The Heaviness of Knowing

by Sharolyn G. Brown

  “Okay, I have to get to my purse,” Lauren spoke out loud, in hopes of encouraging herself to move.

  She took three deep breaths, and on the third, opened her left eye. The stabs of pain returned as she oriented herself to her position in the workroom. She was on the floor near the worktable she’d been using earlier. It was in the back of the room directly opposite the wall where the door was located. She used her left hand and the nearby table to help herself stand. She kept her right hand pressed into her right eye.

  Once on her feet, she began walking to her cubicle. Walking was torturous due to her primary migraine symptoms, light sensitivity and vision distortions. Her specific vision distortions were that everything appeared to have a dark outline. And when she moved her eyes, the outline of everything she was just looking at seemed to trail the objects as their position changed in her field of vision. She had to stop moving her eyes to keep these trailing auras from appearing. Unfortunately, walking required her to move her eyes.

  Finally, in her cubicle, she sat, folded her arms on her desk, and pressed her eyes against her arm to block out the light. She needed a few minutes of darkness to let some of the reignited pain subside. When the pain diminished enough that she could think about moving again, she steeled herself for her next steps. This migraine meant her day was done. Now she just needed to call Kyle to come and get her. Because even though she could drive herself home, it would be incredibly painful. And she did not want to cause herself any more pain if she didn’t have to.

  Lauren freed her right arm; her left remained on her desk with her eyes pressed against it. She felt down the tower of drawers on the right side of her desk to the bottom one. She opened it and felt her purse. She tugged at the zipper one-handed until her purse opened and she could retrieve her cell phone. She sat the cell on her desk near where her head was resting. She pressed the home button, and the voice command bot instructed, “Please state your command.”

  “Call Kyle cell phone,” she commanded.

  “Would you like me to call Kyle Stable’s cell phone?” the command bot confirmed.

  “Yes,” Lauren cried.

  The cell phone wasn’t on speakerphone, but it was close enough to her ear that she could hear the tones as it dialed. On the third or fourth ring, he answered.

  “Hello,” Kyle said dryly.

  “Baby, I need you to come and get me. I can’t drive,” she yelled. She did not want to put the phone to her ear and risk the noise making her headache flare.

  “Lauren, are you okay? Where are you?” The dryness she had originally heard in Kyle’s voice was now replaced with concern and something that seemed like fear.

  “I’m in the office. I have a horrible migraine that just came out of nowhere. I don’t think I can drive home.” Every word she yelled seemed to make her entire head vibrate, and each vibration sent fresh shots of pain through her head.

  “The office. All right. I’m leaving home now. I’ll call you when I get there.”

  “Okay,” she replied.

  “Bye,” he said and then the call was silent. Her phone made a sound to indicate the call had disconnected. She just kept her head pressed to her arm, waiting for Kyle to arrive.

  ***

  Lauren didn’t know how long it had taken Kyle to arrive at her office. While she was waiting for him, she fished out a pair of dark-lensed sunglasses she kept in her purse. Her pain had settled into a dull ache. She hoped that when it was time for her to walk out of the building, the sunglasses would keep that dull ache from returning to the throbbing pain she had felt as she walked from the workroom to her cubicle.

  The phone call announcing his arrival had caused her to flinch, and a fresh blaze of pain ripped through her head. She quickly answered the phone to stop the ringing.

  “I’m coming down,” she said and then hung up without giving him an opportunity to say anything. She then grabbed her purse and her phone and walked out of the building.

  The sunglasses did little to diminish the pain once she was walking. It also did nothing to help with her vision distortions. “I just need to get to the car,” Lauren said to herself as she walked from her cubicle to the elevator.

  “I just need to get to the car,” she said over and over again as the elevator’s repeated beeps caused resurgences of pain. The beep to signal arrival, the beep to signal as it passed each floor along its path, and the beep to signify it was in the lobby all stabbed ice picks further into her brain.

  She was thankful she had worn tennis shoes to the office because her footsteps were silent as she crossed the lobby and exited the building. The weekend guard, accustomed to seeing her at work, called out to say goodbye. Lauren only waved at him as she left the building. On the street in front of her office was Kyle’s silver Audi A5. She got in on the passenger’s side, closed her eyes, and laid her head back on the headrest.

  “Thanks for coming to get me,” she spoke. Her eyes watered a bit. She wiped away the wetness and waited for the pain to lessen.

  “I have your migraine medicine with me and a bottle of water if you want to take your pills now.”

  She nodded her head. Her brain felt as if it were banging against the front of her skull. She held out her left hand and waited as he opened each of the two medicine bottles and placed one of each pill into her hand. She placed both pills into her mouth at the same time and reached her hand out again. This time, he placed the bottled water into it and told her the top was removed, and she took a long swallow to wash her medicine down. She then held out the water bottle, and he took it from her.

  “Buckle up,” he said.

  She felt for the seatbelt buckle with her eyes still closed and, after some fumbling, was able to fasten herself in. Mercifully, Kyle was silent and drove with no music or talk radio show playing. The quiet gave Lauren time to think.

