Flood Read online

  But we have the power to completely change our lives at any moment, I could become a vegetarian, switch religions, join the army, start working out, move, and so on. So why not try? I can at least attempt to control it, just for a little while longer. Hating the crushing thought of being on medications for the rest of my life, I solidify my stance on holding off a little while longer.

  Returning to reality, I hear Lea going on about werewolves and how her silver necklace could kill them. Smiling to myself, I realize she is the perfect supplement for feeling better. The most special moments are those when you can enjoy one's company without having to do anything special, and Lea fills that occupation permanently. I just need a few more supplements to counteract this slow burn depression, I just need to keep doing the things I love, or think I love, and drink a shit ton of caffeine.

  42

  Straining to hear what the voices in my head are saying I sit silently with my journal before leaving for work. It's like a growing whisper, straining to be heard, beckoning me closer, I listen harder and it grows quieter, yet screams when I need the silence. They sound muffled, as if underwater, drowning.

  Opening my eyes wide like dinner plates I try to find my ghosts, maybe it's them asking for help, but nothing comes to site. Unable to shake this feeling, like someone is in the room with me, I stare a hole in the wall actually hoping to see or hear something solid. It’s unnerving, I can feel it like trebles of music vibrating throughout my body, like something is right in front of me, but I cannot see it, my sight is veiled, perhaps by belief or rationality, but certainly not for lack of imagination. I don’t know how to believe.

  Feeling completely numb, I stare at a spot on the wall unmoving, unthinking, unable to write anything down. Giving up, I chug some high caffeine tea and dress for a dreadfully tired day of work. I practice smiling in the mirror, secretly hoping I'll find a reason to make it real today. Looking in the mirror, I find myself feeling a strangeness, like that is me and not someone else. Why am I me and not someone else? My body feels foreign, like it doesn't belong to me. Feeling like I'm not actually in my body, like I'm watching myself in the most boring movie ever, I decide to spice things up putting on one of my finer dresses with pink cotton fabric and rose prints. I can do this, I can be happy, I will be the typhoid Mary of joy today.

  43

  It’s like I'm not apart of the world, like I'm in a dream, and the people around me seem unreal, almost mechanical, I keep having to refocus myself on being pleasant and courteous. Ignoring the ghosts sitting at the empty booth I steady my grip on the plates as I serve customers throughout the monotonous day, trying not to drop anything. Actually looking forward to seeing James to break up the monotony, I keep glancing out the window hoping to see him. When he fails to show up the one day I need him, I can't help feeling emptier than a canyon.

  The slow trickle of customers and fulfilling orders is more boring than watching paint dry. Daydreaming to pass the time, I find myself hating the experience because it's filled with what's missing in my life, leaving a gaping feeling in my heart and my hands begin to shake.

  What was once background noise became louder than a hundred vacuums, and more grating than sandpaper. Peoples voices are smashing into each other like an asteroid belt, driving me insane. Cringing at the weight of noise I try rubbing my temples. The ringing in my ears grows louder, I need the quiet. I drop a glass, shattering any calm I had left. Malfunctioning; I can't process my thoughts, the knot in my stomach grows, my heart falls through the floor, normal breathing evades me. The blazing heat from the sun scalds my skin through the large open windows. These panic attacks are rude and uncalled for.

  Running outside made it worse, the heat is worse, everything is melting, I am melting. I feel dizzy, I close my eyes. My chest tightens, my heart is a stampede, I can't breathe. Falling to the ground in the fetal position and clenching my fists, I manage to lean my back against the wall to steady myself and try not to pass out. Waiting for it to pass, I could no longer feel the solid tick of time, it melts away as well, dissolves into this sinkhole I've created for myself. Ignoring the rapidly expanding edges, I focus on my breathing as I was taught, but the heat made it hard.

  The time and panic eventually pass, I relax my tense body and drop my legs to the ground, trying to catch my breath, hoping no one saw what just transpired. My heart feels like it has just been through a blender, my body as well. I watch the cotton candy clouds pass to reign in my racing thoughts, the summer heat swells as July closes its eyes. This feels like the beginning of an avalanche.

  44

  The earlier panicked assault on my mind left me all-day-at-the-beach sleepy, yet I lay in bed with a newfound insomnia. Watching the moon pool on the lavender grey walls, I notice a small patch of paint beginning to peel. Wide awake anyway I get up to find super glue and fix it. After patting it down, it almost instantly bubbled up like a blister. What started as a little tear began spreading over the wall, blistering the paint, the paint falling in strips to the floor like wet latex revealing my hidden manic scribbles beneath. It spread to the ceiling like a disease, cracking and peeling the paint all over the room and I couldn’t stop it. I follow the progression with clear eyes; this isn’t real, this can’t be real. Pictures of unwanted memories began raining down, falling all over the floor. Trying desperately to rake it all up with my hands, my fingers began to splinter and bleed from the old wooden floorboards.

