From Free Radical to Scale.

Like so many times before, Mads sat before his computer, drunk.
The sweet escape of alcohol had soon been overtaken by bitter melancholy and despair.
His head rested gently, yet uncomfortaby, upon his arms, folded over his desk. His cheeks soaked and stinging with salty drops of tears. His heart heavy with remorse, and void of any goal.
His sickness had overtaken him once more. Once more the gentle repose of the abyss beckoned with promises of oblivion and salvation – yet like a succubus, brought only less to the fulness of hope.
For years now, Mads had been aware of his sickness – an all-encompasing sickness that took millions, either to their despair, or their graves. Yet many more failed to understand that this was, indeed, a sickness.
A fault in the genes, one that allowed the gene-bearer to ignore the signals of discomfort and only recall the brief moments of exaltation, like a lab-rat, fed sugar-water before the inevitable copper sulfate, failing to recollect and connect treat and taint...

He stumbled to his feet, dazed and ill, the bottle of whisky ever so close, yet ever so distant.
As he reached out to douse the ever-present thirst, his legs – his world – failed him, and he fell to the floor.
Like so many times before.

He blinked as he awoke to the dreaded undream, the totality of the consequences.
At first he had didn't notice it, thought it merely a dream.
Once more, the dream that had ecchoed in his influenced dreams; it rang.
And this time much clearer, the chime pierced his fragile membranes.
He stumbled to his feet. With every step, hoping it was salesman ill-informed of his sickness - and not his siblings, well aware – yet unaware – of his situation.
Even the sound of unlocking the door reverberated through his mind as a thousand drills of anguish.
A million needles of remorse.

Mads let out a reluctant sigh; it was nothing but a religious salesman, here to once more try to sell him religion.
Undoubtedly they had become aware of his situation, his vulnerability, his thirst for salvation.
But his thirst was one that could not be quenched by dogma, nor safety.
His thirst was one born of uncertainty – of the self-perpetuating cycle of self-destruction and self-resurrection.
He forced a gentle smile at the newcommer. Clearly, he was not with the normal Christian cults that roamed his country.

The stranger smiled apologetically, and merely gestured at Mads' head with a concerned expression – as if he knew his head throbbed, mere fractions less violently than the hearts of newly-weds.

Mads took to his head, nodded politely and smiled.
The stranger reached out, extending his arm as if to greet him, in whatever fashion his religion apparently dictated him, smiling, this time more forgiving.
Mads, not wanting to be impolite – not since birth – reached out, and grasped the strangers hand, only then realizing the blood from the night before had not fully hardenered on his palm.
The stranger bowed his head, either ignoring or not noticing the sickly substance he was touching.

And then, Mads' world failed him once again.

The clinic around reminded him of so many times before, admitted with leathel dozes of alcohol poisoning.
The clinically white-torquise walls, the regular beeps of monitors, the bags of salt-water solution dripping nectar into his consumed corpus.
But something was different.
Something was.. unnoticeable.

Other people.

For hours he rested, forced between grasping his head to stem the ecchoing pain, and the immediate pain of the intravenious needle embedded in his hand, the withdrawal symptoms flooding his thoughts, his emotions and psyche as a storm ravaging a forrest.

And then, a person of seeming importance.

”Hello, Mads.”
His face was kind – forgiving. Undoubtedly he too was, like the majority of the medical community, ill-adviced to the nature of his illness, and would soon question him ”why don't you just stop?” - with the same affect as a doctor asking a cancer-patient, ”why don't they just stop growing?”.

Mads did his best to smile back. Any word would jeapordize his attempts to hold back the sick.

”Mads. You are suffering. I am intricately aware of your illness – because i suffer from it aswell.
You feel an emptiness. Regardless of social connections, achievements, and content, it's there.
Always gnawing at your mind.
And like you, I know, there is no cure for this ailment.
But unlike you, I also know that this is not because of some undiscovered scientifical fact. I know it's not an ailment the world can thank the Danes and rats for treatments of the symptoms rather than the disease, nor hold contempt for the world for the stigmatization.
It is, in fact, very fundamental.”

The person paused for a moment, and only then, Mads realised it was the salesman from before.

”Order, Mads.”
The Persons eyes growed in intensity.
”You lack order. Yet you seek to control it - more than anyone – however ill-advised.
And no, I do not mean to imply you believe yourself to be God, in whichever incarnation.
You simply feel the world is awry. In the same way you wake up at night, feeling the need to empty your bladder.
The difference is, you have yet to discover the way to empty your mind of this notion. This notion of having to wake up.”

An assistant appeared behind the Person.
Not taking notes, merely observing.

The Person turned his head towards the assistant, somewhat startled, and then smiled at Mads.
”Do not mind him, he is an observer.. In a way, he is our pharmacist. He is the rat that notices the tainted sugar-water being tainted as the hand drips the copper sulphate.”

The Person picked up his chart.
”Mads. We both know what this illness leads to. And we both know the cure.
But I want you to understand; you have potential, but this illness will never be cured.
Only stemmed – by you.
What i have to offer you isn't salvation, it isn't a cure. It's understanding.”


Mads swallowed the saliva that had gathered in his mouth - his heart void. Emptied by a feeling of hopelesness mixed with a sense of purpose.
Mads nodded.

”Good.. Good.. Know this, Mads: Who you meet on your path offers you no cures, no salvation, only glimpses of understanding. But as all things undefinded, at some point you will seek to define it.
I am one of the few that avoided this choice.”
The Person nodded a signal to the silent assistant.
”But, from now on, there is no expectation to the way you lead your life, or who you are.
We are one of many, many selected. Scales, all part of the Dragon.
And everyone of us as significant, and as insignificant, as the other.

Mads began to drift back into the void of his sub-conscious as he wondered what the stranger meant by "Scales of the Dragon", and before he was consumed completely, heard the stranger speak;

"Mads, I haven't been talking about your alcoholism.
And what you don't know, is;
Every wave starts from the epicenter.”

Mads succumbed to his headache, and drifted to his blissful dreams.

And for once, the pain of the IV imbedded in his hands did not wake him.