Shock by Daniel Day, whiskey sour

 

We had been free falling for longer than I could fathom. I opened my eyes; the rush of air filled them with a blur of tears. Our ragdoll bodies plummeted towards the green earth but the real panic was in not being able to breathe.

'Just sip.' Dr Grace shouted, demonstrating a tight-lipped sucking. 'Sip!' she emphasised. I remembered sipping water at my mother’s instruction – just sip some water, you’ll be fine in a minute!

I opened my mouth, choked on ice-cold air and went into a spin.

'Steady!' Dr Grace cried. Somehow, she reached an arm to me, grabbed the scruff of my neck like a dog and set me right. The spray of the waterfall soaked our faces, hair and clothes. A mirror the size of a coin glinted in the distance. 'Easy,' said Dr Grace. 'Follow the flow of the water.’ With practiced grace, she stretched an arm like the wing of a dove, allowed her fingertips to skim the fast-flowing water.

The mirror gleamed and rippled and grew into a little pool, foaming at one edge. Groping branches reached away from the density of the forest and into the shaft of sunlight in which we fell. Gleaming black rocks, polished like jewels, ran like a cobblestone road towards the ground.

The pool thundered in the constant fill. It shimmered in blue-green ripples, white with foam, black with unseen depths. It spread wide like a blanket, a mother drawing a child to her bosom.

'Breathe!' the doctor commanded. We gulped moistened air, ripped through the surface then sank to noiseless depths.

I hope you’re happy Emily

 

Hours earlier we had been in the surgery. I stared out of the open window, a lazy spring air drifted in.

'Are you sure…’ I covered my mouth, shifted in my seat trying to settle my stomach. ‘Are you sure it will work?’

'Sure?' the doctor laughed, threw her head back. 'No, no, no, no.' the syllables fired like pellets. I shot her a concerned glance. Her brown cheeks shone with a wide grin. A grin that was meant to reassure? I couldn't tell. 'You can never be sure of these things.' she chirped. 'You have to think of the risks...'

'Which are?'

'Well…' She went into another mad chuckle, coughed, pulled at her shirt collar. 'It will either kill you or cure you, it's the risk you have to take.'

'And if I don't?'

'Then live with it.' she spun on her chair and tapped at the keyboard.

'Live with it!' I cried, thinking only of Emily. I jerked forward in a sudden convulsion. 'But I can't live with it! Can you imagine?'

'No, I wouldn't like to.' she said without turning from her screen. Silence swelled with all my doubt, my concern, my anxiety until the air was thick with my unspoken answer.

'Fine.' The word spewed from my belly. 'I'll do it.'

'Good!' Dr Grace squealed. She clapped her hands, scooped her car keys from the table as she stood. 'Shall we?' she held the door open.

'What – now?'

'No time like the present!' she laughed.

 

I sat in the passenger’s seat of her minivan, kicking paper cups and empty wrappers at my feet. I still had the leaflet which she had given to me. Why does my diaphragm hate me? written in a pink bubble font. I flicked through the pages. It was all surgeries and shock treatments; I had opted for the most extreme of them all.

            I hope you’re happy Emily

            ‘Listen, if you don’t get it cured, I just can’t see a future for us.’ Emily had said, her lovely eyes ringed with grey, her face stern and beautiful. ‘It isn’t just you that feels it. How do you think I feel being woken every night by your shakes and jerks?’

            ‘I can’t help it!’ I said, wounded.

            ‘But you can help it!’ she yelled, slamming the TV remote into the arm of the sofa. ‘You could help it if you got some help!’ she left the room cold and empty.

            After a sleepless night, a bottle and a half of white wine and a desperate online search, I ended up at Dr Graces surgery, a specialist in extreme treatments.

           

I gazed anxiously out of the minivan window. The square grey buildings of the town gave way to open fields then the forest fell like a shadow about us. My involuntary spasm raised a chuckle from Dr Grace.

            ‘Now, now, now, now.’ she pulsed. Her hand found my knee and squeezed. ‘You must try to relax.’ I didn’t protest; I couldn’t speak now even if I’d wanted to.

            We parked in a dirt layby, walled by the dense trunks of pines. We set out on a winding path, steadily climbing, the air thick with sweet forest scents. I breathed deeply through my nose then gasped as the spasm took me once again. Dr Grace smiled, pulling at the tall grass, casually plucking the seeds and tossing them over her shoulder.

            ‘Not long now.’ she said.

            We wound on through the forest until a faint trickle led us beneath a clear band of blue sky. We followed the stream. The dense trees gave way to an open plain above the lower canopy. The water swelled, foamed and rushed towards a circular edge just ahead.

            ‘There!’ said Dr Grace.

            My body shook in a stuttering gulp. We neared the edge and peered into the shaft. Rocks, trees and white-water thundering into endless depths. The doctor gripped my shoulder.

            ‘Ready?’ she grinned.

            ‘No.’ I hiccupped as loud as ever.

            ‘Well,’ she laughed. ‘The shock will either kill you or cure you, but either way…’ she wrapped impossibly strong arm around my chest. ‘Either way, you’ll never hiccup again!’ with that, she flung both me and herself into the abyss.

            I hope you’re happy Emily

 Bio:

Daniel Joseph Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and  two children in Yorkshire. He has had short fiction published on CafeLit, East of the Web, Literally Stories and Fiction on the Web.

 

 
Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)