creative writing week 1

THE MIGRAINE
    4:57 a.m. Sondra swims up toward wakefulness as if she were rising from the bottom of a lake of mud. For a few seconds, all is well. Then slowly her head starts to throb. Damn, she thinks. Dammit all to hell. Maybe if she goes back to sleep, everything will be fine. (She knows it won’t be.)
    5:32 a.m. She wakes up again, but this time the pain is instant. Fuck, she thinks. She is not one to swear, except when it feels like someone is hammering an ice pick into her brain. She rolls to her other side. Maybe that will help. (She knows it won’t.)
    5:43 a.m. John is still sleeping next to her. His alarm will go off at six. Sondra tries to raise the energy to get up and take the hated meds. She really, really doesn’t want to take them. The side effects—the jitters, the upset stomach, the drugged feeling— will throw off her whole day. And anyway it feels like giving in, like she is too weak to conquer a stupid headache. Maybe if she goes back to sleep. Maybe if she punches up her pillow to support her neck. Maybe if she is tough enough, the pain will subside so she won’t have to take the meds. (She knows it won’t work, but she goes back to sleep anyway.)
    6:10 a.m. When she wakes again, John is in the shower. She must have slept through his alarm. Immediately she knows her head is worse. If she gets up right now, she can take the meds and be back in bed before John gets out of the shower. She doesn’t want him to know. He will worry, and there’s nothing he can do. She hates it when people feel sorry for her. When her head hurts this bad, sympathy just makes her mad. She thinks to herself that she should get up. (She doesn’t.)
    6:23 a.m. She must have dozed off again. Her head is worse. Now it feels like a giant is squeezing her head, like there is a fire burning at the base of her skull, like the backs of her eyeballs have been sandpapered raw. She hates her head. She hates the drugs. She does not want to take them. But if she doesn’t take them soon, she won’t have enough time for them to work before she has to get up at 7:30. Fuck, she thinks again.
    6:25 a.m. There is no help for it. She must get up. She pulls herself up, swings her legs over the side of the bed. Her stomach rolls, but it is not rolling hard enough to make her throw up, and that is a relief. Standing, her head feels slightly better. Maybe if she just takes a couple of Advil and some Excedrin migraine. Maybe that will do it. (She knows it won’t.)
    6:29 a.m. She has taken the Advil and the Excedrin, downed some water. She’s heard that headaches are caused by dehydration, so she makes herself drink as much as she can stand. She gets back in bed. Thinks about her meeting. She could call them and say she has a migraine. But she doesn’t want anyone to know. She is ashamed of her migraines the way someone else might hide their lame foot or cauliflower ear.
    6:48 a.m. She hears the garage door open and then close as John leaves for work. The Advil and the Excedrin are not working. She’s either going to have to take the drugs or stay in bed all day, miserable. This is ridiculous, she thinks. I am an adult. I have a legal prescription for migraine meds and painkillers. I have a migraine. Why do I do this to myself? But the compulsion to hide, to pull the covers over her head and crawl down in, is nearly impossible to resist.
    7:02 a.m. It is dark under the covers, and darkness feels better. But the headache is not going away. In fact, it might be getting worse. She has to do it.
    7:11 a.m. She has to do it.
    7:15 a.m. She really, really has to do it. As it is, she will have to reset her alarm for 7:40 so she can shut her eyes long enough for the damn things to work.
    7:16 a.m. GODDAMMIT, she yells, inside her head. She throws the covers off, rolls out of bed, and stomps over to the cabinet. Or she would stomp, if it didn’t make her head throb. She digs through the basket where her meds are, finds the pill bottles. She shakes out a pain pill, puts it in the pill cutter and cuts it in half. She peels back the paper liner of the Maxalt. She takes the half pain pill and the pink Maxalt and swallows them with more water. Goes back to bed. Resets her alarm for 7:40. Waits.
    7:27 a.m. And waits.
    7:32 a.m. And waits.
    7:38 a.m. Finally, finally, the blessed reprieve begins. She will pay for this later, but for now, the pain recedes, like cool rain washing over hot pavement, like sinking into a feather bed after a night on a bed of nails.
    7:40 a.m. Her alarm goes off. She gets up, gets in the shower, tries not to weep with gratitude for the relief of pain. Next time she will take the meds right away. (She knows she won’t.)