  I’m a bird caught in a blizzard, cold and frantic, unable to move forward, with a muffled silence that is deafening. Unable to keep up with the piling pictures I stifle a cry and the tears that were welling up inside. But I couldn’t stop those either. I hate this I hate this, I hate myself, I hate my past so much, I want it all to go away, to stop!

  “Oh my god,” my mother says terrified, running through the piles she can’t see to come and hold me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say in shame, holding back sobs, “I’m so sorry, I just didn’t want you to see.”

  “It’s okay it’s okay,” she speaks softly in hushed tones while cradling me.

  She sat there comforting me for what felt like days. Helping me into bed she stays with me, gently pulling out my splinters, wrapping them up with little bandaids, and sweeping her fingers through my hair until I fell asleep.

  * * *

  Waking up with bandaged fingertips, I look over and see my medicine bottle my mother must have gotten back out. Instinctively I smack it from the bedside table, letting it hit the wall, pills spilling like marbles on the floor. Laying there all day in a haze, consciously missing work and not giving a shit, eventually turns into days of ignoring all my responsibilities and friends.

  Memories of those pictures are burnt into my brain. There's no point in trying anymore, I'm broken and I need to face it. There's nothing for me here, just the crushing weight of existence and the idea that your entire life means nothing. I'm trapped in this skin and no amount of my mothers recycled prayers will fix me. This depression is a terminal disease whereby I fade a little bit each day until I’m nothing. Emptiness plagues me; I am nothing.

  45

  I feel wrong, uncomfortable, like my body wants me to do something but this isn’t it, but it doesn’t know either. So for a change of pace, I lay outside in the yellowing grass all day, while summer showers soak me to my core. Mother fails to bring me inside as I watch the mountains loom in the distance, the mountains are alive, I am not. I watch the sun kill itself in the sky, bleeding pinks and oranges across the clouds until it fades into an oily blackness. Looking at the stars feeling so small and insignificant, why do people like this feeling?

  I tried to be better, it didn't last long, but I did try. But what's the point in winning battles in a war that we will ultimately lose? The same goes for death, why fight it? Sometimes mortality is just too heavy.

  * * *

  The cold rain trickles from the dark sky like a broken faucet as I lay in the grass, soaked, soggy, and motionless. As the dark turns
to night, I could feel my skin trying to constrict to protect itself from the cold and wrinkle from oversaturation. If you stay still long enough you sort of melt into your position, and what you feel is outside yourself, and I am unbothered. The rain turns into a mist as the moon rises, a cricket passes by my ear and it is then I hear the distant crunch of gravel, the sound felt like pop rocks in my brain, I can sense the car lurching closer, I am apart of this ground.

  He’s coming.

  I will not waver, he can't make me. I am the earth now. It is James, it’s always him. Walking over to me he unexpectedly laid down beside me not saying a word.

  Craning his face toward me, “I'm here for you,” he says delicately.

  I've never been more thankful for rain than at that moment so he couldn't see my tears. “What do you want from me?” I ask him.

  He sits up facing me, words are slow with intent, “I want you,” he caresses my cheek, “I want every piece of you,” he pauses, “but I want you to want yourself most of all.”

  Sluggishly I arch myself upright, “why would anyone want this, want to be me?”

  “You are the most unique person I've ever met, and you're perfect just the way you are.”

  “Don't talk to me like a greeting card!” I snap.

  “It's the truth, you're the only one who thinks your broken, and it shows. You're different, not broken, and I love you all the more for it.”

  Sitting there speechless at his use of the L word, he gently comes in close, hand brushing the strands of wet hair out of my face, and kisses my forehead.

  Looking up at him, guilt-ridden, “I'm so sorry,” I say remorsefully.

  “What could you possibly be sorry for?”

  “For everything, for the way I've treated you, for being so selfish, for not thinking of you…”

  “Stop,” he gently commands hiding a grin, how about we start over?

  I nod my head slightly smiling, “I'd really like that.” I need a restart badly.

  It is strange to be crying so hard when I feel so elated, like maybe I needed to get something out of me, not something bad, something good, I needed this to happen to grow perhaps; it felt as if I were crying flowers, and from the way he is looking at me, I might really have been.

  “How about we start over inside?”

  “Okay,” I agree as he draws me in for a hug.

  His embrace is warm and long and I wish never ending. He is a living invitation to better things.

  As I get up to follow him inside something slips from my sweater pocket. Bending down to pick it up I find the owl from his office I would always stare at lying in the grass; he must have slipped it in my pocket when he kissed me. At that moment I knew that he's always been the right person for me, it's just always been the wrong time. A grin stretches across my face as I place it back in my soaked sweater pocket and head inside where I peel off my wet clothes like I am a snake shedding my skin, and in more ways than one.

  * * *

  I've always felt like a cake, just not a very good one. As separate ingredients are often distasteful on their own, all together in a cake they are incredible. I'm missing an ingredient and my cake is just off, always has been. But for the first time in a long time, I finally feel like I have almost all the ingredients. I feel as if I discovered a new color and all I want to do is paint everything with it. I still feel an unspecified longing in my core that won't leave that makes me want to cry sometimes, but who doesn't? Yes, I have started taking my medication again, but everyone needs a little help sometimes. James is right, I need to accept myself, be patient and kind with myself as I would someone else with problems. I need to start listening to my heart not my fears.

