Nausea in Three Acts
By Cass Mensah
I.
That I voluntarily traveled to midtown Manhattan is proof of my desperation. Doom scrolling on social media no longer worked, so I crawled out of the layers of blankets on my couch, donned my ankle length jacket, and hopped on the yellow line. Aching to distract my mind, I welcomed the tourist-made labyrinth, dodging selfie-sticks and slush puddles block after block. The fluorescent billboards cycled through brightly colored ads while boisterous crowds encircled street performers. I was sufficiently overstimulated and unable to hold an intrusive thought until a man in a sharp suit bumped into me. The smell of his cologne forced me to remember. I remembered the brownstone. I remembered the moment the date turned sour. I remembered when I choked on “no.” Zombie-like, I stumbled onto a quieter side street away from tour guides and chain restaurants, bent over, and puked.
II.
What scares Enid (played by Niamh Algar) the most, is what her mind refuses to remember. In the 2021 film, Censor, the young British woman works at an agency responsible for cutting indecent movie scenes and determining film ratings. One day, she watches a horror film that triggers memories from her own haunted past. Her hands shake and her mouth falls open as the monster on screen slaughters a young girl in a cabin in the woods. Stifling tears, she recalls the day her sister went missing in an eerily similar setting. Enid runs to the office bathroom, lifts the toilet seat, and pukes. In the following weeks, Enid rapidly collects fragments from her past. Whenever she gets within arm’s reach of the memory that would clarify her role in her sister’s disappearance, her mind falters, blurs, and hides. Her brain distorts reality. She replaces unsavory memories with present circumstances or scenes from films she reviewed for work. What is real is whatever she can stomach. “You’d be surprised,” her colleague explains, “what the human brain can edit out when it can’t handle the truth.”
III.
Two days after my hysterectomy, there was nothing to remember. Like breadcrumbs, I picked at the remnants of the procedure left on my skin, hoping they'd fill the gaps in my memory. The itchy incision scars framing the place where my uterus used to be. The sticky black residue on my shoulder blade, where they (who is they?) must have secured the breathing tubes that kept me alive while I was unconscious. The spots of crimson blood lining the thin cloth underwear they (WHO IS, THEY?) dressed me in while I was under the knife. Despite this evidence, when I search my mind for details of that day, I find static. One moment, the anesthesiologist had me count down to ten, the next, I was waking up in a different room as a nurse I’ve never met handed me a cup of water. A life-altering event I did not experience.
The absence of a memory is as terrifying as its visceral presence.
About the Author
Cass Mensah is a chronically ill civil rights attorney. Her work has been published in Teen Vogue and Salty. She is writing a collection of essays about what her favorite horror films have taught her about her disabled body. Most days, she can be found on her couch playing video games or at her local pottery studio making mediocre mugs. She is always open to book recommendations. Find her online at www.cassmensah.com or on Instagram @mensahsays.
