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OK, compiled into one volume for anyone who hasn't read any and has far too much time on their hands. It's over 6000 words, so be warned:
HALF LIFE
Nonchalance. Something which had almost been unwittingly bred into him by his parents, who had always been very laid back, easy going and seemingly stressless. The calming influence of his parents had taught him that life doesn't need to be lived in a hurry, everything has a little time to spare and generally, there is little need to genuinely worry about anything.
This train of thought hadn't done him any injustice in the past. Stress didn't really affect someone who looked far enough ahead to plan contingencies. And after all, planning ahead was the key to an easy life. Start saving for retirement, invest here, insure this and that, guarantee this and prepare for everything else. Once all that is out of the way, all that's left is business as usual at school and, later, in the workplace, and whatever you want for during your own time.
By being laid back, but pre-emptory, Brian Wainwright carved out a decent and honest life for himself. Life was good, and nothing really came as a shock, since most things were prepared for in advance. And so it was that Brian enjoyed a laid back lifestyle.
So laid back he was that on the day his life changed, the first thing he thought about was the plans he had in place that would move into gear given the new circumstances. Most people would have panicked or just broken down into tears, but Brian remained calm, and systematic.
Just moments before, he had walked into his Doctor's room, slightly miffed still that Dr. Dogra wouldn't give him his test results over the phone. He had not felt himself for some months now. He had picked up the customary cold and flu during the Christmas period, as most people do at that time of year. This had developed into a touch of bronchitis and then back to a cold again. But he had struggled to throw the illness off, and when, in March, he was still not at his best, he had finally conceded to see his doctor about it.
Dogra had intimated that it might be something more serious than a mere long-lasting cold, but hadn't sounded too concerned. He had taken a blood test, and sent the blood of for pretty much every conceivable test "just in case". Brian, expecting to call up 2 weeks later and be told he would have to be prescribed a course of anti-biotics for some bug he'd picked up which he probably wouldn't even be able to pronounce, he was mildly irritated when the clerk on the other end had told him that his results couldn't be given over the phone.
Had some law changed that he didn't know about? He could recall two occasions when he'd called up in a similar manner, and been told what was wrong. But anyway, it wasn't anything to stress over, since he would still have to come in to pick up his prescription note anyway, so it was only a delay in knowing the unpronounceable name of his long-lasting flu.
He knew something was amiss when he opened the door to Dogra's room. Instead of being greeted with the usual toothy grin of the old Pakistani practitioner who had been his GP since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, Dogra seemed to try to smile, fail miserably and end up staring at Brian in some form of horrified grimace. Dogra shook it off immediately and greeted Brian.
"Hello Brian, how have you been feeling?" he probed, his voice certainly having lost its usual enthusiasm.
"I'm OK I guess, life as usual, just a few more tissues!" Brian replied, trying to inject a little humour, Dogra seemed to need some.
"Please, sit down..." Dogra tried to smile again, and gave up as it threatened another grimace.
Brian took a seat opposite Dogra, and waited for him to get all his papers in order, which at least was something ordinary. Dogra was a good man, but his desk was rarely in a presentable state.
"I've not had to have a conversation like this for quite a while, Brian, but we have to talk about your blood test results." Great, this didn't sound too good. A flurry of thoughts began swirling around his head like 'a week off work - shouldn't be a problem' and then 'two weeks off - boss won't mind, we've hit all the milestones early, and there aren't any important deliverables due for a while, I can take a little work home and keep up to date'. He was interrupted in his thoughts as Dogra moved on;
"I'm afraid what you have is more serious than any cold, or flu." he began "Considerably more serious, in fact."
"Don't keep me in suspense Doctor, I'm a grown man, I can take it!" Brian said, a little more sarcastic than he had intended. He was 24, 25 in three months' time, so he was certainly a man, but Dogra was considerably older, some 50 years of age by all accounts.
"I can't bring myself to joke about this, Brian, so I'll just say it." Dogra breathed heavily, as though he were preparing himself for some test of virility, some critical event that would decide his adequacy as a man, then he continued "Your blood isn't right, Brian. More than 30 percent of your bone marrow is made up of plasma cells."
Brian had no idea what the implication of that would be, and Dogra must have known that, whatever he was trying to say, he was having trouble finding the words for it.
"Well, plasma cells are good, right?" He knocked in, completely ignorant on the subject, but hoping to prod Dogra into getting this over with, he needed to know how long he'd be off work so he could make plans.
"Not in those levels, Brian. Not nearly in those levels. A normal percentage is around 5 percent." replied, as if this was the key to the knowledge Brian sought.
"So I have what? Better blood than everyone else?" Brian said, still searching for the secret Dogra was reluctantly keeping from him.
"No, Brian. I'm afraid not. Brian, there is no easy way of saying this. You have Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the blood" as he finished, Dogra's head seemed to droop on his shoulders like he'd just died on the spot, but Brian wasn't done.
"Cancer? I have cancer? How? What? I don't understand!" Brian protested weakly.
Dogra then seemed to enter some sort of trance. Hardly looking at Brian, he began to shoot off the facts of the illness he faced. Multiple Myeloma. When the body produces too much plasma, and the excess cells form tumors which crowd out the white blood cells which fight off disease. A cancer of the blood. Sentences didn't form correctly in Brian's mind, and he only seemed to hear the odd keyword as it was thrown in his direction by Dogra's tirade. Cancer. Incurable. Experimental treatments. Infection. Debilitation. Death.
Brian had yet one question to ask, and slowly and deliberately, he came out with "How long have I got?"
Dogra seemed to snap out of his trance and looked at Brian with forlorn eyes as he said, "I can't say. No one can say for sure. Left untreated, you could live for 2 years, or you could be dead in a number of months. The only treatments available are experimental, but in some cases, they have increased longevity to as much as 6 years.
"But I'm not going to kid you, Brian. I've known you since you were just a child, and I won't keep any facts from you now. The Myeloma is very advanced. Even if we were to start treatment today, I couldn't guarantee you more than a year." Dogra was on the point of crying, Brian could tell. And he didn't blame him! A year - at most! He was conditioned not to panic, and he didn't panic now. His thoughts filled with estimations of life insurance payouts, securities for his wife of 18 months, his unborn daughter.
A long moment seemed to pass while Brian thought of his finances, and Dogra tried to get a grip on himself. Eventually, Dogra broke the deadlock with "Brian, this isn't the most common form, but it's not exactly rare either. You're not alone. There are support groups..."
"SUPPORT GROUPS???" Brian interrupted, suddenly angry for no reason he could explain "What will they do for me? Stand me around talking about a disease that is going to kill me IN LESS THAN A YEAR and waste what little time I have left trying to consolidate my feelings with the grief of others?"
Dogra had no direct answer. He looked Brian briefly in the eyes, and then turned away as though the effort of looking directly at him made him weak.
"I have to be going." Brian said, "I have to strip the wallpaper in the dining room this afternoon." he offered "I need some air, anyway."
"Brian, I need to see you again, we have to arrange some form of treatment. Can you come in tomorrow?" Dogra seemed to have regained some composure, perhaps from the relief of Brian leaving.
"Sure, why not. Goodbye Doctor" The goodbye sounded more final than he had intended, but he had other things on his mind. He had some news for his wife, and she wasn't going to be best pleased.
