I hadn't intended this. But then, who ever would. This epilepsy sneaks up on me. This time, the aura lasted about a week, and it was the week i was to head to another city for business. Something, i told those close to me, was going to happen. My mind was on terrorists - a fear of flying i developed after 9/11. Yes, i know, i shouldn't let it bother me. But to say it does not would be a lie. Terrorists, by definition, seek to terrorize, and in so many, too many ways, they succeed.

But this terror, the one I experienced, was a fear of myself. It was a fear of epilepsy of tremors that course through me, that make it impossible to live in the world at times. Of seizures that shake and quake me to the very core. Tremors and visual disturbances and an inablity to speak that leave me cold and afraid. I keep trying to speak but the words do not come out. When others speak to me, I notice that the sound and their mouth do not line up properly; that there is a slight delay as the sound travels, so I am quite sure at this moment that I am seeing the speed of sound.

Epilepsy has a way of making you believe you have super powers. This must be how shamans travelled I think. They see things others don't. Like the way I saw the queen on television during a seizure and the onlookers curtseyed as she passed and I swear, I heard the sound of a curtsey. It goes hmmmmmm. Hmmmmmm. Other bodily movements make a sound too. Music makes shapes. I listen to songs and see silver triangles float out of the speakers. I see someone smirk and it sounds like crinkly paper and I hate that. A smile sounds like a honey bee.

I have no recollection of how I got to Dallas. I know from the expression of those around me that I had seizures on the plane. I could feel people edging away from me. Security stopped me because i was shaking; if only I could have told them that it was not that I was doing something wrong - it was that my brain was. That my own brain was playing tricks on me, like a summer storm, heavy rain fell on me and lightning ripped at the seams of the dura.