When she finally pulled across the road, the pain in her head pulsed with a vibratory pain in unison with the involuntary blood flow through her veins. The bright headlights from the oncoming traffic served to intensify the maddening internal beat of cellular magma. Red taillights gave off silently screaming tracers reminding her that life was in 3-D and she’d better grip the wheel tightly if she wanted to make it to her destination in one, albeit technical, piece.

The time to change course had long passed as had her ability to not continue careening along the familiar drive desperately denying the obvious. When the pain hit like it had on this night, she was unable to reason that her life was anything but a metaphor filled with sonorous, overwrought embellishments.

Much like an old water heater bursting its seams as it ruptures from the inside out, she was unstoppable.