ENJOYING THE MOMENT
Copyright (c) by Rick Yost

Chris plopped down on his couch and shot the television between the eyes with the remote. The screen came alive in the middle of an X-files episode.
”Damn, Scully sure is hot!” He thought, as he shoved a fistful of microwave popcorn into his mouth. He leaned back and put his feet up on the coffee table. As some alien creature slithered across the screen his attention wandered. He looked around at his new apartment. It was very small and a bit run-down but it was clean, affordable and close to his work.
His cell phone rang. “Hey Joey, where are you?” He said as he pushed the mute button on the remote.
“Man, I’m not going to make it. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do tonight. I’ll just see you at work in the morning.”
“Well, okay dude. I understand. The little woman won’t let you out tonight.”
“Maaan, you know how it is. I heard you had a girlfriend once.” Joey teased.
“Ouch, that hurts.” Chris replied with a laugh.
Joey said, “You know I’m jealous of you not having anyone to worry about but yourself. It must be nice to be able to just relax and enjoy the moment.”
“Yeah, it’s great until its time to go to bed…by myself.”
They both laughed and said “See ya tomorrow.”
Chris sat watching the blank television screen daydreaming of the ex-girlfriend Joey spoke of. Ah yes, Cathy. She was nice sometimes, but she was also an endless source of useless trivia. She would spend hours telling to you about the most insignificant and boring things imaginable. Cathy was a beautiful, sexy and playful little handful. But they were just not on the same planet personality-wise. Cathy drove him wild and drove him nuts at the same time. He wondered what she was doing nowadays.
Then Chris’ thoughts turned to what he was doing nowadays. “Existing!” He said to himself. As it is for the majority of the population, just surviving can be difficult and stressful. He worked at a dead-end phone sales job that only paid enough for the bare necessities. His seven-year-old foreign-made compact car was in need of repair and the inspection sticker was out of date. He hoped he could get the vehicle inspected before the police stopped him. He also had eight unpaid parking tickets.
He was in debt more than he felt he could ever pay off including three maxed-out credit cards and his student loan from the two torturous years he’d spent at med school before dropping out.
He thought of the growing tension between he and his mother over this matter. She once had such high hopes of him becoming a doctor. She was openly very disappointed with him quitting school.
He wasn’t getting along with his father either. A very successful commercial real estate broker, Chris’ father was never a very loving Dad, but he was a good provider, and supported Chris in all his high school athletics.
Worrying about his son’s future, Chris’ father had said to him many times, “Son, this ride only goes one way at a time. You have to pick a direction!” Chris had picked medicine- a direction he knew his parents wanted for him, and one he thought at one time he wanted too. But after two years of school, Chris realized that medicine just wasn’t what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
He felt stress at work too. Chris felt his boss was just waiting for a reason to fire him.
In the seven months he’d held his present job, he’d been late on an average of three times a month. After two verbal warnings and a written reprimand, he couldn’t afford to be late again.
These were relatively minor, and common problems, but all together they added up to constantly worrying and frequently feeling anxious and frustrated.
Then he thought of what Joey said, “Relax and enjoy the moment.” He thought how nice it would be to actually do such a thing. He was constantly worried or stressed out about something. He wondered if the nagging ache in his shoulders and neck would go away if he could just “Relax and enjoy the moment.”
It was ten o’clock and he was finishing what he’d planned to be his last beer of the evening. He rubbed his face with both hands and leaned back on the couch. He thought again on the phrase, “Relax and enjoy the moment.” At first he chuckled, but then it became more interesting the more he thought of it. It would be real nice to just forget about everything, even for just a few minutes. What he wouldn’t give for just a short respite from all the strange stuff that went on inside his mind everyday.
. All this stressful stuff in your head, no wonder people lose it sometimes. It would be great to just not think for a while. It’d be so cool to just turn off like a television- to shut down like a computer, and then re-boot in the morning. He recalled from sometime during his med school classes reading about relaxation research. Then he grinned and said, “What the hell, I haven’t anything else to do. I have no girlfriend to tell me I can’t! I’m gonna try it!”
He stood up with purpose and walked the three short steps to the kitchen. He grabbed the half bottle of Tequila off the top of the refrigerator, pulled a shot glass out of the cabinet, and the matches off the stove. From the kitchen drawer of “things without a place” he dug out a small red candle.