Part 2
========
Brian Wainwright opened the door to his home, stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. He could quite plainly see that his recent news hadn't sunk in at all. Anyone else would have been in a state of shock. Either shock or despair. Brian currently felt nothing bar an empty feeling in his stomach, not unlike hunger.
He quickly scanned the coatrail, and noted that Jane's green jacket was missing. That was fortunate, he thought. She's out, which meant more time for him to think about what he was going to say. He was hoping for something a little more adult than the introduction he currently had running through his head. "Hi honey, I'm a dead man walking" wasn't going to get the conversation off on the right foot.
He walked right, through the door into the dining room and through into the kitchen. Picking up the kettle he began to fill it with water direct from the tap. He stopped with the kettle half full, and left it by the sink. Tea wasn't going to help him gather his nerves. Instead, he reached into the cupboard and grabbed a tall glass, then wet over to the larder, and from the top shelf, pulled down a bottle of Vodka. He half-filled his glass and moved on to the fridge, where he pulled out a carton of orange and topped up his drink.
Glass in one hand and vodka bottle in the other, he went back through the dining room into the hall again, and walked through into the lounge. He took his place in his favorite chair - a lovely (and not to mention pricey) number, but wonderfully relaxing. Made of quality brown leather, the chair was epitomising of comfort - put his drink down on the small side table, and picked up the TV remote. Brian began flicking slowly through the channels, of which there were several hundred, looking for something that interested him. After about 10 minutes, he conceded that there was nothing worth looking at at all.
"Typical," he said aloud to himself "Sixty quid a bloody month for 300 channels of utter crap." Brian had only really agreed to pay for all the channels because the sports channels were included, and there was rarely any decent sports activity on at this time of day midweek. Eventually, though, he flicked back to National Geographic and watched some garbage about rats breeding.
Bored, his glass quickly emptied. Going to refill it, he noticed he hadn't brought the orange through with him. Not a problem, he thought, and filled the glass with neat Vodka.
He awoke suddenly, not really knowing where he was. His head pounded magnificently. He quickly realised he wasn't in his lounge anymore. He wasn't in his house at all. He had absolutely no idea where he was. Looking about himself, he appeared to be, if anywhere, in some kind of tunnel. The place was very rocky, as though it were carved out of mountain stone, there was a faint glimmer of light - presumably the exit - to his left, and the tunnel seemed to carry on into darkness in the opposite direction. How the hell had he gotten here? How much had he drunk? Had he even had the presence of mind to shut the front door behind him?
Crap
Crap.
CRAP!
Bloody fool. God only knows how much Vodka he must've drunk to bring about this tragic circumstance. Alone, lost and utterly bewildered. He was in the middle of a series of self-curses, when he heard a noise come from the stony darkness to his right. The sound was like a faint squeak, but it somehow conveyed a dark malevolence that chilled him to the bone. He strained his eyes to see farther down the tunnel in that direction, but couldn't see anything at all. The noise came again, and Brian slowly started backing away towards the tunnel exit as quietly as he could manage, which to the trained ear was not magnificently quiet at all. Brian had always been one for a little sport, but the art of silence was lost on him.
Backing away, the noise came again, and again. The noise was different in each occurrence. Whatever was making the noise, there was more than one of it. Enough of this crap, he thought, and lost all sense of sneaking, and began to walk swiftly, if stiffly, toward the light.
Suddenly the noise was everywhere. Thousands of noises from as many sources, all coming closer from the darkness. Abandoning any sense of dignity, Brian began to run for the exit. Only a few metres on, he tripped and fell, cutting his knees and left hand on the rough stone. He looked back to the source of the noises, and what he saw terrified him.
Rats. Hundreds of them. Only, strangely, they were incredibly small, like a swarm of large, furry beetles. And they were upon him. Before he could stand, the rats were climbing his by the dozen. He tried in vain to brush them of, and while he succeeded in getting a few off him, they were replaced by yet more in moments. The rats charged for the cuts on his legs, and bit him.
Brian screamed, the bite impossibly more painful than it had any right to be. Another bite and another followed it, and Brian folded over and fell to the ground in agony. More rats were upon him now, they were swarming him. Then the rats began to eat under his cuts, get into his skin. Brian, incoherent enough already, saw dozens of the creatures running around inside him as tiny bulges on his skin in his legs, then his abdomen, his chest. Barely able to keep his eyes open through the pain, Brian saw a group of about 8 rats gather at the top of his chest, before surging toward his neck, where his brain awaited them. Gurgling on rats intent on entering him through his mouth, Brian managed to scream.
And he woke up, rather rudely awakened by a kick to the stomach. His head was pounding even harder now, and the air he was breathing smelled like acid.
"What..." he mumbled "What's going on? Where am I?"
"I'll tell you where you are, you bloody idiot" a familiar voice, which seemed extremely unhappy, it should be said, "You're lying down on the lounge floor, in a pool of your own vomit."
Ah...
"And I'll tell you now, Brian, I'm not cleaning that crap up."
"Hi honey, I'm a dead man walking...” Brian said without realising it.
"You bet your behind you're a dead man. If that stuff stains, it'll cost a fortune to replace the carpet."
"Ah... Jane, there's something important I have to tell you."
Jane was irritated now, that much was plain. She certainly wasn't going to like this one bit.
Part 3
========
If Brian was right about one thing, it was his assessment of how Jane would take the news of his illness. How badly she would take it though, he couldn’t have anticipated.
“What on Christ’s throne are you on about?” she shouted at him “You’re not dying, you plank, you’re bloody drunk!”
“Jane, please…” he moaned. She was right about one thing, the vodka he had drunk – how much to do this to him? – was still holding it’s influence over him, his head was still pounding, and he felt like throwing up again, if only because he stunk of lying in his own vomit for god knows how long. “Please, this is very important…”
“It’d better be!” She interrupted. It’s a skill, he thought, that she can inject something while you’re trying to explain to ruffle you, and make you sound even less coherent than you are already. He didn’t need this crap now.
“Shut up and listen!” He half shouted back, which was enough to stop her in her tracks, “You might want to sit down” he gestured toward the leather chair, a little calmer now, but winced as he noticed the empty vodka bottle standing on the table beside it. Jane took the seat anyway, taking no notice of the empty bottle. Probably because she had seen it already while he had been lying on his face breathing his own puke for air.
“I went to see Dogra about my… my illness today.” The symptoms of which were not aided a great deal by the amount of alcohol he had ingested; he felt like crap. But regardless of how he felt, he knew he had to continue. He could hardly sleep off his hangover now. “Apparently, what I have is more serious than a cold.” This wasn’t easy. How could he say this? He felt sorry for Jane already, and she wasn’t even crying yet.
“So, what have you got then? Has he given you a sick note?” Obviously, Jane hadn’t yet grasped the severity of the situation.
“Well, no, but I’m going to see him again tomorrow, but that’s neither here nor there. Just please, listen.” The art of interruption worked wonders. It was impossible to hold a line of thought while Jane continued to impose meaningless rant in the middle of his confession. “Dogra says I have something very serious. I can’t stress enough when I say “serious”, Jane.”
“Let me guess” Jane interjected once again, “You’ve got cancer and you’re going to die?”
Brian’s blood ran cold. Obviously, she was just being sarcastic, but the way it came out of her mouth sounded like she actually knew. Like she knew and was laughing at him. He stared at her in horror for a moment before he gained the courage to continue.
