Because you think you just might die. And because—if you’re being honest—you want the lies. Of course you need the answers, too, but just the ones that let you live. Omission’s the name of the game: ignorance, bliss. This is The-Good-News-Only Club, you say. Three of them huddle around the glow of a laptop while you sit across the table waiting for whatever’s coming. You yell, The-Nothing-to-Worry-About Party! You tell them to solely relay best-case scenarios. It’s the hypochondriac’s contract. On the imaginary dotted line, they sign.
You make them search chronic cough and they hack up postnasal drip due to seasonal allergies. They hide lung cancer and congestive heart failure, you’re sure of it. You respect the deception. Friends go behind your back to have yours.
A spreading, itching rash? you ask.
Contact dermatitis. Relax. There’s a cream, a cure.
The seeking is itself a panacea, the internet a balm. You don’t care if they tell you this news is only a placebo. Feed me sugar pills, you silently hunger. Spoon it to me sweetly, you yearn. Make my medicine go down, down, down.
You tell them to look up slight tremor in hands.
A subtle dip in glucose levels, they console. Eat something. It’s not what you think.
They start to add to the subtractions, take poetic license. Excessive sweating becomes a minor hex, a spell so small a simple incantation will reverse the curse. Be grateful witches care enough to do such things to you. Think of it as harmless flirting. Everything’s benign.
They stretch more and more.
When they get results for stiff neck, they say slept in an awkward position—but maybe also bed gnomes looking for mischief, pulling on your head while you dream. Place a bowl of beef broth under the mattress and they’ll leave within the week. They should be more scared of you than you are of them.
This gossip spreads like real infection, gets deeper into your bones and brain. You crave the stories as much as the remedies. Heartburn, headaches, cramps, fatigue—all of them magic, miracles. A clicking knee is as quaint and wondrous as ancient myth. As distant, too.
One more, you beg. Strange things happen beyond the strange. Some answers get bent so far they start to sound much more like truth.
They type in blurry vision while driving at night and the clacking keys stop. All three hold your gaze without looking back at the screen. They tell you initial symptom of Hypervision Syndrome. Not to fret. The cloudiness is temporary. Better perception will return within days stronger than ever—so strong, you’ll see into the future with 20/20 foresight. And in that future will be you, never-ending, eternal. But if you happen to die in some unseen scene, the one and only worst-case scenario is this: you’ll die a death devoid of pain. You’ll never know what hit you. But if you do somehow see the impossible coming, you’ll feel nothing save for all the sensations you ever wanted when you were here, before that instant. And in that moment, you’ll need nothing from us or of the world. All walls between will crumble and you’ll see there were never any walls to begin with. You’ll see you’ve been gifted perfect hindsight, too. You’ll be self-actualized and one with the oneness of being that your birth and death will merge into a single event. That your final breath is also your first. That it is all energy that cannot be destroyed. That it was all a game in the best sense of the word. That it was all play. A pure dance. A circle with no beginning nor end. You’ll see timelessness was needed to let eternity exist. There’ll be only the realization that everything was always the way it was and happened how it should. That we were all meant to do exactly as we did. That your myopia was a flaw in perspective. That we were always forgiven because we were never to blame. You’ll die a rapturous death of joy—if you can even still call it death. There will be no fear since fear can only live in the absence of love. And there is only love. Was ever only love. Will ever only be love. There was never even an absence for fear to take root. There is nothing but the ever-present now, a now filled only with love—forever.
Your friends ask if that’s what you want to hear. You feel a wave of new symptoms coming on: palpitations, dizziness, euphoria. You’re nearly speechless. Yes, you somehow manage to mumble. Yes, oh yes. Endorphins release, wash over—an ecstatic vertigo. You find yourself fetal and rocking on the floor. Thank you, you utter as if in prayer. You’re flooded and murmuring, so joyously alive. Nothing’s ever wrong. Everything’s just right. You can barely breathe in the newfound safety. You’re comforted, loved. You finally feel held.
It squeezes tightly, this holding—so tight that for a moment, but long enough, you think you just might die.