My Brain is Trying to Kill Me
Well, is this not embarrassing? It was one of those sullen, sulky days here in the Mohave Desert. The monsoons came. The humidity was up. Temperatures climbed to well over triple digits. My adopted grandfather was and is on his deathbed hastening to that eternal slumber thanks to the purgatory that is the tri-state area. I was just not in a very pleasant mood.
My partner and I have taken up swimming at the community pool for exercise and a bit of relief from the heat. The “relief” was rather questionable. I wanted my mind diverted from my ailing grandfather, Bob. The lifeguards had some ’80s rock playing. Easing into the water, I let my mind drift as some velvety voice sang, “As we walked the fields of gold.” Then as I worked on my strokes I dreamed about a puissant soul I invented in childhood, an adventurer and writer named Adam. Adam was the start of everything in a story way too long to type here. I imagined Adam staying with an old women reaching the end of her life. He believed in her and her story. He wanted to reach out to the common folk and share their humanity.
Then it happened…. My mind drifted as it normally does. Of course, you would be forgiven to think this sort of thing can happen to anyone. In the middle of a lap, I started thinking about that scene at the start of Count Duckula where the narrator channels Vincent Price, the master of horror, and warns the viewer menacingly what they are about to witness. “Out here in the alps of Transylvania in dank Castle Duckula, the dark master concentrates on his evil designs spinning tails of woe in his ancient tome. As he pours over his work, a greasy black liquid issues forth from his pen painting the awful, horrible TRUUUUUUTH!” Cue the ink blot which makes a mess over the Count’s memoirs as Nanny shrieks in the distance. It was a desperate attempt to cheer me up, a desperate attempt that nearly left me choking and gasping for air as I chuckled in the middle of the pool face down. This scene plays out until I am thoroughly aware that I am not in my right mind, but at the very least, the doldrums have been chased all away. Not a moment too soon as the lifeguards snapped us all back to reality.
A loud, blistering whistle drew our attention to the lifeguard in her tower and then to the overcast sky. Thunderstorms were rolling over the mountains warning us all of the impending dangers awaiting anyone close enough to a large body of water. “Everyone out of the pool! We saw lightning!”