“That’s not funny Jane.” He managed.
“Why not?” she replied tartly
“Because…” Sod it. Just tell her! “Because I DO have cancer, Jane. I have a cancer that they can’t fix, and I’m going to die.” There, he had said it. But something wasn’t right. She didn’t believe him. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! He could see it in her face; she was staring blankly at him, waiting for him to laugh and say ‘gotcha!’
After a moment, Jane sighed loudly. Brian was about to re-iterate himself when she spoke ahead of him, “That is NOT funny, Brian.” She spat ‘Brian’ at him like an insult.
“It’s not a joke, Jane…” He began, but she wasn’t finished, and interrupted him yet again.
“I’m your wife, and I’m carrying your child.” Her voice began to gain volume and temper with each word “I am not in a condition where I need to be fed utter tripe like that just so you can try to excuse your way…” she paused for breath, and now each word was pronounced like a lethal venom. “out of your utter stupidity in getting wasted for no reason in front of the TV and PASSING OUT ON THE FLOOR IN A PILE OF YOUR OWN SICK!”
“Jane…” He began, but couldn’t finish. Suddenly none of it was clear. He was still drunk, that was for certain. But he had been told he had cancer. Hadn’t he? He hadn’t dreamed that as well. But for some reason he couldn’t tell for sure now. The whole day seemed blurry, and his eyes filled with tears. What the hell was going on?
“Jane, I’m so sorry.” He blubbed out, not really knowing why, or what he was sorry for.
“Clean this bloody mess up. I don’t want to see your face until this room is back to normal.”
Well, that was that then. If all this had been a dream, then he didn’t have an appointment to see Dogra again tomorrow, but he made up his mind then and there that he would go in and see him anyway. Appointment or not. He needed to know if he’s been dreaming his cancer diagnosis, and if so, what he had really been told instead. Brian, usually so sure of everything around him, now found himself not knowing what was happening at all and he didn’t like it in the slightest.
Jane got up and left the room without another word, closing the door behind her like a final judgement and leaving Brian to clean up a mess he couldn’t remember having made. He distantly heard Jane stalking up the stairs, obviously quite shaken by what Brian had tried to tell her. He waited until she had reached the top of the stairs, and gone, presumably, to the bedroom or bathroom, and then went off to the kitchen to find something he could use to clean up the vomit all over the lounge floor.
In the kitchen, he took a moment to take his shirt off, which was covered in sick and left it on the floor by the washing machine. Hardly the best place to put it, but he had to think about the lounge carpet, before it was irrevocably stained or otherwise ruined. Scrubbing away on the puke sodden carpet, Brian again began to wonder what exactly had happened to him today. Was he going to die? Had he even been to see Dogra? Had he gone, but already been drinking, and been abusive to the good Doctor?
Whatever the truth was, it evaded him now. He wasn’t likely to know much about anything until he saw Dogra tomorrow. But another thought that occurred to him, if all that had happened and had been a dream. The cancer, the morbid and irrevocable death sentence, the cave, the rats, being eaten alive. What on God’s green Earth was going through his subconscious to be bringing such visions to the fore? Perhaps it was just the alcohol. The Vodka had sentenced him to a death he couldn’t avoid, and terrorised him by envisioning another, more gruesome death. It had then disillusioned him into upsetting his wife.
If vodka was the cause of this mess, he wouldn’t be drinking any more of it in the near future, that was for sure.
PART 4
========
After about an hour of listlessly scrubbing the lounge carpet, Brian finally decided he was satisfied that the carpet was back to its original state. More or less, at any rate. He glanced at his watch, it was past 9pm, which begged a number of questions in and of itself. What time had he got back from Dogra’s office – assuming he’d even been in the first place – how long had he spent drinking in front of the TV, how long had he been passed out? Also, where had Jane been until almost 8pm when she had discovered him passed out on the floor?
Brian didn’t get a chance to ask that night. After finishing up in the lounge, and going back to the kitchen to put his shirt on to wash, he went for a shower to get the rest of his vomit off him. His face especially was now well crusted with acidic unpleasantness. He took a few minutes washing it all off, and then decided that he was in the mood for a decent bath. He dried himself off after stepping out of the shower, and left the bath running while he went downstairs and grabbed a Resolve from the medicine box in the kitchen. He put it in a glass and drank it down in one. Hopefully that would at least clear his head, which was still swimming and pounding magnificently as a result of his vodka binge.
After a few minutes, when his bath was ready, he dropped his towel to the floor and stepped in lightly, testing the water temperature. It was hot, just how he liked it. He got in, reveling in the momentary rush of heat through his body especially up his back as he slid into the steaming waters. He lay there for some time with his eyes closed, just relaxing in the water, and occasionally bobbed his head under the water to wash off the sweat that slowly collected on his brow. He was feeling better already.
He bobbed his head under again, and for no reason he could explain he opened his eyes. He immediately wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t in the bath anymore. Not even nearly. He was in a vast expanse of water, God knows where. What the hell was this? Another crappy dream? He vaguely wondered what imaginative death awaited him this time.
No. This was real. The water was cool, and he could taste the salt. He glanced upwards, the surface some two or three metres above him. He realised he was looking out of a pair of goggles, and was even wearing a wetsuit. Why was he here in the water? Steve. He had gone in after Steve. He remembered now, but Steve was nowhere in his vision. Had it got him already? The shark – THE BLOODY SHARK! – might have got him already, which made the idea of him being in the water little short of plain suicide. He looked around, but saw nothing in his vicinity other than the boat bobbing on the surface some ten metres away.
He had a decision to make. Find Steve, or get the bleeding hell out of the water. But before he could make it, the decision was made for him. He saw the shark, a great white no less, at the edge of his vision ahead and slightly to the left of him, and there, only a few metres aside, was Steve, flapping around like a stuck pig. Well that didn’t help. Obviously Steve wasn’t the shark expert he liked to think he was. Brian knew that Steve only had one chance to live. He would have to distract the prehistoric beast and give Steve a chance to make it back to the boat. He swam a few lengths forward before either Steve or the shark noticed him. Both reacted about the same time, Steve by ceasing his suicidal flapping seizure and the shark by swimming back off beyond his visual range.
That didn’t mean much, of course. The beast had probably just decided to rush either himself or Steve from a distance rather than risk a close encounter. Which in turn meant that they didn’t have much time. Brian raced up to Steve and shook him to get him to come to his senses before gesturing in the direction of the boat, which he noticed was not moving in their direction. Steve, probably alive on adrenaline if nothing else, wasted no time in making his escape, swimming, quite rightly, like his life depended on it. Brian was not so swift to run, however. If both of them turned their back, at least one of them would die. He stayed there for a moment, and suddenly realised his lungs were screaming for air – he wasn’t wearing any scuba gear, or even a re-breather! He would have to make a dash for the surface for air, otherwise lack of oxygen, and not a shark bite, would be the death of him. There was no sign of the shark, so Brian risked a swift push to the surface, gasped a few breaths and went back under, despite his lungs still burning for more air.
Only just in time too. As his eyes adjusted to being back under water, he saw the creature rushing at him. He didn’t have time to dodge out of the way, or get his diving knife out from its strap on his left leg, or do something clever to distract the shark or scare it off. No time to do anything except die.
