Dark Possibility

Shock filled her, numbing her ears for a moment as her brain desperately tried to process what the doctor had just told her. Her CT Scan test results were normal. The headaches…he refused to call them migraines since they were almost constant and migraines came and went, were just a part of her personal Fibromyalgia. Whatever caused FMS was the culprit of these, too, and so there was no fast cure for her. Actually, there was no cure at all.

Misy closed her eyes, willing his words to hell where they could burn as horribly as she sometimes did on days when the hateful disease would set her skin on fire…invisibly, of course. If it were visible, she wouldn't have to pretend she wasn't sizzling inside so as not to ruin everyone else's day. Everyone would be able to see it and she wouldn't have to deal with each person's way of dealing with her when she was forced to admit she was feeling "sick."

She listened, her hope shattering against the cracked, jagged bottom of her heart, as the doctor smiled politely and explained that standard pain killer would be fine for now and she might want to consider losing weight. Misy's mind flashed to her husband and daughter's responses to her having to cancel plans and inability to decide whether she should lay down or sit since both were just positions in which to bear agony. The emotional pain they were forced to endure, unable to help her, hit her and she was sorry for her self-centered, ungrateful thought. Just as fast, though, others in her life came into her mind, causing her nose to twist until she was sure she resembled someone caught in a taffy machine with a most unfortunate outcome, and a small wicked part of her laughed at the small alarm now entering the doctor's eyes.

She started to stretch her muscles and immediately hunched back over and became very still. Her body was trying to tell her that her brain wanted to exit her skull through her eye sockets, no matter that the space was already occupied, and that a very nasty destiny was in store for her cranial guts if she didn't find a way to get rid of the pain and the pressure and the pain and the pressure and the pain and the pressure and the…

Bile rose in her throat, leaving a smell of acid and scorched flesh in her inner ear as she fought to control her desire to just…give this incurable, pitiable, sympathy-inducing, mind-butchering, demoralizing, unseen dragon of a curse to the healthy man in the white lab coat sitting just a couple feet away from her. Writing something on his little paper pad…probably another bloody, blasted prescription…anti-depressant maybe? Why not? What's another pill now? She might as well just swallow the Pharmacy. Maybe an accidental drug-interaction will produce antibodies to the genetic hex that nature had placed on her.

Seemingly oblivious to the fact that she would do almost anything at this very moment to give away her torment, the manicured, well cared-for hand reached out the papers to her. Little papers. Prescriptions. She could go fill them, or start a little collection in a nice, expensive scrapbook. Automatically, from years of ingrained obedience when in a physician's office, and goodness knew she'd been in far too many for one person in one lifetime, she rose from the examination table. Without even a blink, she plastered a fake "of course I'm happy with the service here and it's absolutely no problem that I will never be able to enjoy a sunset without my eyes hurting, sex without pain and the deceit of keeping that pain from my husband so he doesn't feel guilty or stop touching me at all no matter how much it kills me when he does, a baseball game that includes me holding the bat instead of looking at a television screen, or the dignity and self-respect of a person who doesn't have to beg for help from people who give it freely so long as they're given a long, humiliating explanation of why you need what you're asking for" smile on her face and hoped she could make it to the car before falling to pieces and spewing the contents of every meal she'd ever eaten onto the pavement.

Impotent rage tore apart her mind as she fell to her knees beside the driver's seat, too weak to even pull herself fully into the car. She knew her emotions were making it worse, but it wasn't fair. Misy sobbed, hot angry tears racing each other down her cheeks and for the first time, she wondered whether it was really worth it to live. How could anyone be expected to continue in this existence with no hope of relief, even temporary?

Her depression darkened and thickened, weighing on her thoughts as the pain behind her ears and the throbbing under her eyes scattered all of her attempts to make a rational decision. Organizing the pros and cons hurt almost as much as breathing. Her finger slid under her nose and she looked, expecting to see blood, but not surprised that it was just another fake sensation her body had decided she should delight in.

Sharp tingling seared through her knees and shins before shooting mock-lightening through the backs of her legs. With a sharp cry, she hauled herself into the seat and shoved her purse into the floorboards. She slammed the door, getting buckled before she even realized her hands were moving. For a moment she wondered what she was doing and as the pain lessened in her legs only to shoot through her back and stiffen her neck, she knew what she was going to do.

Misy moved as quickly as she could, barely aware that her fastest pace was slower than a galloping snail now. She fumbled with the keys, turning the ignition, each action a level of incinerating torture she never wanted to experience again. Ever. Pulling out of the parking space, she jerkily made her way banging the back of one car after another, wondering if she'd even get out of the parking lot with her car in one piece. Finally free, she stomped on the gas, her car pausing and then slamming forward right into the midst of traffic. An instant of abject terror sliced through her before multiple impacts and metal slashing into her body ended her life.


Garnet Leiah Hyneman
Tuesday, January 15, 2002 7:46:44 PM

Looking For Life
I Hate This
Abyss
Dark Possibility
I Walk Into The Room
Keep The Night
Laficofo Antisiqo
My Inner Forum
The Way of Things