The Other Me
‘The Broken Road’ ii. Exhaustion had already grown prevalent in my life – I’d never slept well as an adult, but from the moment I’d taken Aropax, sleep had become shallow and restless. Now it seemed I was chronically exhausted. What made it worse was that pain had become a weight that tired me out every day, and anxiety an anchor. I tried a number of things to help the tension in my neck, and the sharp pain in my lower back – for months, I stretched in the mornings; saw physios and osteos regularly, had acupuncture time and time again; bought an orthopaedic chair; and alternated between swimming thirty-forty…
The Other Me
‘The Lurking Shadow’ vi. Departure was a battle with the fear of shortness of breath. My brother John drove me to the airport. Everybody in my family suspected I was going with Allie, even though we’d been broken up for months. When we got to the airport and she was nowhere to be seen, I found out later my brother rang my sister in-law, Christine, and expressed a fear that maybe I was flying up there to off myself in some way – like Nicholas Cage drinking himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas. My sister in-law checked the award on the net and found out it was for real.…