The wave

A crushing headache. I want to be sick. I had been out for a two-hour walk with Renata in the woods. With the dogs. I stayed quiet and listened. On the way back the wave came — that ghastly, black thought — I am worth nothing. I am lying down. That was the third time in those few days that my body stopped completely. Not because of a decision — simply because it had no way of going any further. Methylphenidate, two hours of movement, then silence, then the drive home and a brain that had been at full throttle moments earlier came down hard