Memories - Noeul
My head hurts.
I don't remember getting into bed, but that's where I wake up, gasping for breath. Why is it so hard to breathe? I feel like a fish out of water.
An apt comparison.
“How so?”
“Hm?” My mother, dozing in a chair nearby, stirs. “What was that, dear?”
“N-Nothing,” I stammer. “I think I was dreaming.”
You know you weren't, I hear, even as my mother smiles and reaches out to brush some hair out of my face. And I smile back, even while breathing as deeply as possible and trying not to show it, even while the inside of my head feels too tight. But that's normal, right? I just never really noticed it before.
I tell my mother I need to use the bathroom, and she nods and lets me go, with only minimal protest when I say I'll be fine alone. I just want to freshen up, maybe splash some water on my face, but once I'm in there, I think that maybe a shower will help me feel better after the events of the day. Something happened today, right? I feel like I should be shaken by it, even though I can’t remember what it was. But when I turn the water on, that all fades. I can finally breathe again.
I don't know how long I'm there. I lose all track of time, all sense of anything else except the feeling of relief, until there's a soft knock on the door, followed by my mother peeking in, saying I've been a while and asking if I'm alright. When I meet her eyes, I see a face full of worry, and slowly, I realize why: I've been sitting here under the spray of water fully dressed. It dawns on me, finally, that this isn't normal. None of it is.
It is now, says the same voice from before. It wasn't a dream. I remember now. I almost drowned. But someone saved me. This isn't the same voice as my rescuer, but it reminds me of that, somehow. I wrap my arms tighter around myself. Am I cold? Scared? Trying to keep this voice from reaching the surface? I don't even know. But now that I'm aware of it, it begins explaining that it's a storm, and I'm its host, its carrier, that this is what I agreed to in order to live, that now I'm a servant of the water itself, and my body is changing accordingly. And even though I'm aware of my mother wrapping me in towels, drying my hair and fretting over me, all I can do is listen dumbly to the disturbingly calm voice inside me, finally grasping what I've gotten myself into.