*****
All this seemed to flash before me in an instant but it turned out to have been seven hours.
It all begged the fucking obvious question, why had I just run away and abandoned my family? If it was all so wonderful, why had I left? I stood up, determined to go straight back to the b&b, phone Carla and ask for her forgiveness and help, in that order.
Only I didn't stand up.
Because I couldn't.
I rose only slightly and fell heavily, knocking over the table and hitting my head on the floor.
And it wasn't just the alcohol.
I had been sat in the pub for seven hours drinking Guinness (and, I found out later, several brandies), all the time being almost totally unaware of my surroundings. So overwhelmed by these memories was I that I didn't realise what was happening until it was too late.
The warning signs were there. Had I been at home and everything else normal I would have noticed. The dizziness, headaches, the numb feeling in my limbs. My body had been screaming at me for days. Perhaps that's why I ran away. I thought I was going to die and I didn't want to do it in front of my family.
Or perhaps that is just my post hoc justification for my appalling actions.
I'm not sure that anybody else had ever had a stroke in such circumstances, but that's what happened to me.
Brian: Mental Book 1 Page 11