Brian Peters suffered with blood pressure problems for decades. Luckily, he was suitably medicated, so life, literally, went on. Several months ago Brian had been foolish enough to believe his blood pressure problem had gone. He stopped taking his medication, resulting in severe headaches and a visit to the doctor. The doctor was the one who told him how foolish he was.
Now he lay on the floor of the middle room with horrendous pain in his head. He could see his wife, Brenda, hovering above him looking concerned. They had been in the middle of another blazing row when the pain struck that levelled him. These rows seemed to have developed since returning from a month's cruise; "Sorry," Brenda always said after them, blaming the impending change in her life's body chemistry.
Brenda moved to his desk and Brian felt relieved as he thought she was reaching for the phone, instead she opened a drawer and reached inside. She withdrew what they affectionately described as the 'policy tin.'
The 'policy tin' was an old shortbread tin and contained all their insurance policies. Inside his head, Brian was screaming "The phone, the phone," but Brenda, who was oblivious to his screams went to place the tin on the desk. As she did so it slipped from her grasp and as it fell the tin released its hold on its lid, spilling the policies onto the floor. The policies seemed to be making a mocking attack on Brian in what seemed an effort to finish him off. Amongst the array of policies strewn around his head Brian saw the familiar looking bubble strips of Ramipril, his blood pressure tablets. He was past counting, but there were quite a few.
Brian, already in a state of confusion, was now feeling more bewildered than he had felt at any other time in his life; this only served to add to the pounding in his head. His thoughts flew back through the pain to the week before the cruise, "There had been a mix-up with his prescription," Brenda said. This had caused him to go on the cruise without his tablets, "But after all, they were relaxing on a ship, so he didn't really need them," Brenda said; although in retrospect they did enjoy far more activities than on past cruises. He'd been back in work a week and there was still a mix-up with his prescription, "But it would all be sorted on Monday," Brenda said.
Although Brian loves puzzles this, unfortunately, was not one he was going to solve. As his brain screamed "Why?" and his mouth released an incoherent sound, his brain exploded, and his life ended.
Brian would never know, as Brenda had never said, that she had taken a telephone call from his doctor. The doctor was concerned that Brian was not taking his tablets properly, and explained the repercussions he would suffer if he continued in this way. The doctor had been remarkably accurate, Brenda thought, she must book future appointments with her if and when she was at home.
Brian's unseeing eyes stared pleadingly at Brenda, but alas to no avail. She calmly collected the policies back together, sealed them in the tin and placed them back in the drawer. She then collected the bubble strips, took them to the kitchen, and fed them to the waste disposal. She allowed a wry smile, and thought she would be the owner of the most 'chilled out' waste disposal in the world.
Returning to Brian, she laid two fingers on his wrist to check his pulse. No sensation of life met her fingers so she reached for the phone; "Now was the time for the phone, Brian!" Brenda said, as she released some tears that slid down her face and ran into the upturned corners of her mouth.
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