Character Sketch #1

"Radleigh Collins?"

Rad stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. He gave the receptionist his award winning smile, and she blushed. "That would be me."

"The nurse will see you now," she said with a smile, her eyes never leaving his. "Right through those doors."

Rad gave her a wink before walking in the direction she pointed to. It led him to a small office with a patient bed and two chairs. In the corner was a bare desk. He took a seat in one of the chairs and waited for the nurse to come in. He thought about what he was about to do and let out a long swear.

As he surfaced to consciousness he was vaguely aware of the sound of a dog whimpering and scratching at the front door. He opened one eye groggily and tried to focus on what he was looking at. It was a dark blue surface. He blinked and waited for his vision to clear up. Still dark blue. He closed his eyes and flopped over onto his back and waited for the rest of his senses to kick in. He could feel a headache building up behind his left eye and his nose detected the smell of something burning.

His stomach growled. God he was hungry.

He opened his eyes again. Now he was seeing something off-white. He dragged his arm up and reached for this off-white surface and caught nothing but air.

The dog was still whimpering and scratching at the door. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyelids and tried to sit up.

He was on a couch. A dark blue beat up old couch. He started laughing as he looked around at his surroundings and recognized the off-white walls of his apartment. The sound of the dog whimpering caught his attention again and he frowned. He couldn't remember whether or not he always had a dog.

His stomach growled again and he absently put his hand to it and that's when he realized he was shirtless. Shirtless and hungry. He figured he'd tackle the "hungry" part first. Before he knew it, he was pushing the duvet off his legs and onto the floor. He swung his legs over the edge of the couch and stood up shakily. He tried walking around but he felt like he was walking on clouds, the floor was so soft. Like a cloud. He wondered if he was dead and in heaven. No, that's silly, people didn't get hungry in heaven. Besides, heaven couldn't be the exact replica of his apartment. Because that would suck. But the floor was so soft. He sighed and sprawled on the cloud that was on the floor. He closed his eyes and drifted off.

"Mr. Collins?" The nurse walked in, holding a chart in her hand. She was tall and lanky, with short dark hair that was streaked with silver. Rad stood up and grinned. She smiled back, and the corners of her eyes creased in their familiar laugh lines. "Here you go dear." She handed him a paper cup. "Bathroom is right through there." He thanked her and was about to turn around when she stopped him. "Oh, one moment." She disappeared momentarily and returned with another male wearing the same green scrubs she was. "This is John, he's also a nurse here. We just have to pat you down, its standard procedure."

Rad smiled. "Of course. You never know these days, its crazy." He held his arms out and stood with his legs shoulder length apart. He held his breath as the male nurse quickly patted his arms and abdomen, then his legs. 

"Alright Mr. Collins, all clear. When you're done just leave the cup on the table in the bathroom dear." He nodded and flashed another grin before heading to the bathroom.

He awoke to the sound of his cell phone ringing and the noise was loud and too high pitched. He rolled over and groaned, covering his ears. He looked around and wondered what the hell he was doing on the floor, sleeping on top of his duvet when the couch was less than a foot away from him.

The phone stopped ringing and he put his head back down and closed his eyes, trying to get his train of thought going. His throat was dry, he had a headache the size of Texas, and his stomach was growling. The cell phone beeped once, telling him he had a voicemail, and he was suddenly aware of someone watching him from the doorway.

He craned his neck up and looked. It was his room mate, Kaz, and he was leaning against the door post of the kitchen, chewing thoughtfully, a sandwich in his hand.

"Rise and shine sleeping beauty," Kaz said dryly as he walked over and plopped himself onto the couch, peering down into his face. When he didn't answer, Kaz gave him a slight nudge in the ribs with a socked foot. "Yo. Rad."

Rad frowned. "Time is it?"

"Two in the afternoon."

Rad cursed and opened his eyes, eyeing Kaz's sandwich. "Is that peanut butter?"

"Yeah."

Rad held his hand out for the sandwich, and Kaz took another bite before handing it to him.

"I found a dog this morning," Kaz said as he brushed crumbs off his pants.

"Yeah."