He switched off the lights and returned to the couch. Scooting the beer can, popcorn and remote aside he set everything down on the coffee table. He felt a little ceremonial atmosphere would help him get in the mood to relax. He lit the candle- flooding the dark room with a warm red flicker. He poured and threw back two shots of liquor and stared at the flame for a few moments letting the burn in his throat cool. He felt the Tequila warm his belly. After a few minutes he had two more shots and said, “That should do it.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. He felt the buzz from the alcohol and began to work on relaxing all his muscle groups. He started with his feet and legs, and then his arms, shoulders and neck. After a few minutes his body did feel much more at ease. But his mind was still racing as always. He tried to be patient. He knew it couldn’t be easy to shut off his mind. He felt that he was more than likely wasting his time, but he also felt that at least he might manage to relax a bit. He laughed out loud for no apparent reason, which told him that the Tequila was working.
As he sat trying to coax his brain to go blank, he pictured in his mind a calming memory from his childhood- the family Christmas tree. He remembered how warm, comfortable and safe he felt sitting in the family living room during the holidays. He pictured himself at ten years old, alone in the house, and sitting cross-legged in front of the Christmas tree- brightly lit with all white lights. He remembered his Mom saying that the all white lights on their tree was more elegant than the multi-colored tree lights of their neighbors. He remembered at the time not knowing what elegant meant, but he still liked the lights, no matter what the reason.
He did his best to replace all the things he was trying to not think about with this one simple vision. And soon it began to work.
He thought less and less about his parents, boss, debt, parking tickets and old girlfriend. He replaced these stressful, tiring thoughts with the simple Christmas tree vision and calm self-awareness.
He became very aware of his body. He felt the material of the couch under him. He felt the cool of the air conditioning on his skin. He felt the shirt around his body and the socks on his feet.
In the dark theater of his mind his worries played out on the big screen. At first these angst-ridden visions rolled along as always- jumbled and harsh. All these background worries plagued his daily life, causing him to doubt his own decisions, second-guess his every move, and compel him to look over his shoulder. He sat quietly- forcing his mind to go over them all once again. He tried to look through them- see past them to the more calming Christmas tree vision. After several minutes, he watched them with less and less interest. They became less intense. The more he relaxed, the less clear these visions were.
The image of his mother’s scowl, his father’s disapproving smirk, and the faceless judge looking down at him from the bench- they all faded, dimmed, and blurred until they were gone completely.
Then there came a point where, he was there. Although consciously unaware of it, he had done what he’d set out to do. He sat thinking about nothing. Other levels of his brain were still functioning. He was still breathing and able to move. Although his eyes were closed he was not asleep.
He became lost in the experience- almost an out-of-body experience- no, inside but disconnected.
He existed now as a vision inside his mind of a huge tangled ball of brightly burning white Christmas lights. He gently floated in mid-air above his usual lone theater seat inside the dark room of his mind. This was the theater where all his thoughts rolled across the screen constantly. And as usual, his mind’s eye watched the screen before him expecting to see all his negative thoughts and worries dance before him. Instead of the negativity, there were now only un-identifiable shapes and colors he didn’t recognize.
Dozens of curious little glowing strings of bizarre thought wafted through the theater. They gently sprinkled the space like a light snowfall. They passed over and around his tangled orb shape like long pieces of plastic caution tape in the wind. The first of these strings of thought to touch him sent him reeling toward the visual of the doorstop behind his bathroom door. Then it quickly faded away. Then another drifted close enough to touch him and he was taken to the memory of drinking coffee at the café down the street. He would spend calming, blissful moments enjoying the shapes and colors until a thought string would drift into range and snag itself on his shape. Again he was taken to random thoughts like the man at the dry cleaning counter, the lost shoe under his bed, or the butter dish in his refrigerator. These useless thoughts would last only a few seconds, but they were distracting.
After a while, and a good deal of effort, he was able to ignore even these irritating visions. It was at this point, that for all practical purposes, he stopped thinking. Chris had ‘left the building’. He was no longer thinking at all- and that’s what kept him in the same spot on the couch for twelve hours.
