Story, The Best Results Blog, Uncategorized

Susannah and the gummy treat

Dogsandbikes.com

Susannah Fontaine-Williams searched Walt’s lab, looking for Walt, or at least a note. Walt would expect her and if he was out, would leave a note. That’s just the way he was. However, Walt was in a most decided state of not being there. She spied her bag on the table under the cold glare of fluorescent light. Why, she asked herself, hasn’t my brilliant Walt invented something better, a cool, energy efficient lightbulb that didn’t make everything look so sterile? She picked up the bag and petted its sides as if it was a small dog. The bag felt a static chill and involuntarily gave SFW a mild shock like the kind you get when you walk on carpet wearing socks in the winter.

Without really thinking, she grabbed several tubes of nano-bots and dropped them in the bag. “Maybe I shouldn”t have done that,” she said. “But I suppose it’s too late…the cat’s in the bag.” She laughed.

She walked over to the unopened door to her pod, remembering to place the bag at what she thought would be a safe distance away, and turned the handle. It wouldn’t budge. She put her face to the window, but couldn’t see through whatever had coated it on the inside…some kind of blue-red condensation. The door was a little warm to the touch and vibrated almost imperceptibly.

Sad. There were things to talk about that she could talk about only with him: massive electric shocks, hallucinated families, second Susannahs skillfully hosting panel discussions, what to do about her hair, which once dried, had returned to the look and feel of steel wool.

She jotted a note and left it on the work bench, “Call me. -SFW” and walked up the stairs and out onto Canal.

Walt thought he might be dying. The puncture in his foot was oozing something yellow and his foot was turning black and blue. He lay on the floor after the salvo of electrostatic charges the bag had directed at him, a few feet from the open door to the pod. He tried to rise, and the bag sent a bolt that knocked him back, closer to the door.

He pointed a weak finger at the bag on the work bench that glowed under the light. “I know what you’re up to, clever bag.” He realized that the bench light was off, and that light was coming from inside the bag. The bag hummed as if recharging, and the lights in the lab dimmed, and then the bag fired another bolt of energy Walt’s way. It lifted him from the floor and threw him headfirst through the pod door. He smacked his head on the way in. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. The pod door slammed shut. Moments later Susannah Fontaine-Williams came bounding down the steps.

Out on the sidewalk, Susannah Fontaine-Williams, decided to walk at least part of the way home. After no more than a few blocks, three at most, the bag started to expand like a puffer fish sensing a threat, then it made a metallic sounding belch and spit out a tiny object that flew a few feet through the air and stuck to the back of a stop sign. It looked like a gummy bear. She peeled it from the sign and, by golly, didn’t it look kind of like Walt. A gummy Walt with a surprised look on its gummy face.

A dog, a beautiful black and white retriever mix, sniffed at her hand then slurped the Walt gummy and swallowed it. “Sorry!” the owner, a tiny woman in spandex leggings and tank top, said. “He’s always snurfling his nose into something. Bad boy!” They continued on the other way. Susannah, already with much on her talk show mind, continued uptown, a little dazed.

About a minute later the retriever mix wobbled and fell on its side, panting heavily. He convulsed once or twice, then seemed to stop breathing for a moment while his owner got to her knees and pushed on his chest. Someone said, “Give it mouth-to-mouth.” So, she tried to, putting her lips on his big mouth and blowing. The dog sprang to his feet, looked around, and dashed uptown trailing his leash behind.

Susannah, still dazed, signaled a cab, and got in. Before she could close the door, the retriever mix bounded in after her and began licking her face uncontrollably, swishing his tail wildly and whimpering with excitement. The door closed. “No dogs,” the driver said.

The dog stopped his excited theatrics at that and gave her what she thought was a solemn and desperate look. She could hear the owner’s voice getting closer. The dog licked her face.

“I’ll give you an extra hundred, but you’ve gotta get us out of here now!” The car sped away and the dog sat next to Susannah and they stared at each other on this unusually cool, dry August day. Though meteorologists are saying this is actually normal August weather, but the last twenty or so Augusts have been so blast-furnace hot, it just feels cool. So, it’s all relative, isn’t it?