"In the apartment. I found him in the apartment."

Rad bit into the half eaten sandwich and blinked back tears. Wow, this sandwich was so good. He chewed, savoring the taste of the soft Wonder bread, slathered with peanut butter and grape jelly. He took another bite and sighed. God, the sandwich really hit the spot. There had to be something else in it. It couldn't be just peanut butter and jelly. I mean, damn, this was the stuff dreams were made of, it was that good. He wondered if Kaz has laced the sandwich, but that couldn't be it; Kaz wasn't into that type of thing. But why did it taste so heavenly? Curious, he opened the sandwich--

"Rad."

He closed his sandwich and glanced at Kaz, suddenly aware that his high had not completely wore off yet. Kaz raised an eyebrow at him, expecting an answer. His bright blue eyes registering his annoyance.

"We don't own a dog," Rad stated matter-of-factly. He tried to bite into the sandwich again, but his hands were empty. Gone already? He looked around in confusion and then he frowned. God, the after math of getting high was a ball buster sometimes.

"Seriously, you gotta stop smoking the stuff." Kaz stood up and walked into the bathroom. He emerged a few minutes later, his dark hair gelled into a faux hawk. Besides the three inches of hair standing up down the middle of his head, the rest of Kaz's hair was cut short. It made him look a little intimidating, which was the last thing Kaz was. "Your phone went off a few times," he said. "Might wanna get to that."

Rad closed the bathroom door and locked it. He looked around and saw that there was no sink in the bathroom. He smiled, no hint of surprise on his face. A sink in a bathroom was an asset. Warm tap water, added to some contaminated urine with a Mc Donald's packet of salt would lower the specific gravity and creatinine level of the urine, and ultimately, the sample would pass as clean. But it was a risky move. And there was no sink. He glanced into the toilet. The water was a bright blue color. Dyed. So that water wouldn't have worked either. 

Three cups of coffee, an aspirin, and one shower later, Rad was in the kitchen, eating everything and anything in the fridge, his cell phone propped between his ear and shoulder as he checked his voicemail. He opened a Tupper ware container and sniffed its contents. He had no idea what the stuff was, but it looked a little like pudding. Except it was pink. And it smelled sweet. Like cupcakes and Pop Tarts and--

Stop it, he scolded himself. He listened to the message on his voicemail once more before shutting his phone and stuffing it in his pocket. He took the Tupper ware container out into the living room and stood in front of the TV, blocking Kaz's view.

"I can't see."

Rad ignored him, sticking his finger into the pink substance and putting it in his mouth. God, it tasting fantastic. It was like--

He shook his head to clear it. Seriously? He couldn't still be high.

"What the hell is this stuff?" he asked Kaz without looking up from the container.

"Don't know. I think its cake batter or something. Could you move."

Rad stepped aside and leaned against the wall. "I got a call from the office."

Kaz didn't look up from the TV. "And?"

Rad didn't answer right away. He waited until Kaz looked at him before he looked back into the pink batter coolly. "They've randomly selected me to go in for a drug test."

Kaz set his jaw and his dark brows knit together in a glower. "So?" he said in a dangerously low voice.

"So I need a favor." Rad kept scooping the batter into his mouth with his finger. When the container was clean, he went into the kitchen and tossed it into the sink. He came back into the living room and resumed his position against the wall, crossing his arms. He finally looked up at Kaz. "What'chu looking at, rooster?"

Kaz stood up, his fists balled up at his sides, his grip tightening on the remote in his right hand. Rad regarded him calmly, his brown eyes focused, his lips turned up in a smile.

"I'm not covering your ass again," Kaz said through grit teeth.

"Kaz--"

"No! You ever stop and think for a second? You think maybe they do drug testing because oh, I don't know, maybe the job requires you to actually be drug free?" He threw the remote at the couch. "Dammit, Radleigh, you're on your own." He shoved his feet into a pair of beat up converses and made his way to the door when Rad intercepted him, shoving him back. Kaz looked surprised. Rad stuck his index finger in Kaz's face.

"You will do this for me, dammit!"

