ENJOYING THE MOMENT
Copyright (c) by Rick Yost

Meet an average guy, who has an average group of friends, all living in an average sized city, on an average night.

Chris plops down on his couch and shoots the television between the eyes with the remote. The screen comes alive in the middle of an X-files episode.
“Damn, agent Scully sure is cute!” he says as he shoves a fistful of microwave popcorn in his mouth. He leans back and puts his feet up. As some alien creature slithers past the camera, his attention wanders. He slowly looks around his new apartment. It’s small and a bit run-down, but affordable and close to his work.
The phone beside him rings. The caller says, “Hey Chris, what’s up?”
Chris replies, “Hey Joey, where are you?” He pushes the mute button on the remote.
Joey says, “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.” Chris says jokingly and then chuckles.
“Maaan! You know how it is. I heard you had a girlfriend once.” Joey teases.
With a big smile Chris replies, “Ouch, that hurts.” They both laugh.
Then Joey says, “You know I’m jealous of you, not having anyone to worry about but yourself. It must be nice to be able to just sit back, relax and enjoy the moment.”
“Yeah, it’s great until its time to go to bed, by myself.” He chuckles. They both say, “See you tomorrow.” and hang up.
Chris sits watching the silent television and thinks of his ex-girlfriend Joey spoke of.
Ah yes, Cathy.” He thinks of how she really was nice sometimes. But she was also an endless source of useless trivia. She’d spend hours telling you things you didn’t really want to know. Chris thought how Cathy was one of those girls that drove him wild and drove him nuts at the same time.
“I wonder what Cathy’s doing nowadays?”
Then he thought of what Joey said. “Sit back, relax and enjoy the moment.” He thought how nice it would be to do such a thing. He was constantly worried or stressed out about something.
It was nine o’clock and he was finishing what he planned to be his last beer of the evening. He shot the TV one more time and the screen went black.
He rubbed his face with both hands and leaned back on the couch. He thought again on that phrase, “Relax and enjoy the moment.” It became more interesting the more he thought of it.
Yeah, it would be nice to just forget about everything, just a few minutes. What he wouldn’t give for just a short respite from all the strange stuff that goes on in his mind everyday.
There was the tension between he and his Mother; she never seemed satisfied with him. He thought of his boss waiting for Chris to screw up so he could fire him. He was so far in debt with his credit cards; he didn’t know how he would ever pay them off. He hadn’t made a payment on his student loans in over a year. He hoped he could get his car inspected before the cops stopped him, because he also had three unpaid parking tickets.
All little things, but all together they added up.
“All this 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.” Then he grins and says to himself, “I’m gonna try it!”
He jumps up and walks to the kitchen. He grabs the half bottle of Tequila off the refrigerator, a shot glass out of the cabinet and the matches off the stove. From the kitchen drawer of “things without a place” he digs out a small red candle.
Switching off the lights, he returns to the couch. Scooting the beer can and remote aside he sets everything down on the coffee table.
He lights the candle, flooding the dark room with a warm, red flicker. He feels this little ceremonial atmosphere will help him get in the mood to relax.
He pours and throws back two full shots of liquor and stares at the flame for a few moments. He feels the Tequila warm his belly. After a few minutes he has two more shots and says, “That should do it.”
He sits back and closes his eyes. He feels the buzz from the alcohol and begins to relax. He knows it can’t be easy to make your mind stop thinking. Then he laughs out loud for no apparent reason and knows he’s on his way.
As he sits trying to make his mind blank, he begins to think less about his Mother, Boss, Debt, Parking tickets and old girlfriend. He replaces these thoughts with simple self-awareness. He becomes very aware of his body. He feels the material of the couch under him. He feels the cool of the air-conditioning on his skin. He feels the shirt around his body. He feels the socks on his feet. He becomes very aware of his breathing.
He sits thinking about nothing. Although his eyes are closed, he’s not asleep; he’s managed to reach a point where he is not actively thinking of anything. Although not aware of his success, he’s done what he set out to do. He’s not thinking. And that’s what keeps him on the couch for fourteen hours; the fact that he’s not thinking.

