Story: How to get a Migraine (warning vomit is mentioned)

1.  Be conscious. Wake up. Get up like it's any other day, because normally it is.

2.   Expect nothing, get ready for the day, drink your morning beverage, fix your hair, do you makeup because you are going to work today, but forget to eat anything but a brownie that you shouldn't eat, the brownie has ulterior motives, it will destroy your day.

3.   Get to work, check the coffee (because your a barista), talk to your co-worker like normal.

4.   After your co-worker finishes their shift, your vision starts flashing like when you look at lights for a while.

5.   Apply pressure to your eye lids for a moment, hoping that the flashing stops.

6.   Your next co-worker arrives, and the flashing has stopped, but your starting to feel hot.

7.    It starts in your forehead, and works into your eye-sockets, it sharp in your eyes, and dull in your  forehead. Your stomach begins to feel a bit nauseous, your face gets hotter. 

8.    You check the clock, worry that you might repeat the flu incident in your dentist's parking lot. Or that you might repeat the fainting incident when you fainted at friends house.

9.    Ask your co-worker to cover for you for the last 5 minutes, because you just can't take.

       i.  If they ask what's wrong just say it a migraine, because being nauseous as a barista is not a good thing. you do not come to work sick.

10.  Clock out, try to get to your car, and drive home without puking.

11.   Get home, roommates greet you, say your going to puke.

12.   Position yourself by the toilet in hopes of a relief of vomiting to at least relieve your stomach. nothing happens.

13.   Take aspirin in hopes the migraine will go away, take pepto-bismol in hopes your stomach will stop trying to reverse empty itself. 

14.   Pass-out in your room with your makeup on, and the blanket over your head, you will be missing class because you can't function this way around normal human behavior.

15.    Hopefully your cured, until the next time you eat only one bad food item you know you  shouldn't eat.

Lizzy

The day was hot. It seemed to stand still, the sun burned its way through the houses. There was no air conditioner in the old house, only a fan that didn't break the heavy air.  The clock seemed louder than usual, seconds ticking away. Lizzy had finally gotten the toddler; Zoe to go down for her nap. Lizzy carefully, quietly snuck out to the porch and sat in the hammock, hoping for some form of breeze.

Sitting there, just hiding out, reminded her of a few years ago.

Eli had come looking for her, just wanting to make sure she was okay, Lizzy had taken to hiding on the porch, out of sight. His beanpole frame climbed onto the hammock next to her, instead of filling the air with words of comfort, he let his presence just console instead. No words would ever fill the void of her mother lost in childbirth. The child that survived was sickly and not ready to come home yet.

Lizzy felt as though her lungs were full of salt water, like she couldn't breathe. Her body was no longer her's to manipulate. She no longer existed in this place. The only reminder of her presence was Eli next to her in the suffocating heat. It felt like a nightmare.

Tears on the Dance Floor

I don't know why, but it was a bad day.

That's all I remember.

We were working, hard getting ready for recital, and one of the girls were complaining about how she wouldn't be taking dance anymore. She wanted our sympathy, she was relaying it to money problems, but she was telling us in such a way that it made it sound like she didn't need or want to dance anymore, because what's the point.

I loved dance and wanted to be a Prima Ballerina. So to hear these excuses just rubbed me the wrong way. Being older now, her complaints were a cry for help, she didn't want to stop, maybe she wanted something good to come out of it.

Instead of just consoling her, I was angry, furious even. Our friendship was a cord, and I sliced and burned it. "If you keep acting and talking like this, nobody will miss you!" she stopped moaning, and everybody stopped their mild chatter. "Did this bratty little 9 year old just say that to her?" Yes, yes I did that.

She ran away from the class room crying and the girls all stared wide eyed.

Robin's Soup

Soup is an amazing dish, turning things into soup can generally save food. That's what Robin normally did. She had her go to's but the truth was everything was determined by taste.

Robin always brought her soup to her book club. Everyone asked what she put in it, but she always responded with odds and ends. Everyone always ate every bit of it, not a drop was left.

One evening, the bookclubs at the coffee house was invaded by an open mic that was supposed to happened the day before. The club members were not happy with the interruption. Robin lived around the corner, and volunteered for the group to travel the quick distance for a quiet place to discuss.

No one knew what to expect, in spite of her outgoing nature, she didn't really give much away about herself. Everyone who filed into her little apartment took in the sanitized, OCD looking space. The walls were scrubbed white as was the carpet, a potted violet sat on the window sill, and a leafy tapestry was hung behind a very white couch, with a woven coffee table and little seats. It was a cute little one bedroom apartment.

As the discussion wound down, it came to attention that someone spilled soup, maybe his name was Jamie or maybe it was Matt, I can't remember. All I remember is he apologized profusely, and began to try to clean it up with his napkin. Robin seemed to freeze.

"It's okay." she finally said after a long moment. She stood up and began to spray it with something. Everyone took that moment to excuse themselves to head out for drinks. All but Jamie, or was it Matt? Last I saw of whoever he was, he was picking up bowls for Robin. Robin closed the door behind me as I left.

Needless to say, I never saw Matt again, I'm sure it was Matt now.

Maybe the soup tasted different after that, or maybe it's in my head.

The Old Man

We speak of young men, we speak of heroes as if they are the only ones with the potential for saving the world, getting the girl, and making things better.

But what about Clyde? The Janitor of the asylum. He's worked that job for 35 years after he quite his job at the steel mill. Clyde had seen it all at the asylum. He had cleaned up every human fluid possible, and every different kind of purred what-not, from floors, walls, ceilings.

Clyde had been asked about stories about the crazies all the time, but he was soft-spoken and never really offered such a thing, he was always asked by his friends who worked all over the city, but he wouldn't give anything away. The only person he ever told anything was his niece K.T. She would come by his house weekly with some new, weird food. He adored his brother's daughter. She was wicked smart and going to school for computer science, but she would spend her nights with Clyde happily.

One night when the food was spicy potatoes and their cigarettes were burning low, K.T. offered the question.

"Have you ever had anything weird happen at your work?"

"Well I work at an Asylum, what do you think?"

"Yeah, but anything memorable?"

Clyde sat back and lit a second cigarette. Took another sip of coffee.

"Well, once there was a man who claimed to have seen aliens. His family had him committed. His name was Jimmy. He was real quiet most of the time. Except for one time, the TV went caput. The static started going, and I tried to thump it before anything. Thumping it did noth'in, only made the static worse, so I went to work on it, but Jimmy came over and began to take it in as if it had something to say to him."

"It's Them! He said to us all, and grabbed that TV as if it was the key to life. Hush, I need to listen! it could mean our life and death! the orderlies noticed that he was being disruptive. Jimmy was dragged out, carry'in on, yelling to me of all people. You hear them, don't you mister? you gotta do it, you know you gotta! I just went on fix'in the TV before everyone else started going insane." 

Clyde looked out the window, a far off look in his eye. K.T. sat forward, "Did you ever see him again?"

"No, he disappeared after that." He looked at his shoes, as if he knew more.

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know, I'm just the janitor." he took another puff on his cigarette.