Contemporaneous: Chapters’ 8 – 12.
8. I wake too early like I ‘ve done every day since I was on antidepressants for five years over twenty years ago, and they fucked with my sleep, and even now, even with them clean from my system, the side-effects they introduce remain. Grabbing my phone from the bedside drawer where my clock radio sits, I check it, tensing as I expect some Lana diatribe. Sometimes she does that, sending me an essay detailing why I’ve behaved so poorly, a guided tour into my inadequacies that immerses me in guilt that overwhelms any equilibrium I have, until all that remains is the doubt that maybe, just maybe, I…
05
I lie in bed and listen to the ringing in my ears. It’s a sharp and constant frequency that feels like it’s coming from somewhere higher in the left ear than it is in the right, the two points connecting, the line a buzzsaw cutting through my head. Tinnitus. That’s the name for the condition. Only it’s a weird condition – for me, at least. A doctor at the Royal Ear and Eye Hospital examined my ears and hearing years ago, and said they were fine. He posed that I might’ve had an infection or something once, the ringing had been a symptom, and I recovered from the infection but…