i suppose it was 1967 or so a long time ago in the fall i remember the air was crisp and smelled of burning leaves a little bit like it does now even up here where i live on the edge of the county near the old mill pond you know where they used to have those dances (before everything shut down and everyone just moved away or went on to better things i suppose) and anyway i was studying for my final exams at the university not a fancy one mind you just the state college really and i had this terrible headache throbbing you see right behind my left eye a very specific kind of pain not like a sinus thing or anything like that no this was different this was something DEEPER a pressure you know like something was expanding inside my cranium pushing against my brain (i was always a bit of a hypochondriac even then always convinced i had some exotic disease or another usually something i’d read about in a magazine at the doctor’s office) and i just KNEW it was a brain tumor it had to be and my final exam was for organic chemistry a subject i never really did grasp it was all so theoretical and i preferred things you could see and touch like how a plow works or how to fix a leaky faucet anyway the exam was at 9 am and i just couldn’t focus couldn’t even look at the textbook without the pain intensifying the pressure getting worse and worse so instead of going to the exam i got in my old ford pickup (it was a hand-me-down from my uncle it always smelled faintly of stale cigarettes and sawdust) and i drove all the way to urgent care (which was a big deal back then it wasn’t like now where you have one on every corner no this was a good half hour drive at least from the university) and i remember sitting in that waiting room for hours just convinced i was going to get the news the grim diagnosis that my life was over before it had even really begun and the doctor he was a young man probably just out of medical school really kind-faced though he listened patiently as i described the precise location of the pain the nature of the throbbing the visual disturbances i was experiencing (which i probably exaggerated a little bit if i’m being honest it was more like floaters but i made it sound like a full-blown aura you see) and he examined me (he had very cold hands i remember that distinctively) and he smiled a little bit a gentle knowing sort of smile and he said mr henderson it seems you have a tension headache a very common ailment he said and he gave me some aspirins and told me to get some rest and i felt this profound sense of embarrassment really for all that drama for missing my exam for wasting his time for being so utterly convinced of my own impending doom and i never did retake that organic chemistry exam just dropped the class and that was that and sometimes i wonder what might have been you know if i’d just gone to the exam if i’d swallowed that aspirin and sat there and tried my best (even if it wasn’t very good) what path my life might have taken i ended up working at the feed store for forty years right here in this little town and it was a good life a simple life certainly but sometimes late at night like now i think about that headache that brain tumor that never was and how it changed everything (or perhaps it didn’t change anything at all perhaps i was always going to end up right here regardless of any imaginary ailments) and i wonder if that young doctor ever thinks about the overly dramatic student with the headache a little bit of a fool really a bit of a fool