His head burst out of water, gasping for more breath. There were no windows open in the bathroom, and steam enough steam had come from the bath to make it difficult to breathe properly. Brian felt half drowned and gasped for air, both hands holding the left side of the bath, facing away from the wall. Blithering fool! He’d fallen asleep in the bath. He could’ve drowned. Today was not a good day by any measure. He’d wasted himself in front of the TV, could’ve choked on his own vomit and now had almost drowned in the bath.
He pulled out the plug, grabbed a towel and stepped out of the bath. Dripping water everywhere, he walked over to the air circulator and turned it on. He had to clear the steam and get some air in here. His head was pounding again, now no doubt from sheer dehydration. He picked up his watch from the window ledge – 10:30. He’d been in a steaming hot bath for over an hour. He dried himself off, wrapped the towel around his waist and went downstairs to the kitchen for some water. He was parched, and no surprise; the better part of a bottle of vodka and an hour spent dehydrating in the bath. He filled a pint glass and gulped it all down in a few seconds. Then he re-filled his glass and went upstairs to the bedroom. Jane was sound asleep, and Brian doubted she would be in the mood to be woken. He drank another half pint of water, set the glass down on his bedside table, and carefully got into bed.
Hopefully, he thought, he could get through the night without having another terminal dream. Three in one day was quite enough for anyone.
If he had, he didn’t remember them. Astonishingly though, his head was still pounding. To add to that, his nose was running like a tap and his throat was sore. Wonderful start to the day, he thought to himself. He left Jane sleeping soundly next to him while he got up and dressed, had some breakfast, a lemsip and a throat losenge, and left the house to go and see Dogra. Yesterday had been a nightmare. Hopefully today would be a little gentler on him, and he would walk out of the surgery with a prescription for some nameless anti-biotics, and on the way home he could grab some flowers as a token apology to Jane.
Part 5
========
Brian walked into the Doctor’s Surgery just before 10am. Walking up to the counter, he noticed the usual array of stricken people sat morbidly in the waiting room. Mostly just old people, probably complaining that they don’t feel as well as they used to 30 years ago, and the rest an assortment of middle aged and younger people, who didn’t look ill in the slightest from the glance Brian had of them. He addressed the lady behind the counter, the typical triangular chinned, bespectacled old goon with wayward yet styled hair that made them seem to resemble more a misshapen microphone than any actual human being. The woman – Doreen if her nametag was to be believed – indicated that he wasn’t expected yet. This was interesting itself, since he wasn’t even sure until now that he even had an appointment. It didn’t worry him however, as that could still mean any number of things.
Doreen tapped away on a few keys before speaking again, and when she did, she said that Dogra had had a morning cancellation, and was free now if he wanted to move his appointment forward. Brian gave the affirmative, since he was here anyway, and walked straight over to Dogra’s door. He knocked and opened the door without waiting for an answer, and caught Dogra in the rare act of having a go at tidying up the mass of paperwork that regularly accumulated on his desk. He didn’t seem to notice Brian for a second, but then stopped what he was doing and lifted his head to meet Brian’s gaze.
“Ah, Brian! I just got off the line with Doreen, she told me you were coming in early.” The Doctor initiated.
“Morning Dogra.” Brian replied bluntly. He wasn’t in the mood for casual conversation. He had come here for one thing only, a resolution to the crisis that was yesterday.
“So Brian, have you had time to think about what we talked about yesterday?” This was enough to catch Brian off guard. He remembered nothing of their conversation yesterday bar his ludicrous illusionary death-sentence. There was no way around the subject, so Brian just said what was on his mind
“You’ll have to refresh my memory, Doc. I really don’t remember what happened yesterday”
This brought on a pause from Dogra, who seemed to be staring at him like he’d just sworn an oath to drown his children. He nervously ruffled around some of the remaining paperwork on his desk, more as a reaction to what Brian had said than any actual effort to dig out a piece of paper. After a moment though, he stopped.
“Brian, this is no laughing matter. You have to take this very seriously. Make no mistake, the Multiple Myeloma is fatal at the stage you have it. Like I said last time, you can probably only be guaranteed six months.”
Suddenly the pounding in Brian’s head increased to a rhythmic shattering explosion. The room started to whirl around him and he felt like he was going to be sick. Another dream, he thought. Not another blasted dream. This was about as bad as he could expect it to be. Recurring dreams of impending doom, and recurring so regularly that they were massively interfering with his life. Grinding his teeth, he put his head in his hands and his elbows on Dogra’s desk and fought desperately not to scream. He could distantly hear Dogra talking to him somewhere in the distance, but all he could concentrate on was the noise of his head pounding. It seemed to increase in severity for what seemed an age, until suddenly it ceased and Brian could hear himself sigh inside his own head with relief.
Dogra’s voice began to come back into focus. He seemed to be begging Brian to calm down, ranting something about making a go of things and he was sure he heard something about support groups again.
“Give me proof.” Brian interjected, which stopped Dogra in the middle of his tirade.
“What do you mean, proof?” asked the Doctor, disturbed by Brian’s reaction.
“Proof that I have cancer. Something I can see and read back to myself, so I can believe it.”
“You are having trouble believing what I am telling you?”
“It’s not just me who is having trouble believing it.” Jane, of course, had thrown the idea out of the window faster than he had himself, assuming this was real. “So what can you give me?”
At this, Dogra rattled more paper around his desk, gave up, and opened a drawer by his feet that Brian couldn’t see. There was a moment or two of nervous shuffling, and then Dogra produced a piece of blue paper, still bearing the fold marks of riding in an envelope.
I can’t give you this, but you can have a copy. It’s your blood result. If anyone needs any convincing, I can write up a brief letter saying that I conform what your condition is and what it means. But Brian, you seriously have to think about the future. What are you going to do? Your job, your family, your friends. You have a lot to think about”
That was that, then. Dogra typed out a letter explaining in brief what Multiple Myeloma was, and what it was going to do, set it to print in reception, and walked out with Brian to get a photocopy of the blood results. Doreen stood waiting with the printed letter, which Dogra signed and passed to Brian while Doreen made the photocopy, which she passed back to Dogra. Now Bran had a copy of his bloods and a signed letter telling him he was going to die. A wonderful thought, but when he woke up, he would either have two pieces of paper dooming him to a cancerous demise, or he would have nothing, and merely be waking from a dream.
He walked out of the surgery a few minutes later, after also having been burdened with a dozen or so leaflets about support groups and living with Multiple Myeloma (which seemed a cruel joke), and also having made an appointment to see a specialist to arrange some form of treatment. Well, if this was a dream, it was becoming far too convincing. He started to make his way back home. With all the stuff he had now, he could at least convince Jane that he was telling the truth. Ha! She would have to apologise for acting as she had last night!
When he got home, Jane was out, her coat again missing from the rack. Brian decided to get a quick nap, since he wasn’t fully over his drinking binge of the day before, and when he awoke, hopefully things would be back to normal.
HALF LIFE
Nonchalance. Something which had almost been unwittingly bred into him by his parents, who had always been very laid back, easy going and seemingly stressless. The calming influence of his parents had taught him that life doesn't need to be lived in a hurry, everything has a little time to spare and generally, there is little need to genuinely worry about anything.
This train of thought hadn't done him any injustice in the past. Stress didn't really affect someone who looked far enough ahead to plan contingencies. And after all, planning ahead was the key to an easy life. Start saving for retirement, invest here, insure this and that, guarantee this and prepare for everything else. Once all that is out of the way, all that's left is business as usual at school and, later, in the workplace, and whatever you want for during your own time.