Story, The Best Results Blog, Uncategorized

Next time definitely

Dogsandbikes.com

Note: this little story has its problems – especially the ending – but here it is anyway.  -DS

Jed typed. “I’m crossing Amsterdam right now, should be th…” a horn honked and a truck swerved, just missing him. The blast of the horn caused him to spin around and lose his balance. A man helped him up. “Jerk!” the man yelled at the driver on Jed’s behalf. The truck moved on.

“You won’t believe what just happened,” he typed, continuing across the street. “Some guy almost ran me over.”

“OMG,” she typed… “what a jerk. Are you all right?”

“I can’t wait to see you,” he typed. He looked up and saw her in the window of the coffee shop, head down, typing into her phone. “There you are! Look up!”

She looked up at him and smiled, and then quickly sent him a smiley.

Jed’s near-death experience crossing the street strengthened his resolve to say that important thing to Jessica today. They’d been seeing each other long enough and it was time to move things to the next level. Jed had paused at the door thinking about what to text. The door opened, smacking him in the nose, causing him to nearly drop his phone.

“Did you see that,” he texted, stepping through the door. She stood and went for a hug as he went for a kiss on the cheek, they both adjusted midway and she kissed his cheek while he stood with his arms out in a pre-hug stance.

“Wow,” she said, “you’re having a rough day…”

“I know!”

Her phone beeped and she glanced it and laughed.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Oh, Rosie retweeted a Colbert tweet.”

“Funny,” he said.

“I’m probably wondering why you asked to meet me. I mean, you’re probably wondering…” he stopped, looked at his screen and read an email. “Son of a bitch,” he said.

She looked up from her phone. “Everything OK?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Just a work thing. You look great.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m so glad you said that.”

“So much better than your profile picture.”

“Which one? Oh, never mind, they’re all the same.” She looked away. “You don’t like my profile picture?”

Her phone beeped. “Now Meg’s texting me that some guy is creeping her out.”

“Who?”

“Just some guy I guess.”

“Your hair is nice.”

“Oh, isn’t it? I’ve been shampooing less. I mean, it’s more manageable when it’s a little bit dirty.”

“Yeah, I saw something about that on Blitzfeed.”

“Ha ha.”

“Hey, check out this video of this enormous dog playing piano.”

“You have a dog?”

“And he howls…”

“Signal’s not great – it’s kind of choppy.”

“Yeah. Uhhh, Jessica?” he said.

“Hang on a sec. Meg has a problem.”

“Sure. I just have to answer this email. The work thing.”

She tapped her phone’s screen. He tapped his phone’s screen. He looked up at her and said, “I like the way you do that.”

“Thanks.”

“You want another macchiato?”

“OK.”

Jed got in line. Jessica stared out the window for a second, then her phone beeped.

“Miss me?” Jed had texted.

“My battery is starting to die,” she texted.

As the line advanced, Jed scrolled through email and Twitter, determined not to check Facebook. He glanced now and then at Jessica, who was furiously typing something on her phone. She’s so pretty right now, he thought, the way she’s silhouetted, backlit by the window, holding her phone with one hand. I should take a picture, he thought. But maybe that would be creepy.

“Here you go,” he said, putting two cups of coffee product on the table. He picked up his cup.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“I want to Instagram a picture before we drink it.”

“Good idea,” he said. She took a picture.

“Here, now put your face right up to the cup and look at it like it’s the best thing in the world.” He did and she snapped a few more images.

DSCF1312

They picked up their cups and sipped their hot drinks. They were happy. Jessica’s phone beeped. “23 likes!”

“Already? Wow!”

“Oh. Damn. I have to go,” she said.

“Me too I guess,” he said.

“This was really fun,” they said.

There was something else he thought he had wanted to say as he watched her walk away.

 

Story, The Best Results Blog

Checking out

Dogsandbikes.com

Susannah Fontaine-Williams is dozing in her hospital bed. At a few minutes after 1:00 PM she jolts awake. She’s forgotten about her show and it’s on live in an hour. She should be in the studio finalizing everything, having lunch with a guest, schmoozing the audience, doing all of the things she usually does. She hasn’t even thought to call the studio to let them know she can’t be there. She has never missed a show, a rehearsal, a walk thru, a rundown, a meeting. They will be worried.

