The Electric Headache

The Electric Headache

The alarm buzzed for a full minute before the sound reached Jonathan Paxton’s ears, his side already smarting from the perturbed elbowing of his wife Barbara.  He obeyed her by turning off the alarm and a different pain—a new pain—surged up through his spine and up through the base of his skull with such unexpected wantonness he let out a gasp he tried desperately to conceal.  Jonathan quickly got of bed, forgoing the customary kiss his wife gave him every morning with little feeling, and rushed to the bathroom.  In the mirror he found nothing unusual: two clear blue eyes stained around the edges by bags he could never rid his face of (no matter how much sleep he got), a nose he could stand, ears he could not (they stuck out too much), and a jaw carved by a delicate feminine hand.  There were no visible causes to the pain, though he had expected none; he had looked for he had still not lost faith in the mirror.  It was technology you could trust.
     Jonathan heard his wife in the other room, rustling in bed, fighting with the cold world outside of it.  The Paxtons did not have heat regulators, for Jonathan found them to be a useless extravagance and in fact enjoyed the chill of morning.  Barbara hated it.  She hated it, and to let her husband know of his cruelty she put on rather staged battles with the cold, tossing and turning under the covers, sighing at what she knew she had to face due to his own silly hatred of technology.  To Barbara, technology was a blessing, a tool, the very thing that kept man from being beasts, but to her husband, it was technology that made man the most beastly of all.
     The battle with the cold continued for a few moments more before the slow shuffle of her own personal death march could be heard, headed toward the bathroom door.  Barbara appeared in the doorway, the sleep hard up in her eyes, the wounds of battle pock marked across her face.  It could easily be said that Barbara was not a morning person.
     “Everything alright?” the words squeaked out of her.  She looked around.  “Another nightmare?”
     Jonathan stared at himself in the mirror, remembering.  The plane began to rock and shake violently while the woman next to him prayed to God in vain.  The plane then began to fall out of the sky and fell thousands of feet before he eventually woke to the sound of the alarm buzzing.  If not a plane it was a car or a machine blew up or a train derailed.  His dreams were always like that, machines had some part in his death and there was nothing he could do about it, as if such brutal deaths were destined by God himself.  And what could one do about God?  Well build a machine to--
     “Yes, Babbs,” Jonathan finally said, “another nightmare.”
     “But you gasped!  Was it really that bad?”
     “No, no.  Just a headache.”
     Suddenly Barbara’s head dropped, and when she raised it back up her eyes were filled with tears.  “Oh,” she said.
     Barbara had always been sensitive.  She was weary of cuts and bruises—no matter how small-but now that age had ruffled through her hair and run its boney fingers over her skin she was downright horrified of such things, with death being the most ominous.  The smallest of cuts could produce a wail so out of proportion with the wound she once roused a whole group of neighbors from their holes with a blood curdling wail that resulted from a hangnail observed dangling from her husband’s toe.
     A headache was a possible tumor, a bit of indigestion always a heart attack.
     The machines in the walls pumped out BEACH FRONT and the watering in her eyes gave way to a daydream.
     “Oh?” Barbara’s eyes searched around the room, her pupils two small dots in the center of her eyes.  She struggled for a moment as if she were looking for the answer.  She found it.  “Well remember to take two.”
     The faucet grew loud then and Jonathan realized it had been running all this time.  Barbara had so captured his attention he forgot all about it.  Bending down he washed his face and looked back up into the mirror only to find that Barbara had gone.  He was worried about her, due to her inexplicable fear of life.  Her mention of the pills was only proof of that.  Far too many people expected to find an easy fix in a little pill, and did so with a trust that was entirely unwarranted.  Those pills were machines in their own right that installed in you things you didn’t want.
     He wasn’t going to be taking no two.
     With a sigh Jonathan combed his hair, cleaned his teeth, and dressed before Barbara appeared in the doorway again.  She looked at him and frowned.  “I don’t see why you insist on such things.  A real waste of energy if you ask me.”
     “I didn’t ask,” Jonathan said coldly.  “Are we to let machines do everything for us?”
     “If it makes life easier, then why not?”
     “A man should tie his own shoes.”
     “Speaking of ties, don’t forget yours.  You always forget now that I got you those new ones.  They’re nicer anyway,” Barbara said, leaving the doorway.
     Jonathan did not forget his tie, which tied itself around his collar faster and more expertly than he could have done, much to his chagrin.  After switching his tie for one of his old self-tie ones, the smell of bacon and eggs floated through the air up from below, the slight sizzling of their cooking in accompaniment.

Jonathan and Barbara ate breakfast at the old wooden table that had been in the Paxton family for generations.  It was a point of contention between the two because it could not clear itself of dirty dishes like newer models.  Barbara hated the Paxton family table, and would always bring up the subject, and Jonathan would always stare at her in an effort to prevent her from doing so (though it rarely, if ever, worked).  He did so now as he ate the same eggs and bacon he ate every morning without relish.
     “Did you take two?”  Barbara asked.
     “Yes,” Jonathan lied.
     “And?”
     “And I am feeling much better,” he lied again, “thank you.”
     Barbara eyed him suspiciously, wiping the remains of egg from her mouth daintily.  Jonathan could tell she was thinking, was inspecting him for any noticeable sign of hurt, disease, and in turn, death.
     “That’s an old tie,” Barbara said.  “Something wrong with the new ones?”
     “Yes, they require no work.  What’s next?  Machines that eat for you?  It’s bad enough with those machines in the walls.  I won’t put up with clothes doing the dressing for me,” Jonathan said indignantly.
     Barbara stared at her food for a moment, then:  “What’s wrong with the machines?”
     “They affect you.  They change your mood.  The worst part is you don’t even notice it.”
     “Is that not their purpose?  You used to like them too.  They used to affect you too before—“
     Jonathan slammed his fork down on his plate.  “I don’t want to hear it.  I’ve got enough to deal with with this damn head—“ it had slipped out; may as well finish it, “ache.”
     Barbara looked up at him, and without a word cleared the table.  She didn’t even complain about having to do needless work.  She passed him cold, and left the room freezing.  The machines in the walls pumped out GREEN FOREST and Jonathan cursed them before leaving the home with a slam of the door.