  46

  My room quickly fills with water, the doors and windows are locked shut and there's no escape. I'm frantic, I'm spilling. No one hears my screams. The water level rises carrying lose items and figurines with it. My journal floats to the top along with me. Taking in the last few precious breaths of air, the room is filled. I try breaking the window but it's useless, I face my mortality and let my last breath escape me as I defiantly inhale. The most wonderful thing happens, I kept breathing. Astonished I began exploring my new world, the windows unlocked, and doors open.

  I awaken groggy and pleased underneath too many blankets and having hours left to sleep. Trying to go back to my dreamscape I close my eyes tightly and attempt to clear my mind. My fingertips pulse with pain and sleep once again eludes me.

  Watching the sunrise break through the ridge of trees, I got up to make some tea for my mother and I to share, we have a lot of talking to do, mostly on my part. Sipping some tea on the porch watching the sun cut shadows in the rolling fog, I practice in my journal what I need to say.

  Single child life has its perks; no hand-me-downs, having all the attention, getting the biggest room in the house. But it also has its disadvantages; too much attention, loneliness, being blamed for a failed marriage, etc. But my mother has done her very best to provide for me, and I know that. It’s just hard being so angry all the time, and she often is the only one in the vicinity to take it out on since dad left.

  “Can’t you just not be this way?” He would ask.

  Oh thank you, I never thought of that dad, I’m cured!

  My mother has never done anything so remotely insensitive. Dad was a loser and a leaver and rarely sends money as he promises. My mom deserves so much more, I will tell her these things, she needs to hear them.

  Dear woman who raised me, never left me, even during the worst times, when everyone else left. What do I say to the woman who’s lost so much and gained so little in me? How do I show you how balanced you've made my life while unbalancing yours? How you've always stood by my side, even when I was hateful, ungrateful, and spiteful. You were always the faithful one. You were always the one finding ways to help me while I was finding ways to hurt. How do show you how much I love you? How grateful I am to have you in my life? Just saying it doesn't seem like enough.

  Dear mother who drove me to all those doctors appointments kicking and screaming. Who stayed with all night every night for weeks telling me how special I was when dad left. Who always drew love notes on my school lunch bags. Who has steadied me when I could no longer do it on my own. Who works two jobs to pay for my medical bills, to pay for the food I eat and the clothes I wear and this journal I write in. Who never shirked her monolithic responsibilities.

  Who always walks a straight line while I am spiraling. My love for you is bigger than the moon and boundless like time and infinite like space. Dear mother, I love you.

  * * *

  As the morning grew bright and the day finally made its break, I received a call from James checking up on me. Embarrassed about my mental mishap my responses were whispered and short. Although Just listening to his relaxing whiskey voice put me at ease enough to hold somewhat of a conversation. My feet dangled in the dew stained grass as I unconsciously played with my hair. Somehow 20 minutes flew by and something is clawing at my heart.

  Then it happened; he officially asked me out. After seeing all my head spiders trip me in their webs, he still wants to see me again. Part of me couldn't help but wonder if this is out of pity, the other part says "what the hell" and agrees. After hanging up with him a warmth spread throughout me like I just drank the sweetest hot chocolate, I secretly hope it's not a new disease. Although isn't love a sickness?

  My heart tightened after realized I never said I love you back to him. At least now I have another chance to say it, this weekend at his house. A grin plastered my face as I basked in the warmth of his doing. If I do love him that is.

  47

  Everything is closed on Sundays, especially your eyes and your mouth; Sunday is God's day, so I visit Lucy. Looking far worse than the last time I saw her, I prompt her for more of her stories which always brings color to her face, as well as mine. I feed off these things similar to how a sponge absorbs.

  Peering around I notice the mess has grown, not h
oarder messy, but naturally messy, like the branches scattered in the yard after a storm. Pieces of her life strewn across tables, her history in the nick nacks on the shelves, in the pictures watching you on the walls, like a giant puzzle only she can see. Her old music brings back good feelings of a time when I was never alive.

  She animates this history with her words so I can't fit some of these pieces together. She spends the whole morning retelling her misadventures during the war in which she was a nurse that often snuck off base during the night to meet up with friends and lovers. Writing her stories down for her, I can't help but imagine being in a time of war, youth, and love. Imagining James in military garb heading off to war left a pit in my stomach. It seems each generation has its war and issues, but you would think we'd learn better ways of dealing. Yet each life is an echo of the past, we trace our vines to our ancestors and wonder why history repeats itself.

  "We are all just animals falling in love." Lucy voices sweetly, breaking my thoughts.

  I write down every word.

  “How is James,” she asks coyly.

  Letting out a long breath, “I, I have a date with him.”

  She drops her jaw and smacks her knee, “bout’ damn time!” She grins.