By being laid back, but pre-emptory, Brian Wainwright carved out a decent and honest life for himself. Life was good, and nothing really came as a shock, since most things were prepared for in advance. And so it was that Brian enjoyed a laid back lifestyle.
So laid back he was that on the day his life changed, the first thing he thought about was the plans he had in place that would move into gear given the new circumstances. Most people would have panicked or just broken down into tears, but Brian remained calm, and systematic.
Just moments before, he had walked into his Doctor's room, slightly miffed still that Dr. Dogra wouldn't give him his test results over the phone. He had not felt himself for some months now. He had picked up the customary cold and flu during the Christmas period, as most people do at that time of year. This had developed into a touch of bronchitis and then back to a cold again. But he had struggled to throw the illness off, and when, in March, he was still not at his best, he had finally conceded to see his doctor about it.
Dogra had intimated that it might be something more serious than a mere long-lasting cold, but hadn't sounded too concerned. He had taken a blood test, and sent the blood of for pretty much every conceivable test "just in case". Brian, expecting to call up 2 weeks later and be told he would have to be prescribed a course of anti-biotics for some bug he'd picked up which he probably wouldn't even be able to pronounce, he was mildly irritated when the clerk on the other end had told him that his results couldn't be given over the phone.
Had some law changed that he didn't know about? He could recall two occasions when he'd called up in a similar manner, and been told what was wrong. But anyway, it wasn't anything to stress over, since he would still have to come in to pick up his prescription note anyway, so it was only a delay in knowing the unpronounceable name of his long-lasting flu.
He knew something was amiss when he opened the door to Dogra's room. Instead of being greeted with the usual toothy grin of the old Pakistani practitioner who had been his GP since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, Dogra seemed to try to smile, fail miserably and end up staring at Brian in some form of horrified grimace. Dogra shook it off immediately and greeted Brian.
"Hello Brian, how have you been feeling?" he probed, his voice certainly having lost its usual enthusiasm.
"I'm OK I guess, life as usual, just a few more tissues!" Brian replied, trying to inject a little humour, Dogra seemed to need some.
"Please, sit down..." Dogra tried to smile again, and gave up as it threatened another grimace.
Brian took a seat opposite Dogra, and waited for him to get all his papers in order, which at least was something ordinary. Dogra was a good man, but his desk was rarely in a presentable state.
"I've not had to have a conversation like this for quite a while, Brian, but we have to talk about your blood test results." Great, this didn't sound too good. A flurry of thoughts began swirling around his head like 'a week off work - shouldn't be a problem' and then 'two weeks off - boss won't mind, we've hit all the milestones early, and there aren't any important deliverables due for a while, I can take a little work home and keep up to date'. He was interrupted in his thoughts as Dogra moved on;
"I'm afraid what you have is more serious than any cold, or flu." he began "Considerably more serious, in fact."
"Don't keep me in suspense Doctor, I'm a grown man, I can take it!" Brian said, a little more sarcastic than he had intended. He was 24, 25 in three months' time, so he was certainly a man, but Dogra was considerably older, some 50 years of age by all accounts.
"I can't bring myself to joke about this, Brian, so I'll just say it." Dogra breathed heavily, as though he were preparing himself for some test of virility, some critical event that would decide his adequacy as a man, then he continued "Your blood isn't right, Brian. More than 30 percent of your bone marrow is made up of plasma cells."
Brian had no idea what the implication of that would be, and Dogra must have known that, whatever he was trying to say, he was having trouble finding the words for it.
"Well, plasma cells are good, right?" He knocked in, completely ignorant on the subject, but hoping to prod Dogra into getting this over with, he needed to know how long he'd be off work so he could make plans.
"Not in those levels, Brian. Not nearly in those levels. A normal percentage is around 5 percent." replied, as if this was the key to the knowledge Brian sought.
"So I have what? Better blood than everyone else?" Brian said, still searching for the secret Dogra was reluctantly keeping from him.
"No, Brian. I'm afraid not. Brian, there is no easy way of saying this. You have Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the blood" as he finished, Dogra's head seemed to droop on his shoulders like he'd just died on the spot, but Brian wasn't done.
"Cancer? I have cancer? How? What? I don't understand!" Brian protested weakly.
Dogra then seemed to enter some sort of trance. Hardly looking at Brian, he began to shoot off the facts of the illness he faced. Multiple Myeloma. When the body produces too much plasma, and the excess cells form tumors which crowd out the white blood cells which fight off disease. A cancer of the blood. Sentences didn't form correctly in Brian's mind, and he only seemed to hear the odd keyword as it was thrown in his direction by Dogra's tirade. Cancer. Incurable. Experimental treatments. Infection. Debilitation. Death.
Brian had yet one question to ask, and slowly and deliberately, he came out with "How long have I got?"
Dogra seemed to snap out of his trance and looked at Brian with forlorn eyes as he said, "I can't say. No one can say for sure. Left untreated, you could live for 2 years, or you could be dead in a number of months. The only treatments available are experimental, but in some cases, they have increased longevity to as much as 6 years.
"But I'm not going to kid you, Brian. I've known you since you were just a child, and I won't keep any facts from you now. The Myeloma is very advanced. Even if we were to start treatment today, I couldn't guarantee you more than a year." Dogra was on the point of crying, Brian could tell. And he didn't blame him! A year - at most! He was conditioned not to panic, and he didn't panic now. His thoughts filled with estimations of life insurance payouts, securities for his wife of 18 months, his unborn daughter.
A long moment seemed to pass while Brian thought of his finances, and Dogra tried to get a grip on himself. Eventually, Dogra broke the deadlock with "Brian, this isn't the most common form, but it's not exactly rare either. You're not alone. There are support groups..."
"SUPPORT GROUPS???" Brian interrupted, suddenly angry for no reason he could explain "What will they do for me? Stand me around talking about a disease that is going to kill me IN LESS THAN A YEAR and waste what little time I have left trying to consolidate my feelings with the grief of others?"
Dogra had no direct answer. He looked Brian briefly in the eyes, and then turned away as though the effort of looking directly at him made him weak.
"I have to be going." Brian said, "I have to strip the wallpaper in the dining room this afternoon." he offered "I need some air, anyway."
"Brian, I need to see you again, we have to arrange some form of treatment. Can you come in tomorrow?" Dogra seemed to have regained some composure, perhaps from the relief of Brian leaving.
"Sure, why not. Goodbye Doctor" The goodbye sounded more final than he had intended, but he had other things on his mind. He had some news for his wife, and she wasn't going to be best pleased.
Part 2
========
Brian Wainwright opened the door to his home, stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. He could quite plainly see that his recent news hadn't sunk in at all. Anyone else would have been in a state of shock. Either shock or despair. Brian currently felt nothing bar an empty feeling in his stomach, not unlike hunger.
He quickly scanned the coatrail, and noted that Jane's green jacket was missing. That was fortunate, he thought. She's out, which meant more time for him to think about what he was going to say. He was hoping for something a little more adult than the introduction he currently had running through his head. "Hi honey, I'm a dead man walking" wasn't going to get the conversation off on the right foot.