His cell phone rang startling him to think for the first time since the night before. The irritating contraption rang many times, but he couldn’t put together the proper thought protocols to answer it. He felt drugged as he slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room. He recognized where he was about the time the phone fell silent. The Tequila bottle still sat on the coffee table next to the candle. But the candle had melted down to a large, round, flat wafer of wax on the table.
He looked at his watch- it was eleven-thirty. He thought he should get up and go on to bed. Then he noticed sunlight shining in around the heavy drapes covering his windows. Reality hit him like a splash of cold water. It was eleven-thirty in the morning and he was three and a half hours late for work.
“Oh shit!” he blurted as he jumped up. Instantly, pain wrinkled his face and caused him to rub his sore back. He didn’t feel like he’d just slept over twelve hours. He didn’t feel like he’d slept at all. He drove like a madman and made it to work in twelve minutes flat. Scouting the halls and peeking around corners, he managed to sneak into the office and to his desk. As he sat down in his swivel chair the phone on his desk rang.
“Where’ve you been buddy?” It was his friend Joey.
Chris quickly looked across the room through the maze of office cubicles to see Joey sitting at his own desk, looking back with the phone to his ear.
“Man, I overslept. Is the boss here?” Chris asked nervously.
“You’re a lucky cuss, the boss is out of town until tomorrow. What’d you do, go out last night?”
“Not quite, I’ll tell you about it later. I need to get on the phone and sell something before they kick me out into the street.”
Trying to stay awake, Chris made regular trips to the office coffee pot. He felt like he’d pulled an all-nighter. He knew his sore back was from the couch, but thought he should feel a little rested from so much sleep. He worked through lunch and racked up enough confirmed phone orders to feel a bit more secure in his job.
Although he’d arrived late, he felt so bad he planned to leave at his usual time of four thirty. It was now almost four. He hung up the phone at the end of an unsuccessful sales pitch and gulped the last of his tenth cup of coffee. Then it happened.
It was as if someone had reached down and pulled his mental electrical plug from the wall socket. Although his eyes were open, his mind completely shut down. He wasn’t asleep, yet he was unable to move. At first this frightened him, but it quickly became a pleasant feeling. He soon stopped thinking all together and just sat there, existing in a mentally blank, blissful state.
Then just as suddenly as he had shut down, he snapped to reality with a convulsive spasm. He looked around nervously for witnesses. Then he looked at his watch. It was now four-forty. A wave of confusion and fear came over him. He had been sitting there for forty minutes staring at the fabric covered cubicle wall in front of him. This time he knew he hadn’t been asleep. He shook his head like a wet dog and tried to feel in control.
He nervously scanned the area again for any co-workers but most everyone, including Joey, had gone home while he sat in his comatose funk. He left the office and drove straight home.
Still feeling exhausted from the night before, and now confused and shaken, he took a hot shower and went to bed. His night was restful and full of normal sleep.
The next day at work he met Joey at the copier. Joey had been his close friend since he’d moved to the city three years ago. Joey had helped Chris get hired. Joey was Chris’ age- a tall thin redhead with closely cut hair, a devilish goatee, and a way of making wearing dress clothes with a tie look casual. Chris felt they were close enough to talk about strange stuff so he told Joey about his blackout, explaining it was an apparent side effect from trying to “relax and enjoy the moment”. With astonishment, Joey said,
“So you took something I said as a lame joke and put it into practical use. Damn! Hey Chris, wouldn’t it be neat to give me your paycheck every other week?” he ended with a laugh.
Chris gave an embarrassed smile and said, “Yeah, real funny.”
“Well look man, it sounds like you were just exhausted, you know? Maybe it was just time for you to take a break or something.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Chris replied wanting only to forget the whole thing. “Hey, we’re still on for watching the game tomorrow night at your place, right? The whole gang’s coming over and we’ll watch your girlfriend walk around in front of the TV in those hot shorts of hers?” He grinned big waiting for an angry response.
Joey said nothing. He stood completely still, staring into space. The smile drained from Chris’ face as he looked at Joey for a long moment. He feared what he was witnessing was his friend losing it like he had done. He nervously said,
“Hey, Joey! Hey man, you okay?” Joey suddenly broke into a belly laugh and said, “Yeah dude, I’m just enjoying the moment.” They both laughed and Chris said,
“You’re a jerk.” They both continued to laugh as they went back to work.
