GET HELP.
You start noticing those words when you�re going about your day-to-day business - just flipping through the classifieds, or posted on telephones near bridges. Normal places. Just words that seem to be catching your eye. Then they start appearing more randomly: the first seven tiles you pick in Scrabble, the first spoonful of alphabet soup, even those stupid spams sent by strangers. You even check a few of them, but they all end up being for the same old pills and promises.
Now it�s getting so everything you read has those words crop up - close-captioned TV shows, book titles, CDs, bus schedules, menus, everywhere. It�s distracting, very very distracting, it�s so very hard to concentrate when words squiggle out of the corner of your eye, when the keyboard�s no longer qwerty but gethelpgethelpgethelp.
The delusion�s taking its toll. Who needs help? Who�s sending you this message? Why you? How can you help someone who you don�t even know? You�re trying to type an email to a friend. It�s very hard to do. The letters keep swimming and you add an apology in the email, just in case your writing�s garbled. You finally hit send.
You wake up.
You�re in the hospital. Your friend is sitting beside you. "I was so worried," he says. "When you sent that email. 'GET HELP GET HELP GET HELP,' over and over. I came over and found you on the floor. They had to do surgery. Do you know what they found? A second brain. Tiny but fully formed, growing in your head. It was blocking an artery. You�re lucky to be alive."
But you aren�t really listening to your friend any more. You�re staring at a fire escape diagram near your bed. It doesn�t say anything about fire safety at all.
FINALLY, it says. IT WAS GETTING CROWDED IN THERE.
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