Fake Elvis and the Unlucky Seven

By Cory Hill

(The brief period of disorientation and confusion that precedes an epileptic seizure is called the aura. The predominant characteristic of my aura is hallucination. I’ve seen some strange things during an aura, and the images have actually fastened themselves to my conscious memory as though they were part of some real event. As an adult, I tend now to view auras as more than just that awful distant early warning of a seizure. I like to think of auras as a sort of comic relief, a buffer for the conscious mind. They are, after all, the only part of a seizure I can recall.)

They told me that it never happened.

I looked up at the bewildered and curious expressions on the faces of my two employers, the nearest of whom hovered over me like a vulture inspecting roadkill. The other one hung back and peered over her concerned counterpart’s shoulder to reassure me not only that had it not happened but that it was impossible.

It took a few minutes after the seizure subsided to regain all my bearings and realize that I was in fact lying prone on the dusty, dirty floor of the feed and seed store where I worked. My suspicious examiner then offered me a peppermint, suggesting that it might help me feel better. I explained that, while peppermints might be okay for an upset stomach, they don’t do much for an epilepsy hangover.

They helped me into a sitting position, nearly tearing the very shirt from my straining torso in a poorly veiled attempt to avoid skin contact. I laughed despite the throbbing in my skull and quelled their irrational fears with the good news that epilepsy is not contagious. When they ascertained that I could sit up under my own power, they backed slowly away from me as though I were a venomous rattlesnake coiled into attack position. They were quick, though, to ask how I felt and why I had told them when I first woke from my convulsions that I had seen Elvis in the store room.

"That just can’t be, son," the elder of the two had insisted. He had sounded like a sage old grandfather trying to carefully impart some serious advice to his hard-headed grandchild. "Elvis Presley has been dead for at least ten years."

I may not have been hearing him with a totally clear head just yet, but it sounded to me like there was a glimmer of hope in his voice that maybe The King was actually hiding out in the store room. I quietly explained that it wasn’t really Elvis. It was an Elvis impersonator. And he was singing "Hound Dog" and screwing his face up into that ridiculous sneer. My two employers backed even farther away when I told them I could read Fake King’s mind.

They must have thought I was strung out on illegal narcotics. I can just imagine what whispered conversations they must have had later about the whole thing. But there was an Elvis impersonator in the store room singing "Hound Dog" with a pretend sneer on his sweaty face, wondering, in the back of his mind, why he even bothered to put on this silly act because no one cared anymore.

I just sat there as they drifted off into the office and shut the door behind them. I shifted a little so that I could rest against the pallet of horse nuggets I had pulled in from the store room. Then I remembered what I had been doing before the seizure hit. I had begun stocking horse nuggets in the main supply warehouse, counting silently as I went. I recall getting up to six and not knowing what letter of the alphabet came after six. I had thought about it for a second, then figured I had best go back to the store room and ask Elvis. When I got there, though, he seemed kind of peeved that I had interrupted his song. I guess that’s why he felt the way he felt about his silly old career.

Anyway, it was seven. I repeated it over and over to myself so that I wouldn’t forget. That turned out to be a mistake, though, because the more I repeated it the less I understood what a seven was. And once I lost comprehension of the seven, the rest of the world followed that seven into the ambiguous maze of disorientation. In many years of dealing with epilepsy, I have chased many strange visions headlong into that maze, only to be lost. I have never been able to successfully navigate the twisting labyrinth; nonetheless, it always leads somewhere. I just don’t know where.

Wherever it is, Elvis is there with my seven.

And it DID happen.

(Cory Hill is a freelance writer living in Garden City, Georgia, U.S.A.)