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Diagnosis Unknown
Michael slowly caught his breath, and was able to stand up when the doorbell rang. He straightened out his clothes and fixed up the rest of himself and opened the door to see his good friend Erin.
"Hey," he greeted with a small smile.
"Hi Mike!" she replied enthusiastically. He couldn't look at her smile.
"So you're going back to school now, huh?"
"Uh-huh. That's why I came over this morning. I wanted to give you more of these before I leave." She presented him with a small box. Michael stared at it dumbly.
"Take it. Open it!"
Erin placed the box right in his hands. He almost dropped it. She rolled her eyes.
"I'm going to be late if I don't go, so I'm just going to tell you that I made more cookies for you. I hope you like them."
"Th-thanks... I... ah... uhh..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
She giggled. "Well, bye. I'll see you in a few weeks!" Erin walked back out the door.
"Bye..." Mike muttered well after her departure.
Over the next few days after her visit, the thought of Erin drifted in and out of Michael's mind, along with dizziness and a weakness of his limbs. Some days his stomach felt funny. One day it was so intense he felt like he could vomit, so -in spite of his usually large ego- he visited the hospital. The doctor listened intently and took note of the problems Michael was telling him about.
"Hm.... Do you work anywhere that has a reputation of employees quitting because of health risks?
"No." He thought about his boss screeching at him and all his other co-workers for doing this or that, but he didn't mention it to the doctor.
"Is there any place where you think you might be exposed to toxic chemicals or substances?"
"No..."
"You don't sound very certain."
After taking a moment to think, he said, "I'm positive there aren't."
"All right...has anyone given you home made food, such as chocolate, cake, or cookies? Were you given any drinks with an open top, where someone could have put something inside it?"
"No..." He felt as if he were forgetting something.
The doctor scratched his head and glanced over his notes. "Well, from your condition -what I can tell from the headaches and joint weakness- it sounds like heavy metal poisoning." He looked up at his patient. "We can do a test for that, if you would like, because you could be getting poisoned without your knowing."
He nodded. "If it will help."
The doctor took a small sample of Michael's hair and explained that the testing will take a few days. "In the mean time," he warned, "do not consume anything that you receive from anyone, and be cautious of your surroundings."
Michael returned home, feeling more paranoid than cautious. He spent his days off of work reading, trying to calm his anxiety of not knowing the result of the heavy metals test.
He reached toward the table next to his chair and pulled a cookie out of the box. He set it down again, remembering the doctor's words. He reclined in his chair and rubbed his temples. His life, he felt, was screeching to a halt- he never went out with friends for fear that one of them was the cause of his illness.
He didn't know just how right he was.
~~~*~~~`,
Three days later, Michael sat in the doctor's office feeling nervous and sweating uncontrollably. He was terrified of the worst and wished the doctor would hurry back with the results.
Just then the doctor came in. Michael's muscles refused to release their grip on the edge of the examination table.
"Well," sighed the doctor, "no poisons have been detected.
Michael heaved a loud sigh of relief. "What else could it be, then?"
"Hm... has anything happened recently that might have caused you stress?"
"Erm... my friend left..."
This caught the doctor's attention. He mentally reviewed his patient's symptoms. "Tell me about your friend."
"Well, her name's Erin. She's been my best friend since high school... she's away at collage right now, and I miss her. Uh...she has brown hair and blue eyes..."
The doctor listened intently and watched his face closely, taking note of the subtle changes in expression. As he did so, his suspicions were being proven true. He determined Michael's diagnosis long before he was done.
"Michael, I think I've figured out what's wrong. But you see, modern medicine hasn't yet found a cure, so there is nothing I can do about it."
His face lost all color. "S-so... am I gonna...?"
The doctor shook his head, smiling. "No. After much deliberation, I have decided... that you are in love."
Michael's jaw dropped to the ground. He nearly fainted. It all made sense now-the dizziness and queasiness when he thought of her; the inability to talk to her.
He was in love with his best friend Erin. The thought made him giggle like a little girl, but that didn't matter.
He felt the day belonged to him.
"What a day this has been,
what a rare mood I'm in;
Why it's almost like being in love!"
-Almost Like Being in Love
by Frank Sinatra.
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