The phone rings forcing him to think for the first time since the night before. Even though it rings several times, he can’t move to answer it. He feels drugged as he looks around the room. He becomes aware of where he is about the time the phone falls silent. The Tequila bottle still sits next to the candle. But the candle is now spread out into a large, round, flat wafer of wax on the table.
He looks at his watch; it’s eleven-thirty. He thinks he should get up and go on to bed. Then he sees sunlight shining in around the heavy drapes.
Reality hits him like a splash of cold water. It is eleven-thirty in the morning and he’s three hours late for work.
“Oh shit!” he says as he stands up. Pain makes him wrinkle his face and stand rubbing his sore back. He doesn’t feel like he’s just slept fourteen hours. He doesn’t feel like he’s slept at all.
He drives to work like a madman. He sneaks into the office and to his desk. As he sits down, the phone rings. He answers to hear Joey say, “Where’ve you been buddy?”
Chris looks across the room through the maze of cubicles to see Joey looking back at him with the phone to his ear. Chris says, “Man, I overslept. Is the boss here?” he asks nervously. Joey replies with a smile, “You’re a lucky cuss, the boss is out of town until tomorrow. What’d you do? Go out last night?”
Chris says, “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, he made regular trips to the coffee pot. He felt like he’d pulled an ‘all-nighter’. He knew his sore back is from the couch but thought he should feel rested with so much sleep.
He worked through lunch and racked up enough confirmed orders to feel a bit more secure in his job.
Although he was late, he felt so bad he planned to leave at his usual time of five thirty.
It was now almost five. He hung up the phone at the end of an unsuccessful sales pitch and swigged the last gulp of his tenth cup of coffee.
Then it happens. It is as if someone reached down and pulls his imaginary electrical plug from the socket. Although his eyes remain open, his mind just shuts down. He isn’t asleep, yet he’s unable to move. At first this frightens him, but it quickly becomes a pleasant feeling. He soon stops thinking all together and sits there, existing in a mentally blank, blissful state.
Then just as he’d suddenly shut down, he snapped to reality with a convulsive spasm. He looks around nervously for witnesses. Then he looks at his watch. It’s now five-forty. A wave of confusion and shock comes over his face. He’s sat there for almost forty-five minutes staring at the fabric covered cubicle wall in front of him.
This time he knows he hasn’t been asleep. He shakes his head like a wet dog and tries to feel in control.
He nervously scans the area again for any co-workers but most everyone, including Joey, have gone home while he sat in his comatose funk.
He quickly leaves the office and drives straight home. Still feeling exhausted from the night before and now confused and shaken, he takes a hot shower and goes to bed. His night is restful and full of normal sleep.
The next day at work, he happens to meet Joey at the copier. Joey has been his close friend since he moved to the city. Joey helped Chris land this job. He feels they are close enough to talk about strange stuff. So Chris tells Joey of his blackout, an apparent side effect from trying to “relax and enjoy the moment”.
With astonishment, Joey says, “So you took something I said as a lame joke and put it to practical use. Damn! Hey Chris, will you give me your car?” he ends with a laugh. Chris gives an embarrassed smile and says, “Yeah, real funny.”
Joey says, “Well, it sounds like you were just exhausted, you know? Maybe it was just time for you to take a break or something.”
Chris says, “Yeah, I guess. Hey, we’re still on for Hockey Friday night, right? The whole gang’s coming over to your place and we’ll watch your girlfriend walk around in front of the TV in those ‘hot’ shorts of hers?” He grins big waiting for an angry response.
Joey says nothing. He stands still, staring into space. Chris looks at him for a long moment, fearing his friend has lost it like he’d done. He nervously says, “Hey, Joey, hey man, you okay?” Joey suddenly breaks into a belly laugh and says, “Yeah, I’m just enjoying the moment.” They both laugh and Chris says, “You jerk.” He continues to laugh and goes back to work.
He thinks, “Maybe Joey is 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 breakfast and then casually drove to work.
He arrives at the employee parking lot and finds an empty space. He carefully turns into the space between two other cars and then it happens. A mere three feet from the end of his drive, he shuts down, feels the bliss of existence and enjoys just being alive. He’s aware of his breathing and his body sitting in the driver seat but not much else. He is violently shaken from his state by the car hitting the concrete wall in front of him.
