May Cause Dizziness
Side effects may include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhoea, extreme diarrhoea, headaches, euphoria, dysphoria, dry mouth, excessive saliva, insomnia, hypersomnia, drowsiness, listlessness, narcolepsy, chills, sweats, loss of appetite, increase in appetite, night terrors, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, palpitations, hallucinations, hair loss, excessive hair growth, joint pain, weight loss, weight gain, foaming urine, dry eyes, itchy skin, bleeding (internal), bleeding (external), reduction in attention span, hyperfixation, confusion, ennui and uncontrolled jumps into the future. Do not exceed prescribed dose. Do not operate heavy machinery while taking this medication. Should any unexpected issues persist, please contact your doctor or healthcare practitioner.
“Foaming urine?” Greg asked his cat, who looked back up at him quizzically.
He patted its head and sighed.
Uncannecil. 60ml. The highest dose available.
His doctor had said such a radical, experimental treatment would come with a horrible list of things he might have to deal with, but then the alternative wasn’t exactly a bed of roses either.
OK, he only had to contend with some lightheadedness and shortness of breath and general fatigue at first. Barely enough for a trip to the doctor at all really. In fact, it was only when he passed out at work that things started to take a more serious turn, with a trip to the hospital and a slew of scans and probes and investigative procedures to uncover the underlying cause.
Aggressive.
That was the one word from the doctors that stuck in his mind.
The general scientific consensus seemed to be that, if left untreated, Greg faced a six to nine month slide into oblivion - coupled with a mounting list of symptoms that would make each new day seem like an unnecessarily heavy-handed lesson in torture.
And that was the most positive prognosis.
He looked out of his bathroom window. Even with the heavy frosting, you could see the day was going to be dreary and autumnal.
A roll of the dice against a dead cert of being… well, dead.
Not much of a choice at all really.
Greg threw down the leaflet and picked up the squat bottle sat next to him in the bathroom. In one smooth motion, he cracked open the lid, tipped out two of the small pink pills into the palm of his hand and cupped them up and into his mouth.
He swallowed and leant forward, running the tap and taking a mouthful to wash down his first dose.
“Urgh.”
The hours that followed were a worry, but they needn’t have been.
In fact, it was only when Greg was part way through an old movie he was half-watching that he realised he had made it through the first day seemingly unscathed.
And he went to bed happy, relatively speaking.
The whole first week remained relatively uneventful, save from one day of foaming urine, which turned out to be even less pleasant than Greg thought it would be.
But that too had passed - so to speak - and he went into his first doctor’s meeting in good spirits.
As usual, he was tested and prodded and poked and pulled about until all the necessary tests had been undertaken.
It was exhausting in itself, but Greg was used to it all by now.
And best of all, the doctor was smiling.
Genuinely smiling.
“Mr Lark,” they started, before throwing their hands up in the air jubilantly and laughing.
Greg wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a medical professional this happy before.
“Mr Lark, this is nothing short of a miracle,” they continued, their voice dropping solemnly, “As you know this was very much the last dance at the last chance saloon for you here. Without treatment you were looking at…”
The doctor thumbed through the notes on their desk.
“Nine months, maximum, and with no small amount of pain too. And now, well, you aren’t exactly out of the woods, but you are well on your way and we have to start looking at what we can do to move you forward and help with your recovery and remission…”
The rest of the appointment was a bit of a blur to Greg. After his doctor’s reaction, and a tentative positive prognosis, he would happily admit that he had completely tuned out.
When the doctor stood up, hand outstretched, he dutifully reciprocated.
“… and if you do have any concerns or worries,” the doctor wrapped up, “Or you notice any longer-lasting side effects, please don’t hesitate to contact me, any time.”
As a week singular became weeks plural, Greg continued to stabilise and for what he had had to put up with so far, he considered it a definite win.
Yes, there had been a few more side effects. Occasional headaches that would wipe him out for the day. A prickling rash on his right arm that required constant moisturising to be bearable. But Greg could cope with them - and the alternative was a lot less appealing.