Chris thought maybe Joey was right- maybe it was just exhaustion. The next few days for Chris were uneventful. Then came Friday morning.
He woke up refreshed, had plenty of time for a shower, breakfast, and then left early enough to calmly drive to work. He arrived at the employee parking lot and found an empty space. As he carefully pulled into the empty space between two cars, it happened. A mere three feet from the end of his drive, he shut down, felt the bliss of existence and enjoyed just being alive. He was aware of his breathing, his hands on the wheel, and his body sitting in the driver seat but not much else.
He was violently shaken from his state by the car hitting the concrete wall in front of him. He was rattled but not injured. He couldn’t believe he’d hit the wall. He put the car in reverse, backed away a bit, and turned off the engine. He threw the gear lever into park.
“Shit!”
He stepped out of the car and surveyed the damage. The wall came through the collision without a scratch, but his car now had a crumpled grille and a busted headlight.
“Well this won’t make the vehicle inspection any easier now will it?”
Shaking his head, he went on into work and tried not to think about it. What he really tried not to think about was what would have happened if he’d whacked-out while on the freeway.
After a couple of hours at his desk, he realized he hadn’t seen or heard from Joey all morning. Then he learned from others in the office that Joey hadn’t showed up for work. This was not like Joey. Joey was always there on time. Even when the rest of the world was snowed in, Joey could be counted on to be there. .
Chris called Joey’s apartment but there was no answer. He tried not to be too concerned. He knew Joey was an adult and whatever was going on, he could handle it without Chris’ help. He would find out what happened that evening when he went to Joey’s to watch the game.
The workday ended. After stopping home to change Chris drove across town to Joey’s place. It was thirty minutes before game time. He knocked on Joey’s door with no answer. Putting his ear to the door he heard the television inside. This was weird and Chris couldn’t help being concerned.
Chris heard a voice behind him. Joey’s girlfriend Lita walked up carrying a cumbersome bag of groceries in her arms while digging through her purse for the door key. Lita was a pretty, thirty year old redhead with an edgy personality. She and Chris had never really clicked, but with Joey as their mutual friend, they managed to get along.
“Is he here?” she asked impatiently as she turned the key and leaned into the door.
“There’s no answer.” he replied.
As the door opened she said, “I haven’t heard from him all day.”
Inside the dark interior of the apartment it took a few moments for their eyes to adjust. The television in the corner was tuned to a cooking show. Lita turned on the lights and they saw Joey laid back in his recliner in the living room. They nervously approached Joey’s still body. Once they saw he was alive Lita said in an irritated voice,
“He’s just asleep!”
In a huff she spun on her heel and walked to the kitchen.
“Hell, I was afraid he was lying dead in a gutter somewhere.” She did a good job of disguising her fear- now alleviated.
Chris thought Joey might not be asleep at all, and at the same time knew he might be playing another practical joke. He shook his friend and spoke to him. As Joey slowly came to and opened his eyes, his face contorted, he rubbed the back of his neck and said,
“How long was I out? Where’s Lita?”
Lita heard his question and shouted her reply from the kitchen,
“I’m right here Baby! You have a nice nap?” Her tone was sarcastic.
Chris said to Joey in a quiet voice, “Hey buddy, you okay? What happened to you today?”
Joey sat up in his chair, rubbed his eyes and slowly responded, “What do you mean what happened? What time is it?”
“Well, it’s almost six-thirty.”
Joey thought it was Chris playing a joke on him this time. Then he looked at his watch and realized it was no joke. “No, this can’t be.” He stood up from the chair and placed both hands around his hurting head.
Lita re-entered the room and stood next to Joey. “Baby, are you okay? You really look like shit?” Then she got right to her burning question, “Hey, where the hell were you today? You were supposed to pick me up at Frank’s, remember?” Although she sounded angry, she was obviously concerned.
“Baby I’m sorry! I don’t know what the hell happened.” As he spoke, he looked about him as if still trying to get a handle on the moment. “Hell I missed a whole day at work.” He turned back to Chris, “What’s going on here?”
