Bumblings like these and worse pulled through me day and night, a freight train I could do nothing to stop. I couldn’t stop anything, my will blotted out by the seed of a tiny thought, a grandparent as it formed in my mind. Three, four, five times a day, my brain was hijacked; stolen from underneath me and taken on a joy ride through the hills. By the time I caught up, it was on its side in a ditch, with the motor steaming and the keys missing.
I couldn't forget my head for two minutes at a time. I couldn’t prevent myself from racing past it, then backing up over it to see the damage it had done - and whizzing by it again daring it to come after me. I had to whip my head around to see if it was on my heels like that black dog on every paper route. My pulse rate would shoot up to 140 beats per minute even while I was standing still - trying to derail my head or at least detour it while watching the world buzz by in slow motion, hoping to contain myself if not for the thump, thump, thumping of heart building higher and higher, choking me. This is the wave of panic I could do nothing to ease: panic that would greet me in the morning and tuck me in at night – panic that would press its icy feet against me while I stared wide-eyed at the ceiling until the sunlight wrenched its way into my head.
I dreaded the hours of silence. Winding through the obstacle course of my brain, one neuron at a time – trying not to disturb anything yet attempting to figure out what’s wrong, or at least find the off switch. My only way of getting through to daylight without having my mind come completely unraveled was to hold an image in my head, any image for more than two consecutive seconds and try to ride out the menace of the clock tick, tick, ticking backward. I wish I could open it, open it just wide enough to see what’s the matter.
I can fix things, or make them stop when they’re working just fine. I’d like to have the magic touch and make it rev like it was meant to, and bypass that one loose nut. Or know what plug to pull and just pull and pull until everything stops. Or perhaps have the music be so loud that all the bad gets drowned out. Or maybe just make it skip a track and not play the same, just this once.
