FaceBook Tales:

DWFB

By

D.S. Brown

 The world kept changing colors, black, blue, purple, black again, pink, a bright flash of red.  The red was definitely not nice.  It clouded out my entire field of vision, and always came with a stab of pain, like a long steel pike.  It was quick, aggressive, damn thing was downright nasty.  It lanced its way through my brain.

“Ouch!”

I asked myself, was that me?  I thought it was me.  Oddly enough, I couldn’t be sure.  I was confused.  Such a simple thing, knowing whether or not you said something.  But just then, it wasn’t easy at all.  I was also moving, but my body was still.  I couldn’t see, not really.  There was the colors, the stab of pain, and then the colors.  It crowded out everything else.  It was a world of vibrant colors, pains, and blobs.

There was also the smells, metal, gas, something smelled burned, like bacon, and in the middle was … was ... ash?  Like someone who knew two packs a day was far too much, and they were scared of it, but they needed it, the fear pushed the smell out through their pores, faster, stronger.  It was the fear of addiction, the fear of death.

“Oooo.”

I was sure that was me.  I was moving my head a little to the left, and then there was a moan.  I could feel the breath passing over my lips, out my mouth.  The moan was filled with pain.  I was hurting.  I was hurting bad.  Then, there was the smell of ash again, the smell of addiction.  And a thought occurred to me. 

Where is my Iphone? 

“Uhhh …”

I couldn’t get out anymore than that, uhhh, no words, just uhhh.  But I really, really needed to know where my Iphone was.  Not that I could see it if it was in my hand.  But then … I couldn’t feel my hands.

“UHHH …”

The moan was more urgent.  It felt almost like a roar across my bottom lip.  But then … my lip was swollen.  I could feel it.

“Sir,” said a voice. “Just calm down.  We’re going to take care of you.” 

I strained.  The voice came from a dark blob.  Blob was all I had.  A dark blob. 

“We’re getting ready to put you in,” the voice continued. “Don’t worry.  Everything’s going to be okay.”

The voice sounded professional, confident, but then there was an undercurrent, a flavor to what he said, or maybe it was how he said it.  I wasn’t sure either way about the how of the undercurrent, I was just certain of the what, if that makes sense.  I was certain that everything was not going to be alright.  I was certain this person was lying.  After all, he smelled like ash.

I felt my body rise.  I was being lifted.  There was a bit of a shuffle.  The shuffle caused my head to move.  The colors shifted, blue went purple, and exploded into bright red.  The lance danced happily at the center of my brain.  I wanted to scream, but a moan was all I could manage.

“It’s going to be okay, sir.

STOP LYING!!!  

I wanted to yell at the person talking.  I wanted to get up and kick the person talking.  I wanted to grab him by the ears and jerk his head around, see if I couldn’t get him to feel the white hot lance, pass around a little bit of the merry, merry.  But I couldn’t move.  I felt the gurney … yes, it was a gurney … I felt it settle.  I couldn’t see it, but I knew I was resting on a gurney.  Obviously, they were settling me in the back of an ambulance.  The talking dark blob was a paramedic.  He was just doing his job.  Still, that didn’t keep me from wanting to kick him, to give him a little bit of the merry , merry.

Merry, merry, merry, merry.

The words walked through my mind, dancing around the lance in my brain, singing a song, a red song of addiction and stupidity, high pitched sprites that sang happily along, big red wet mouths that I so wished would leave me alone. 

Merry, merry, merry, spread the merry … stupid.

As I faded, the song kept on, the sprites danced, wet mouths that looked like blood filled holes, pain, they sang merrily changing the word to one refrain, a constant reminder of my addiction, stupid, stupid, stupid.  I left the pain behind and happily entered the world of dreams, just as the smell of ash came back sharply, the dark blob, the paramedic.  He was next to me.  He was a smoker.  He was an addict.  He was just like me.  Where was my Iphone?

I remembered.

I was driving down I-285.  I was on my way to work.  It was a sunny Atlanta afternoon.  I had just left an appointment with my banker.  He was working up a refinance on my house.  The wife and I were going to lock in a much better rate.  The recession was bad for some, but perfect for us.  We were savers, always had been.  We were thinking about picking up some rental property.  It was a buyers market after all.

I wasn’t just thinking this.  I was typing it into my Facebook App on my Iphone.  I had to share my new interest rate with all four-hundred and thirteen of my Facebook friends. 

John is happy about refinancing at 4.13%

I picked up five like responses.

Tammy at 12:11 PM :

That is awesome!  Glad to see somebody making out in this recession!

Donald at 12:12 PM:

Dude, you are so lucky!  I don’t have enough equity in my home to qualify.  Yes, I said it online.  Who gives a shit now?  Lucky dog!

Jesse at 12:13 PM:

Who did you use?  We both are at Bank of America right?  Don’t tell me she was able to get that rate for you.  You talked to her?  But she’s such a …

I was laughing.  I was guffawing actually.  I was looking at the face of my wonderful phone.  I never left home without it.  It was with me in meetings.  I was an expert of the one-hand text action.  I could type with my thumb at what had to have been supersonic speeds.  I handled business and pleasure on the Iphone while in traffic.  Driving didn’t stop me from using my phone.  I even checked it after a good round with the wife.  There was always something online to see, to talk about, to text about, to laugh about, to share.  It was WEB 2.0, the next world, the new world, and I was firmly in its hold.  I was addicted.  I was an Internet junkie.  I was an Iphone fanatic.  I was a Facebook fiend.  I LOVED FACEBOOK!!!

I was guffawing.  I looked up, glanced really.  What I did would not have passed muster.  No, I most certainly did not look up.  I glanced.  I glanced when I should have been looking, always looking, eyes front.  After all, I was doing seventy-five on a four-lane highway.  Was I crazy?  Yes, I guess so … crazy and addicted.

I glanced.  The pickup truck was drifting into my lane.  He was drifting with his blinker on.  The fool saw me coming, didn’t he?  He drifted over.  I swerved left.  It wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t enough by half.  I hit him first.  Then I hit the concrete divider.  The divider did its job, it curved me up and fed me back into the traffic, I grabbed some air along the way.

Wonderful favor that was.

I landed.  The world was upside down.  There was the crash of metal.  There was the crash of me.  I heard things breaking.  I felt things breaking.  My mouth exploded.  It felt all wet and squishy.  I screamed.  I screamed as I held onto my phone.  A thought occurred to me.  Maybe I should call 911.   I was spinning.  Then I stopped thinking … well, thinking clearly.  Everything went black, and then there was the colors.

            “How long?” 

            “Eight minutes out!”

            “Good.”

            “How’s he doing back there?”

            “With a broken neck?  Let’s just get him to the doc.  He’ll live.”

            “Hopefully, he’ll be smarter after he gets out.”

            “I guarantee he’ll be smarter.”

            “Don’t know, Dan.  Bobby said he had a vice grip on his phone.  Didn’t have it coded.  Looked at it, and he was on Facebook

            when he crashed.”

            “Moron.”

            “Yeah, Bobby said they were going to charge him with vehicular homicide, wanted to add DWFB.”

            “DWFB?”

            “Driving While FaceBooking.  HA!” 

            “That’s not even funny you jackass.  Just drive!”

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