His body is jostled but he is not injured. He is very surprised and can’t believe he hit the wall. He puts the car in reverse, backs away from the wall and turns off the engine. He throws the gear lever into park and mumbles, “Shit!”
He steps out of the car and surveys the damage. The wall came through without a scratch, but his car now has a crumpled grille and busted headlight. “Well, this won’t make the inspection any easier now will it?” he says.
Shaking his head, he goes into work and tries not to think about it. What he really tries not to think about is, “What if that same thing happens while on the freeway?” He shudders.
After a couple of hours at his desk, he realizes he hasn’t seen or heard from Joey. He learns from others in the office that Joey hasn’t made it in yet. This is not like Joey. Joey is one of those ‘freaks’ who is always there. Even when the rest of the world is snowed in, Joey is at work on time.
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 had happened that evening when he went to Joey’s to watch the game.
The workday ended and now it was evening. Chris drove across town to Joey’s place.
Thirty minutes before game time he walks up to Joey’s door and knocks but no one answers. Putting his ear to the door, he hears the television. This is weird and Chris can’t help being concerned.
Suddenly Chris hears a voice behind him. Joey’s girlfriend, Lita walks up carrying a bag of groceries and digs in her purse for the key to Joey’s door.
“Is he here?” she asks impatiently. Chris replies, “I haven’t gotten an answer.” Lita puts the key in the door and says, “Yeah, well he was supposed to pick me up at my mechanic’s garage at two. I haven’t heard from him all day.”
She turns the key and forces the door open with a shove. Inside the dark room, all they see is the TV playing in the corner. Lita turns on the lights and they see Joey in his chair in the living room. They quickly approach Joey’s still body, making sure he is okay.
Once they see he’s alive, Lita says, “The son-of-a-bitch is asleep.” In a huff, she twirls around and walks to the kitchen. “Hell, I was afraid he was lying in a gutter somewhere.” She does a good job of disguising her concern.
Chris has the frightening thought that Joey might not be asleep at all. He shakes his friend and speaks to him. As Joey slowly comes to, his face contorts with a wince of pain and he rubs the back of his neck. He says, “How long was I out? Where’s Lita?”
Lita hears his question and shouts a reply from the kitchen, “I’m right here Baby! You have a nice nap?” Her tone is sarcastic.
Chris says to Joey in a quiet voice, “Hey buddy, you okay? What happened to you today?”
Joey slowly responds, “What do you mean what happened? What time is it?”
Chris replies, “Well, it’s almost eight-thirty.” He thinks Chris is playing a joke on him. Then he looks at his watch and his mouth drops.
“No, this can’t be.” He stands up from the chair and puts both hands around his hurting head. Lita comes back into the room and asks Joey, “Baby are you okay, you really look like shit?” Then she gets 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 stood close to him nervously rubbing his back, obviously concerned.
Joey turns to her and replies, “Baby, I’m sorry, I don’t know what the hell happened. Hell I missed a whole day at work.” He turns back to Chris, “What’s going on here?”
“Okay.” Lita says and then covers her face with her hands and turns her back to Chris and Joey. They look at each other puzzled. She turns back, has tears in her eyes and seems suddenly frightened. “I wasn’t going to say anything about this to you guys ‘cause I thought you’d just make fun of me for being ‘whacko’ or something.” She wrings her hands and takes a deep breath. Joey says to her, “What is it?”
Lita continues, “Today when you didn’t show up at the mechanic’s, I went ahead and left them my car and took the bus back to work. Except I never made it back to work.” She starts to cry and says, “Somehow I stayed on the bus for almost two hours. I just sorta sat there I guess until the bus reached the end of its line and 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. Hell, I had to ask the driver where I was. I’ve never been so scared. I just went on home.”
Joey and Chris did their best to calm Lita.
But they were anything but calm. They all sat down and tried to figure things out. Chris asks Joey, “So I guess you told her about ‘relax and enjoy the moment’.” Joey replies, “Well, yeah, at the time it was just a funny little story. But now it doesn’t seem so funny.”
They all three jump from a sudden knock at the door. Lita opens it to greet Tricia and Johnny, who had also been invited to come watch the game. As soon as they learned their friends were in the middle of a problem, all thoughts of the game were forgotten. Now that these two had arrived, their group of friends was complete.
