It Can Always Get Worse

“If you don’t believe things can get worse, you have weak imagination.”

What kind of a messed up fortune is that, I thought, as I crumpled the flimsy rectangular piece of paper and tossed it back onto the table, alongside my half eaten Szechuan chicken and vegetables. How can things get worse than they are right now? I detest my job as a freelance reporter at our dying local newspaper. My most riveting story lately has been about the town’s little league team searching for a new sponsor. My romantic life is not faring much better. Lauren, my long-term girlfriend, has been campaigning for a stronger commitment lately. To be honest, I’m just not feeling it. She is great, don’t get me wrong. But I already know I don’t want kids, so what is the point, really? As these thoughts grumbled through my mind, I felt a distinct queasy eruption travel through my stomach into my gut, and I got up abruptly to head to the John.

Too late, apparently, because I suddenly found myself on the sticky floor, surrounded by concerned faces framed by glossy black hair.

“You okay, Sir?”

Oh no, I was not. My legs refused to follow my mental commands, and in a surreal speeding up of events I am whisked to the smallish hospital at the center of town, and worked up from stem to stern. By now, my voice was no longer working, but I was hyper aware of all my surroundings. When the arms went, my doctors called in some specialists. It was determined by the next day that I had consumed an especially virulent botulism toxin, and my prognosis was bleak. (No more bleak, I assume, than the Happy Buddha Restaurant’s, though.)

My thoughts harken back to my unfortunate fortune cookie. I stubbornly decide that my imagination is just fine and things certainly cannot get worse.

I was wrong.

My physical faculties were pretty much nil, and I was hooked up to all the modern apparatuses that keep us vegetables alive. The creepiest was the breathing machine. I hated the Darth Vader-esque gulps of air that ingressed and egressed constantly from my inoperative lungs.

You may have surmised that my mental game was still on point. More’s the pity. You would be surprised what caregivers do when they think their patients have no lucidity. From the surreptitious adjusting of their underwear, to the cavalier servicing of your machines, it soon becomes dehumanizing. I was privy to several private conversations on cell phones to nurses’ significant others. Their lovey-dovey cooings made me wonder when Lauren might pop in.

I am becoming more and more convinced by the day that my imagination must really be on the weak side, because things just got exponentially worse. Lauren finally showed, perched tragically by my bed, and stroked my clammy forehead. At least she gave me some eye contact, returning my unfocused gaze with her tear sparkled hazel one.

“Mark, you know I care deeply about you, but I have to find someone to build a family with.” She sobbed out a few more words, but you get the gist. Just before leaving, she took my chilly hand in hers, and dropped a golden heart shaped locket into my palm. I knew this contained a picture of us, heads touching, smiling into our bright future. When she left, the locket slipped from my useless hand, and made a small metallic clink as it hit the floor. An extra long Darth Vader sigh filled the sterile room.

The days have begun to blend together into a gray soup, peppered with beeping monitors and the squeak squeak of nurses’ shoes on just mopped linoleum.

Well, at least things can’t get any worse.

If I had the ability to laugh at that last sentence, I would.

Sometimes a nurse would turn on the television in my room, and I could listen to one desultory newscast after another. Have you ever noticed that all the news that makes it to the airwaves is bad? During prime time, anyway. This night’s broadcast was a doozy. I almost thought it was a parody. The somber reporter droned on about a rampant virus that was taking people out in droves. The kicker was, it didn’t kill you out right. It made you into a cannibal with super strength. I know- sounds like an overwrought teen horror flick, right? Only problem was, this was apparently really happening.

My medical team seemed very nervous tonight, but they washed me down and cleaned my tubes dutifully. There has been no late evening check, though, and I thought I heard distant howls and a struggling commotion down the hall.

It’s been three days, now, and all is quiet. My breathing machine keeps inhaling and exhaling on the regular. My glucose IV is getting pretty low.

The worst, though - by far the worst - is that my sheet has become folded up underneath me in the most uncomfortable fashion. It is all that I can think about. Well, that, and my messed up fortune.

Because I do believe now that things can get worse.