It’s hard to explain exactly what happened that caused all, well, all of this to go down. I was stressed out about some, well, something entirely unimportant. It’s complicated. Though not quite as complicated as what happened the next day. I’ll try to explain what I can remember how I remember it, but I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to. And while I apologize if you think it’s a little hard to follow at times, trust me when I say it’s even more difficult for me when I’m remembering it.
See, the morning after whatever happened that I can’t exactly remember, I woke up relatively early. I felt a bit weird, but mostly just tired. Like normal. I walked into the bathroom to do my normal morning thing. As I started to shave, I realized I was hungrier than usual. While I was at the bathroom sink shaving, I walked over to the kitchen to make some real breakfast. I mean, partly real breakfast. I leaned in over the bathroom sink to get a closer look while I was shaving the stubble off of my upper lip. I opened the fridge and pulled out a pound of bacon. I used the details mirror to make sure the underside of my chin and jaw were clear. I slopped a trio of bacon strips onto a pan. Turning to my left, I head over to the toilet. I turn on the heat and plop a couple of frozen, premade waffles into my toaster. I’ll skip over the details of my time on the porcelain throne. I flip over the bacon. The toaster popped and I put the waffles onto a plate. I got up and flush the toilet, heading back to the sink. As I removed the bacon, I placed it carefully on the plate as well. I began to wash my hands. Just to make certain breakfast was ready, I took a taste of one of the pieces of bacon as I turned off the stove.
At the bathroom sink, as I washed my hands, I suddenly got a rushing woozy feeling, like when I stand up too quickly sometimes, and I could taste the bacon in my mouth. I finished washing my hands at a good clip. My food, that I somehow just made, was going to start getting cold. I would say I imagined it, but I could taste the bacon in my mouth and, had I imagined it, the bacon wouldn’t have had the slight tinge of burned fat flavor that lingered in a part of my mouth. After I finished washing my hands, I rushed out (possibly back out?) to the kitchen to start on my breakfast.
Despite the slight tinge of burnedness to the bacon, the breakfast was pretty solid if I say so myself. After I finished my bacon and waffles, I put the plate in the kitchen with the dirty pan to wash. I started to head back to the bathroom to shower. As I walked to the bathroom, I decided to get the washing out of the way. I headed back to the kitchen. Once I was in the bathroom, I turned on the shower and got ready as I waited for it to heat up. In the kitchen, I ran the sink to start rinsing. I checked the shower’s heat, and it’s about right. The plate was easy enough to rinse off. Running my tongue over my teeth, they felt oddly bumpy. As I step into the shower, I head to the sink to brush my teeth. After I finished rinsing the plate, I placed it in the dishwasher. The hot water felt good as it washed over my skin. At the bathroom sink, I wetted my toothbrush and carefully squeezed some toothpaste onto it. I carefully rinsed the pan, trying to minimize the amount of grease that gets into the sink before turning off the sink. I grabbed my bar of soap from the shower’s soap rack as the water washed away the weirdness of the morning. I got to work brushing my teeth. Taking a sheet of paper towel, I thoroughly wiped the remaining water out from my pan, as well all of the grease. I started to soap myself up. I made sure to brush every side of my teeth. I placed the rinsed pan onto the stove. As I was washing off the soap, I suddenly had to grab the wall of the shower due to a dizzying rush. I moved on to brushing my tongue clean with the toothbrush. I finished rinsing the soap off of my body, and squeezed out some shampoo. I spat out the toothpaste and washed the brush. I massaged the shampoo into my hair and scalp. As I finished applying the shampoo, I once again felt a little dizzy and my mouth tasted minty.
There was the quiet clattering sound of plastic hitting ceramic outside the shower. I wasn’t fully awake earlier, but I knew then that something weird was going on. Rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, I didn’t even bother to do my usual changing of temperatures to finish my shower. Stepping out, I grabbed a towel and started to dry myself off. I noticed the toothbrush had fallen into the sink. I grabbed the toothbrush and put it in its proper holder next to the sink. These woozy spells and memory problems were not normal for me. I decided to get myself checked out. Getting dressed in several layers of clothing, I head out into the winter chill. Normally I would only need a couple layers, maybe a sweater and an undershirt, but I had no clue what else this weird thing happening to me could be messing with internally, so I needed to be safe. I headed through the alley behind my apartment complex, rounded a corner, walked through one parking lot, then after crossing a street, continued through a separate parking lot, and reached an actual street. It’s early, and there were hardly any people around. Heading down that street for a few blocks, I reached the turn for the closest clinic.
