IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
whiteness
whiteness
whiteness
Loomis spiraled down from some placeless place he had been, someplace outside of time. He was in a room. A white room. At first he saw no details, then a few items gradually appeared. The gurney he was on. An IV tower. A heart monitor. Swingarm lamps overhead, focused on him. A metal sink. Finally, three humans standing in a row, looking down at him with curiosity. The three wise guys? They were clad in white bodysuits with hoods, and wearing goggles.
“Where am I?” he asked. “Is this earth?”
The tallest one in the center answered him. A woman. A cold clinical voice.
“You’re quite safe. You're in a good place.”
Loomis shook his head in an attempt to clear it, but the three figures were still there.
“What happened?”
The cold voice answered.
“Evidently some kind of episode. Your systolic came in at over 170 in triage. Congratulations.”
“What??”
“You didn't go into cardiac arrest. You also managed to top the facility record for an injected dose of liquid benzodiazepine. It took us over an hour to bring you back to normal.”
“Why did this happen?”
“Hard to say. There’s definitely a strong undercurrent of anxiety in your psyche. Free-floating.”
“Am I crazy?”
The doctor was silent for a moment.
“I doubt that. But you have exhibited some dissociative tendencies. How do you feel now?”
“Confused.”
“Of course. Have you had any strange experiences lately?”
Loomis snorted.
“Funny you should ask. Things haven't felt right for a while. I don't know if it's me or the world, but something is out of whack somewhere.”
The goggled face nodded solemnly.
“A common reaction in these times. Can you describe these feelings more fully?”
Loomis sat up eagerly, but one of the attendants put a hand on his shoulder and gently nudged him back down.
Three humans standing in a row, looking down at him with curiosity. The three wise guys?
“I don’t know. I don't know when exactly it started to happen, but…ah, you'll never believe it.”
“You might not believe this either, but we've run across a number of curious cases in our time. I doubt you deviate from the mean very much.”
Loomis looked at the three of them cautiously, then exhaled.
“Well, I…uh…it feels like all the events of my life are happening all at once in my head. There’s no order to them.”
The doctor and the attendants conferred in subdued voices. The doctor turned to him.
“Some researchers might take that as an example of dyschronometria.”
“What?”
“A distorted sense of time perception. Caused by an abnormality in the cerebellum. But I doubt that. I'll give you my take.”
“What is it?”
“I'm not going to sugarcoat it.”
“Give it to me straight.”
The goggles stared silently for a moment.
“Kid,” the woman said. “It's all in your head.”
One of the attendants snickered.
“But it feels real! I swear it!”
“The brain plays tricks sometimes. Don’t believe everything you see. Neurons misfire. Circuits jam.”
The second attendant muttered a wisecrack and sniggered.
“You got to be kidding…!”
Loomis started to sit up, but the doctor held her hand up for him to be still.
“Please get some rest. That’s the best medicine for you right now.”
“Now wait a second!”
The doctor shook her head and put a white-gloved finger to her mouth.
“Not to traffic in old movie cliches, but who’s the doctor here?” she said.
“This isn’t just my imagination!”
“I hate to question your medical expertise.”
There was a sharp spike in his arm. Loomis looked over to see the second attendant standing by the gurney, nodding at the impressive hypodermic in his hand.
“Dammit!”
“This is for your own good,” the doctor said. “Now begin counting backward from ten.”
“I want a lawyer!”
“Shhh. What you need is a psychiatrist. We can supply a referral when you're discharged.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Relax. Don’t fight it.”
Loomis was hit by the first rush. His vision went sparkly. He began receding from his own body, the concrete details of the room slipping into a fog, the doctors vanishing, the room itself disappearing, his consciousness melting into:
whiteness
whiteness
whiteness