Chapter One Humps #4
‘No, no. I’m okay,’ I insist, trying to sit up.
Jack attempts to hold me down for a moment, but I can feel the strength returning to my body now. I manage to successfully push against him, and sit up against the back of the seats.
‘Charlie, are you okay?’ Annie says, and I can see tears in her eyes. That won’t do at all. I reach out and take her hand. It feels freezing cold.
‘Yes, I’m okay,’ I try to reassure her. ‘I don’t know what that was, but I think I’m coming out of it now.’
What that was is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.
I genuinely thought I was dying.
What the hell happened?
‘Don’t try to move too much,’ Jack insists. ‘You might be feeling better, but I still want the paramedics to give you a once-over.’
I don’t argue. I know that tone.
At least the kids won’t have to watch me stretchered out – I don’t think.
Speaking of whom, they are all crowded around me with their parents. How deeply humiliating. Is this going to ruin their memories of the party? Is this all they’re going to think about after it’s over? Oh God, no.
With them stands Maurice, now in his regular clothes, along with the two T-Rexes, who are leaning over me in quite a disconcerting manner. I now have a strong inkling what it must have felt like to be a small, plump, tasty dinosaur from the Jurassic era.
I lift a hand that still shakes a little a bit. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, I’m perfectly okay. Just had a tumble on the slippery floor, I think.’
That still sounds highly embarrassing, but not quite as strange or terrifying.
‘Can you help me sit up on the seat properly?’ I ask Annie and Jack, who dutifully help me up into a position that looks a little less stricken.
Annie is still pale of face and cold of hand, but she looks a little less distressed now, thank goodness. I really hope this isn’t going to put her off me!
I don’t know how long I was unconscious for, but ‘My Humps’ by the Black Eyed Peas is still playing over the sound system, so it can’t have been that long.
‘Can I have a drink?’ I ask.
‘I’ll get it,’ Leo says, who I now notice is standing just behind me. If anything, he looks more distressed than my girlfriend.
I spend a few minutes continuing to reassure everyone that I am, in fact, okay and not about to die. I am terrified this weird episode is going to ruin everyone’s experience, so the more assurances I can give that I’m okay, the better.
By the time the paramedics arrive, I think I’ve even managed to convince myself.
But as one of them slips a blood pressure monitor on my arm, I can’t help but think back to that hideous feeling of doom, and the edges of my vision turning black.
There’s something very wrong with me, I just know it.
I confess as much to the paramedic quietly, so Annie doesn’t hear.
He gives me a sympathetic look and shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so, Mr King. All of your vital signs appear to be normal. I’m not detecting anything out of the ordinary anywhere. We’ll stay with you for a while longer, but I think you’re going to be okay.’
I want to be relieved by this, but how can he think that after what happened?
‘It felt pretty serious while it was happening,’ I counter. ‘Never had anything like that happen to me before.’
‘No, I’m sure. Serious panic attacks are rare, but when they happen, they feel like the worst thing in the world.’
I blink a couple of times in surprise. ‘A panic attack?’
‘Yeah, most probably. All your symptoms indicate that. It’s rare for someone to faint during one, but it does happen, if it’s bad enough.’
‘But I’m not panicked about anything.’
And that’s the truth. I’m not. In fact, I was feeling the best I have all week, knowing Teddy’s birthday party had gone off without a hitch.
I knew I was losing to Jack at bowling, so I certainly wasn’t panicked about that.
Everything has been perfectly under control.
Perfectly okay. It’s been perfect . . . aside from the dinochickens.
The paramedic shrugs. ‘Our minds don’t always work the way we want them to. Try not to worry about it, though. These things happen, and you don’t seem to have suffered any ill effects. How are you feeling now?’
My turn to shrug. ‘I’m fine,’ I tell him. And again, I’m telling the truth. Physically I feel perfectly alright.
Mentally, though – that’s a different story. He may be able to convincingly tell me there’s nothing to worry about, but that sense of overwhelming doom just will not leave me.
Why the hell did this happen? And if my body is fine, then what’s going on in my head?
By the time my friendly paramedic and his colleague are done with me, most of the children and their parents have left the party.
Even Teddy has been taken away by Annie’s sister.
This leaves just me, Annie, my two best friends and Jack’s son with me as I climb to my feet, and am happy to see that my legs hold me up just fine.
‘Well . . . that was weird,’ I say, underplaying it for all I’m worth.
‘Yes, it was,’ Annie concurs. ‘You should go home so you can rest.’
I start to put up an argument – and then stop, because I really don’t have one. I do feel exhausted. I would do after all of today’s organisation anyway, but with the panic attack piled on top, I would like to sleep for a couple of centuries.
The fact I have a 6.30 start tomorrow morning proves that Annie’s idea is a very good one.
An evening of rest and relaxation is the best thing for me right now, before getting back into my hectic lifestyle tomorrow.
I guess that massage will have to wait, though.
I can’t tell you how deeply disappointed I am by that.
I manage a semi-hearty goodbye to both Jack and Leo. I don’t want them going home worrying about me. It’s a little hard to fake the cheeriness I most certainly don’t feel, but this kind of thing comes quite naturally to me most of the time, so I think I get away with it.
They still both have concerned looks on their faces as they leave the bowling alley, though.
By the time Annie and I get to her Clio, my legs have gone a little shaky again, and I have to confess I fall asleep in the car on the twenty-minute drive back to my apartment. I’m pretty ashamed of that, but there’s nothing I could have done about it.
Annie seems reluctant to leave me on my own when she drops me off, but I’m fine with it. I don’t want her to see me in this vulnerable state, if I’m honest. Better she pops off home, and lets me sleep it off. I truly, truly hope this episode doesn’t put her off me in any way.
The kiss she gives me at my door before she leaves seems to indicate that it hasn’t, which is something of a relief.
I try my hardest to get some rest and relaxation during the evening, but it is tempered by flashbacks to the panic attack that I can’t stop thinking about.
Why?
Why did that happen to me?
I am worried. I can’t deny it. I guess I have to take the paramedic’s word for it when he told me I haven’t got anything seriously wrong with me, but that doesn’t in any way explain such a visceral and strange occurrence.
My sleep that night is far more fitful than I’d like.
Not least because I have ‘My bloody Humps’ by the Black Eyed Peas stuck in my head as I look up at the darkened ceiling of my bedroom, trying to fathom the events of the day.
The only way I manage to get off to sleep is by repeatedly convincing myself that it was just a one-off incident. I should treat it as such, and try and move on from it.
But what if it happens again? At work this time? What the hell do I do then?
The idea of not being in full control of my own body fills me with an existential dread that means that when 6.30 comes tomorrow morning, it will be a fitful and anxious Charlie King that greets it.
What the hell is going on?