As I walked to the clinic, I noticed that my local donut shop was just finishing up making a new batch of donuts. I continue towards the clinic in a rush. Casually entering the donut shop, I smile and greet the lady behind the counter. The brisk outdoor air, chilled further by the speed of the wind gusts that morning, caused the hairs remaining on my face to stand on edge. She warmly replied to my greeting, recognizing me from the last bajillion times I’d gotten donuts here in the morning. I pull my scarf up even further, to hopefully keep my face as warm as possible. We chatted for a bit as the new donuts finished. I entered the clinic, talked to the person at the desk, and sat down to wait. After buying two donuts and a coffee, I sat down inside the donut place and started to eat. The wait was kind of boring, but a necessary part of being a walk-in. It didn’t matter that I’d already eaten, I was never full enough to not enjoy donuts. I settled into my seat at the clinic, looking through my phone’s notifications from last night. I finished the donut and walked out of the shop. In my chair, I started to feel the vertigo come on again. After taking a few deep breaths that tasted like chocolate and coffee, it subsided.
Shortly afterwards, they told me to head to a bed. Someone began to talk to me. I told them what had been going on. The wooziness part, not some of the less explainable things. I also talked about my memory getting a little weird. They did a bunch of tests, even took some blood and told me they’d email me the results. After a whole lot of things that turned out normal, they started asking me some questions about my mental state. I told them the truth, that I had been stressed for a while, but I wasn’t particularly anxious anymore. A doctor looked at teh chart, said everything seemed normal, told me to try out something over-the-counter that helps with nausea to provide relief during the attacks, and sent me on my way. I walked out and headed back up the street. Once again I passed the donut shop, though I didn’t feel the need to go in. I already had donuts that morning. Somehow. Turning on the next street away from my apartment, I walked down the road to the local pharmacy. After picking up some Dimenhydrinate, I went around the back of the parking lot and started my walk back home through the alleyways.
I realized from one of my notifications that a movie I was looking forward to watching was in theaters now. I hadn’t looked at anything for the last month or so, so I had forgotten. As I walked home, I turned around and headed back to the theater in that same strip mall with the pharmacy. The alleys were deserted, as they almost always were. The theater had a few people around. I walked through quickly to avoid anyone complaining at me for using the alley. The people around said hello to me as I bought a ticket for the upcoming showing. I walked through the laundromat parking lot. I headed into the theater and, walking right past the snacks stand, settled into a seat near the front. I made it to my apartment. The movie trailers started. I headed into my apartment and called in sick to work. The movie started in earnest, and I must say from what I saw, it looked like it was going to be pretty good. I sat down at my laptop and started to google my symptoms. In the darkness of the theater, I felt a sharp prick in my neck, and then very little. The internet was less than helpful and the only thing that matched up at all was extreme anxiety related stuff, but I didn’t feel particularly anxious right then. At least, not any more than my baseline at the time had been. Trying to relax, I moved to my couch and turned on the TV. I awoke in the back of a van with four other people, all dressed in combat uniforms of some kind. I flipped through the channels to some weird history channel thing on something historical. The people in the van told me they were there to help me. The show wasn’t particularly interesting, which was kind of the point. The people took me to some warehouse near the edge of town. The point of the show was to keep me distracted and relaxed for the next few hours. In the warehouse, they started to poke and prod me, asking me what I could do, confusing me, and when I didn’t answer, drugging me to try to force an answer that I didn’t have. The content didn’t matter, only that it was long and cool looking enough to keep my focus. I tried to tell them I didn’t know what they were talking about, that I was just suffering from some weird vertigo and maybe some memory issues, but they weren’t buying it and kept pressing for over an hour.
An hour and twenty minutes into the show, I suddenly felt the vertigo again, but this time with it came pain and a different kind of groggy exhaustion. Like I’d taken a drowsiness causing medication, but a ton of one. Collapsing on the couch, I fell asleep. Unlike what often happens, I remember my dreams that midday vividly. In my dreams, I saw myself reading, while I was also playing video games, and cleaning the apartment, and watching some documentary on locks. When I finished with a game, I dreamt I passed my sleeping body and walked into my bedroom, where I was ironing my shirts, in order to grab my water and hydrate before the next game. When I finished speed reading the first book, I went to switch it for another, passing myself taking out the garbage. And that was only the beginning of the weirdness of my dreams.
When I woke up from my dream, I felt refreshed, relaxed even. And when I looked around, my apartment looked much cleaner than I remembered, though I rarely remember how clean my home is. And I felt confident about the day to come.
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