Walt, Monday Morning, Day 20

I got up at 7:45am and found Saul in the dining room eating some oatmeal. I was shocked to see him in full on Saul Goodman attire, right down to that stupid pinky ring. He had on a bright blue shirt and a yellow tie with geometric patterns. He was even wearing a suit jacket and the Wayfarer ribbon.

"What's going on, Paul?"

"Who?" he said, looking confused.

"Saul. What the hell is going on?" I sat down next to him.

"I have to get back to work. I haven't been to the office in ages." He kept shoveling the oatmeal into his mouth. Some fell on his tie and he didn't seem to notice.

"Saul, this isn't funny."

"Funny. No, this is not a joke." He had a vacant look in his eyes and was staring at a fixed point on the wall paper. "I don't feel good, Walt."

"I know, buddy."

"Do you think they can hear us?" He glanced at me surreptitiously.

"Who?"

"Those snails on the wall," he said, wiping away sweat from his forehead with a napkin.

I studied the wall. The wallpaper had a pattern to it, a flower motif. There was nothing snail-like about it.

"There aren't any snails."

"I've been getting a lot of questions about you. I have to get to the office and talk to the feds."

His bizarre behavior was definitely arsenic induced; delirium is a symptom of acute poisoning. Nonetheless, it was disturbing and I was tempted to haul off and smack him.

"There will be no talking to the feds." I touched his forearm and he pulled it away like an insolent child.

"No. They want to know where you are. They want to know what you did with Hank and Jesse."

I slapped him. I didn't mean to.

"No feds, Saul. There will be no talking to the feds under any circumstances."

He started to cry. "They're going to want to know why I'm sick. What should I tell them?"

"The truth."

"That you're poisoning me?" That was like a punch in the gut. I tried to remain neutral, unresponsive.

"I'm not poisoning you, Saul." I held up my hands, palms exposed. "You have the flu, or maybe food poisoning, remember?"

"Right. I have poisoning."

"No, it's something you ate. Or it's the flu." He was reaching into his pocket. "Did you take the NyQuil?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Then I don't think you should have a Xanax right now. They are contraindicated," I said, making it up.

"What?"

"You shouldn't take them together," I explained. "I'll make you some chamomile tea instead."

"Walt doesn't like me to take Xanax," he concluded. "There are things missing from the box," he said.

"What box?" I asked. He squinted at me.

"My box. Has been molested. Two things are missing. One thing was watched."

"What box, Saul?"

"Where I keep my ring," he said, showing me his fingers.

He lowered his voice conspiratorially, "They took my passport and birth certificate. And they watched my video." I felt like I had walked into the middle of his nightmare.

"Maybe it's the snails," I suggested.

"The snails are poisoning me. Yes, that makes sense." Then, lowering his voice again, he asked, "will you kill them for me?"

"Yes, I'll kill the snails. Where are they?"

"Right there," he said, pointing at me. My stomach churned.

I considered getting Saul to the hospital. I wasn't trying to kill the man. When he went back upstairs, I did a little research on arsenic. In addition to delirium, acute arsenic poisoning causes tachycardia, hypotension, shock, seizures and potentially coma. I was aiming at creating a chronic low grade condition. Acute symptoms meant that I was missing the mark.

Saul, Monday Afternoon, Day 20

I awoke at around 1pm. I still felt horrible; in fact I think I was worse than the day before. I panicked for a moment, thinking that I was late for work, but then I remembered it was my day off.

I'd had crazy dreams. I was at my Saul Goodman office. Something about snails crawling around on the ceiling and walls. The snails told me, "I made you sick." The feds were there and they were interrogating me about Walt. The snails crawled across the floor. These snails were huge, perhaps eight inches in diameter, pale green in color. I was staring at the snails, thinking that everyone could see them. Craig, the security guy, was there putting up movie posters: All is Lost, The Counselor, and Sal. I was embarrassed. I didn't want the feds to see.

One of the feds asked me "Where are Hank Schrader and Jesse Pinkman?"

I replied, "ask the snails."

They laughed and asked "what snails?" Then they put me in a straight jacket made of canvas lined with foil.

The snails said to me, "ask them what they've done with Kim and Chuck."

I got out of bed and found that I was very unsteady on my feet. I put some clothes on and went downstairs.

"Hey, buddy," Walt said. I hated it when he'd speak to me that way. It was so obsequious. "Do you want something to eat?"

