Go Slow Therapy

I tripped over her, in the street, just like that. I was in a hurry to cross the road and then suddenly, crash-bang! My heels made a nasty screeching sound and I landed on my rear. She was teeny. Tinier than a garden gnome. She was wearing a hat with woollen bobbles of every hue. “Can’t you look where you’re going, are you blind or what?!” I fumed. The little woman grinned. I tried to get up but my legs refused to obey me. “Shit,” I swore, trying to get my ankle to work. The woman giggled and shouted, “Go Slow Therapy!” I looked her in the eye: they were yellowish-brown, the colour of amber. She just laughed and shook her head, which made the bobbles on her hat jiggle up and down. She was weird. There was something weasel-like about her face. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, irritated. The dwarf woman wiped her nose in a huge chequered handkerchief. “Just wait and see,” she said and disappeared. I looked around in astonishment, then got up and limped to the trolleybus stop. The bus came after a while and I got on. And that’s when it all began.

I’m totally neurotic. I bite my fingernails and never have time for anything. I’m always in a hurry. Indecisive people, long conversations and slow lifts wind me up. Traffic jams on the way to work drive me into a blind frenzy and make me want to kick anyone in front of my trolleybus. I’m allergic to tourists asking for directions. I can’t stand vacations and national holidays. I get worked up about children asking pointless questions. I suffer panic attacks and wake up in the middle of the night because of phone calls I didn’t deal with during the day. I don’t eat much and am often constipated. There’s a strict inspector sitting inside of me. If she catches me not working hard enough she transmits harsh, reproachful signals to my brain. Sometimes she doesn’t stop cracking her whip till late at night. I’m not a nice person to be with, I’m permanently angry and have every day planned out to the last second.

That’s why that midget really got to me. I’ll be late again. Tripping over wasn’t part of my plan. Now my ankle hurts and the trolleybus is dawdling along like a worn-out old nag. And there’s this irritating old lady with a blue rinse and an appalling wheelie bag. Twice she drove it over my feet. The red light takes forever to change and someone around here smells really bad. Nerves make my eyelids twitch as I studiously avoid looking at my watch. Suddenly a mobile starts to ring. The ringing gets louder and louder and I’m mentally cursing the deaf idiot who can’t be bothered to pick up. “That wasn’t nice of you,” says a man in a grey coat turning to me as he slowly fishes his mobile out of his pocket. Every eye on the trolleybus is fixed on me and I realise I’m sweating even more profusely. “What’s going on?” I snap in exasperation. A brunette with enormous artificial eyelashes smiles. “Go Slow Therapy.”

“Have you gone crazy?” I ask, and the man with the mobile in his hand whispers, “It’s just started.”

The trolleybus reaches a stop. Everyone gets off. I realise I’m going to be seriously late for my meeting. I want to take my mobile out of my pocket but can’t move my hands. My fingers are stiff, cold and gnarled. They’re somebody else’s hands, helplessly folded in my lap, refusing to obey me. I try to get up but my legs refuse to obey and I just sit there watching the trolleybus leave my stop. At first I’m gripped by helpless fury, which after twenty minutes turns to panic and finally into dull apathy. I’m the last person left on the bus. For some mysterious reason nobody gets on. Black Mamba from Kill Bill  comes to my mind, flexing her fingers after she’s recovered from a coma. I try to move one of my little fingers at least a fraction. The harder I try the stiffer it gets.

“I can’t move!” I scream as the trolleybus arrives at the terminus. The driver pokes his head out of his cabin with a tired sigh. “Go Slow Therapy, huh?”

“What the hell does go slow therapy mean?” I yell back, by now thoroughly fed up with this phrase. “It does sometimes happen on this line,” the man says, taking a sandwich out of his bag. “I don’t know why. It’s something to do with speed. At least that’s what this lady said to me. The faster you think, talk, walk, breathe, the slower you get. You might even find that you stop moving altogether,” he explains.

