tomshaggy.com | seeing what you thought you didn't see

The alarm sounded with the annoyance of a thousand nails on a chalkboard.  Ryan slammed his fist onto the snooze button. He sat up on the edge of his bed and moved his toes through the shag rug that covered his floor.  He thought about how he was the only one who had a shag rug and how he’d be lucky to even find someone who know what a shag rug even was.  He stared out of the window of his third floor studio and out at the world.  He didn’t even need to be outside to see the bitter cold.  The world was frozen over from the small snow storm the night before and the air was still.

The alarm clock screeched alive again and Ryan stumbled to find the off switch.  He stood up at the window.  The hard wood floor just off the fringe of the rug was freezing.  He could feel the cold air permeate the window and plaster walls.  The clock blinked 8:00 am.  He slipped into a 2 day old pair of jeans and picked up the nearest dress shirt and sniffed it quick to make sure it didn’t have any rank smells.  Ryan threw it on quickly, grabbed his keys and bag and headed down to his car.  Before he could reach the door he turned and looked back at the bathroom.

“Dammit, almost forgot.”  He jogged back over to the bathroom and grabbed a small blue pill from the bottle and slid it onto his tongue.  Ryan worked up a pool of saliva and swallowed hard.

The day stretched on and on, he had no idea what to think anymore.  People came and went like machines on a rail and he was operating the same way.  He could have been sitting there for minutes or even hours just starring into the middle distance.  His employees would ask for favors and without blinking Ryan would honor them and return to his post waiting for people to enter and exit.  The sun flew across the sky and the clouds moved in and out covering and uncovering the infinite abyss above.  The people on the streets became streaks of pink and blue and the cars on the streets began to resemble a meteor shower through the streets.

Lost in my own world the night had come to a close.  I got a tap on my shoulder and was told it was time to leave.  Like a good little drown, I picked up my belongings and said goodbye to all on the way out and headed back to my car and back tracked my steps to my home.

Ryan feet hit hard on the way up his spiral steps into his apartment.  The day, however short or long it may have seemed, took an exceedingly large toll on him.  He took a call from his girlfriend and conversed for a short while and laid on his bed and looked up at the low pitched ceiling.  It was in that moment he realized he had forgotten his medicine.  He had taken the last pill this morning, but his refill was in the center console of his car which was parked in the arctic abyss down two flights of stairs and 20 feet out the door.

“Shouldn’t be a problem, I’ll take it in the morning.”

Morning came, just as it did the day before only an hour earlier.  7 o’clock flashed on the alarm clock.  Ryan exhaled in exhaustion and followed his daily morning routine.  The now 3-day old pants and shirt seemed just as clean as the laundry he had done two days before.  The trip to work seemed must longer today.  The temperature had dipped into the single digits.  The car had trouble turning over and struggled as he tried to accelerate.

The office was in the mid seventies.  The thermal that Ryan had donned under his work shirt was starting to be uncomfortable.  His work kept him busy for about an hour until he realized that he had once again forgotten to take his medicine.  In the center console of the sub-zero interior of his car, it sat.  And somewhere in Ryan’s subconscious he began to panic and could feel his body start to lose focus.  Small micro twitches in his arms and eye haunted him for the next half hour until it came to him.  He needed to be medicated immediately.

He put on his jacket and headed back on to the frozen streets.  The world had slowed down.  Everyone was in slow motion.  Ryan began to think of his life with epilepsy.  Never before had he felt so dependent on a drug.  This drug helped keep his body focus and “firing” on all cylinders.  However small the control was, it was control nonetheless.  His pre-existing condition had finally taken a hold of him.