Her phone is there on the table charging. She picks it up to check messages, but no one has called. She checks the date, the time, the day of the week and she is doing a show in an hour. And it’s not just any show – it’s a special panel discussion on climate change. It took months to coordinate her panel’s schedules. She has Al Gore. She has Warren Buffet. She has Warren Hollings-Norton. She has the Indigo Girls and she has Jerry Seinfeld. Wardrobe has promised her a power outfit and she expects that she’ll be taking the former vice president home with her, or as a consolation, Seinfeld.

She says, “Call Lorena.” The phone responds, “Calling Lorena.”

Her producer picks up right away. “Hey. What’s up?”

“What’s happening with the show? Sorry I haven’t called.”

“What?”

“Who’s hosting?”

“Susannah, are you serious?”

“Are we doing a rerun?”

Lorena laughs. “Oh, this is good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t your best, but it’s not bad. I’m going to put you on speaker, OK?” She hears a choir of unsynchronized hellos.

“Look, I’m at the Downtown Hospital. There was an accident. I’m OK.”

“What happened?” Luke, an assistant asks.

“I can’t really say, but I think I was electrocuted. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, a day or two maybe. The guy they had handcuffed to the other bed is gone.”

“Sure, OK. I got to go. Hope you feel better,” he says amid the sounds of muffled laughter.  “Oh, Gore is running late but he should be here any minute.” He hangs up on her.

She pushes the nurse’s call button. A moment later, Elvis the nurse walks in.

“You’re awake,” he says.

“Why is everyone always so surprised when I’m awake?”

“Feeling better?”

“I’d like to check out. Can you start the paperwork?” She sits up on the edge of the bed.

He walks up, takes her pulse. “Sure. It may be a little while.”

She lets her hospital gown fall to the floor and trundles to the bathroom, brushes her teeth, tries to brush her tangled hair. They’ll have to stick a wig on me today.

She showers and washes her hair with the shampoo and conditioner that Alethia brought her when she relieved Mac. Sweet, brilliant Alethia thought to bring all the essentials. “I think I love you, Alethia,” she says, then starts singing You are the sunshine of my life.

She comes out of the shower, runs the brush through her hair which has finally flattened after multiple lathers, rinses, and repeats. Wrapped in a towel, she walks to the window and looks at the activity on the street below. She turns on the TV and sits on the edge of the bed. There she is, alone, on the white fluffy chair wearing a red dress, her hair done to perfection. The sound is off and while trying to raise the volume, she accidentally turns off the TV. I have never worn that dress and don’t I look just phenomenal in it.

It is now 3 minutes after the hour and she is on the screen again. She turns up the volume and hears the woman who looks like her say in her voice, “Joining me in the studio today, please welcome… climate change specialist, Dr. Warren Hollings-Norton, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.” There is applause. “Berkshire Hathaway chairman, Warren Buffet.” Applause. “Comedian Jerry Seinfeld.” Really loud applause. “The Indigo Girls!” They all stride in as they’re announced and sit at the large half-circle couch they’ve had made just for this episode.

“Oh, and I almost forgot, Vice President of the United States, Al Gore!” The former VP walks out, fidgeting with his tie and takes his seat in the middle, flanked by Hollings-Norton and the Indigo Girls. Susannah’s towel drops to the floor. She walks up to the tiny TV screen and touches it, sliding her finger to trace the path Susannah Fontaine-Williams, TV talk show host, takes across the screen. “God, I look fantastic. How can I look so good when I look this bad?”

Susannah on the screen is doing everything exactly as Susannah would. There is no doubt in the mind of this Susannah Fontaine-Williams that she is both women. Carry an extra-dimensional handbag around with you long enough…

“I have to get my bag back,” she says.

“OK,” says Elvis, who has reentered the room. “They’re still working on your paperwork.”

“Look at that,” she says, pointing to the TV. She gets up, oblivious to her nudity, and goes to the closet to fetch her clothes. “still haven’t missed a show.”

But Elvis has left the room.

Story, The Best Results Blog

Anchovies and mozzarella pizza

Dogsandbikes.com

Walt was famished and though anxious to inspect and perform any necessary repairs to the bag, he stopped at Arturo’s for anchovies with mozzarella pizza. The anchovy fascinated him, repulsive, yet savory, ill-textured for the tongue, but somehow irresistable when combined with a crispy thin coal oven pizza base.

