Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind

Cori hated doctors. Of course, they were little help with his eye stroke. It was such a mystery. Especially, when the specialist said, "We'll just watch it."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He was frantic, basically. Of course, Megan assured him it wasn't cancer. Besides, an online friend of hers posted about her eye-stroke. She was reading too much on her tablet. "What you really need is glasses, blue lenses." Naturally, Megan would take care of that for him.

Cori knew he had to be in a better mood. Besides, Cyrus was here and he seemed to be OK with his living space. As long as he had WIFI, life was good. Cyrus said he loved camping. Although, the studio had a good-sized bed, a kitchen, and a full bathroom. The last thing he saw of Cyrus, he was on his laptop playing a video game in the middle of his bed.

Of course, there were Melvin's ashes still in the pizzeria. Cori meant to lug the box up to their new apartment, but he felt for certain Melvin might haunt him if the box was in their bedroom. So he'd left the ashes on top of the fridge downstairs. He was too tired to think about it.

"Look, there is something the doctor never told you," Megan opened the document from her phone. She mentioned a foreign word that meant nothing to him.

Maybe he really was dying after all. Maybe it didn't matter if Melvin's ghost hung around. But it wasn't a brain disease he had. Although, he was assured his eye stroke just wasn't any eye stroke. His retinas were swollen.

Megan looked it up. "It's a rare blood disease," she said. "Too many red blood cells." She winced. "So that's why you're always so tired and you hardly ever eat anything." She made a face as if he might be a walking zombie after all.

Cori closed his eyes. Honestly, nothing was going to change him. Nothing.