“OK, but what am I supposed to do now?” I ask, disgusted by the bits of salami dropping from his mouth. “Well,” he replies, “they say you’ve got to start breathing slowly and properly and generally take it really, really slow.”

“Breathe slowly, what sort of nonsense is that, there’s nothing wrong with my breathing, I’ve being doing that since I was a baby, after all.” Now I’m getting seriously worked up. At that moment I realise I can’t move my head and my tongue is stiffening up. I mumble something.

“You see?” says the man, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “You mustn’t get worked up!” Then he proceeds to open a bottle of mineral water and drink it with gusto. “Slowly. That’s how you’ll have to do everything from now on,” he says. “You’ll have to learn how to walk slowly, look slowly, think slowly and above all, you mustn’t try too hard. You mustn’t push anything, especially not yourself. Good luck with it, and in the meantime you can stay here as long as you need!”

He closes his cabin door and starts the engine. The trolleybus sets off and I realise how hard this is. This slow breathing. I try to relax, forget about everything, try not to want anything and, above all, to stay completely calm. Every now and then the thought of something I have to do crowds in on my thoughts. My nerves are on edge. My stomach is in knots. The inspector inside me is tapping her pen impatiently. A meeting with a client. An interim activity report and a financial summary, a tax return, an order form to send out, a work meeting to arrange… The trolleybus has covered its route a million times and still I can’t move.

“That’s it for today!” the driver suddenly announces, pulling into the terminus. He collects his things and is about to get off. “Hey,” I shout, “you can’t leave me here like this! It’s almost night and I still can’t move!” The man scratches his head and says he can’t help me. I’m the only one on this course of slow walking therapy. All he can offer is a warm blanket and what’s left of his roll. “A course of therapy is a course of therapy.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Last time, I had someone sitting here for a week until he managed to slow down.” He gets off the trolleybus and waves good-bye. Has he gone crazy, I wonder? Or have I? The inspector inside me applies her most powerful lever – my conscience – but I can no longer weep. Even my tears are stuck somewhere beneath my eyelids.

I’ve been living on the trolleybus for two weeks now. The passengers are peculiar. The man I silently sent to hell because of his ringing mobile always greets me with a friendly smile. He's done this course of therapy, too. He used to be addicted to his phone. Apparently he wouldn’t even go to the sauna without his mobile. The driver supplies me with bread rolls and whenever I’m able to open my mouth he pours a little water down my throat. The brunette with the enormous eyelashes teaches me how to breathe properly and the blue-rinsed old lady gives me massages to silence the inspector inside me.

The inspector has finally stopped cracking her whip. Today I’ll be up to making my way to the back exit. I get off. I smell and look a bit like a bag lady. Never mind. I watch cars rush past and people walk by. It’s not difficult. I inhale slowly until I feel a balloon inflating in my belly. I open my mouth slightly and exhale, slowly. The more slowly I breathe the slower my movements get. I place one foot on the pavement and, slowly shifting the weight of my body onto it, take a step forward. Slowly. I’ve got time. Time to look around. To take things in. Nothing matters except the movement itself. The way I walk. I am aware of the present. I am in the here and now. I notice a disabled woman’s cane catch between the paving stones. A drunken old man dances in front of the presidential palace. A depressed Vietnamese in an Asian bistro gazes at its steamed-up window. A woman in lacquered pumps picks her nose. People are protesting outside the presidential palace, someone is on hunger strike. There are tramps and Romanian children begging. A blind accordion player, weeping. A crazy lady with an Alsatian in a sweater. People asleep on benches. Two men kissing. A woman jogging with headphones on. I notice details I’ve never noticed before. Grinning faces on a building’s facade as well as a woman feeding an old ginger tomcat by a rubbish bin. I cross the road. Slowly. A shiny BMW steps on its brakes at the last minute. Its furious driver screams out of the window: “Are you asleep, you stupid cow?!” I grin and say nothing. A tiny little woman is dancing on the car hood. She is smaller than a garden gnome. Multi-coloured woollen bobbles dance on her enormous hat. She is singing. “Go Slow Therapy, param-pam-pam, Go Slow…”