He quickly downed the baked clams and garlic bread appetizer. Moments later, when the anchovy and mozzarella was served, he pre-sliced the pizza into small isosceles triangles in which the two equal sides were exactly three inches long. He stacked the triangles three high, stabbed them with a fork and removed them with his teeth one at a time, chewing each piece topping side down while holding the fork vertically, the next piece poised to be devoured as soon as the one in progress was finished.

In this method he efficiently devoured the pizza in eight minutes, downing a swallow of Peroni between triangles. He ordered a second pizza to go. By the time he arrived at his shop on Canal, auxiliary pizza in hand, he had already begun to feel better and belched to announce his entrance. He nodded to the woman and man who tended his storefront, and told himself that one day he would commit their names to memory.

In his haste to get Susannah Fontaine-Williams medical attention, he had not examined the scene following the energy pulse. Walt took the stairs down to his workshop two at a time, forgetting the nail on the 27th step. He hit it full force and the nail penetrated the arch of his left All-Star and the foot it contained, which he grabbed, stopping his momentum and causing him to trip down the remaining few steps. After crash-landing,  foot in hand, he removed his sneaker and looked at the small puncture in his foot. “Not so bad,” he said.

The extra-dimensional bag was on the floor where it had landed, just a few feet from the pod door. It was on its side and some of the contents had spilled out onto the floor. This was a bad sign as nothing should come out of the bag unless removed by hand. But there, in a fan-shaped array, were the objects Susannah Fontaine-Williams used move often: hairbrush, toothbrush, wallet, keys, mirror, pepper spray, various makeup and accessories, a paperback book, and so on. Everything appeared to have been singed and indeed, the odor of  burned plastic and paper hovered in the air. He reached to pick up the nearest object – the hairbrush, yet it had fused to the floor, along with everything else that had spilt. He grabbed for the bag handle, and a small spark arced from it to his hand.

Reaching again, this time slowly, he was able to touch it without getting a shock. The bag itself had not fused to the floor and he picked it up and carried it over to his workbench. He shook the bag, listening for the sounds of anything that was still inside. He heard nothing. He put his hand inside and it appeared to be empty.

He walked over to the storage pod and entered. There were still plenty of items inside, although a few had fallen out of the bins, including the floppy hat which was upside on the floor. He put the hat on top of a bin and returned to the bag on his workbench. Reaching inside again, he again felt nothing.

The bag must have malfunctioned.

He considered his assorted tools, meters, flibnars and nurjles, removed the articulating flibnar and inserted one pronged end under the lip of the bag’s opening. He was met with a shrieking, piercing shock that knocked him backward onto the ground. Though his entire body seemed to be vibrating, he stood and approached the bag. As he extended an arm to pick up the bag, another pulse met him and knocked him to the floor again. Tendrils of smoke rose from his sleeve.

Walt stayed put this time and thought two alternating thoughts: one was a blank, the other was about the pizza box resting on the table next to the extra-dimensional bag. A third thought crossed his mind.  It  doesn’t seem to like me anymore.

Story, The Best Results Blog

What about Bob?

Dogsandbikes.com

Bob is standing next to Susannah Fontaine-Williams’s hospital bed. Macallan slouches in a chair on the other side of the bed, eyes shut, a crossword puzzle on his lap. Bob grasps her hands in his. A Dylan song plays dreamily, coming from someone’s phone or tablet.  (Bob backstory here.)

My love, she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence

“What happened to you?” he whispers. Her hair is frizzed and tangled and the dividing line of a sunburn runs from her hairline to where it disappears at her neckline. Susannah stretches her legs and toes, yawning. She is too tired to open her eyes.

“Where are the kids?” she asks. “Are the kids here?”

“Mrs. Quackenbush is with them. They’re sound asleep.”

“More likely watching a movie and eating ice pops.”

“More likely,” Bob laughs.

“Bob honey,” she says. “You know that guy in Greece they found?”

“You mean the couple on the boat?”

“Uh-uh. The guy that killed that couple.”

“They’re still looking for him. They’re looking for the woman in the hat, too.”

“Oh, that’s good.” She drifts off and in a moment she snores herself awake again. She opens her eyes and sees Macallan. The dividing curtain is open and the handcuffed man is watching her.

