Hitchers

CHAPTER 8

Maybe it was my stroll down the toy aisle at Wal-Mart, or maybe it was just getting out of the apartment, but by the time I got home the ideas were flowing. I was hungry, and suddenly had real food (well, real frozen microwavable food), but I was afraid if I stopped to eat I’d lose the mood, so I went straight to my studio.

My throat constricted.

“One thirty-nine for a head of lettuce?”

Just like in the checkout line, the words forced themselves out as if they’d been trapped inside me. It sounded like gas rising from a fetid swamp, and it was something I would never say voluntarily. I was not a complainer about the price of produce. I rarely bought fresh produce, for that matter. I massaged my throat. Something was very wrong with me.

It occurred to me as I cleaned my inking brush that I could be developing Tourette’s syndrome. The thought got me panicked.

Turning to my computer I looked up Tourette’s on Wikipedia and read frantically, my heart thumping, until I saw that it always developed in childhood. But what else could it be? Some other, rarer, neurological disorder? Or maybe it really was a second-order symptom of anthrax exposure.

I would call my doctor in the morning. There was nothing to do until then, so I tried not to think about it and kept working.