They all sat around the living room listening to Joey and Lita tell of their strange experiences.
Johnny was older and usually looked to for 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 says with an angry frown and elbows him in the ribs.
Chris answers, “No, nobody’s doing drugs. We’re just experiencing some weird ‘power-of-suggestion’ thing.”
Chris tried to explain to Tricia and Johnny how this all started. When he finished, they looked at him like he was nuts. This irritated him 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 stands up and walks to the kitchen.
While pulling a beer from the refrigerator he hears the others discussing these strange events. He thinks of how in his attempt to relieve himself of stress, he has now started something that is having a bad effect on his friends. He’s more stressed out than ever. He thinks of why he didn’t tell them the part about him crashing his car. He felt it might just cause panic.
Everyone felt a little better now that all of them were together. Some jokes were made to relieve tension, some more beers were opened and the mood became a little more upbeat.
Chris sat back and said, “Look, the best I can figure, this little phrase we’ve stumbled on to, ‘relax and enjoy the moment’, is what’s messing us up. Maybe it’s like a problem 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 it second hand and she still had an attack.”
“Attack?” Lita asks feeling embarrassed.
Chris says, “Well, what would you call it?”
Tricia leans forward, lights a cigarette and says, “You people are really freaking me out. This is some of the weirdest shit I’ve ever heard.”
Johnny says, “Hey this isn’t the first time someone has tried to shut off their mind, you know. I’m sure someone, at some time has been lazy or stoned enough to just sit back and veg-out.”
Tricia speaks again, “Well, tell me this; now that you guys have been nice enough to tell us of how your lives have turned into the ‘Outer Limits’, does this mean that Johnny and I are going to turn into zombies too? She ends with a questioning look.
Everyone just sits and thinks on her question, but no one has an answer for her.
At the end of the evening, they all decided to think on something else. They turned on the last few minutes of the game to watch the home team get beaten miserably.
They made a pact to try and call each other for the next couple of days just to say they were okay. They all hugged and shook hands as friends do and went home.
The weekend passed without mishap. The next week started calmly but they all were feeling a little nervous. It was Tuesday when they missed getting a call from Johnny. Then just before he left work, Joey received a call from Tricia.
She was at the hospital. She’d found Johnny in their bathtub, his head below the water and his eyes wide open. She said she found him just in time. He would be okay but she was still very upset.
She spoke with a trembling voice and told him of her own little episode. She said she’d 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.” Joey hears her start to cry as she asks, “What the hell is going on here?”
When Chris entered Johnny’s hospital room, he found Lita and Joey already there. He was very pleased to find Johnny doing okay.
He wore an oxygen mask but was sitting up and spoke to Chris, “Hey there weirdo!” his voice was weak. Chris countered back, “Oh, I’m the weirdo? Who went snorkeling without a snorkel?” Chris smiled seeing he was making his friend smile too. “What were you looking for; your rubber duck?”
As he finishes his joke, Chris steps up beside the bed and shakes Johnny’s hand. Chris gives a “hey” and a glance to the other two. He then concentrates on visiting with Johnny.
Chris says, “You’re supposed to be older and wiser. What are you doing listening to us young idiots for?” He continues his smile.
Johnny puts a serious, frightened look on his face and says softly, “It’s like I was telling Lita and Joey; I really don’t remember what happened. One minute, I was done with my bath, just about to get out and all of a sudden, Tricia’s got me face down on the bathroom floor. She saved my life man.
Chris says, “Well, we’re all just glad you’re alright. How’s Tricia, is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s just down the hall.” Joey answers, “She’s refused to go home, so we talked her into stretching out on a couch down in the waiting room.”
Johnny breaks in with a chuckle, “Man, you should have seen the doctors face when I told him what happened. When I told him about “relaxing and enjoying the moment”, he looked at me like I was a mental patient.” He finishes with a laugh. Lita and Joey laugh as well, but Chris is concerned. He says, “You told the Doctor about all this?”
Johnny puts a raised-eyebrow-pout on his face, shrugs his shoulders and says, “Well, yeah, the doctor asked if I was experiencing anything strange lately.” He says with a laugh. Seeing the concern on Chris’ face he asks, “Should I not have told him?”