She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful
Yet she’s true like ice, like fire

“Hello,” Susannah Fontaine-WIlliams says.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is scratchy and he coughs.

Macallan stirs. “Susannah, you’re awake.”

“Mac… What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Where is here? I’m in a hospital,” she concludes, satisfied.

“Apparently you were electrocuted.”

She squints and scrunches up her face as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. “I was electrocuted?”

She runs her fingers in her hair, or tries to. “My hair,” she says. “Is there a brush anywhere?”

“Who were you talking to just now?”

“The gentleman in the other bed. Would you mind handing me my bag?”

“No, there was a visitor. You called him ‘Bob.’”

“Bob was here? He’s just imaginary, silly. He’s my make believe husband. We have make believe triplets.” (More about Bob here.)

“Really?”

“Two boys and a girl. I think. Maybe it’s the other way around.”

“He’s tall…telegenic, like you.

She props herself up on her elbows and stares him down.  The effort tires her quickly and she shakes her head and drops back down onto the pillow. “You were dreaming. Hand me my bag, please.”

“I saw him too,” the stranger rasps. “Good lookin’ guy. Tall. And them kids weren’t with no babysitter neither. Swear to god, they were sittin’ right outside the door, cute as buttons, makin’ faces at me.”

Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks, she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge

The man coughs again. “Allergies.”

Story, The Best Results Blog

Visiting hours

Dogsandbikes.com

Macallan doesn’t mind hospitals the way other people do. He gets some peace, some quiet, finds some meditation in the beeps and blinks of monitors and equipment. Hospitals are interesting mixtures of folks either waiting to die or desperate not to, sometimes sharing the same hospital suite.

Susannah Fontaine-Williams, still unconscious, lay in the bed next to the window. Mac sat beside her, the unstarted Monday Times puzzle in his lap. He listens to the sounds coming from outside the room,  cart wheels on the hard, polished floors, the hushed voices, the buzz at the nurse’s station. He doesn’t care about the time; nevertheless, it is early evening.

He had answered his phone a short while ago, Susannah Fontaine-Williams’s name on the display, yet a strange man’s voice speaking with an accent he couldn’t quite place. “She is in the New York Downtown Hospital…there was a power surge.”

“What kind of a power surge?”

The man was impatient. “She was caught in a burst of electrostatic energy. Difficult to explain. She will be all right.”

“Who are you?”

“Not important. A friend. She will tell you. Maybe. Come. She should not wake up alone.”

Walt did want to explain. But how does one explain the paradox that would be created by bringing the exterior of an extra-dimensional object – the bag – into its own interior, which had nearly happened. This is all speculation, but that might very well turn the universe inside out on itself. He couldn’t know for certain; it was a theory he was too afraid to test. What did happen is that she stopped at the bag’s side entrance, a flash of energy knocked her backward and she crumbled unconscious on the spot.

Walt hoisted her over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, took the stairs up to street level two at a time, and sprinted her to the nearest hospital, the Downtown Hospital, nearly a mile away. He raced her straight to the desk in the emergency room, screaming, “she’s been electrocuted!” This got a lot of attention and two attendants lifted her from his shoulders, dropped her onto a gurney and rolled her away through a pair of swinging doors. He shouted, “Susannah Fontaine-Williams…she famous…has a TV show,” as he ran back out of the emergency room, away as quickly as possible.

Racing back to his shop in a zig-zag pattern, he looked at SFW’s recent call list on her phone, and pressed Macallan’s name. He didn’t think anyone had followed.

Macallan sits patiently at her side, watching her breathing, zoning out to the rhythmic beeps. It makes him sleepy. He should call Alethia soon. He pulls out the Monday puzzle, the easiest of the week and just stares at it, seeing the clues, but not registering them. He falls asleep.

He awakens to the sound of voices next to him, a cop talking to a nurse. “Do you have to cuff him to the bed like that? Between the morphine and that leg wound, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Sorry,” the cop says, “it’s procedure. ”

“What did he do anyway?” she says.

“This clown goes into a drug store to get allergy medication. But he doesn’t have ID. He roughs up the girl at the counter, takes the stuff – he actually pays for it! Then he runs away, gets clipped by a car and goes off into the woods.”

“So he didn’t actually steal anything?”