  While it was true that she and Kyle had been going through a bit of a rough patch lately, times like this were examples of why she loved him. When she had called him and asked him to come and pick her up, she had not thought to ask him to bring her medicine. But he had the foresight to bring it. Furthermore, he didn’t even bring up the fact that her stubborn refusal to take her prescribed medication could possibly have prevented this migraine.

  He simply brought along her medicine and water so she could take it as soon as possible and be that much closer to getting relief. In fact, if she were lucky, her medicine would have numbed her headache so that she could go to sleep as soon as they arrived home. Because no matter what, sleep always seemed to be what she needed to get rid of a migraine.

  “We’re home,” Kyle said softly as he touched her arm.

  Lauren could hear the garage door going down behind them. When it stopped, she opened her eyes. The pain from her headache was definitely muted now. She exited the car and walked into the kitchen.

  “I’m going to bed. Don’t bother waking me up for dinner if I’m still asleep.” She kept walking towards the stairs as she spoke to him.

  “I’ll let you sleep. And wait—” he jogged to the stairs as she paused on the first step, waiting for him as he had asked. He climbed onto the first step beside her. “I hope you feel better.” He bent his head and kissed her on her forehead.

  “Thanks,” she replied and continued up to the bedroom.

  Once in their room, Lauren undressed and got into bed. She was home now and she was ready to get rid of this migraine. Their bedroom was dark and perfectly chilled. Between the crisp sheets and under their light comforter, the bed was very comfortable. Hints of the lavender fabric softener she used still lingered on her pillow.

  She lay there, waiting for sleep to overtake her. Minutes passed. She heard cars drive by on the street. A giggling child out playing and a barking dog passed by. Someone was operating a piece of lawn machinery. All the typical sounds of a beautiful Saturday were within her hearing range. Lauren had no idea how much time had passed, but she didn’t feel any closer to going to sleep than when she first e
ntered the bedroom.

  Normally, her migraine medication would have her drowsy within thirty minutes. And she knew it took at least twenty minutes to drive from the office to their home, so it should have kicked in by now. She heard Kyle in the kitchen using the icemaker on the refrigerator. Another car drove by outside. The person or persons doing lawn work had finished for the day.

  “This is ridiculous.” She took a deep breath and got out of bed. The darkened room was easy on her eyes. However, a dull throb of pain moved like a wave through her head when she opened then. Though the pain was nowhere near as bad as before. She slowly walked over to the dresser, where she had placed the sunglasses she had worn home. She put them on and headed to find Kyle.

  He was sitting in his man cave in front of the TV, watching a football game and eating. He looked up at her as she shuffled into the room.

  “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, how was your nap? Do the sunglasses mean the medicine didn’t work?” he asked as he took a closer look at her.

  She nodded. “How long have I been in bed?” she asked as she walked over to the loveseat that sat at an angle from his theater chairs. After she sat down, she first removed her sunglasses. Then, she took the blanket folded over the sofa’s arm, opened it, and wrapped her head in it to block out as much light as possible.

  “You’ve been asleep for maybe an hour, an hour and a half. Did it not work?”

  “No, the medicine is dulling the pain, but I didn’t go to sleep this time. I just lay there bored and listening to all of the noises outside and in the house.”

  “Oh, sorry if I was too loud; I just assumed you’d go to sleep like you normally do. Is there anything I can do to help?” he used the remote to pause the game, silencing the television.

  “Removing my brain so the pain will stop is the only thing I can think of, but that may not be the best option for me in the long run.” Both she and Kyle chuckled. “I’ll be fine. I just couldn’t lie in the bed any longer.” Lauren pulled her knees to her chest and adjusted the blanket so that it covered her head and her legs now.

  “Let me help you get comfortable,” he said and walked out of the room. He returned with another blanket and instructed her to lie flat on the loveseat. When she did, he wrapped the blanket in his hands around her body and then took the other, folded it, and used it to cover her face.

  “Will it bother you if I finish watching the game? I can watch it on another TV, if you want.”

  “No. I’ll be fine,” her muffled voice traveled through the blanket. “I’d rather lie here with you than be all alone.”

  “Okay. You know, this could be your body’s way of agreeing with me that you’ve been pushing yourself too hard lately.” He started the game again before she could answer him.

  Lauren grunted under the blanket but said nothing. Through her blanket, she heard the noise of the spectators, the shouts from the field, and the voices of the commentators. But she didn’t complain; after all, she had told him he could continue watching it when he had offered to leave.

  She tried to meditate, hoping the sounds would just fade into the background. Then it was silent again. The silence was followed by Kyle saying, “Baby, I think I have just what you need to feel better.”

  “What,” she responded, her voice hopefully audible through the blanket still wrapped around her head.

  “Take a look at the TV,” he replied.

  She exhaled and moved the blanket around such that she would have an opening through which to look. As she stared at the television, the light caused her headache to flare. She quickly closed her eyes and looked away. When the pain dulled, she looked at the television again. She saw a paused scene that looked like some star surrounded by paparazzi. She couldn’t make out who the star was within the crowd.

  “What am I supposed to see that will make me feel better?” she asked.

