Intriguing. Starts out sounding like a near-death experience. What is actually most interesting part is the last bit of dialogue at the end, which starts to give the reader hints of what might be happening.
Here's a little something I wrote somewhat randomly a few weeks ago. It doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't have any point -- I was just having a bad day, sat down in the evening and wrote this in an hour or two.
Jerral knew that indifference to his physical condition was, perhaps, the most cowardly form of suicide there was. Nonetheless, he deliberately ignored the warning signs – the occasional throbbing in his temples that spoke of spiked blood pressure, the fatigue that came too quickly and too frequently after carb-heavy meals, and the rare but noticeable stab of pain in his chest that suggested that all might not be well with his heart. He was too self-aware to fail to notice these things, but too wrapped up in despair and self-pity to do anything about it. Exercise was hard, the rewards too distant and unreachable to make it worth the effort. Doctors? Why bother? Jerral hadn’t been to a doctor in ten, maybe fifteen years. Not since he was a kid. Dealing with insurance and HR was a hassle. The prospect of cold-calling some randomly-selected clinic or office, talking to some harried administrator, and setting up an appointment was daunting at the least. And then to actually make the trip to an unfamiliar part of town, to an unknown place, to have to deal with new people, a new situation, and all the requisite troubles that were sure to follow…! The very thought of so much disruption to his carefully managed day-to-day life left Jerral feeling uneasy and vaguely panicked.
There was no point in stressing about it anyway. There was no point, none whatsoever, in imagining the hypothetical situations so that he could try to plan out his responses in advance. What to say, how to say it, what to do if this or that didn’t quite go as expected – thinking about it was inconsequential because ultimately Jerral had no intention of following through. If asked by a co-worker-slash-friend why he didn’t get regular checkups, he would simply blame laziness. “Ah, I’m just too busy. Too much going on. You know how it goes.” Followed by a shrug and bold-faced lie: “Except for the usual work-related stress, I feel fine anyway.”
“Jer, you need to go to the doctor. Everyone should, at least once a year. Something could be wrong and you might never know it.” Well, obviously. Jerral knew all the arguments. People sickened and died all the time of undiagnosed, untreated conditions. It was stone-cold fact, no arguing that doctors saved lives. But why couldn’t people just mind their own damn business?
“Yeah, you’re right, you’re right” he would concede. Anything to mollify his interrogator. “I should probably just make an appointment and get it over with.”
A nod and a smile in return, acknowledging that he’d said the right things. “Good. Hate for anything to happen to you.” A casual wave or maybe a pat on the back, conscience assuaged for the moment, and that was that. Off to the next meeting. Gotta stay on track, busy, busy.
It was Friday, and Jer took his lunch at work as he always did, in the breakroom, sitting alone, by choice, at a table with a book. On the way down he passed the New Guy in the hall. Jerral was having a bad day, so he barely spared New Guy a fleeting one point five seconds of eye contact and a brusque nod. (Normally, a grunted “Hi” would have passed for a greeting, but Jerral was not interested in that much emotion today, thanks.)
New Guy, tall, good-looking and incongruously apprehensive, nodded back, then fell into step behind Jerral. Fabulous; New Guy apparently was going to lunch, too. Merely acknowledging his existence wasn’t enough now. Jerral’s choice: pretend to ignore him, or do him the courtesy of small-talk. “How’s it going?”
“Uh, not bad,” was the mumbled reply, rousing a faint glimmer of curiosity in Jerral; maybe New Guy was a kindred spirit? A fellow member of the disaffected? Ah, hell, don’t even think that. Pessimism and fear of people reasserted themselves, quickly squashing curiosity.
A door lay ahead, and the hall branched to the right, leading to the restrooms. The path to the breakroom lead through the door, and to more social awkwardness. Twenty feet away, Jerral stepped aside, stopping abruptly to dig into his pocket for his cell phone. Frowning, he squinted at the device, pushing buttons, pretending that some message of unknown importance merited his immediate attention.
New Guy glanced at Jerral, unnecessarily breaking stride to avoid an imagined possible collision, and then he was through the door and gone.
Jerral waited a minute or two, long enough for New Guy to get through the next security door and start down the stairs, then pocketed his phone and resumed his solitary trek to the breakroom.
