Such a pain in the ….!
Migraines can be such a pain. As one boy will vouch vociferously. V is a warm-hearted and kind boy, mostly. Until he is attacked by a vicious migraine. Then he transforms into someone even his parents can’t recognize.
V got up one morning and felt the faint tremblings of an upcoming migraine. He sat on his couch and decided that he would ignore it. He thought if he gave it no attention, it would go away. Migraines are attention-seekers. If you ignore them, they will get in your head until they become the only thing you focus on.
While V was battling with the baby migraine, something happened. A neighbor rang the bell. He had come to return something he had borrowed. Mom opened the door, the neighbor put one foot in to return the borrowed object, pulled the foot back out, and was gone in a wink and a blink.
Sadly, the baby migraine in V’s head was quicker than a wink and a blink. It delicately sniffed the air, smelled the strong perfume that the neighbor had worn, and decided to throw a tantrum. Migraines are like that. If they don’t like a specific scent, they will raise hell. They can use anything as a trigger. Smells, food, objects, people.
V felt his head blowing up. With a feral cry, he rushed to the nearest bathroom to throw up. Tired after the unexpected reverse peristalsis and the consistent pounding in his head, V dragged himself to his room to collapse on the bed.
But. On his way back to bed, he happened to glance at the mirror. He saw himself. V hadn’t shaved in a while. The migraine didn’t like his face. V had to rush to the bathroom to throw up.
V’s sister was trying to eat her breakfast. But his constant trips to the bathroom and all the guttural noises that followed grossed her out. She was in danger of losing her breakfast to the bathroom too. She did the only thing possible under such circumstances. She ran at top speed and locked herself in her room. For a second, all Mom could see was a blur of kids running between the bathroom and various rooms.
Meanwhile, V who looked at his face and threw up happened to glance at the potty. It was clean and well-scrubbed. But he remembered what it was there for. That brought another round of retroperistalsis. By now, he could barely walk. He crawled back to his room and made a grave error. He looked at the mirror. His face hadn’t changed much since the visit to the bathroom. Migraine still didn’t like the look of him.
In a fraction of the time taken to get to the room, V found himself back in the bathroom trying to throw up. But it was tough. Almost everything he had eaten or drunk since last night was out one way or the other by now. It felt as if the migraine was clawing around in his stomach for something to grab and hurl out of his mouth.
After one last attempt to bring out any remaining bile or other such gastric juices, V somehow made it to the bed. This time he remembered to shut his eyes while he passed by the mirror.
V surfaced after several hours. He felt refreshed and Migraine seemed to have left his head and gone looking for other heads to fry. V made a firm resolution. He decided that migraines and beards don’t go together. Much to the relief of the rest of the family, he decided to shave and sport a well-scrubbed look.
Moral of the story: A shave a day keeps migraines away.
Anu Anniah Writes 