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'Silver Days' by 'ruggles'

When I was little, before they'd actually found out my brain was a jimmy-rigged, abnormal wonder of misfiring neurons rather than the lovely normal type brain most folk have, I had, what I had known, as silver days.

I'd be walking down to the corner and suddenly feel all funny, almost as if I were in a dream. All things around me would go silvery.

You know how it looks before a really bad thunderstorm? Where the ground and the sky almost become one in the grayness as the last bit of sunlight is hidden by the clouds? That's what my silver days are like.

Once I recognized the silver, I'd be floating, despite the fact that my feet were firmly on the gum-ridden ground. I could walk, talk, and play, but in my head my own voice played in slow-motion.

When I was six and felt this, I decided it was one of two things. I was either a complete fucking weirdo or everyone had silver days and it was no big deal.

So I never mentioned it, fearing the former.

What I surmised as I got older, and the silver days persisted, was that they were my first forays into my 'spazmod-esque'-like powers (epilepsy).

What I also realized, once I'd (allegedly) grown up, was that my nightmares were also indicators of my seizure induced furies.

I can remember so many nights where I screamed and screamed for my parents to come save me, but they never seemed to answer the call. What I hadn't realized then, was that it was in fact a seizure. The reason they never came was because while I could hear myself screaming, all the outside world would discern was tiny little whimpers. Barely audible above the din of the television and whir of the fans. By the time I'd woken properly the next day I'd forgotten all about it (so I surmise) and was far too occupied with torturing my brothers and running from the nuns to bother anyone about my nightmares.

My earliest memory is of a recurring nightmare that I had when I was three years old or so. I can still see Manson standing in his crib as I crawled into my 'funny bed' (thusly named because I remember it having a roof--to a three year old it was funny). Thing was, we lived near a firehouse (hmm, firehouse, I wonder did I ogle the firemen back then??), and not just any firehouse, one of the busiest firehouses on the island. It was their sirens, I think, that set off my (assumed) seizures/nightmares.

The 'Evil Mike Nesmith-hatted Red-bearded Leprechauns in Matching Red Long-Underwear Aliens Nightmare'

Hey. I was three, what do you expect?? I couldn't very well have nightmares about Dracula or nuclear waste. It was that or Cookie Monster. And Cookie Monster always seemed to be a mush and I rather liked him. So the 'Evil Mike Nesmith-hatted Red-bearded Leprechauns in Matching Red Long-Underwear Aliens' it was. Bite me.

First I'd hear the sirens. My eyes would jerk open, and I'd see the lights from the sirens dancing in my window. Except instead of edging away as the Suspendered Flame Destroyers went off to fight yet another conflagration, the lights got closer and closer. And nightmarishly closer til I saw the spaceship.

Again, I was three--and, you know, on thinking, that was a pretty clever dream for someone who'd only just mastered The Art of Toilet Training. So, really, you can't say boo.

Now to my three year old mind, this was what happened. The 'Evil Mike Nesmith-hatted Red-bearded Leprechauns in Matching Red Long-Underwear Aliens' came into my room, lifted me out of bed (never took Manson, the bastards) and kidnapped me. They'd pop me onto a table and they'd, they'd, god I can't say it.

Fine. They tickled me to death. That was it.

But when you're three years old being tickled to death by 'Evil Mike Nesmith-hatted Red-bearded Leprechauns in Matching Red Long-Underwear Aliens' is, I am sorry to say, not a happy memory.

{And, on thinking, I do not think it would be any better a memory now, thanks so much}

In fact, it is right in the top three of bad childhood memories. Number one being diaper rash. Number two being when Nana pops her teeth out. Number three being tickled to death by 'Evil Mike Nesmith-hatted Red-bearded Leprechauns in Matching red Long-Underwear Aliens'. True.

I rather think that the 'tickling' was actually the pins and needles I feel in my side just before a fit. Since a three year old doesn't quite know about 'pins and needles' I'm assuming tickling is a near-ish substitute.

The technical term for what I have is 'Nocturnal Dystonic Posturing'. A form of epilepsy. Why they call it nocturnal I'll never know, as they happen during the day as well. When they happen at night, though, I have the Grand Mal Seizures.

And those? Ah, those are no cakewalk, rest assured.

I wake suddenly and instantaneously know what's going to happen. Because the Bells of St. Mary are ringing in my head, louder and louder, until the din is the only thing I can hear. Other than my futile screams for help, again the barely audible whimper to the outside world. My left side is spazzing, seemingly radiating from a point just above my left hip where the spasms are the strongest, which I assume is just the biggest muscle affected and therefore the strength of the spazzing is felt there the most. Then my entire left sides gone pins and needles.

As you near the point of spasmodic reckoning, you sort of stand on the outside looking in. It's as if you leave your body for a moment and watch helplessly as the shell that was you casts off its energy in a furor of twists and turns that any contortionist would be proud of.

While the ringing bells grow louder an odd thing happens. It's rather akin to your life flashing before your eyes and then you have one quick brief moment of clarity. One moment to remember it all, as you are certain that within moments you WILL die.

Sometimes you wish you would.

It's that moment of clarity that's perplexing. For in that moment, you've got all the answers. You know the whys, the wheres, the hows. It's one tiny moment of peace inside a thrashing, tongue-gnashing neurological nightmare.

Then your eyes open wide with fear, because you know the next step is the lulu.

You forget everything you had in that blessed moment of clarity.

Something snaps.

And then there's darkness.

It's the darkness I fear the most.