The next morning when I woke up, I found a crude map of my neighborhood carved into my closet door, complete with markings I could only assume to be street names, or descriptions, none of it English.
Not too terribly surprised, I shrugged it off, preparing myself for work.
Mom had some small finger bandages not designed for a horizontal neck wound, but I decided to put three of them on anyways, to keep the wound closed.
I drove to the building with the makeshift bandage on my neck.
With my checkbook in pocket, ready to pay the damages on Snakey's car, I searched the parking lot, but in vain. Seeing no car, I could only assume that the creep worked the evening shift and carry on my business as usual.
An average work day, aside from people asking why I had the bandage. Afraid that the Snake guy had friends, I lied and said I was trying my hand at wood carving. When someone questioned the excuse, I told them I had an accident while helping Stepdad with a construction project in the basement. When pressed further, I told them the circular saw slipped at the same time I did, and I was lucky it didn't cut an artery.
I got looked at funny when I said this, probably because it implied abuse. It shut them up, at any rate. Maybe I accidentally threw Stepdad under the bus with that one, but it was either that or getting a second cut.
By then, the wound had healed pretty well.
It had felt normal as I stepped into the building that day, like the wound on my neck had been a mere paper cut or something.
Okay, so maybe I was lying to myself, forcing myself not to pay attention to that funny twinge in my neck, or the odd spasms occurring from time to time.
My office, although built inside a large warehouse-like building was your standard farm of upholstered particle board cubicles, tall enough to prevent you seeing the coworker in front of you without standing up.
A job like mine doesn't require that much, just an uncomfortable headset, a conferencing phone, and a computer program.
I thought I felt fine when I logged in and took the first call, but after the third and forth ones, I began to feel a tightness in my chest, like I wasn't getting enough air.
My heart raced erratically, thundering out of control, regardless of how many deep breaths I took.
I did what any sensible person in my situation would do: I self diagnosed with WebMd.
A caller came in as I was reading about the jaw stiffness and difficulty swallowing, two symptoms I actually had.
I tried to do my job like usual, but my pounding irregular heartbeat reduced the content of the calls to meaningless noise, my involvement in them perfunctionary, to get them to stop talking.
"I don't have an attitude problem." I heard someone saying loudly to a customer on the phone. "I don't. Ma'am, you didn't let me finish. I said I don't have an attitude problem. You're the one with an attitude." After a pause, she continued. "Ma'am, if you don't like my attitude, you can hang up right now."
It was Zia, in the row behind me.
Zia seemed to spend a great deal more time on the carpet talking than she did taking calls. On the phone, she was rude. Off the phone, she alternated between telling her life story, preaching the bible, and participating in discussions about the thirty eight sexual positions. How she kept her job was a mystery.
Occasionally, she'd eat a handful of baby powder and complain about her phosphorus deficiency.
Middle aged, African American, she sounded and acted like an old lady, but had not a shred of gray hair, and she considered Kanye West "classical R&B".
I leaned forward on my desk, hyperventilating. My eyes blurred, flecks of stars drifting across my field of vision. What was Sapmux? What did it do? Was it real or just something he made up? Google gave me no answers.
"I'm calling about my bill," said the voice on my phone. "Why are these charges so high?"
I gasped through the details of the man's bill with careless detachment, hoping against hope that he'd leave me in peace.
My neck throbbed like something were trying to get out. I rushed to the bathroom to assess the damage.
It seemed the wound had worsened. What had begun as a narrow red slit now hung open like a flap, as if I had suddenly grown a single gill on the right side of my neck.
I shuddered, applying fresh bandages to it. Finger bandages from mom's cabinet, of course.
I returned to the phones. I figured if it were the last thing I'd ever do, I should make it count.
Still, I wasn't completely ready to die. When the next caller came on the phone, I tried to push him off the phone as quickly as I could, but he was a bore that liked to complain, so I clammed up and let him blabber on and on endlessly, letting his words wash over me as meaningless sound.
The instant messenger informed me of a tornado alert. `Everyone log out of your phones and go to the meeting room.'
Relieved, I hit the After Call button, fighting a bit more strongly to get the customer off the phone without telling him about the tornado. About five long minutes later, I succeeded, logging out of the phone.
Meeting room? I thought as I got up. Which meeting room?
I turned and followed after some straggling employees.
The meeting room stood in a back hallway, a stuffy, dirty little unused room with no windows and a dozen barren desks and broken swivel chairs. The air was stale and didn't seem to circulate.
This reprieve from the phones offered me no comfort. I seated myself, regarding my fellow tornado refugees with a dull glassy stare.
Jolene.
Gary.
I nearly stomped on Vincent before realizing he was there.
"Hey! Watch it!"
"Sorry," I stammered.
While the people around me listened to their weather radios and cel phones, I just kept staring, thinking they'd be the last faces I'd ever see. Nobody seemed to care that I was at death's door.
A strawberry blonde girl sat on the floor next to me, watching a tornado report on her phone. Christina plugged in a weather radio, setting it on a chair.
The sounds of chattering coworkers and monotone weather announcers flooded into my ears as trifling noise. The passing minutes felt like years crawling by.
"What's wrong with your neck?" a girl asked me.
Her face was a chocolate color, its features elongated, hair pinned up in back, eyebrows set in a permanent glare like a Vulcan. She wore a dark jacket with a bunchy waist, a blouse, and tight charcoal leggings that didn't appear to be dress code approved.
"It's nothing." I still felt like I couldn't get enough air, and speaking stole precious oxygen. "I just...cut myself somehow...this morning. Shaving. It's fine."
I didn't feel like telling the whole story. I didn't think she cared.
"Okay!" the girl said in a sing-songy tone, taking out her cel phone, the same brand I collected payments on all day.
While grateful not to be on a call, I hadn't thought to bring books or games or anything. I had absolutely nothing to occupy my thoughts except my irregular heartbeat.
The minutes crept by with agonizing slowness, filled with the sounds of coworkers chatting amongst themselves or breathlessly absorbing the reports spewing from the mouths of bored weathermen.
Tornadoes happen in Kansas, but most of the warnings were just warnings.
I stood up, hoping it would slow my racing pulse to a tolerable level.
It felt like the entire room had been grabbed by the tornado, rapidly rotating around me in a blur, but it was just me.
With a faint moan, I clutched my pounding chest, falling to the floor.
Silvery specks swam across my field of vision as I heard a voice asking me if I were enjoying himself down there on the carpet.
The room, the building, changed colors, from purple to green to orange and then like a sickly washed out photograph of reality.
The events which followed came to me in a muted fog.
Worried coworkers standing over me.
Gary's face leaning over my head, asking if I'm all right, but I couldn't answer the question coherently.
Other people asking the same question.
"You want me to call 9-1-1?" I heard Christina asking.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, " Gary muttered. "Look at that wound. If the EMT's see that discoloration and swelling, there's going to be some questions."
"What do you suggest, then?"
He shrugged. "Let's take him down to the lab and see what Sally can do for him."
Discoloration and swelling? I thought. Lab? Sally? Why can't they let an EMT look at me? What the hell is going on?
Sadly, I felt too bad to put up much of a resistance.
Still half out of it, I flailed my arms in a pathetic attempt to escape as they grabbed my shoulders and feet, carrying me out the door.
I thought I heard the girl in the bunchy jacket asking about me, but Gary just said I was having a panic attack, that I just needed to lay down.
During a tornado watch.
I guess I was making random outbursts during this episode, because she asked about the strange sounds I was making. Gary replied that I was delirious.
However, I overheard Christina muttering about "Informing Grace about the tongues."
I blacked out.