. There is no vehicle with that license plate." the second, volunteer officer, tells the first, lady officer.
"Did you check the back parking lot too?" there's a pause.
"Yes!" the second officer eventually replies, defensively. "of course I did! Do you think I don't know how to do my job?"
	The first officer concedes with the second, and then radios for the two other officers to meet in the living room. The third, puke officer, must have taken one boot off because I can hear his mismatched footsteps. A fourth officer appears through the front door. I am annoyed when I realize he was searching the property for me. I reflect that if I hadn't slept the entire weekend I could have gotten a good head start on these guys.
	"I gave you two days to get out!" says Dr. Anwar's voice from the darkness beside my head.
"I know!" I hiss back angrily. I bite down on my tongue because I want to yell at her for calling the police, but I also have to be quiet. Also she is not really in this cupboard with me. I swat at the air feverishly.
	The female officer yells "Clear!" and all four of them start talking simultaneously.