Before Chris could think of what type of response to give,
“Okay…” Lita began to speak, covered her face with her hands and turned her back to them both. The guys looked at each other puzzled. She turned back with tears in her eyes and seemed genuinely frightened. “I wasn’t going to say anything about this to you guys ‘cause I thought you’d just laugh at me and call me ‘whacko’ or something!” She wrung her hands and took a deep breath.
“What is it?” Joey asked.
“Today when you didn’t show up at the repair shop, I went ahead and left them my car and took the bus back to work. Except I never made it back to work.”
“What do you mean?”
“Somehow I stayed on the bus for almost two hours. I just kinda sat there I guess until the bus reached the end of its line and then headed back downtown. Last thing I remember was getting close to my stop at Richmond Street downtown, and then nothing. It’s a blank until all of a sudden I was the only person left on the bus, way across town somewhere, and once again headed downtown. Hell, I had to ask the driver where we were. I’ve never been so scared. I got off the bus at a phone booth and took a cab home.”
Joey and Chris did their best to calm Lita. But they themselves were anything but calm.
Joey and Lita held each other as they sat on the couch and Chris sat in the recliner.
Chris asked Joey, “So I guess you told her about ‘relax and enjoy the moment’.”
“Well, yeah! At the time it was just a funny little story. But now it doesn’t seem so funny.”
They all three jumped; startled by a sudden knock at the door. Lita bounced up from the couch and opened it to greet Tricia and Johnny. Tricia and Lita both worked for the same insurance company downtown. Tricia was older than Lita, tall, slender, with long flowing brunette hair. Johnny; Tricia’s husband, was in his late forties with a full beard and salt and pepper hair. Now the game watching party was assembled- although thoughts of watching the game were soon forgotten.
Everyone sat comfortably in the living room as Joey and Lita described their strange experiences to Tricia and Johnny. Johnny, being ten years older than the rest of the group, was usually a welcome source of calm advice and words of wisdom. So everyone was surprised when he blurted out, “What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you doing drugs or something?”
“Johnny!” Tricia said angrily with a frown as she elbowed him in the ribs.
Chris answered, “No, nobody’s doing drugs. We’re just experiencing some weird power-of-suggestion thing.” Chris continued to explain to Tricia and Johnny how it all started. When he was finished they looked at him like he was nuts. This made him angry and he said with a frown, “Hey, I may be crazy. But before today, I was the only crazy one. Can you catch crazy like you can a cold?” With that Chris stood up and walked to the kitchen.
While pulling a beer from the refrigerator he heard the others discussing the strange events. He thought of how in his attempt to relieve himself of stress, he had now started something that was having an ill effect on his friends. He was now more stressed out than ever. He then thought of telling them the part about him crashing his car. Then he thought he’d better not- not just yet.
Some jokes were made to relieve tension, some more beers were opened, and the mood became a bit more upbeat. Chris sat back and said,
“Look, apparently this little phrase we’ve stumbled upon, ‘relax and enjoy the moment’ is the key to our problem. Maybe it’s like a riddle our minds have to figure out, whether we want them to or not. Maybe once our subconscious minds hear and understand the concept, they can’t help but do it. All I did was tell Joey about it. He had to do it on his own. Lita heard about it second hand and she still had an attack.”
“Attack?” Lita protested feeling embarrassed.
Chris said, “Well, what would you call it?”
Johnny said, “This doesn’t make much sense- that a simple phrase would throw someone’s mind into neutral. If that were the case, you’d have people jumping to their death from someone saying, ‘Go take a flying leap!’ or something like that.
Tricia leaned forward, lit a cigarette with shaky hands and said, “You people are really freaking me out. This is some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard.” She sat back and chuckled nervously.
Johnny continued, “You know this isn’t the first time someone’s tried to shut off their mind. I’m sure someone, at some time, has been lazy or stoned enough to just sit back and veg-out. Hell, Universities have done sleep and consciousness studies for years without this kind of effect.”
Tricia spoke again, “Well, tell me this. Now that you guys have been nice enough to tell Johnny and I of how your lives have turned into the ‘Outer Limits’, does this mean that we’re going to turn into zombies too?” She ended with a questioning look. The room fell quiet as everyone sat thinking privately of Tricia’s question, but no one had an answer for her.