  “Just watch,” he replied, and the scene began moving again.

  As it moved, the crowd shifted, and the person being hounded was revealed. A voiceover started speaking and confirmed what Lauren was seeing.

  Graham McKenzie, spokesperson for ENL, arrived at the airport today to his usual fanfare. His visit coincides with the discussion of a newly proposed bill by ENL that would form a special oversight organization that would test all new technologies to determine whether they are harmful to humans. ENL is best known for championing the cause of third-world countries, where they feel the poor are either exploited and used as slave labor to build our electronics, or, are harmed when we illegally dump our hazardous e-waste in their countries.

  The voiceover then segued to a clip from a press conference with Graham at the microphone.

  “We aren’t against technological development. Hell, I love my smartphone and tablet, just like everyone else. We’re just fighting to make sure this race to create and own the latest and greatest new gadgets doesn’t come at the expense of the more vulnerable members of the human race.”

  “Seriously, Kyle. That’s what you wanted me to see?” she asked, speaking over the rest of the news segment.

  He paused the television again and started laughing. “What? I thought it would help,” he said.

  “Graham McKenzie and ENL are anti everything that I believe in, and you know it. You know his little group almost shut down my project last year.”

  Little group was her belittling way of referencing the fact that ENL, the Enforcers of Natural Limits, was a multi-hundred-million-dollar organization, with lobbyists and influence in all levels of government. She truly hated them.

  “Come on, baby. It’s a joke. Lighten up,” he said, still laughing.

  “Lighten up. It feels like my brain is trying to force its way out of my head through either my eye sockets or the front of my skull, but I should ‘lighten up’ and laugh at your stupid, not funny joke.”

  Lauren buried her head back into her blanket without waiting for him to stop laughing or to reply. She didn’t know if sleep would find her in Kyle’s man cave, but anger certainly had.

  ***

  Sleep never found Lauren. For the rest of the day, and night, on Saturday she had tried to sleep with no success. Sunday morning, Kyle had found her in her relaxation room, lying on a yoga mat, miserable and wide awake.

  Concerned that this migraine was not responding to her medicine as her previous ones had, he tried to get her to go to the hospital. She had refused, promising to go to her neurologist on Monday if it didn’t get any better. He had reluctantly agreed to wait one more day. When Monday morning dawned and she was still unable to sleep and suffering from the migraine, he had made her call her neurologist and leave a message with his answering service.

  When his receptionist had called her back, she had been told to be there at 9:00 AM. Lauren wanted to get her computer from work on the way to the appointment, so Kyle grudgingly drove her to the office. After going through security, she was in her cubicle packing up her laptop and whatever else she could take from the lab to work on at home. Lucas came to her cubicle just as she was about to leave.

  “How are you this morning, Lauren?” His wide smile and chipper attitude were like a flashlight being shined into her eyes in a dark room.

  She managed to make herself smile in return and answer. “I’m okay, Lucas. You?”

  “I’ll be great if I can go back to the board with good news. Have you managed to make any progress on the microprocessor? Have you come up with a brainstorm that looks promising?”

  His energy was almost assaulting her senses. She wanted to dim the lights and put on earplugs. It felt like she was on the verge of suffering a sensory overload.

  “No. I’m still stuck. I haven’t made any progress since Friday. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Well, you had better come up with something to tell me, because the Board is not just going to accept ‘She’s stuck. It happens.’ There are lots of important people depending on this project to be a success. You were recruited and hired, by me, because I thought yo
u could do this. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  She exhaled loudly. The familiar throb of a migraine was starting in her head. She used two fingers and a thumb to press on the bridge of her nose just between her eyes. Sometimes, this would lessen the brunt of the migraine. Today, it wasn’t helping.

  “Lucas, I can’t talk right now. I haven’t been able to sleep since Saturday, and I have a migraine that will not stop. I’m having trouble staying focused. I have a doctor’s appointment today. When I find out what’s going on—”

  “What do you mean you haven’t been able to sleep?” he interrupted her and grabbed her shoulders. Lauren looked over to the cube next to hers, and Shelia was openly staring at them, soaking in every moment of their interaction. Being a woman in the tech industry was hard. Being a woman of African descent in the tech industry was rare and made it even harder for her to be taken seriously as a designer. So it did nothing to help her when Lucas treated her like this.

  “Do you mean you haven’t been able to sleep, like, at all? You haven’t had a dream since Friday night? Why didn’t you say something to me about this before?”

  She stared at him and knocked his hands away. “I’m telling you now. This is the first work day since it happened.” She turned her back to Lucas and gathered her work bag with the computer and other items she was taking home.

  “I’m on my way to my doctor’s appointment right now. I only stopped by to get my computer so I could maybe work from home,” she continued.

  “Good. Leave now if you need to. In fact, I can call my doctor and see if he can examine you. Are you going to a neurologist or a general practitioner? A neurologist would probably be the best place to start.”

  “I’m seeing a neurologist.” His intrusion was starting to make Lauren angry. “One I’ve seen for years because I have migraines. I’ll be working with my neurologist to fix this.”