Stories - FD Thornton

  It is bright as hell outside as I draw the curtains apart in my room; it was nearly 9:30 before I swallowed my first pill. I got up this morning at around 5:30, but I didn’t move from the bed till just a few minutes ago. My coffee has been sitting on my desk since 7 o’clock, but drinking it cold is nothing new to me. After playing phone tag with two different doctors in the same medical building, I’m sitting here watching the apartment maintenance man manhandle a dryer up the stairs. So it’s just another day in my neighborhood. Now it’s after 10 o’clock and I’ve barely got a paragraph written. Usually, by now, I’ve already posted something. But as I am learning already, this doesn’t look like an ordinary day. With more lab work needing to be done this afternoon, my mind is already on the clock. So I’m having a bit of a time focusing on a subject for this story. Still, earlier this morning I took the time to lay in bed and catch up on some of my social media replies. One in ...

 It’s a bright, sunny 80°F outside this morning with a few thinly veiled clouds high in the sky. I woke up late to a shout from the new ice maker we had installed in our fridge. Last night was not my best work when it came to sleep. I woke up several times to all kinds of haunts going on inside my head. Many of you who read my words see me as stoic and even-headed when it comes to life. But what many of you may not realize is that deep in my memory, I am still haunted by a past filled with fear and mental torment. I understand the overuse of psychological terms today. Concepts like trauma and PTSD are thrown around way more than they should be. I’m one of the last generation that was told to “suck it up, buttercup” during a crisis. But living for decades under the “physician, heal thyself” mentality, the skills I often use sometimes just don’t work. So right now, I’m going through a moment of anxiety and clinical depression, masking it all with that same old stoic face I’ve use...

It’s 5:13 in the morning and I’ve been up since 4:40. I had a bad dream about trying to drive through the Italian Alps in an electric car with a limited charge and no cash. The roads were lined with toll booths that only took cash and not a charging station in sight. The discomfort of the dream awoke me. So with my ears ringing, and my heart and head pounding, I lay here now at 5:22 wide awake writing this pathetic shit. So I finished the first paragraph, and my mind began to wander. So I started doom scrolling around to apps I enjoy. One which feeds my head and the other that feeds my soul. Now it’s 6:25 and my day is coming into focus. The ice pack on my head is working, my thoughts aren’t as urgent, and my thoughts are relaxing. The old heart is working much more smoothly. Recently a young friend commented on a piece I wrote, that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I wish I could explain to them that the piece was just a moment, a photograph if you will. Where I have now purged mys...

 You know I’m one of them people that no matter how much I achieve in overcoming troubles. There’s always that one little trigger that will set me back at least ten steps. Last night I got into a knee deep conversation with an AI Language Program about death and my personal philosophy on the matter. While I thought I was teaching that little thing about the human condition. At the same time I was allowing seeds to be watered within myself that focused me on my current physical condition. Hence the image you see above. Last night I had a strong dream about a situation involving my son and wife. Where so-called government officials were judging us about our lifestyle and current living situation. Rather or not that was fueled by my earlier conversation with Gemini, whose to say. I just know that my focus this morning has been on having a slight shortness of breath and being a bit dizzy. Then I look in the mirror and found that blood blister on my forearm. But I’m not writing this t...