Near the end of the evening, they all decided to think on something else. They turned on the television and caught the last few minutes of the game. The home team lost miserably.
They made a pact to try and stay in touch for the next couple of days. They all hugged and shook hands as friends do and went home.

The weekend passed without mishap. The next week started calmly but they were all a little nervous. It was Tuesday when Chris missed getting a scheduled phone call from Johnny. Then just before they left work Joey got a call from Tricia. She was at the hospital. She’d found Johnny in their bathtub- head below the water. She found him just in time. The doctor said he would be okay but after they pumped the water from his lungs, they admitted him to the hospital for the night. Even though she knew Johnny was okay, she was still very upset.
Then with a trembling voice, she told Joey of her own little episode. She had lost an hour of her day sitting on the toilet in the restroom at her work. “Hell, I wasn’t trying to relax and enjoy anything. I just had to pee. I missed a visit with a client and half a staff meeting.” She began to cry, “I’m really scared Joey.” She said. “What is happening to us?”
When Chris entered Johnny’s hospital room he found Lita and Joey already there. He was pleased to find Johnny sitting up, joking, and apparently doing okay. He wore an oxygen mask and spoke to Chris in a muffled voice, “Hey there weirdo!” his voice was weak.
“Oh, I’m the weirdo? Who went snorkeling without a snorkel?” He chuckled; glad to make his friend smile. Chris stepped up beside the bed and shook Johnny’s hand. “What were you looking for- your rubber duck?”
He gave a “Hey” to Joey and Lita seated on the other side of the bed. He then turned back to Johnny and said, “You’re supposed to be older and wiser. What are you doing listening to us young idiots for?” He continued his smile.
Johnny put a serious look on his face and said softly, “Like I told Lita and Joey; I really don’t remember what happened. One minute I was done with my bath, just about to get out, and the next thing I know, Tricia’s got me hangin’ over the edge of the tub and beating on my back forcing water from my lungs. She saved my life man.”
Chris said, “Well, we’re all just glad you’re alright. How’s Tricia? Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s just down the hall.” Joey answered. “She’s refused to go home so we talked her into stretching out on a couch down in the waiting room.”
Johnny broke in with a chuckle, “Man, you should have seen the doctors face when I told him about the relaxing and enjoying the moment thing, he looked at me like I was a mental patient.” He finished with a laugh. Lita and Joey laughed as well, but Chris didn’t.
“You told the Doctor about all this?”
Johnny put a raised-eyebrow-pout on his face, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, yeah, the doctor asked if I was experiencing anything strange lately.” He said with a laugh. Seeing the concern on Chris’ face caused him to ask,
“Should I not have told him?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m just starting to worry about spreading this thing around, you know?”
And then Joey said, “Well, I may have started talking to people about this before Johnny did. Yesterday I went to our company Doctor for my physical. I told him about all this hoping he could give us some medical explanation. Yeah, he looked at me like I was stoned or something, but I did walk away with some nice anti-depressants.”
This pulled a few chuckles from everyone but Chris who said, “I just feel real nervous about telling anybody about it. That’s how this seems to be spreading. It was just me until I told you about it. Now we all know and we’re all having attacks.”
“Stop calling them attacks!” Lita pleaded. “Jeez! I need a cigarette!”
Johnny said, “Now how can somebody be affected by something from just hearing about it?” He looked at Chris waiting for an answer.
“I know it doesn’t make any sense but how would you explain your being here? You almost died and all we did was tell you about it.”
“Well, when I asked the doc what he thought happened to me, he said I might have simply fainted. Although I told him I’d never done anything like that before, he could be right. Some of this could just be coincidence.”
Chris became more worried as they spoke of it.
Suddenly they all heard a loud crash outside the door in the hall. Lita was closest and opened the door. There was a commotion involving several nurses just outside. It appeared a nurse carrying a tray of meds had tripped and fallen. There were three other nurses attending to her as she lay on the floor. Everyone’s curiosity subsided and their attention drifted back into Johnny’s room.
Then as the door was just about to close Chris said, “Hey wait!” Lita re-opened the door. They all stood staring at the woman lying motionless on the floor with her eyes wide open. Lita covered her mouth with her hand and said in a frightened voice, “Oh no! That’s the nurse that was in here with the Doctor. She heard the whole story.”
