Of Chimp Mirth, Fear and Paralysis

One Sunday afternoon, not so many Sundays ago, I noticed that I was having trouble smiling. The left side of my face felt sluggish. Slow. Stiff.  At first my brain responded to this with little more than a “hmm. That is odd. Let’s file it under yet another weird thing my body does from time to time and get on with things, shall we?” As the day progressed though, my mild bemusement gradually turned into something else, something edging a little closer to unease. Still, Sundays being as they are I just got on with things. I ate, I faffed around with the Xbox, I made casual arrangements for sexy times later in the evening. All good mundane Sunday “stuff".

It’s weird how ridiculous that first tattered edge of a life rearranging moment can be. In my case that edge came in the form of a chimp on a bicycle on TV. As all sane people must on observing such a wondrous spectacle my face attempted a full-blown explosion of mouth merriment and … oh shit. On the right side it was business as usual but my left side had barely budged. In place of motion I felt something approaching static: a sullen, creeping buzz in my flesh and a feeling of clammy finger pads caressing from beneath my chin to the back of my ear, like a depraved granny with love on her mind and lube on her fingers. Then the real fear came - the fear you can't file away - the fear that grips your balls, twists and says "Hi. I'll be your emotion now. Would you like some pretzels? Well tough shit".

Feeling my heart pumping in the veins in my neck I rushed to the mirror and watched the left side of my mouth. Nothing. I think I may have managed “ffffffff” but the remainder of my hackneyed cussing fizzled away when I observed that I could barely blink. I tried to raise my eyebrows. The right one shot up on schedule. Lefty sat Spockishly transfixed.

Internal klaxons squalled their squallish alarms as the escaped convicts of my deepest fears crept with murderous intent along the prison rec yard of my consciousness. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Fear coursing through my veins like microwaved onion juice I looked at myself and myself looked back. The right side of my face implored the universe to make this a bad dream, something I could please, please snap out of and be rid of.  The left side of my face regarded my distress aloofly - unblinking, uncaring, unmovable.

The friendly yet alarmingly sympathetic doctor at the ER performed his doctorish doctoring upon my person and hit me with the hard science. “It’s not a stroke”.

"Well that’s good right", my one expressive eye asked up at him. The “yes, but” reflected in his was unmistakeable.

Well that’s enough for day one of my blog. I’m going somewhere with this I promise! I’ll get around to explaining why I choose to begin things with a moment of chimp mirth, fear and paralysis but I like to tell my own story in my own way in my own trousers.

So I shall sign off here. Hmm I need some kind of dramatic flourish for post 1.

I'm Ash Calloway and this ... is my blog.