1_27b

I should stop dating these, because it just shows that I missed a day. But . . . now that I've started the pattern, I don't think I can stop.

He blinked his eyes four times to clear his vision and then closed them again to concentrate. He focused on the one noise that he could hear: the air conditioner, its heavy hum sitting hard on his chest. He shifted so that he could hear it equally in both ears. He balanced on his toes, leaning forward just enough so that he was on the edge of falling. He put his hands out as counterweight and one arm hit the lamp. He cursed and turned, slapping the lamp with his other arm.

He gave up and sat down.

His project sat unfinished, almost complete: a house of cards. He was on the last layer. First four triangles, then three, then two, now one. And if he does it wrong, it all comes down. The air conditioner hummed annoyingly in one ear. He shifted to face it, and felt it in both ears and his chest, sitting equal and heavy. He turned the thermostat up, and the condenser stopped humming. He flipped his attention back to the cards. He reached for the vital pair of cards and lifted them carefully to the top of the house. His hands were shaking, and his nausea came back.

He got up, and balanced on his toes. Carefully avoiding the lamp, he stretched his arms out to full extension and then brought them together in front and touched them together. He slowly settled back down to the balls of his feet. One foot rested on a cord, raised slightly. He could feel it through his shoe.

He walked back and sat down. He could still feel the cord. He stood up, walked over, and stepped on the cord with his other foot.

Then he jumped in the air, landing on his heels, knocking all sensation of the cord away. He did the balance exercise again, landing perfectly on his heels with no cord underneath.

The nausea was gone.

He sat down, and lifted the cards to the top of the house. Both of his feet tapped in rapid unison. He held the cards over the house, and with careful precision, slowly let them settle to the top surface of the house. He didn't breathe. He didn't move. He didn't think. His eyes got bigger and bigger until the cards were perfectly balanced unshifting perfect in absolutely the right alignment and they would never fall as long as he held them but he had to let them go and see what would happen and the air conditioner turned on, loud in one ear, and he twitched and yelled and the cards settled as if in slow motion to the ground, slipping off the desk and on the desk and all over kingdom come and he vomited, long and hard, into the wastebasket.

OCD: 1

Mind over Matter: 0