Brendan Gates

I left the office building tonight and walked down the hill towards my car. It was dark and cold, with winds snapping just enough to be noticed. Runoff from the day’s snow melt kept the ground damp and slick. Feral cats cried from the woods near the old creek.

I entered my lot. Dimly lit street lamps glowed down on the bits of gravel I kicked with each step. Closer and closer I came with each step. Then I saw it. The golden crunchy crust brandished a clean wooden stick, both working to promote and protect their salty meat treasure. Could it be? It was.

A corn dog.

On the ground. Touched by neither man nor mustard, this battered treat looked as fresh as the day it left the Fry Daddy. I looked around but there was nothing. Nobody. No clues, no wrapper, not a state fair in sight. Where did it come from? What did it mean? Should I pick it up and eat it?

The wind snapped again, reminding me sharply that the crispy cornmeal with just a hint of honey was not to be. I had to get home to my stick-free dinner, and out of the cold. I moved on.

It’s probably still there, on the ground. Calling out towards the next hungry employee or stray dog to walk by. What will become of it? Will I eat it on my way back into work tomorrow morning? Maybe I should wait until afternoon and use it as a post-lunch snack? What if one of those feral cats beats me to it? Only time will tell. Fare thee well, little corn dog. Fare thee well.

I’m working on a site that will have information about Aplastic Anemia, if not just a directory of worthwhile links and my account of dealing with the condition. It is in progress, but please check it out and let me know what you think. The site also includes links to the pictures I took of the hospital, myself, the drugs, etc.

http://aplasticanemia.brendangates.com/

This morning I was awakened by a most non-soothing robot voice that kept repeating: “the electricity is off. alert condition three exists. alert condition four exists”. What madness is this, thought I. Had the robots that eat old people’s medicine mistaken me for one of their quarry? How did they find me? Maybe they infiltrated Walgreen’s Pharmacy prescription rolls. What was I to do? Well for starters, hang up the phone. The robot voice I speak of was one of the alarm systems from my office, calling my mobile phone to let me know that 2 systems were reporting failure. In reality it was nothing more than a simple backup generator test (that causes the power to flick off and back on) that triggered my misguided caller. In any case, I called in to the office and had one of the agents go into the room where said device was housed and confirm for me that nothing was on fire.

Fast forward three hours. I am at the cancer center. My mobile phone isn’t getting any service. I move towards a window so I can call my dad and the phone buzzes. I have a new text message. I scroll up to it and read: YOU HAVE 29 NEW VOICEMAILS. It would seem that my friend the alarm system wasn’t much impressed by the agent I had sent in at 6:30am, nor was it deterred by only getting my voicemail 29 times in a row. Bastard. Gotta give it credit for not giving up, though.

Speaking of old people and their medicine, I currently have the feet and ankles of a 90 year old woman. They’re all bruised and swollen, and I have a dull pain that doesn’t seem to care much what steps I take to abate the hurt. Hopefully the delicious platelets I was transfused today will help.