Geoffrey Huntsgood | The Worst Ice Cream Headache

When was the last time you felt pain?

I mean, real pain. Not the dull ache of a bruise or the sharp suddenness of a stubbed toe. These are common, they’re inconveniences that are easily overcome.

Nor do I mean guilt or loss. Emotional hurt can settle more deeply on the soul. It lingers, festers, practically savors itself as it meanders its way through the chemical pathways of your brain.

But it is not real pain.

Real pain is darkness.

A torrent of panic that screams at you to “get away,” when you know you cannot escape your own body.

The narrowing of your senses to a single point of torment – your sight a tunnel, your hearing a shrill ringing, your smell and taste and touch reduced to one primal, visceral spot of misery and cold and agony.

Nothing exists but this feeling. And once it begins, it does not end. Trapped in permanent torture, gnawing at what little reality is left to perceive. If you could just slip into unconsciousness… but time does not move there. Death, the only cure for that kind of suffering, is an unobtainable blessing.

That is real pain.

An unassuming sip. A sweet rush of serotonin.

An inevitable spike. Does it pierce your eye? Impale your soft palate?

Loss of all sense of time and space.

You do not exist anymore.