Relatively Strange by Marilyn Messik

Nigel’s asmatacks. I broke out in chilly sweat. I didn’t think it could get any worse. I was wrong. The voice in my head was back.
“Idiot,” it repeated irritably, “Calm down.” Calm down, calm down? I was as far from calm as it was possible to be. My surroundings were acquiring a deeply unpleasant black outline and I could feel blood draining from my head in a sickly rush. Iris jumped up from her chair, grabbed the back of my neck in a firm hand and forced my head down on to my lap. This wasn’t, I felt, an improvement. I struggled weakly and from a million miles away Iris asked someone to fetch a glass of water quickly.
“Bit over-dramatic?” inquired the voice in my head conversationally. I jerked convulsively, Iris jumped correspondingly and the glass of water someone had handed her soaked both of us.
“Oh get a grip.” The snapped, inside-my-head command, started to bring me back to what few senses I had left and clambering down from panic stricken heights to just plain shocked, I realised I, of all people, surely should be open to the unusual. It was just that I’d always listened when I chose, been the one in control, now here was someone invading my space. Iris, a towel in hand, reappeared and started mopping up, I could see she wasn’t having a good morning either.
“Sorry.” I muttered.
“Not to worry.” She said, obviously not meaning it. “What on earth made you jump like that?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I nodded, I was determined not to so much as twitch at any further internal comment, after all it was hearing voices that landed Joan of Arc in the soup. It was so strange though, not to be feeling anything extra, and I suddenly realized that this must be what everyone else felt all the time. This was Normal. How disconcerting. How extraordinarily quiet. Iris nudged me,
“I said, how do you feel now?”
“Sorry, yes, better thank you. It must have been the coach journey – I get travel sick, but better now, honest.”
“Best get you checked out anyway, be on the safe side.” Checked out? Things definitely didn’t seem to be staying low-profile, I quaked at what my parents would say. We left the relative security of the blue curtain and I followed Iris’s broad beamed stride and damply discoloured Hush Puppies as she led the way downstairs again. Trotting a little to keep up with her, I felt clumsy and uncoordinated, bumping into the wall a couple of times and finding it oddly difficult to keep my balance.
Iris took me to an open, airy, glass-roofed extension at the back of the building where she opened the door on a brightly painted waiting room already containing several anxious looking parents with children in assorted sizes who were being kept amused with coloured building bricks and picture books. At our entrance, everyone looked up expectantly and a cheerful receptionist, working through a pile of forms and seemingly oblivious of the surrounding noise, nodded at Iris and smiled at me,
“Hello there. For the Doctor? Won’t keep you a tick. Have a seat.”
Iris continued to pat her damp skirt and shoes while we waited. I could see I’d made a firm friend there. A dough-faced baby stared at me from the safety of its mother’s lap, I smiled, but it looked away expressionlessly. A door at the end of the room opened on a thin, red-eyed woman, carrying a child, seemingly far too big and heavy for the support her arms could provide. Dr. Drek, instantly recognisable from the earlier film, came out with her, patted her encouragingly on the shoulder and stroked the child’s head briefly. In his spotless white coat, he cut a thinly elongated figure with disproportionately large hands and head. I instinctively liked him even less in person than on screen. To the couple who’d started to gather bags and child at his appearance, he smiled and gave a small apologetic bow,
“Yes indeed, you are next but may I possibly keep you just one moment longer?” Then to Iris, “Thank you.