Do You Enjoy This?

by Precipitate8

The doctor said, “I’m going to give you a narcotic pain killer, do you know what that means?”

I nodded that I did. He also gave me some antibiotics for the two-inch wound in my forehead, and of course, he could not possibly feel right about himself without prescribing a heaping helping of anti-seizure medication. Three in one day. My head hurt and my limp body unwillingly dragged itself out of the emergency room. I had to get out before they realized I was still without my faculties. She was there to help, of course. Wouldn’t have made it out without her.

Four or five stitches budded out of my forehead, and my face looked like I’d been dating Mike Tyson, and that I’d been a very naughty bitch. Three in one day. Someone must be really pissed at me…or just playing with me like a gnarled mouse, contemplating apathetically… Hmmm…should I snap it’s neck now? Or let it run away a bit more.

Fuck…I had one of them at work. My head was already bloodied from a seizure that morning and I was a bit dazed…but I was functioning, until I got the fear. I can’t remember who it was that gave me the fear, but it was a female, and I remember having the impression that she didn’t really intend to break me in half like that.

And so they all must have watched me convulsing on the floor in dismay, silenced in their own private thoughts. The Party-Girl: My gawd…I didn’t know epilepsy was so, well, icky… The Medical Student Frat Boy: Dude, I bet I should put my belt in his mouth cuz, like, you’re s’posed to…but it is a Gucci after all… The Anorexic Neurosis Girl: Oh shit, what do we do!? Shit…shit…shit…no, relax, breathe…oh god… The Boy Scout: I hope the EMT’s get here soon…I feel so helpless.

But the hydrocodons are starting to kick in…so I can worry about my career as a pathogen microbiologist later.

My neurologist asked me if I enjoyed having seizures. She cited Dostoyevski’s comment, “I pity people who do not have this disorder, for the aura that precedes my seizure is a most pleasurable experience.” I told her it wasn’t something I would choose for myself, but I had to admit, there were some very positive side effects of the experience that have heightened my understanding of the universe. She looked at me longingly…I think she may have been quite beautiful in her youth…she smiled and told me not to drive for six months…she didn’t charge me for the visit.

Chicks dig scars. I saw a girl I had casually dated and casually consummated about a month ago. I still have a three-inch cut in my forehead in the healing process. The gash was so extensive that the doctors put in two layers of stitches…one on the inside made of cat gut which dissolves over time, and one on the surface which a friend cut out of me several days ago. She looks good…better than I remember. I saw her eyes move up my face to the scar, hold there for a moment and then I saw sad eyes go to the ground. No words. Just silent dejection.

On top of it all, I’m turning 25 in a week. It’s all over, isn’t it? I made a good run at being youthful and spontaneous and eclectic and hedonistic, but now it’s done with. I’m soon going to be the sad old man in the club the kids point and laugh at. Very anticlimactic. Like the 35 year-old pop stars on MTV with pock marks and thinning hair, leaning on their last leg; and no one else can see it. Especially the fertile 18 year-old girls screaming with vigor to catch his leathery smile. Ten years ago, no one would let him on MTV.

And this is where Taoism fails us. It is ok to be angry with the essential infrastructure of conscious existence. Few of us can see the aging lines on the face of pop stars. Alone, we are strangers to the world. Strangers.