No, he had gotten off quite lightly so far.
Even the first flash forward, Greg didn’t notice straight away. It was short and over almost as soon as it began.
There wasn’t any fanfare or warning. Greg was just sitting doom scrolling through his phone on his sofa. Then, instantaneously, he was propped up in bed doing the same. He only really noticed because his legs felt weird and numb - most likely because they had suddenly been repositioned. Otherwise nothing much had changed, save for the time on the clock in the corner of his phone screen.
Then, before he knew it, he was back on his sofa.
“Well, that was… strange,” Greg said to himself and the cat curled up, snoozing by his side.
And, if that had been it, Greg believed he could have coped.
It all would have been a price worth paying. Any discomfort and difficulties from the present more than outweighed the heavy cost and uncertainty that would have otherwise hung over him like some terrible apocryphal sword.
Indeed, without the treatment, Greg would have been well on his way to oblivion by now, with business class tickets for the least comfortable journey imaginable. He would have been lucky if every joint in his body didn’t feel like it was on fire, if he could stay steady on his feet for anything more than a few moments.
So he kept dutifully taking his Uncannecil and, in the days and weeks that followed, the flash forwards became more frequent and more intense - taking him further and further into his future with each episode.
The physical effects were discombobulating of course. First you’re sitting on the sofa then standing at the bus stop or laying down in bed and then jogging round the park.
However, it was the psychological ones that were especially draining.
Greg started to be unsure of what was real, what was happening now, what would happen then. Was he really in the past or in the future? He couldn’t work or sleep or do anything that could leave him in a precarious position if he suddenly had another out of body experience and so he started to do nothing, just rattle around his apartment, occasionally blipping from one point in time and space to another.
And then there was what he actually saw when he flashed forward.
Most of the time, it was harmless, banal:
“Oh! Looks like I’m going to eat three sausages tonight.”
“Huh, I’m gonna be annoyed by all those bills arriving at once.”
“Foaming urine? Again?”
Other times, he caught snippets of news stories unfolding.
Usually it was celebrity drama or political scandal. Sometimes it was about tensions rising or war breaking out somewhere of other. He even saw election results, which were depressingly familiar.
And, very occasionally, what he saw was just crushingly awful.
Like when he jumped into a video conference with his boss where he was getting chewed out about a project he hadn’t even started yet, let alone messed up.
Or when he found himself out in the fresh spring air, taping ‘Lost Cat’ posters to the lampposts around his building, with thick tears streaking down his face.
Every flash forward changed him. Each one took its toll.
And, eventually, when it got too much, Greg called his doctor.
They said they were reluctant to end Greg’s treatment because the transformation had been so dramatic, the new prognosis so overwhelmingly positive.
“Look, Mr Lark, I think we should give it to the end of the first prescription, see how we go and then reevaluate from there, yes? We don’t want to undo all the amazing work you’ve done so far, right? Try some of the exercises I’ll email over to you and give me a call if anything gets worse and don’t forget to…”
Greg knew it was futile to try and argue about it. He listened dutifully, thanked the doctor for their time and hung up the phone.
The next time Greg flashed forward - which was also the last time it happened - was something that would stay with him for the rest of his days.
From sitting on his sofa, curled up with his cat, he found himself suddenly in front of his front room window, staring out.
At first, he couldn’t really see anything, with the bright summer sun pouring in through the window.
But the brightness grew, larger and larger, radiating out and filling every aspect of his view.
Then the growing sensation of heat; an unbearable, ferocious incandescence and a feeling like the earth itself was about to splinter and fracture in two.
Finally came the rumble, low and distant at first and then tumbling and tearing towards Greg as he stood there, dumbfounded. And, just as the wave of annihilation was about to hit, he was pulled back to his present moment, sat, on his sofa, with his cat sleepily stretching out beside him.
Greg stood up silently, went to the bathroom, emptied the remaining pills from his bottle of Uncannecil into the toilet and flushed the chain.
He would take his chances.
He looked down at his cat.
The cat stared back at him lazily, blinked slowly and meowed.
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