Episodic Migraines -

She drove home on muscle memory, one eye squinted shut, the other tracking the road through the dissolving aura. Her apartment, usually a sanctuary, felt foreign. She didn’t turn on the lights. She didn’t start her laptop. She drew the blackout curtains, filled a glass with ice water, and swallowed her rescue medication—a tiny, bitter tablet that was a life raft she hoped would reach her before the worst of the storm.

Then, on the third morning, she woke up, and the archipelago had sunk back into the sea. The light from the window was just light again—soft, golden, kind. She heard a bird chirp and it was just a bird, not a knife. She took a deep breath, and the air tasted like nothing. Beautiful, neutral, perfect nothing.

It didn’t.

The third island was the Pain . It began as a dull, rhythmic thud behind her right eye, the slow, patient hammer of a blacksmith. Thud. Thud. Thud. Then the blacksmith brought out his forge. The heat bloomed across her temple, down her neck, into the hinge of her jaw. The thud became a spike. The spike became a vice. The vice was being tightened by a giant who was very, very thorough.

On the second day, the pain receded like a slow tide, leaving behind the flotsam of a postdrome . This was the fourth island, the strangest of all. She wasn’t in pain, but she wasn’t herself either. Her mind was a hungover, hollowed-out shell. Words felt heavy. Her limbs were made of wet sand. She made toast and stared at it for ten minutes before remembering how to eat. A wave of deep, inexplicable sadness washed over her. She cried at a commercial for laundry detergent. episodic migraines

She was back on the Continent of the Well. She showered, dressed, and made a cup of coffee. She looked at her reflection. Same face. Same woman. But etched behind her eyes was the quiet knowledge of where she’d been.

She didn’t know when the next island would rise. Tomorrow? Next month? She checked her calendar: a big presentation on Friday, a flight next week. The triggers lurked everywhere: stress, weather changes, that one specific brand of red wine, the flicker of fluorescent lights. She drove home on muscle memory, one eye

“Ma’am? Your total is four eighty-five.”