He walked right, through the door into the dining room and through into the kitchen. Picking up the kettle he began to fill it with water direct from the tap. He stopped with the kettle half full, and left it by the sink. Tea wasn't going to help him gather his nerves. Instead, he reached into the cupboard and grabbed a tall glass, then wet over to the larder, and from the top shelf, pulled down a bottle of Vodka. He half-filled his glass and moved on to the fridge, where he pulled out a carton of orange and topped up his drink.
Glass in one hand and vodka bottle in the other, he went back through the dining room into the hall again, and walked through into the lounge. He took his place in his favorite chair - a lovely (and not to mention pricey) number, but wonderfully relaxing. Made of quality brown leather, the chair was epitomising of comfort - put his drink down on the small side table, and picked up the TV remote. Brian began flicking slowly through the channels, of which there were several hundred, looking for something that interested him. After about 10 minutes, he conceded that there was nothing worth looking at at all.
"Typical," he said aloud to himself "Sixty quid a bloody month for 300 channels of utter crap." Brian had only really agreed to pay for all the channels because the sports channels were included, and there was rarely any decent sports activity on at this time of day midweek. Eventually, though, he flicked back to National Geographic and watched some garbage about rats breeding.
Bored, his glass quickly emptied. Going to refill it, he noticed he hadn't brought the orange through with him. Not a problem, he thought, and filled the glass with neat Vodka.
He awoke suddenly, not really knowing where he was. His head pounded magnificently. He quickly realised he wasn't in his lounge anymore. He wasn't in his house at all. He had absolutely no idea where he was. Looking about himself, he appeared to be, if anywhere, in some kind of tunnel. The place was very rocky, as though it were carved out of mountain stone, there was a faint glimmer of light - presumably the exit - to his left, and the tunnel seemed to carry on into darkness in the opposite direction. How the hell had he gotten here? How much had he drunk? Had he even had the presence of mind to shut the front door behind him?
Crap
Crap.
CRAP!
Bloody fool. God only knows how much Vodka he must've drunk to bring about this tragic circumstance. Alone, lost and utterly bewildered. He was in the middle of a series of self-curses, when he heard a noise come from the stony darkness to his right. The sound was like a faint squeak, but it somehow conveyed a dark malevolence that chilled him to the bone. He strained his eyes to see farther down the tunnel in that direction, but couldn't see anything at all. The noise came again, and Brian slowly started backing away towards the tunnel exit as quietly as he could manage, which to the trained ear was not magnificently quiet at all. Brian had always been one for a little sport, but the art of silence was lost on him.
Backing away, the noise came again, and again. The noise was different in each occurrence. Whatever was making the noise, there was more than one of it. Enough of this crap, he thought, and lost all sense of sneaking, and began to walk swiftly, if stiffly, toward the light.
Suddenly the noise was everywhere. Thousands of noises from as many sources, all coming closer from the darkness. Abandoning any sense of dignity, Brian began to run for the exit. Only a few metres on, he tripped and fell, cutting his knees and left hand on the rough stone. He looked back to the source of the noises, and what he saw terrified him.
Rats. Hundreds of them. Only, strangely, they were incredibly small, like a swarm of large, furry beetles. And they were upon him. Before he could stand, the rats were climbing his by the dozen. He tried in vain to brush them of, and while he succeeded in getting a few off him, they were replaced by yet more in moments. The rats charged for the cuts on his legs, and bit him.
Brian screamed, the bite impossibly more painful than it had any right to be. Another bite and another followed it, and Brian folded over and fell to the ground in agony. More rats were upon him now, they were swarming him. Then the rats began to eat under his cuts, get into his skin. Brian, incoherent enough already, saw dozens of the creatures running around inside him as tiny bulges on his skin in his legs, then his abdomen, his chest. Barely able to keep his eyes open through the pain, Brian saw a group of about 8 rats gather at the top of his chest, before surging toward his neck, where his brain awaited them. Gurgling on rats intent on entering him through his mouth, Brian managed to scream.
And he woke up, rather rudely awakened by a kick to the stomach. His head was pounding even harder now, and the air he was breathing smelled like acid.
"What..." he mumbled "What's going on? Where am I?"
"I'll tell you where you are, you bloody idiot" a familiar voice, which seemed extremely unhappy, it should be said, "You're lying down on the lounge floor, in a pool of your own vomit."
Ah...
"And I'll tell you now, Brian, I'm not cleaning that crap up."
"Hi honey, I'm a dead man walking...” Brian said without realising it.
"You bet your behind you're a dead man. If that stuff stains, it'll cost a fortune to replace the carpet."
"Ah... Jane, there's something important I have to tell you."
Jane was irritated now, that much was plain. She certainly wasn't going to like this one bit.
Part 3
========
If Brian was right about one thing, it was his assessment of how Jane would take the news of his illness. How badly she would take it though, he couldn’t have anticipated.
“What on Christ’s throne are you on about?” she shouted at him “You’re not dying, you plank, you’re bloody drunk!”
“Jane, please…” he moaned. She was right about one thing, the vodka he had drunk – how much to do this to him? – was still holding it’s influence over him, his head was still pounding, and he felt like throwing up again, if only because he stunk of lying in his own vomit for god knows how long. “Please, this is very important…”
“It’d better be!” She interrupted. It’s a skill, he thought, that she can inject something while you’re trying to explain to ruffle you, and make you sound even less coherent than you are already. He didn’t need this crap now.
“Shut up and listen!” He half shouted back, which was enough to stop her in her tracks, “You might want to sit down” he gestured toward the leather chair, a little calmer now, but winced as he noticed the empty vodka bottle standing on the table beside it. Jane took the seat anyway, taking no notice of the empty bottle. Probably because she had seen it already while he had been lying on his face breathing his own puke for air.
“I went to see Dogra about my… my illness today.” The symptoms of which were not aided a great deal by the amount of alcohol he had ingested; he felt like crap. But regardless of how he felt, he knew he had to continue. He could hardly sleep off his hangover now. “Apparently, what I have is more serious than a cold.” This wasn’t easy. How could he say this? He felt sorry for Jane already, and she wasn’t even crying yet.
“So, what have you got then? Has he given you a sick note?” Obviously, Jane hadn’t yet grasped the severity of the situation.
“Well, no, but I’m going to see him again tomorrow, but that’s neither here nor there. Just please, listen.” The art of interruption worked wonders. It was impossible to hold a line of thought while Jane continued to impose meaningless rant in the middle of his confession. “Dogra says I have something very serious. I can’t stress enough when I say “serious”, Jane.”
“Let me guess” Jane interjected once again, “You’ve got cancer and you’re going to die?”
Brian’s blood ran cold. Obviously, she was just being sarcastic, but the way it came out of her mouth sounded like she actually knew. Like she knew and was laughing at him. He stared at her in horror for a moment before he gained the courage to continue.
“That’s not funny Jane.” He managed.
“Why not?” she replied tartly
“Because…” Sod it. Just tell her! “Because I DO have cancer, Jane. I have a cancer that they can’t fix, and I’m going to die.” There, he had said it. But something wasn’t right. She didn’t believe him. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! He could see it in her face; she was staring blankly at him, waiting for him to laugh and say ‘gotcha!’
After a moment, Jane sighed loudly. Brian was about to re-iterate himself when she spoke ahead of him, “That is NOT funny, Brian.” She spat ‘Brian’ at him like an insult.
“It’s not a joke, Jane…” He began, but she wasn’t finished, and interrupted him yet again.
