Mind Eraser

(with apologies to the Black Keys)

After an extremely stresl day, I suppose what happened was only to be expected.  I got to lunch and my off period, and the hammer of the gods struck.

It's not like I hadn't had warnings.  The lights were a little too bright.  I had those little twinges, those little previews of pain.  I had a hard time getting to names for characters, people, things.

I managed to take my Maxalt, and for a horrible little while, I lay across my desk and prayed for the pain to stop.  You know that didn't happen.  Instead, I just felt the blanket of disconnection spreading over the spikes of agony and the rolling waves of nausea.  I staggered downstairs and asked for permission to leave early.  I knew I only had a short time to get home before I would have to call someone to come get me.

I managed to get to the car, rolled down the windows, let the cold air wash over me until I got to the interstate and had to roll them up.  Then the weird crap started.

I had turned off the radio when I got in the car.  I couldn't stand the noise.  As I drove, I kept hearing music.  Very faint, but music.  I checked my phone, thinking it was ringing without me feeling the vibration.  I tried to locate the source of the sound.  Then came the horrible knowledge that it was just coming from some misfiring in my brain.

When I finally got home and laid down, somehow, I had another sensation I've never had, that of being somewhere else.  I don't even know how to describe it.  I knew I was home in my own bed, but somehow, I also felt that I was in the living room of the trailer we had when I was a small child before my parents built their house.  Maybe it was a trick of the light triggering some deep memory.  I was dizzy and quite frankly scared.

I am better now after two hours of sleep, but I still feel weak and exhausted.  I am up long enough to eat and take care of a few necessary tasks, and then I'm going back to bed.  The only explanation for what happened is that the headache must have somehow churned up the sediment of my mind.  Maybe the electrical activity was in a different part of my brain this time.  I only know that I hope I never have to experience again.