“No, and he nearly bleeds out. Sumbitch could have died, and for what?”

Macallan chuckles to himself. The nurse looks his way and says, “Visiting hours are over soon. You have about 15 minutes.”

He nods, “Thanks.” He scans SFW. She has what looks like a bad sunburn on the right half of her face and on her right arm. He thinks that if he pulled back her covers, he would see that her right leg is burned as well. Her hair is a tangle. “Think she’ll be OK?”

The nurse glances at her monitor and takes her pulse. “Everything seems normal.”

“Then why hasn’t she woken up?”

Story, The Best Results Blog, Uncategorized

A trip to the pharmacy

Dogsandbikes.com

I walk into the drug store feeling a little congested. I need Claritin, the D kind, the one that decongests. There are laminated Claritin D Cards on the shelves with the other allergy stuff, the stuff that doesn’t work that’s in its boxes on the shelves that you can just pick up without any fuss and bring to a cashier, pay the kid, and be on your way.

But with this D stuff, you got to take the card and go to the pharmacy counter and say, “I need this,” and they say “how many?” And you say, “how many can I get?” I’m congested, you know, and it’s just the seasonal allergies so I want as many as I can have so I can prolong the amount of time until I have to repeat this process.

Well the most they have is a box of twenty and I say, that’s odd, you used to have them in the thirties, and they say, well, I can give you a ten and a twenty and that’s plenty fine with me. That’ll take me thru a month, and maybe I can skip a day or two and so maybe it’ll last a little longer. Like I say, I got seasonal allergies and when the pollen or mold or whatever it is that’s stuffing me up goes its natural course, I’ll be fine.

“ID please,” the lady says and I notice for the first time that she’s really just a high school kid doing a summer job and she’s following rules and I can appreciate that. Rules are what separates us from animals and happy people. Only I left the house in a hurry on account a the allergies and besides what’s the difference? I don’t carry ID because I know who I am and it’s nobody’s business what my name is and where I live. I just want to decongest.

So I tell her, “I ain’t got an ID.”

“Then I can’t give you the Claritin D,” which she slides away with her hand. “Sorry, it’s the law.”

So I grab her real gentle by the collar of her blue shirt and I say to her real low, “Make an exception, my hay fever’s killing me.” The pharmacy has lots of security cameras pointed at us but I know no one is watching, that they only have them for after the fact. She’s just a sprightly kid so I figure I can take her in fight, fair or otherwise and I guess she reaches the same conclusion and so she slides the Ds into a plastic bag.

“You gone to ring me up?” I say but she just kind a looks at me funny. I give her thirty bucks, which should cover the cost – these suckers have a lot of profit margin built in – take the bag, and exit.

I get maybe two blocks when a police car with lights flashing pulls up next to me and one of them starts getting out. He’s sporting quite the donut paunch so I figure I can outrun him so I cut between stores where there’s a stairs to a parking lot. He doesn’t chase but I see the car coming from the around the corner now. I run straight through the parking lot full tilt and if I can just cross the street, jump a small fence into that wooded park, I’ll be free of these guys. So I put it into that extra gear I got and tear across the street. The cop car accelerates and the son of a bitch hits me on the leg, just kind of wings me really, enough to roll me over the hood. But I land like I’m some kind of a stuntman and I keep running, only now I’m limping just a little. I get into the woods, and slide down a hill and over a wall and wait. I don’t hear a thing so I figure I’m in the clear.

My eyes are itching real bad and I’m stuffed up as hell, so I open the box of tens and pop a D out of the blister pack. I swallow it even though I ain’t got a thing with which to wash it down. Mission accomplished. Except it don’t look too good because I feel this warm spot on my hip and I feel it and it’s warm and wet, kind of sticky even. Taking a deep breath, I look and, yep, there’s this big gash running from my hip down the side of my leg – cut right through my 505s. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before.

I’m lightheaded and I’m figuring I’ve lost a lot of blood, otherwise I’d a been able to stand up without passing out like this. My throat’s dry too, but sitting here in this muddy puddle of my own hard earned blood, I’m grateful that my sinuses have cleared up real nice. I’m reminded of them commercials as everything starts blurring; the pretty lady playing fetch with her golden retriever in a field of tall grass and dandelions. She takes a deep breath and smiles. Thanks Claritin.