He woke up, and in an instant knew what was going to happen.
That edgy and internal place, where you can feel that which hasn’t happened yet, but which you know is going to.
A snowball at the edge of the cliff, waiting.
And as he shook off the last vestiges of sleep (an unfortunate necessity; he’d just as soon stayed in bed until the inevitable had passed), stretching out his wearier than usual muscles and preparing for the day ahead, he wondered how many pills it would take to see him through, and what kind. He knew it would take a certain amount of something, but he also knew that it had to be done in moderation. And that certain combinations were not to be tolerated.
The doctors were very insistent on that last point.
By noon, his throat felt like the inside of a kiln and his nose was burning with the stench of stale mucus.
Which was gross, but survivable.
The remedy, as it happened, was two pink something-or-others, taken with a swig of soda (he knew that he was supposed to be avoiding soda, but swallowing with water was so much harder than it used to be).
This was, of course, a temporary solution. But then again, the problem itself was temporary, too, wasn’t it?
On a long enough timeline, everything is temporary…
Pryorball. 