The weeks came and went, and Jonathan Paxton’s headache dissipated only to make a galloping return, twice as painful as before.  He ignored the pains the best he could (for Bab’s sake), but he could only bear so much and feared the pain was beginning to show and that Barbara would suspect him.  This would be bad, as she would not leave him alone then, and possibly make his condition worse with constant probing.  It was all nonsense really, as it was just a headache—a simple headache—an electric headache, brought on and perpetuated by too much technology.  Jonathan knew the pills would not remedy it, only less technology would, and that was something Barbara would not have. 
     Jonathan waited for the headache to pass, as a ship does the storm, but the headache persisted.  The pounding in his head demanded his attention and often he had looked up just in time to see that Babbs was talking to him—or even worse—his boss was staring at him, waiting for a response to a question he had already missed with all the pounding.  His nightmares also worsened, which he in turn met with an ever growing hatred of machines.  He cursed his car; he refused to speak over the phone, and did his best to avoid technology all together.  Though this of course, was quite impossible.
     Jonathan Paxton came home from work one particular day of pain and lack of cooperation on the part of any machine he touched with a notion to rid himself of machines altogether.  He thought of empty stretches of land, of wood, of places where men had not yet invaded, and felt the ease come over him.  His face brightened briefly with a smile, but as he climbed out of his car the pain darkened his face and his mouth twisted into a frown.  He got caught up in the seat belt, and in an effort to escape he wrenched his back stepping out onto the pavement, the resulting pain shooting up through his spine like a bolt of electricity and rested there up in his already pained skull.  Crying out he turned and kicked the car as the door closed itself, trapping his tie.  He bent at the waist and yanked upward, unsuccessful until his tie tore through the middle.
     With a sigh he made his way to the house, the pain reverberating out through his head with each step.  He shielded his eyes from the orange glow behind the home, and straightened up on the porch, well prepared to act fine when he opened the door.  The door swung open, and Babbs was not there waiting to inspect him as he had expected.  Jonathan could hear her, her voice coming from the depths of the house.
     Barbara was on the phone.
     “—it’s just that I don’t’ have the heart to. . .  I know I should, I just—“ she stopped upon hearing the door close, and then: “I’ll—I’ll call you back—later.  I’ll speak with you later.  A—alright then. . .  Buh-bye.”
     The silence was loud, and Jonathan stood waiting, listening over the beating of his head.  The machines in the walls pumped out SPRING TIME and he heard Babbs sigh.
     “Jon?” she called.  “Jonathan?”
     “Yes,” Jonathan replied upon entering the room.  Babbs was sitting on the couch, her hair down, her slippers on, her breast concealed by a fluffy robe she pulled in close.  It was apparent to him that she had not gone out all day, and her eyes were puffy from crying.  Her face was sour, as if she had just encountered a foul smell in the room.
     “Why didn’t you answer me the first time?” her voice was quivering, and she seemed quite worried by this, more than any one person should be.  “You—you okay?”
     “Sure,” Jonathan winced.  He rubbed his head and smiled at her, though the very act pained him.
     “You are not.”  Barbara’s eyes watered, her chin trembling in an effort to force the tears out.  “Your head still hurts,” she sobbed.
     “I did not answer the first time,” Jonathan said, rather annoyed, “because I wanted to hear what you were saying about me.”
     Babbs ignored his statement, the accusation lost under a greater importance: the need to feel safe and immortal.  “So you’re okay?”
     Jonathan shook his head.  “No, don’t change the subject.  You were talking about me.  Gossiping with Kelly Peterson again?”
     Babbs frowned, “I was speaking with Kelly, yes.  I was thinking we could have dinner tomorrow.”
     “You think we could, or Kelly does?”  the question was more of an attack than an inquiry.  “That woman gets an idea in her head and she brings along any ole fool who will listen.  So is that it?  Are you the fool?”
     Barbara’s chin began to quiver again, but she caught herself with a deep breath.  She gulped courage.  Jonathan remembered the machines in the walls, probably working full time now to keep Babbs content and medicated.  “Kelly and I think it is a good idea,” she said.  “We haven’t seen each other for so long and the Petersons practically live down the street. . . and you could use a break.”
     She looked up at him as a child looks up at a parent when they are asking for something they know they cannot have.  The pain in Jonathan’s head was unbearable—even the electric light hurt, and he was having trouble not showing.
     “You know damn well why we have not seen them for so long.  That house of theirs is a real zoo!”
     “It is not, it’s nice—“
     “Gadgets here and there,” Jonathan said with a wave of his hand.  “Flip a switch and one room expands twice its original size—flip another and the damn toilets flush.”
     “Thanks to that house Kelly doesn’t have to work needlessly all—“
     “Thanks to that house Kelly is a spoiled brat.  She’s lucky they haven’t figured out a machine that pushes all the buttons or flips all the switches of other machines or she’d be completely useless,” Jonathan blurted out, the pain pounding with his anger.
     “Jonathan. . . “ the tears started pouring down Barbara’s face.
     “What is this really about?”

mazda
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