"Yes," I replied. "Some of Taryn's soup and her corn bread." Walt prepared the food and brought it to me in the dining room.

"What do you want for dinner?" he asked.

"I don't know, omelets maybe?"

"Sounds good." He sat down across from me. "How are you feeling?"

"Like crap."

"So tell me about Taryn. She's a good looking woman."

"Yes, she is."

"You have a thing for her?"

"I do." God, that was a stupid thing to say. I wanted so badly to gloat about my budding relationship with her. But I should have kept my mouth shut to protect her from this monster. Though I knew that if I said nothing, Walt would get mad; he'd find a way to make me talk. "She's the cashier at work. She's got a great sense of humor. She laughs at my jokes."

"Are there many blacks in White Bear Lake?"

"I don't know."

"I'm guessing she lives in St. Paul?"

"Minneapolis," I lied.

"Are you going to take her out?"

"I'd like to."

"I think it's a fine idea. You go ahead." I was surprised by his reaction. I thought surely he wouldn't want me to have friends or, God forbid, a love interest. He'd be too jealous for that. What was he up to?

Saul, Tuesday Afternoon, Day 21

I awoke around 11:30 and I was feeling much better. I still had a headache and stomachache, but the level of intensity was much reduced. I wanted to run down the stairs and go out and play like a little kid. I thought I might be able to go shopping to replenish supplies. I put on some clothes and went downstairs. Walt was in the living room reading his phone.

"Anything of interest?" I asked.

"What? No." He paused and looked at me. "You're looking better!"

"I feel better."

"Thank God. I was really worried about you, buddy."

"Yeah?" I found that hard to believe.

"I think you were delirious yesterday… do you remember?"

I figured he was trying to Gaslight me. "I had some crazy dreams," I admitted.

"I don't think they were dreams, Saul. You told me you saw a snail. It was talking to you. Remember?"

"I told you about that? When?" I truly didn't remember. How did he know about my dream?

"Oh, this was early yesterday morning."

"But I didn't get up until 1pm," I said my voice rising.

"You were up around 8am. You were wearing one of your Goodman suits. In fact, you spilled some oatmeal on your tie. Check it out." I looked at him skeptically. "Go. Go look at your tie. I'll make you some breakfast."

Reluctantly, I headed upstairs. Sure enough, I had unceremoniously dumped the suit on the chair. That wasn't like me, but I could do it if I was feeling sick enough. I found the tie in the tangle of clothes. Walt was right, it was soiled with oatmeal. I brought the tie downstairs with me. What the hell was I doing wearing that suit? Maybe I didn't wear the suit, maybe Walt dribbled some oatmeal on my tie. But he did know about the snails. I felt like I was losing my mind.

"Do we have any seltzer water?" I asked Walt as I draped the tie over one of the chairs. I wrote that down on our shopping list.

"I don't think so… see I told you," he said, waving his hand at the tie. "Now, since you're doing better, let's move on to lighter topics: chess!"

"I don't know if I'm up for it."

"Come on! It'll be fun."

It took Walt about an hour to explain all the rules to me. I had to create a cheat sheet that outlined all the permissible moves of each type of piece. We still hadn't started our first game when I announced: "I'm going to be heading out now. I need to do some grocery shopping while I still have energy."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"There's stuff we need and I'm feeling a lot better. Yes, I think it's a great idea."

"OK," he said.

Walt, Wednesday Morning, Day 22

Saul came down around 10am. He was wearing a thermal shirt and jeans. Though he looked to be struggling physically, the utter disorientation and confusion seemed to be gone. His eyes were brighter and more focused. I was relieved; he had really scared me.

I was unsettled by the events of the last couple of days. He had no memory of our earlier conversation and no memory of his talk about going to the feds. Why did his psyche pick talking to the feds to focus on? Obviously his unconscious mind is trying to process everything. Is Saul planning to take, as he would describe it, the nuclear option?

"What'll you have this morning?" I asked.

"Nothing for me… not hungry."

"Oh… if you're still not well, you should stay home."

"I need to go in," he replied.

Saul, Wed Morning, Day 22

I rose early in order to return to work. Looking in the mirror I searched for evidence from the attack by Walt. All the bruises seemed to have healed. It brought to mind the beating from Jesse; my nose still hurt from that. I thought about how he accused me of helping to poison Brock Cantillo. That boy's poisoning was the lowest moment in my career. Well… one of them anyway. I was getting ready to trim my beard when it struck me. Walt was poisoning me.