I’ve taken no painkillers this morning. No Lortab, no Soma, no caffeine, no Ibuprofen — nothing, not since I popped my last Lortab around midnight.

It hurts a lot.

“It” in this case is more of a hive-minded “them” — my shoulder, my neck, my head, my arm, and my back. It hurt enough that I got drowsy and went back to sleep, where I remained for almost two hours. Now that I’m awake, I can feel “tracks” radiating out from the tip of my shoulder, indicating exactly where the injury originated, and where the outward rippling displaced, tweaked, sprained, strained, jarred, bruised, and/or otherwise “adjusted” the state of nearby bits.

I know this is largely illusion. There are no tracks. This is not the thumbprint of a giant, and the CSI team is not going to be able to use this information to reconstruct the grille of the truck that hit me. This is just pain receptors announcing that signals are coming in five by five.

The doctor is going to get an accurate answer to the “how do you feel?” question, which is what I want to provide, and that’s why I’ve been off meds for almost 12 hours now.

The instructions he provides following diagnosis will almost certainly include “start taking your painkillers again, you idiot,” and I will enthusiastically comply.

–Howard