Chris stands back and sighs as he looks at the others waiting for his response and says, “Well, I don’t know. I’m just starting to worry about spreading this thing around, you know?” The other three nodded in agreement.
And then Joey says, “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 it 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 that we all know, we’re all having attacks.”
Johnny says, “Now how can somebody be affected by something from just hearing about it?” He looks at Chris waiting for an answer.
Chris comes back with, “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but how would you explain your being here? You said yourself, you almost died and all we did was tell you about it.”
Chris became more worried as he spoke about it. He turns and slowly paces away from the bed as he rubs the back of his tensed neck.
Suddenly they hear a loud crash from outside in the hall. Lita is closest and opens the door. There’s a commotion involving several nurses. It appears a nurse carrying a tray of meds has tripped and fallen. There are three other nurses attending to her on the floor.
After their curiosity subsides, they see that whatever the problem is, its being handled by professionals. Their attention is pulled back into Johnny’s room.
Then as the door is about to close, Chris says, “Hey, wait!” He opens the door again and looks at the nurse in the middle of the commotion. He says to Lita and Joey who stand in the doorway with him, “Look!” After a moment, Lita covers her mouth with her hands and says in a frightened voice, “Oh no. That’s the nurse that was in here with the Doctor; she heard the whole story.”
They all stand and stare at the woman lying motionless on the floor with her eyes wide open.
Chris turns to the others and says, “I’m going to go find Tricia.” Johnny speaks through his oxygen mask, “Yes, please make sure she’s okay will you Chris?” he says with concern in his eyes.
Chris finds the nearly empty waiting room Joey directed him to. As he enters the room he passes an old lady intently watching the news on the television hung from the ceiling. He hears her say, “This is unbelievable.” But he pays no attention. He spots Tricia lying on a stretch of uncomfortable, waiting room chairs. He wakes her and is pleased to find she was only asleep. He tells her Johnny is doing fine, but he was asking for her. Chris would feel better if they were all together.
As they were leaving the waiting room, Chris catches a bit of the story on the news the old woman was watching. It makes him stop and turn around. The announcer is reporting on a car wreck on the local 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 pass two nurses who seemed to have just finished their shifts. They were in the middle of a conversation as they headed for the elevator. One said to the other, “Hell, after the shift I’ve just had, that sounds real nice. Oh, to be able to just ‘relax and enjoy the moment’.” Both nurses laugh as they enter the elevator.
Back in Johnny’s room, Chris and Tricia’s attention is immediately directed to the TV. It’s the same car wreck story on the local news.
Joey turns to Chris and says, “Chris, its Doctor Nash; our company doctor I went to see yesterday.” Joey is almost shaking as he continues, “Chris, he’s dead! Hell, ten people are dead. The freeway was packed and traffic had stopped. Witnesses say he never even put on his brakes. He just plowed into the rear of a bunch of stopped cars doing about sixty.” Tears well up in Joey’s eyes as he says, “Chris what are we going to do?”
Then Chris says, “Oh shit!” and everyone looks at the TV screen. Something is wrong. The news anchor on camera has stopped speaking. She’s just sitting there, apparently enjoying the moment.

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And that’s how Chris relayed this whole bizarre story to me over the phone. I heard the name of the company he works for on the TV and called him. At first I thought we might get 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? What started with Chris has 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’s spreading like a swift, contagious disease.
For the last couple of days, the local TV news, newspapers and radio have done nothing but make matters worse. It’s spreading exponentially now that Doctor Nash’s nurse has been interviewed on TV.
After reading the doctor’s notes, she’s telling everybody it all somehow has to do with the phrase, “relax and enjoy the moment.” They’re doing their best to keep FOX and CNN from airing the story.
They say there’s no real way to stop it. To stop it, you have to know it exists. If you know it exists, then you have it. In a weird way, it’s like an email virus.
The experts are predicting it will spread across the globe just like a virus too. 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 physical awareness. 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, 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.

Oh no, I’ve just had a horrible thought. Since you’re in another state, you may not have even heard of this yet. I’d hate to think I was the first person to tell you. Anyway, I hope you’re doing okay. Reply if you get a chance.

With love,
Cathy