Kaz's face darkened. He grabbed Rad by the front of his shirt and pushed him back. Kaz had a good twenty pounds on him, and he was probably three inches taller, but Rad was faster. As soon as he was back on both feet, his fist made contact with Kaz's jaw. Kaz swore and he pushed Rad into the wall, jamming his shoulder into Rad's midsection.

"I'm not fighting with you," he said with an icy glare.

"I need your urine."

Kaz pulled himself away and fixed his shirt. He took one last look at Rad before opening the front door and slamming it shut.

He worked quickly. He put the empty paper cup on the table and unzipped his trousers and let them fall to his knees. He unbuttoned his dark dress shirt and lifted the two black Under Armour shirts he had layered underneath the dress shirt. Taped to his lower abdomen, right below his navel, was a Bard Dispoz-A-Bag with his sixteen-year-old cousin's urine in it. The tube that started at the bottom of the Dispoz-A-Bag went down his abdomen and disappeared in the waistband of his boxers. He tugged his boxers down and opened the valve of the tube, emptying the bag into the little paper cup and placed it back on the table. The he did his business into the toilet. He had to leave some evidence of urine. He dressed again, taking care not to wrinkle his dress shirt, and donned his suit jacket again. He didn't bother trying to flush the toilet, he knew that it wouldn't flush. He glanced at himself in the mirror and gave his reflection a smirk as he unlocked the door and stepped outside the bathroom.

Another drug test, in the bag. Literally.

My Emotional Spectrum

Yes, Hermione. I have the emotional range of a teaspoon. In fact, my emotional spectrum consists of five different emotions: curious, satisfied, indifferent, angry, and enraged.

Curious. 
My favorite emotion. Its when I write posts, ponder other emotions such as "love", read up on some interesting things that caught my attention, and drink a lot of tea. :D



Satisfied.
This is the normal-people equivalent of "happy". It includes laughing. I love to laugh. :3



Indifferent.
This is my most common emotion. Its when I'm doing homework, going on facebook, etc. When I'm in this phase, I shoulder-shrug a lot, or raise my eyebrows a lot. I'm not easily phased, I'm usually just like, "meh" or "cool story brah".



Angry.
Tight-lipped, frowning. This is when I usually get very defensive. I argue a lot and lash out with words. If I'm at this stage because of something a person is saying or doing, I'll usually get up and walk away because believe it or not, I don't like being angry. If I'm at this stage because of an event (traffic that makes me late for something important, etc), I tend to get a little watery-eyed and my throat feels tight. I guess its because its out of my hands, and I hate feeling helpless. So I just get angry instead of succumbing to my helplessness.



Hurt.
Yeah, I know I didn't name this as one of the five emotions on my spectrum, but I didn't feel like it deserved that much acknowledgement. It's a short area, and most of the time I pass right over it, straight from "Angry" to "Enraged". In the occasional circumstance that I do end up in the "Hurt" phase, I do what a girl does best: I try not to cry. You know what bothers me? When I'm in this phase, people will be all, "Oh wow, Nehal, are you okay? What happened? Oh my God, are you crying?? You look like you're crying. Do you want to talk about it?" Please, please, please. If I appear to be on the verge of tears, don't ask me these stupid questions. Just hug me, dammit.



Enraged.
It's a short trip from "angry" to "enraged". All it takes is for just one tiny little action/ word to tip the scale. For some reason, I get very quite during this phase. I guess it’s the calm before the storm, and when dealing with a storm, the best thing to do is just wait it out. MOST of the time, I go to my room, close my door, and I just lay on my bed in fetal position and I wait for it to pass. Depending on how enraged I am, it may take something from 15 minutes to a few hours. If I can't seclude myself, I'll try to go outside or something; this phase is quite suffocating. If I'm already outside and enraged, I'm not a pretty person. I get very cold and I say stuff I end up regretting. Alhamdulilah, I haven't been "enraged" in a while; lately I've been stopping short at "hurt".

The Conspiracy Against Females

You know what sucks?

A vacuum?

…okay, you know what sucks in a metaphorical sense?

A black hole?

Alright, alright, you know what just isn't cool?

Lava?

