After bill dropped off Bernard, he went home to shower. He poured himself a glass of wine, after showering.  It was a cabornet 1962, his favorite.  At the touch of a button, he had Miles Davis playing and his mind free of the things going on around him.  Bill just lay there looking at his trophy shelf.  He looked reluctantly at his MVP basketball trophy.  “ Some MVP I am” he thought,  “Arnie crushed me and Terry backed me down”.

He decided to look away from his basketball trophy and over at his bowling trophy.  “Now that’s a trophy that I can be proud of,” he thought.

Then it happened.  Without warning.  Bill was now looking at a bookshelf he did not recognize in a house that he did not recognize. He could no longer hear the Miles Davis music playing.  Just silence. As he looked around the room, he detected movement out of the corner of his eye.  As he turned, he saw a blur that looked like a gloved fist.  His vision quickly blurred.  When his vision returned to normal, he was looking up at the ceiling.  To his right he saw the face of a man, a stranger that he did not know, but somehow recognized.  This man was holding a baseball bat above his shoulders. He swung it viciously in the direction of Bill’s torso.  With each swing, Bill’s vision blurred slightly then returned to normal.  Then the man took a last swing a Bill’s head and bat came close and then moved away, Bill’s vision faded to black.  Bill tried to get his bearings but there was only black everywhere he looked.  The darkness seemed to last for days. Then a light, a bright light, all at once.  As he focused he could see that it was sunshine coming in through a window. He could see it clearly on his left side but his right side only let in a slight glimmer of light. As he looked around the room, he realized that he was still on the floor.  He thought about the face of the man with the baseball bat.  Somehow he recognized that face.  Undoubtedly, it was a face he had never seen before, yet it seemed so familiar.

Without warning, miles Davis was again blasting.  The horn was unbelievable he thought.  Then the pain.  He tried to move his head and his head felt like it had been run over by a large truck.  His ribcage felt like it was on fire and he couldn’t breath that well.  His right hand felt as though it had been broken.  His right index finger felt like.”Ohhh ohhh”. He moaned.  Like it had been cut off” He looked at his finger. It was still there but it felt like it was gone and oh how it throbbed with almost unbearable pain. He could see and move is his finger but he felt that it wasn’t there. Between his fingers it felt wet and sticky.  He had a salty bloodlike taste in his mouth. 

He was able to get to his feet, but he was in misery.  He could barely walk.  His right eye felt tight and swollen.  He made his way to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and both eyes looked normal.  The pain was starting to make him nauseous and felt as he was though he had to hurl. The Miles Davis music seem to be getting louder and louder.  As he got down on his knees with his face over the throne, he could feel the onset of the heaves, where his stomach would try to turn itself inside out. The first heave came with unbelievable intensity.    No fluid came out of his mouth, but the strain on stomach and head made Bill feel, as the though next heave would cause him to pass out. He could feel the next one growing.  He tried to brace himself.  He thought” I can do this…I can do this…ahhhhh I can’t do this. He felt it growing and growing.  Then it stopped.  The pain was gone.  His hand, his finger, his head, his breathing, and his eye had all returned to normal.  He felt fine physically, but mentally he was exhausted.  He removed his face from the throne went back into the living room turned off the Miles Davis. He sat down on the couch and tried to figure out what was happening to his once happy life.