Mother of Dragons
People in ancient times believed headaches to be the work of a spirit or devil, inhabiting the afflicted brain. Right now, I’m inclined to agree. There’s a beast in my head, one with claws and beating wings, and it’s ravaging the contents of my skull.
Sometimes, the brain-dragons come out of nowhere. Those are easier to deal with than the slow-growing kind-- just blitz them with Ibuprofen and wait while they curl up and die. This one though? This one built up steadily while I lay in bed, trying to enjoy my day off. So it’s my fault, really. I did nothing to stop it from maturing. Now I’m fighting to keep down the medicine that would kill the thing. Its tail has wrapped itself down my spine, and the barbed tip is tracing figure eights through my stomach and intestines. I clamp my mouth shut, still my body, try to freeze myself in this moment of not-throwing-up.
Breathe.
Slow, with just enough force to pass the air in and out without alerting the dragon. If I move or breathe while it’s paying attention, the tail will thrash, and my pills will come screaming back up. I press my palms against the cold marble of the bathtub ledge where I sit, and lean the weight of my upper body on them in equal amounts.
Steady. Calm.
I’ve tricked it, it seems. The beast has lost interest in making me vomit, and has gone back to raking its claws across the interiors of my sinuses. While it’s occupied in there, I make my way downstairs, one pounding, jarring step at a time.
Steady. Eyes forward. Don’t lean too far in any direction. Maintain equilibrium, and for the love of all that is holy, breathe! In, out, don’t hold either.
Yes, holding my breath would be bad. The dragon becomes enraged if I do, and beats its wings against the inside of my ears while jabbing its horned head against my seventh chakra-- once, twice, again, again, again-- until my head twists toward my shoulder, and my hands rip at my hair. I don’t want that. I can’t take it.
So I will keep breathing, keep steady, keep calm like a zen master, and placate the beast by offering it relatively calm reign in the tender tissues of my brain. The only way out is through.
Have at it, I tell the thing, while I do my best to float toward the kitchen. The beast takes my offering, and sinks its talons in, thrumming them across blood vessels and nerve fibers that converge behind my brow. Its teeth grind just under the bridge of my nose; my eyes pulse. Yes. Steady pain I can handle.
By the time I reach the kitchen, my limbs are shaking. It’s not the bone-deep, quivering-marrow quake of the asthma inhaler, but it’s enough to make me unsteady. My eyes have trouble focusing on large things such as the kitchen chair I collide with, but laser in on tiny crumbs scattered across the counter, on the dust compacted into the right angle of the baseboard and floor, and the Nutritional Information label printed on the squeaky Styrofoam carton of eggs that I pull from the refrigerator: Excellent Source of Vitamin D. B12. E. B2. B5. 115 mg Omega 3. 18 Large. Net Wt 36oz (2lbs 4oz). The dragon spins in my head, and I see every small thing, every bit of out-of-place matter, all the numbers numbers numbers surging toward me, and I have to lean against the sink and close my eyes to keep from screaming.
This numbs the visuals, but does nothing for the assault of kitchen odor that has been warring for my attention. There’s rotting vegetables in the trash-- I can smell them through the heavy, wooden lid of the bin. Someone has spilled pancake syrup, the dish water in the sink is a day old and floating with congealed cooking grease, and the herbs drying on the wall take turns unfurling in my head as if breathed out by the beast crouching in there. Rosemary needles stab, thyme drifts in like a fog, dill flutters from every direction--a smothering whirlwind.
I can smell the cooking eggs too, though they’re still in the carton, and I banish that impression with as much force as I can muster. I eat them because they’re easy on my stomach, but cooking eggs have always repulsed me. They look like something sneezed out by a sick rhino, and the smell of them in the pan-- snot mixed with butter and pepper--makes the back of my throat spasm. Today, I can feel their stench in my eyes.
Some time later, I have a bowl of black-flecked, chunky yellow large-curd in front of me. I jab at it with a fork. My mouth barely opens, but I manage to down a few bites of food, a small buffer for the pills spelunking in my empty stomach. It’s slow going, eating anything right now. The beast’s back feet have sunk into the hinges of my jaw, and are squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing, like the paws of a grotesque kitten, nursing against the fur of its mother.
Which makes sense. I am the dragon’s mama. I’ve given it life, and I feed it. With my guts and pain, I feed it.
I know all of this is not good. The beast is taking up too much room in my head. It’s expansion is forcing me toward the periphery of my mind, toward the edge of some synesthetic cliff, where the world is sense-mingled and bulging, and unchecked by my tolerance filters. Much further, and I may fall right out of my head to escape the confusion and pressure. I can’t imagine this dusty, splintery kitchen floor would be much better than the throbbing head I’m in now, though. So I hold my ground while my perception sharpens, and the outside world sticks itself to my face like vacu-form plastic.
