"Okay, Miss MacDonald, just climb up on here and lay down for me."
Joyce does as she's told.
"Great." The technician kindly touches her shoulder. "Now get comfortable because we'll need you to lay very still during the scan."
"I'll add this support cushion under your knees." He hoists up a square piece of foam and waits.
Joyce hesitates until Mr. Maseko slides a dark hand beneath her right knee and lifts it gently. She complies, lifting the other knee, and he puts the cushion in place.
"And these side rails will help you relax your arms."
Joyce was instructed that she could not wear any metal for her MRI tonight, so she chose her favourite and most comfortable loungewear set: a soft pink pullover with a large cat face on the front, and matching sweatpants with the word "Purrfect" along the butt.
"This is the panic button." Maseko pulls a type of squeeze ball attached to a long pneumatic tube from the wall and hands it to her.
"If at any point you need to stop, just squeeze this and we'll come let you out, okay?"
"I am nervous, Dr. Maseko." Joyce admits.
"Oh, it's just Mr. Maseko. And that's okay, it's normal. But everything will be fine, and we're here to look after you."
It's late. Joyce's appointment was set for 11:15pm. Normally, she would be at home watching television with her cat, Phillis, after a long day at the department store. They both love detective shows and true crime documentaries.
"Let's put these on your head. They'll block out much of the noise from the machine, but also allow you to listen to the music you've selected, and to hear me over the intercom in the booth just over there."
Joyce wiggles her ears under the large headphones. Earlier, she asked to hear Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" during the scan. Alanis always makes Joyce feel strong and free, and she figured it would help in such a space that makes her feel scared and constrained.
Her relationship to healthcare spaces has always been complicated. Hospitals and other such places, in which guests are generally referred to as "patients", make her terribly anxious. And yet, she's always been attracted to doctors and men in healthcare. She feels relaxed by their warm authority and sense of control in a space that is so often sterile and cold.
"Finally, I'm going to put this frame piece over your head that will improve the brain scan. All this will help us determine what might be the cause of your migraines, okay?"
Maskeo touches her shoulder again.
"Okay, Dr. Maseko" says Joyce.
"Mister. Now I'll ease you into the machine..."
Joyce's bed-like platform is slowly inserted into the large, cylindrical machine. It's a very tight space. She takes a deep breath.
"Okay, Miss MacDonald, are you ready?"
"I think so."
"Great, I'm going to head into the booth, and you'll hear me through the intercom in a few moments."
At the lower edge of her sight, she can see the warm pink colour that she chose for the lights in the room. It brings her a little comfort.
"Can you hear me, Miss MacDonald?"
"Mhm."
"Good. Now we're about to get started. You'll hear some odd noises from the machine, but that's all completely normal. Just lie very still for me, and try not to move your head or face, okay?"
"Yes, Doctor."
"Um--here, I'll put your music on now."
Joyce closes her eyes and hears the familiar opening of her favourite album. Electric guitars play around each other as a harmonica fades in and out. Then Alanis sings.
"Do I stress you out? My sweater is on backwards and inside out and you say, 'how appropriate'."
Hearing her old friend, Joyce feels a little more at ease. And she thinks of her teenage son. Mark lives in a neighbouring city. He moved in with his father after he and Joyce split up. There was no resentment in his choice; Mark simply wanted to follow his boyhood idol. But it still stung. She felt doubly abandoned and desperately uninteresting. Joyce remembers how Alanis helped her through that time. How she helped her regain some confidence.
"Okay, Miss MacDonald, I'm going to--"
"Please--Call me Joyce."
There's already something deeply intimate about the experience. Dr. Maseko's soft, low voice in her ears, the tight space, the dim lighting, the late hour, and her overwhelming sense of vulnerability.
"Oh, uh...okay, Joyce. I'm going to start the first set of scans. Just relax and try to remain still."
As the whirring and distorted, electronic sounds of the MRI machine fight to wrest her attention away from the music, Joyce tries instead to imagine things that usually help her to relax.
There's a lavender scented candle in her living room. She always loved that smell. The colour, too. In high school she had a tie-dye shirt dominated by a pale, blueish purple. Though it was just a cheap shirt she dyed herself, she loved the way it draped over her perky, braless chest. To this day, Joyce is convinced it played a critical role in catching the eye of a classmate whom she lured into a small closet during a house party. They made out in the dark for twenty minutes surrounded by someone else's clothes.
"Okay, Joyce, you're doing great. I'm going to adjust the machine and do the next set of scans."
She finds his voice very soothing, too. It's low and mellow, with just a hint of a grainy edge.
Joyce gently flexes her elbow to bring her right hand into her lap and waits to see if Dr. Maseko has anything to say about the movement. The machine initiates a new set of pops and thunks, but he adds nothing.
Longing to hear his voice again, she imagines they're now in a closet together. The scent of clean denim and shirts washed with an unfamiliar detergent fills the air around them. His voice gently rumbles by her ear, muffled in the confined space.
"An older version of me. Is she perverted like me? Would she go down on you in a theatre?" Alanis sings.
Joyce dares to stroke herself through her sweatpants for just a moment. Then she waits, frozen.
"And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it," Alanis continues in her slightly unhinged way.
Joyce gently rubs her fingers over her crotch again.
"Is everything okay, Joyce?" Maseko chimes in over the intercom. "We're progressing well."
"Yes, sir, thank you. I mean--Doctor. I'm fine." She doesn't remove her hand so as not to draw further attention.
"Okay, then I'm going to go ahead and continue."
Back at that party, so many years ago, she trembled, overwhelmed by what she'd managed to accomplish. She'd successfully coaxed that boy into a strange closet with her, but it had taken all her focus to maintain an air of seductive confidence to do so. Once they swung the door shut behind them, Joyce's sense of her own body changed in the small, dark space. Limbs felt at once too long and too short. The tie-dye shirt was too tight and twisted. And her hair no longer sat right on her head. But the pretty boy didn't seem to notice. Or, if he did, it must have seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do to brush past it and simply kiss her with more gentleness and care. After all, it's not that she wanted to leave.
Joyce drifts back out of her memories. Some time has passed, and she's been passively stroking herself over her sweatpants again. Dr. Maseko seems unbothered, focusing his attention solely on her head. Her knees are slightly raised by the support cushion, and she's encouraged by the assumption that he can't see how she's choosing to distract herself.
Subtly, Joyce slides her hand underneath the waist band of her pink sweatpants. In a self-soothing manner, she plays softly with the curly black hairs her fingertips meet there.
"Okay, Joyce, I know you've been feeling anxious but we're almost halfway through now. I'm just going to remind you to remain as still as possible, okay?"
