Side Effect

Chapter 3
Not So All Alone

Chapter Description: Thank goodness <I>that's</I> over with... or is it just getting started?

The sunlight coming in through the living room window caused me to stir. I move to sit up straight and AAAAAAAAHHH!!! an all-too-familiar feeling of agony ripped through my lower back, followed by the customary one to two minutes of paralysis.

While waiting it out, I thought over the events of the night before. It all seemed so fantastic that it had to have been a dream, right? But right in front of me was plenty of evidence to the contrary, junk on the floor instead of on the sofa and chair, the TV left on, the simple fact that I was in this chair and not in bed... and what was that I smelled?

Finally, after I was able to get up, I located the remote and pushed OK to take the TV out of standby mode.

Nicktoons. Well, dangit.

Some quick self-examination revealed that I was in dire need of a shower. Making my way back to my bedroom en route, I spotted my smart phone with the note I had left on top. I did as the note instructed and played the voice memo, and heard my own words played back to me, in the squeaky pubescent voice I’d had at the time. So that all really did happen. I shook my head at my own sense of the overdramatic, and deleted the message. Then, very quickly, off to the shower...

***

"Sorry about all that, but you seem to have come through it okay," said Dr. Welling on the phone later that morning. "You may disagree right now but I thought it was worth a try."

"It was... an experience," I said in typical (for me) understated fashion. "You could say it scared the crap out of me," I added, at the sound of the washer containing my robe switching into the soak cycle. Eventually, the stains would come out.

"They say this only happens to about one out of a thousand, though now I’m suspecting the rate is higher than that. You’re the second patient I’ve had this happen to. They don’t really know what causes it, but there’s a bit of a nasty rumor out that it has to do with some kind of personality defect, that it’s something deep down you wanted to happen. That’s a big part of why we tend to keep this hushed up."

"I see," I said doubtfully.

"I’ll give you the name of a support website that explains it better than I can. Meanwhile, as for your back, we’ll get you in for that surgery as soon as we can. It may take a few months before you’re completely healed from that, but at this point it’s the only solution."

"We certainly can’t say we haven’t tried everything else," I deadpanned.

"Indeed. And I hope I don’t need to tell you to throw those pills out. I’m sure you did that already."

"As far as I could throw them."

"Good, good. Well, let me put you on hold and we’ll get you scheduled."

"Thanks, doc."

While listening to the hold music I flipped the little brown vial between my fingers, then opened it up for a look at the 29 remaining light blue pills -- baby blue, actually, I thought to myself wryly. Imagine such little things causing so much trouble.

Then again, was last night really all that bad? It was really scary, sure, but now that I knew what to expect, and knew that I’d come out of it okay, what was really wrong with it? If only I could have planned for it. I certainly could have made a lot better use of my time than watching a bunch of cartoons.

I looked again at the vial and the 29 more second chances sitting right there in the palm of my hand. Or maybe even more than that: what would happen if I only took half a pill?  Come to think of it, how young did I actually end up getting last night? So many questions, and the answers were all potentially right there.

I made up my mind. I sealed the vial back up, and threw it... into the back of a kitchen drawer.

***

Dr. Welling’s assistant came on the line and we scheduled the surgery. She also gave me the support website address.

"W-W-W-W..." she began spelling out.

"I think that should be only three W’s," I interrupted.

"No, it’s four, I have it written right here."

Rolling my eyes, I told her to proceed.

"Dot, "The Novicid Effect", but like it’s one word... dot-comb."

"You mean dot-com."

"No, it’s comb, as in hair."

I almost started to argue again, but what was the point. Sheez, you’d think everyone would know what a proper web address looked like by now.

After hanging up, I decided it would be simpler to just Google the website. Or at least that’s what I thought. About a half dozen searches later I started to wonder if the website even existed anymore, if it ever did.

I tried entering “www.thenovicideffect.com” into the address bar, but that came up empty too. Finally, I decided to just try the address as it had been given to me.

And just like that it came up.

“Welcome,” the greeting page started. “If you’re here, you’ve been through a lot. Feel free to talk about it here. You’re among friends.”

I clicked through and...

Well, if you’re reading this where I left it, you know exactly what I saw next, because you’re already there. And if you’re reading this somewhere else, then if you haven’t already, you’ll soon find the past few paragraphs describe neither the actual website address nor are particularly helpful in figuring it out. So phbttth.

Anyway, that was how it all started for me. For what it’s worth, the back surgery went well enough, but rehab has been a mess. Of course that might have been because I...

...On second thought I’ll tell that tale some other time.