This was not happening.  An hour ago I was screwing around at work.  I was stoned and drunk and having a decent time.  Now I've killed my girlfriend?  The girl who I had just moved in with, who I was thinking about marrying, would be dead in a couple of hours.

"Baby, I feel like I'm going to throw up", she said.  She looked awful, like she had just swallowed a pound of kitty litter or something.  Her face was sweaty and flushed.  Her hands shook.  She limped towards me, holding the back of her palm against her forehead. 

I was seeing this the whole time but it wasn't real.  Nothing was.  Emily looked like a claymation character.  Everything looked dark and fuzzy and words didn't make sense.  I had to be dreaming.  Of course!  I was dreaming!  I had  to be.  My buddy Nick told me about lucid dreaming, where you realize that your dreaming in the middle of a dream.  He said it happened to him all the time and he loved it.  He would go anywhere he wanted.  "This is just a dream.  I am going to wake up."  I repeated the mantra over and over in my head.  It made me feel better. 

I threw the note on the table.  Emily picked it up and read it aloud.  I remember watching her little eyebrows wriggle when she read it, they would come together, come apart, together, apart.  God, I loved that.  She was like a pretty little computer processing the information before her.  She dropped the note and stared at me.  "What the hell are you talking about?", she groaned. 

I laughed and picked up the note.  I reassured her  "Don't worry, I'll be waking up any second now."  Her eyebrows went really close together as she cowered, "Hunny, you're scaring me"  I reached out and grabbed her hand...

I woke up. 

I was laying on the ground next to the note.  Emily was poking me hard with a wooden spoon.  "Conrad, Connie!"

I sat up. 

I was sitting next to the table.  The table that I thought I was dreaming about.  Something in her face told me that I had not been dreaming.  This was real.  ****! That bum really given me a disease.  All I had was a crumpled up note telling me how long I had to live.  No!  Wait!   I gave it to my girl.  She jumped on me when I walked in the door.  It was our anniversary.  Damn, of all days to kill your girl.  ****!  No wait, then she gave it back to me when I grabbed her hand.  Oh no.   And this time--it felt worse. 

My bones ached.  I was sweating all over.  I knew a kid in highschool who got into heroin.  He told me about withdrawl.  The symptoms matched mine.  But my eyes began to dry out.  They burned.  I don't remember my junkie buddy ever mentioning anything like that. 

Emily cut my train of thought, "Here sweetie, put this on your head"  She was holding a warm wet rag.  I jumped up and backed away.  She began to cry.  "What is wrong with you?  First I feel like I have the flu.  Then I feel fine.  Then you pass out.  And you've been speaking gibberish ever since."  She had the saddest, most desperate look in her eyes I've ever seen. 

I told her about the bum in the alley.  How he touched my hand and gave me a note telling me that I had a disease that would kill me in four hours.  The note didn't say anything about getting the disease twice.  I gotta-

I shot across the kitchen and threw up in the sink.  Meatball pizza, gatorade, and chewy gobstoppers.  I gotta start eating better.  I sucked water from the tap and wiped my mouth.  I looked at Emily.  She was still staring at me.  The whole time I was explaining everthing she didn't say a word.  And she was never one to be quiet.  I needed to see what she thought.  I wanted her to believe me.

 I  looked her in the eyes. "Do you believe me?"  She ran her fingers through her hair.  "I-I don't know...Conrad are you sure you're feeling alright?.  That pissed me off.  "Feeling alright?!  No, I not feeling alright.  Did you not just hear me?  I'm going to die!"  My eyes stung.  They were welling up with tears, but I didn't feel like I was really crying.  It felt like it was purely physical, like allergies.  It wasn't. I was crying.  Bawling like a baby.  And  I could see myself doing it.  Like an out of body experience or something.  A hallucination.  THWOMP!

Emily was holding a wooden spoon.  "Stop spacing out like that!  You're not making any sense."  She collapsed into her chair.  God, she was pretty.  Those brown eyes, soft milky skin, pretty black hair.  I couldn't stand seeing her cry.  It was a rare sight, but it made me feel like I was shriveling up inside.  I tried to reassure her  "Look, I got a plan, ok?  Just stop crying, please.  I can't watch that right now.  All I gotta do is pass it to someone else.  Someone old.  They're gonna die soon anyway.  Right?  Stay here I'll be back"  

She stood up.  "No.  I'm coming with you."