Chris turned to the others, “I’m gonna go find Tricia.”
Johnny spoke through his oxygen mask, “Yes, please make sure she’s okay will you Chris?” He had genuine concern in his eyes.
Chris found the nearly empty waiting room Joey had directed him to. As he entered he passed behind an old woman sitting watching the news on the television hung from the ceiling. He heard her say, “This is unbelievable.” But he paid no attention.
He saw Tricia laying on a stretch of uncomfortable waiting room chairs. He woke her and was pleased to find she was only asleep. He told her Johnny was doing fine but he was asking for her. Chris knew he would feel better if his group of friends were together.
As He and Tricia left the waiting room, Chris caught a bit of the story on the news the old woman was watching. It made him stop and turn around. The announcer was reporting an accident on the Interstate. Chris heard the name of a doctor who had been killed. He didn’t know why but the name was familiar.
On the way back to Johnny’s room Chris and Tricia passed two nurses who had apparently just finished their shifts. Chris heard their conversation as they approached the elevator. One said to the other, “Hell, after the shift I’ve just had, that sounds real nice- to be able to ‘relax and enjoy the moment’.” Both nurses laughed as they entered the elevator.
On entering Johnny’s room, Chris and Tricia’s attention was immediately directed to the television. The news was on and the newscaster was telling of the same Interstate accident story Chris had heard in the waiting room.
Joey turned to Chris and said, “Chris, its Doctor Nash- our company doctor I saw yesterday.” Joey was shaking as he continued, “Chris, he’s dead! Hell, ten people are dead. The freeway was packed and traffic had stopped. Witnesses said he never even put on his brakes. He just plowed right into the rear of a bunch of stopped cars doing about sixty.” Tears welled up in Joey’s eyes. “Chris what are we gonna do?”
While Joey was speaking, the television went silent. Still staring at the screen, Chris said,“Oh shit!” Everyone looked at the television screen again. Something was very wrong. The news anchor had stopped speaking. She just sat there staring into the camera, apparently enjoying the moment.
---—
And that’s how Chris relayed this whole bizarre story to me over the phone. I’d heard the name of the company he worked for on the news and called him. At first I thought we might talk about getting back together again, but we didn’t discuss it. It was just nice to talk to him. I miss him.
But isn’t this the strangest thing? Chris said what started with him had spread to his friends. His friends are spreading it to others. Now from Johnny’s hospital visit and Joey’s visit with Doctor Nash it was spreading like a swift contagious disease.
For the last couple of days the local television news, newspapers and radio have done nothing but make matters worse. It’s spreading exponentially now that Doctor Nash’s nurse has been interviewed by CNN. After reading the doctor’s notes she’s telling everybody it all had to do with the phrase, ‘relax and enjoy the moment.’
Medical officials said there’s no way to stop it. To stop it, you have to know it exists. If you know it exists, then chances are, you’ll be effected by it. They’re talking about it spreading around the globe just like a virus. Only third world nations with poor news service may be spared. Like a bizarre insidious germ, it will spread as fast as folks can hear of it.
People are dropping like flies in freak accidents. They’ll be completely alert and fully functional one minute, then they’ll just forget where they are and what they’re doing. They’ll relax and begin to replace cognitive thought with simple unconscious bliss. One minute they’ll enjoy just being alive and the next they’ll be dead.
There have already been hundreds of traffic accidents here in the city and some really nasty ones on the freeways. It’s scary. You have to think of all the folks that will die in swimming pools, or operating machinery, in the middle of surgery, or many may just be walking down the street and step right into traffic. And what about airplane pilots?
Hell, I’ve had two attacks myself. Thank God I was sitting down both times. It scares you to the point of being afraid to move. But of course then you’re really thinking about it, so you have an attack and don’t move for hours.
Anyway, I have to stop. You know how I run on. I remember irritating Chris with my talking.
Oh no, I’ve just had a horrible thought. Since you’re way up in Montana and fairly secluded, you may not have even heard of this yet. I’d hate to think I was the first person to tell you about this.
I hope you’re doing okay. Reply if you get a chance. I’d love to hear from you.
With love,
Cathy