The Solution to the Backache

She’d thrown her back out. Excruciated, she called both her doctor and her husband’s. Neither responded. She went home to rummage through her son’s room to find a joint to assuage her misery. Her son was not clever at concealing his contraband. After a cursory pillage, Harriet struck green gold, sniffed, deemed it better than ibuprofen. She opened a window, lit up, sat, exhaled, coughed. PCP with which the joint had been laced invaded blitzkrieg style. She believed her bubbly delirium was the joint, but was disconcerted when the bedroom mirror yelled at her in an eldrich voice, telling her to get the hell out. She dropped the joint, ran out, and fell, panting, on the hallway carpet. She clung on as the room spun. Soon nausea overtook her. She vomited all over her blouse and matching tartan skirt. She stripped, staying on all fours. Then she saw the ceiling fan’s shadow. Scared witless, she felt a knife-like pain in her back. She raced outside, down the sidewalk, into the street, full steam. The driver of a moving truck was texting his wife a grocery list as he ran into Harriet, ending her back pain faster than any feckless doctor.