“I’m your wife, and I’m carrying your child.” Her voice began to gain volume and temper with each word “I am not in a condition where I need to be fed utter tripe like that just so you can try to excuse your way…” she paused for breath, and now each word was pronounced like a lethal venom. “out of your utter stupidity in getting wasted for no reason in front of the TV and PASSING OUT ON THE FLOOR IN A PILE OF YOUR OWN SICK!”
“Jane…” He began, but couldn’t finish. Suddenly none of it was clear. He was still drunk, that was for certain. But he had been told he had cancer. Hadn’t he? He hadn’t dreamed that as well. But for some reason he couldn’t tell for sure now. The whole day seemed blurry, and his eyes filled with tears. What the hell was going on?
“Jane, I’m so sorry.” He blubbed out, not really knowing why, or what he was sorry for.
“Clean this bloody mess up. I don’t want to see your face until this room is back to normal.”
Well, that was that then. If all this had been a dream, then he didn’t have an appointment to see Dogra again tomorrow, but he made up his mind then and there that he would go in and see him anyway. Appointment or not. He needed to know if he’s been dreaming his cancer diagnosis, and if so, what he had really been told instead. Brian, usually so sure of everything around him, now found himself not knowing what was happening at all and he didn’t like it in the slightest.
Jane got up and left the room without another word, closing the door behind her like a final judgement and leaving Brian to clean up a mess he couldn’t remember having made. He distantly heard Jane stalking up the stairs, obviously quite shaken by what Brian had tried to tell her. He waited until she had reached the top of the stairs, and gone, presumably, to the bedroom or bathroom, and then went off to the kitchen to find something he could use to clean up the vomit all over the lounge floor.
In the kitchen, he took a moment to take his shirt off, which was covered in sick and left it on the floor by the washing machine. Hardly the best place to put it, but he had to think about the lounge carpet, before it was irrevocably stained or otherwise ruined. Scrubbing away on the puke sodden carpet, Brian again began to wonder what exactly had happened to him today. Was he going to die? Had he even been to see Dogra? Had he gone, but already been drinking, and been abusive to the good Doctor?
Whatever the truth was, it evaded him now. He wasn’t likely to know much about anything until he saw Dogra tomorrow. But another thought that occurred to him, if all that had happened and had been a dream. The cancer, the morbid and irrevocable death sentence, the cave, the rats, being eaten alive. What on God’s green Earth was going through his subconscious to be bringing such visions to the fore? Perhaps it was just the alcohol. The Vodka had sentenced him to a death he couldn’t avoid, and terrorised him by envisioning another, more gruesome death. It had then disillusioned him into upsetting his wife.
If vodka was the cause of this mess, he wouldn’t be drinking any more of it in the near future, that was for sure.
PART 4
========
After about an hour of listlessly scrubbing the lounge carpet, Brian finally decided he was satisfied that the carpet was back to its original state. More or less, at any rate. He glanced at his watch, it was past 9pm, which begged a number of questions in and of itself. What time had he got back from Dogra’s office – assuming he’d even been in the first place – how long had he spent drinking in front of the TV, how long had he been passed out? Also, where had Jane been until almost 8pm when she had discovered him passed out on the floor?
Brian didn’t get a chance to ask that night. After finishing up in the lounge, and going back to the kitchen to put his shirt on to wash, he went for a shower to get the rest of his vomit off him. His face especially was now well crusted with acidic unpleasantness. He took a few minutes washing it all off, and then decided that he was in the mood for a decent bath. He dried himself off after stepping out of the shower, and left the bath running while he went downstairs and grabbed a Resolve from the medicine box in the kitchen. He put it in a glass and drank it down in one. Hopefully that would at least clear his head, which was still swimming and pounding magnificently as a result of his vodka binge.
After a few minutes, when his bath was ready, he dropped his towel to the floor and stepped in lightly, testing the water temperature. It was hot, just how he liked it. He got in, reveling in the momentary rush of heat through his body especially up his back as he slid into the steaming waters. He lay there for some time with his eyes closed, just relaxing in the water, and occasionally bobbed his head under the water to wash off the sweat that slowly collected on his brow. He was feeling better already.
He bobbed his head under again, and for no reason he could explain he opened his eyes. He immediately wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t in the bath anymore. Not even nearly. He was in a vast expanse of water, God knows where. What the hell was this? Another crappy dream? He vaguely wondered what imaginative death awaited him this time.
No. This was real. The water was cool, and he could taste the salt. He glanced upwards, the surface some two or three metres above him. He realised he was looking out of a pair of goggles, and was even wearing a wetsuit. Why was he here in the water? Steve. He had gone in after Steve. He remembered now, but Steve was nowhere in his vision. Had it got him already? The shark – THE BLOODY SHARK! – might have got him already, which made the idea of him being in the water little short of plain suicide. He looked around, but saw nothing in his vicinity other than the boat bobbing on the surface some ten metres away.
He had a decision to make. Find Steve, or get the bleeding hell out of the water. But before he could make it, the decision was made for him. He saw the shark, a great white no less, at the edge of his vision ahead and slightly to the left of him, and there, only a few metres aside, was Steve, flapping around like a stuck pig. Well that didn’t help. Obviously Steve wasn’t the shark expert he liked to think he was. Brian knew that Steve only had one chance to live. He would have to distract the prehistoric beast and give Steve a chance to make it back to the boat. He swam a few lengths forward before either Steve or the shark noticed him. Both reacted about the same time, Steve by ceasing his suicidal flapping seizure and the shark by swimming back off beyond his visual range.
That didn’t mean much, of course. The beast had probably just decided to rush either himself or Steve from a distance rather than risk a close encounter. Which in turn meant that they didn’t have much time. Brian raced up to Steve and shook him to get him to come to his senses before gesturing in the direction of the boat, which he noticed was not moving in their direction. Steve, probably alive on adrenaline if nothing else, wasted no time in making his escape, swimming, quite rightly, like his life depended on it. Brian was not so swift to run, however. If both of them turned their back, at least one of them would die. He stayed there for a moment, and suddenly realised his lungs were screaming for air – he wasn’t wearing any scuba gear, or even a re-breather! He would have to make a dash for the surface for air, otherwise lack of oxygen, and not a shark bite, would be the death of him. There was no sign of the shark, so Brian risked a swift push to the surface, gasped a few breaths and went back under, despite his lungs still burning for more air.
Only just in time too. As his eyes adjusted to being back under water, he saw the creature rushing at him. He didn’t have time to dodge out of the way, or get his diving knife out from its strap on his left leg, or do something clever to distract the shark or scare it off. No time to do anything except die.
His head burst out of water, gasping for more breath. There were no windows open in the bathroom, and steam enough steam had come from the bath to make it difficult to breathe properly. Brian felt half drowned and gasped for air, both hands holding the left side of the bath, facing away from the wall. Blithering fool! He’d fallen asleep in the bath. He could’ve drowned. Today was not a good day by any measure. He’d wasted himself in front of the TV, could’ve choked on his own vomit and now had almost drowned in the bath.
