Waving Not Drowning

Charlie always says no. Confidently but not with so much force as to raise any flags. Direct, make eye contact, no embellishing, then move on. Sometimes the interviewer will elaborate, a subtle attempt to casually redirect, asking the same question with other language to provoke a different response. Charlie's been at this for a while, she knows the drill, sees it coming miles before the neural synapses have even fired in the doctor or nurse or social worker or psychiatrist sitting in front of her. On a third attempt to question her once, the triage nurse started speaking uncomfortably loud and very slowly, as if Charlie was either deaf, mentally challenged, a foreign student or all three. Maybe it was the hapi coat and chopsticks in her crazy dreadlocked hair, who knows. Her asian phase has long passed. Regardless, the blue eyes, fierce red hair and freckles should've been a dead giveaway. The problem with a technologically advanced medical system in the largest city in the co...

There's no way for him to describe it other than random shots of energy, like lightning pulses traveling up from the inside of his groin out through the top of his head. Bum tickles, she calls them. He thinks it's more like the feeling you get when you're at the top of the roller coaster and about to drop into that death defying plunge. Terrifyingly thrilling. Heartstopping, pure adrenaline rush with  slight aching pain. He wishes he could control them. They come at unsuspecting moments, in jolts, sometimes waves, at the most inappropriate times. Standing in line for a coffee and he spasms like he's being electrified. Almost a seizure but faster, more spastic. Powerful yet fleeting, ephemeral. He vocalises, too. Can not help it. A climbing scale, sort of a vocal warm up elicited under duress. He's discovered  notes he didn't know he had, crazy high tenor opera sounds. Maybe he should look into that. A second career. She laughs. Until it happens five times  in a ...