-.- CHUT UP AND LET ME GET TO THE POINT. The universe is conspiring against the female sex. AND I HAVE PROOF. AND I WON'T STAND FOR IT.

Seriously, like its not enough that we have to deal with menstruation and child birth, but we have all this un-cool (un-lava) stuff to deal with as well.

POCKETS. I love pockets! AND WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH OF THEM! You walk into a store to buy some clothes and then you realize, the article of clothing has pockets! And you get all happy! And then you realize, wait a sec, these are fake pockets. And then you get all melancholy.

DEODORANTS. Our deodorants stink (metaphorically, not literally. If they stunk literally, that would really stink (pun intended. Mind blown yet?)). What the hell is "Revive" and "Powder Fresh" and "Diva la Daisy"?? Guy deodorants smell so much nicer. How come we don't have an equivalent of Axe? Body spray is not the same. I want something I can Pit-Pit-Chest with.

THE HATE GENE. This is phunny, because … it's phunny. You don't usually hear a male talk about one of his best friends saying, "Oh, we stopped being best friends. He was totally trying to make me look bad in front of my crush." I like that about the male sex; they're very laid back about things. Everyone is "cool people" to them. Girls on the other hand, we're blessed with the hate gene. "Best friends" is 90% of the time just code for "we still hate each other, but we can deal with it". WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG.

MESSY HAIR. On a guy, its cute. On a girl, its "ew, go do something about that."

Anyone else share the same sentiments?

Irrelevant (sorta/ kinda?) but still phunny.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

The ER physician pulled back the curtains of the room and gave the patient a quick hello before reaching over and turning the hospital TV off.

"I'm just going to turn this off for a few minutes or I might start watching TV and stop paying attention to you," he said with a chuckle.

The patient stared back, twisting his fingers nervously, a polite smile on his face. He seemed young, maybe mid-twenties, for his hair was still thick and dark, and his features still carried the reminiscence of obstinatious college days. The physician folded his hands behind his back.

"So what seems to be the problem?" he asked, even though the answer was staring him back in the face, literally.

The patient pointed at his right eye. "My eye. It hurts and my vision is kinda fuzzy." His right eye was slightly protruding, but not too much to notice unless you really looked hard. It looked like he was glaring, except he was only doing it with one eye.

"When exactly did this pain start?" the physician asked, walking closer to the bed and taking a pen light out of his pocket.

"Uh, I don't know, three days ago?"

"Can you describe the pain?"

"Yeah, it's like a pressure almost."

"Okay, I'm just going to ask you to lay back please."

The patient toed his shoes off and laid back on the hospital bed. The physician leaned over and passed the pen light over the patient's eyes, testing his pupil reaction to light.

"Just follow my finger with your eyes. No, no, don't move your head, just with your eyes."

The physician put the pen light back in his pocket and frowned. "I'm not seeing any redness. You don't have a headache, do you?"

"No."

"What about the visual changes you were referring to. You said your vision is a little fuzzy?"

"Yeah, its like looking our of a camera lens when its out of focus; everything is fuzzy."

"Any darkness?"

"Yeah, a little I guess, just around the edges."

The physician nodded. "Do you work?"

"Yeah, I'm the manager of a Walgreens photo department."

"Do you smoke?"

"No."

"Alcohol?"

"Yeah, but just socially."

"Drugs?"

"No."

"And you live alone?"

"No, I have a room mate."

"Okay. So here's what we're going to do. I'm a little concerned about the visual changes, so I'm going to order a CT scan of your head, just to make sure everything's alright there. Then we're going to give you some Percocet for the pain. In the mean time, I'm going to have a nurse come in and give you a visual acuity check, just to see where we stand. Sound fair?"

The patient nodded.

"Okay, I'll put the orders in. We'll talk again in a little." The physician turned on his heel, his white coat flapping behind him, and suddenly stopped short, the curtain in his hand. He paused and looked back at the patient. "Are you on any medication right now?"

"Well, no, not at the moment."

"What about the last twenty four hours?"

"No."

"Any medical problems?"

"No."

"Okay, sounds great."