He pulled out the plug, grabbed a towel and stepped out of the bath. Dripping water everywhere, he walked over to the air circulator and turned it on. He had to clear the steam and get some air in here. His head was pounding again, now no doubt from sheer dehydration. He picked up his watch from the window ledge – 10:30. He’d been in a steaming hot bath for over an hour. He dried himself off, wrapped the towel around his waist and went downstairs to the kitchen for some water. He was parched, and no surprise; the better part of a bottle of vodka and an hour spent dehydrating in the bath. He filled a pint glass and gulped it all down in a few seconds. Then he re-filled his glass and went upstairs to the bedroom. Jane was sound asleep, and Brian doubted she would be in the mood to be woken. He drank another half pint of water, set the glass down on his bedside table, and carefully got into bed.
Hopefully, he thought, he could get through the night without having another terminal dream. Three in one day was quite enough for anyone.
If he had, he didn’t remember them. Astonishingly though, his head was still pounding. To add to that, his nose was running like a tap and his throat was sore. Wonderful start to the day, he thought to himself. He left Jane sleeping soundly next to him while he got up and dressed, had some breakfast, a lemsip and a throat losenge, and left the house to go and see Dogra. Yesterday had been a nightmare. Hopefully today would be a little gentler on him, and he would walk out of the surgery with a prescription for some nameless anti-biotics, and on the way home he could grab some flowers as a token apology to Jane.
Part 5
========
Brian walked into the Doctor’s Surgery just before 10am. Walking up to the counter, he noticed the usual array of stricken people sat morbidly in the waiting room. Mostly just old people, probably complaining that they don’t feel as well as they used to 30 years ago, and the rest an assortment of middle aged and younger people, who didn’t look ill in the slightest from the glance Brian had of them. He addressed the lady behind the counter, the typical triangular chinned, bespectacled old goon with wayward yet styled hair that made them seem to resemble more a misshapen microphone than any actual human being. The woman – Doreen if her nametag was to be believed – indicated that he wasn’t expected yet. This was interesting itself, since he wasn’t even sure until now that he even had an appointment. It didn’t worry him however, as that could still mean any number of things.
Doreen tapped away on a few keys before speaking again, and when she did, she said that Dogra had had a morning cancellation, and was free now if he wanted to move his appointment forward. Brian gave the affirmative, since he was here anyway, and walked straight over to Dogra’s door. He knocked and opened the door without waiting for an answer, and caught Dogra in the rare act of having a go at tidying up the mass of paperwork that regularly accumulated on his desk. He didn’t seem to notice Brian for a second, but then stopped what he was doing and lifted his head to meet Brian’s gaze.
“Ah, Brian! I just got off the line with Doreen, she told me you were coming in early.” The Doctor initiated.
“Morning Dogra.” Brian replied bluntly. He wasn’t in the mood for casual conversation. He had come here for one thing only, a resolution to the crisis that was yesterday.
“So Brian, have you had time to think about what we talked about yesterday?” This was enough to catch Brian off guard. He remembered nothing of their conversation yesterday bar his ludicrous illusionary death-sentence. There was no way around the subject, so Brian just said what was on his mind
“You’ll have to refresh my memory, Doc. I really don’t remember what happened yesterday”
This brought on a pause from Dogra, who seemed to be staring at him like he’d just sworn an oath to drown his children. He nervously ruffled around some of the remaining paperwork on his desk, more as a reaction to what Brian had said than any actual effort to dig out a piece of paper. After a moment though, he stopped.
“Brian, this is no laughing matter. You have to take this very seriously. Make no mistake, the Multiple Myeloma is fatal at the stage you have it. Like I said last time, you can probably only be guaranteed six months.”
Suddenly the pounding in Brian’s head increased to a rhythmic shattering explosion. The room started to whirl around him and he felt like he was going to be sick. Another dream, he thought. Not another blasted dream. This was about as bad as he could expect it to be. Recurring dreams of impending doom, and recurring so regularly that they were massively interfering with his life. Grinding his teeth, he put his head in his hands and his elbows on Dogra’s desk and fought desperately not to scream. He could distantly hear Dogra talking to him somewhere in the distance, but all he could concentrate on was the noise of his head pounding. It seemed to increase in severity for what seemed an age, until suddenly it ceased and Brian could hear himself sigh inside his own head with relief.
Dogra’s voice began to come back into focus. He seemed to be begging Brian to calm down, ranting something about making a go of things and he was sure he heard something about support groups again.
“Give me proof.” Brian interjected, which stopped Dogra in the middle of his tirade.
“What do you mean, proof?” asked the Doctor, disturbed by Brian’s reaction.
“Proof that I have cancer. Something I can see and read back to myself, so I can believe it.”
“You are having trouble believing what I am telling you?”
“It’s not just me who is having trouble believing it.” Jane, of course, had thrown the idea out of the window faster than he had himself, assuming this was real. “So what can you give me?”
At this, Dogra rattled more paper around his desk, gave up, and opened a drawer by his feet that Brian couldn’t see. There was a moment or two of nervous shuffling, and then Dogra produced a piece of blue paper, still bearing the fold marks of riding in an envelope.
I can’t give you this, but you can have a copy. It’s your blood result. If anyone needs any convincing, I can write up a brief letter saying that I conform what your condition is and what it means. But Brian, you seriously have to think about the future. What are you going to do? Your job, your family, your friends. You have a lot to think about”
That was that, then. Dogra typed out a letter explaining in brief what Multiple Myeloma was, and what it was going to do, set it to print in reception, and walked out with Brian to get a photocopy of the blood results. Doreen stood waiting with the printed letter, which Dogra signed and passed to Brian while Doreen made the photocopy, which she passed back to Dogra. Now Bran had a copy of his bloods and a signed letter telling him he was going to die. A wonderful thought, but when he woke up, he would either have two pieces of paper dooming him to a cancerous demise, or he would have nothing, and merely be waking from a dream.
He walked out of the surgery a few minutes later, after also having been burdened with a dozen or so leaflets about support groups and living with Multiple Myeloma (which seemed a cruel joke), and also having made an appointment to see a specialist to arrange some form of treatment. Well, if this was a dream, it was becoming far too convincing. He started to make his way back home. With all the stuff he had now, he could at least convince Jane that he was telling the truth. Ha! She would have to apologise for acting as she had last night!
When he got home, Jane was out, her coat again missing from the rack. Brian decided to get a quick nap, since he wasn’t fully over his drinking binge of the day before, and when he awoke, hopefully things would be back to normal.
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*pop*
Phew, that took a while to read. Interesting tale though. I look forward to the rest. Good stuff.
Nope I've done a boo-boo. My hangover has just wiped out essential synapse connections that make brain go good.
Insane Bartender wrote:
> Well, I'm still going to post it one mini-chapter at a time :P
I'm onto you: you wait into that insomniac bloke posts it and then you copy it and put it here when he's sleeping.
Tut tut.
*Winks*
> Well, I'm still going to post it one mini-chapter at a time :P
I'm onto you: you wait into that insomniac bloke posts it and then you copy it and put it here when he's sleeping.
Tut tut.
*Winks*
I have been reading them but just hadn't replied up to now.
It's good stuff IB - keep going...
It's good stuff IB - keep going...
Well, I'm still going to post it one mini-chapter at a time :P
*waits for full story*
It's good stuff, well written and compelling.
Maybe it could develop into a horror and the dreams are actual visions of people's gruesome deaths, his condition having released latent powers within. That may sound crap but it's a thought.
Anyway IB I'm impressed.
Maybe it could develop into a horror and the dreams are actual visions of people's gruesome deaths, his condition having released latent powers within. That may sound crap but it's a thought.
Anyway IB I'm impressed.
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