The doctor left the room, the curtain billowing behind him.

* TWO HOURS LATER *

The physician walked back into the room, followed by two residents in white coats over sea green scrubs. The patient looked at them nervously as they crowded the small room.

The physician spoke. "These are the hospital's OMFS (Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery)residents, they basically deal with dental problems and things of that nature."

The patient blinked. "Dental problems? What's wrong with my teeth?" He absently lifted his hand to the right side of his jaw.

"Did you have any work done on any of your teeth recently?" One of the residents asked.

"Y-yeah, I had one of my wisdom teeth pulled out last week. Why?"

The residents exchanged knowing glances, then the same resident spoke. "And have you had any accidents within the past five years? Any fractures?"

The patient looked worried now. "Well, yeah, I used to skate board back in college. I had an accident and fell down pretty bad and, uh, I fractured my cheek bone."

The other resident grinned. "So you're saying you broke your face?"

The patient flushed. "Yeah, basically."

Now it was the physician who spoke.

"Okay, here's what we think happened. When you had your wisdom tooth extracted, the area got infected, which is common with these kind of things, especially if it was a deep extraction, but that's why the dentist usually prescribes Amoxicillin, or an antibiotic of some sort, just to, you know, prevent an infection, but anyway," the doctor waved his hands dismissively, "what happened is that the infection spread from your mouth up into your head, in the area behind your cheek bone. Luckily, you had scar tissue there from when the fracture healed, and that's what kept the infection from spreading further up. So instead, it kind of stopped there and stared pooling up until it was right beneath your eye, and as it grew in size, it started pressing against your optic nerves. That's the pressure you said you were feeling, and its also the reason behind your visual changes." 

The doctor stared at the patient. "Quite honestly, had you waited a few more days, you would have been blind."

* * *

He was only fourteen when he moved to a new neighborhood and switched schools. It was then that he met one of his to-be-closest friend, who was also a "new kid" and who liked skateboarding. And that was how he decided that for his birthday, he would ask his parents for a skateboard too, so he and his new friend can go skate together. And then one day when he was practicing at the skate park, he accidentally rolled over on a lizard of some sort, and later told his science teacher about it. And that's when he decided he wanted to be a Wild Life Sciences major in college, and that's exactly what he did. And then one day when he woke up late for class, he had to take a back seat in his sophomore English lecture, and that's when he happened to notice the girl sitting next to him, who had brown eyes and a pretty smile. And that's when he decided he had fallen in love, and he switched his major to photography to be with the girl, who dumped him two years later because she was a lesbian. And a few months later, he graduated with a photography degree and was jobless for six months and started drinking. And then one day in the middle of September, his high school friend came knocking on his door, with his skate board tucked under his arm, and a sad smile pasted on his lips, and he told him to put some shoes on, they were going skating. And that's when he remembered how much he liked skating. And then he found out about a skateboarding competition that gave a good wad of money for its first place winner, and his friend told him to sign up. And that's how he found himself in a hospital bed a few hours after the competition, with a fractured cheek bone. And that's when he sobered up and decided to go job hunting again, and that's how he landed a job as a sales associate at a local Walgreens. And two years later, when the manager of the photography department was fired for embezzlement, he told his boss about his photography degree and got the position of photo department manager. And then two weeks ago, he felt annoyed by the pain in his jaw, by his wisdom tooth, and a week later, he had it extracted. And that's when he got the infection.

And had he done one thing differently, had he not moved to a different neighborhood when he was fourteen, or caught his friend's contagious interest in skateboarding. Had he never run over that lizard and taken up an interest in animals, or had he not gone to the college he went to. Had he only pressed the snooze button twice rather than three times, and gotten up on time for his sophomore English class, and had he never asked the girl sitting next to him to a movie. Had she never broken his heart two years later, or had he found a job right after graduating, or had his friend never came back to ask him to skate. Had he never signed up for that competition, had he not gotten that fracture that gave him that scar tissue, and had he decided to ignore his wisdom tooth pain and not go to the dentist to have it extracted. Had he waited just another day before deciding his eye pain probably needed medical attention, and maybe today he would have been blind.