Fiction-ish

A first attempt at fiction—or perhaps, more appropriately, third person.


She lay in bed awake. The gnawing sensation in her lower abdomen had been persistent all day; albeit a brief relief achieved by what she feared was an over-dose of Midol. She had done that before—over-dosed—but never on a real drug. Once, just a month earlier in fact, because it was the middle of the night, and because she was in no way thinking clearly, she took several Tylenol. An hour later, when the Tylenol hadn’t killed the incessant throbbing, it made sense to take even more. She swallowed three more little white capsules, this time with the tiny name IB Profin imprinted on the side. The recommended dosage was an afterthought.

When the drugs finally took effect, she felt woozy, which made going back to sleep scary. In her daze, she suffered from an altered mental capacity and became what one might call a hypochondriac. Her leg throbbed, and immediately, via a clearly logical medical deduction, the pain was attributed to a blood clot. Further still, she presumed that this being the case, only moments remained before the clot reached her heart, thereby inevitably causing an untimely and unfortunate death. She really began to fear that she was dying, and began to consider her "last dying thoughts." The introspection and self-awareness was odd to consider. Do most people who are dying know they are thinking their "last thoughts"? In haste, she opted for what she feared were her last thoughts to be of her family and what she might say to them, given such a small lapse of time. She slowly slipped in and out of what she thought was consciousness or, dreadfully, the threshold of death (but what was more than likely just sleep), making every effort to remain mentally stable.

She’s been scared of over-dosing ever since.

Today, however, writhing in pain was not conducive to a productive work environment. In her cluttered cubicle this afternoon, the searing ache clouded logical thought again and she took four capsules of Midol. Only after swallowing did she consider that the dosage was too high. Driving home from work, she felt the throbbing again in her leg. There was a suspicious chest pain, too, along with dizziness, nausea, and a short-lived hot flash. It was probably nothing: a few minor coincidences that in light of fear somehow eerily related to the pills. But she started thinking again about the end of her life and what she might like to get straight if she were leaving the world.

Given a week (because even in this weird hypothetical situation, a mere hour or day would be spent in more obligatory and traditional scenarios) she immediately thought of the one guy that she hadn’t really made sense of yet. He had walked away from what she thought was great. She had idealized him, and realized that now, but something still bothered her. She decided that, upon her imminent death, given this hypothetical week, she would tell him out right how ridiculous he was and how she had hoped for more from him.

The hypothetical conversation reminded her again of what she had finally decided about him—which, by the way, was really the only thing keeping her thoughts on the matter corralled in a fictional death scenario rather than already divulged to the heartless blob. She finally convinced her heart to get over the man her mind had created--something truly intangible. In the end, in regards to his heart, she came to believe it was him who couldn’t give it away and not her who couldn’t earn it.

Her mind made a lurch. The hypothetical conversation never fully developed and for this, she was thankful. The falsely idealized man usually persisted in bothering her thoughts, but something, or more precisely someone, had been drawing away her attention—finally. It was refreshing at first. But now this new interest lurked in the corners of her daily thought life and his presence there bugged her. She was irritated because he made her feel insecure—insecure because she didn’t understand him and insecure because she didn’t understand herself. How had he snuck into this place of her mind already? She dreaded facing the question.

He had disrupted the flow of things in life lately. His entrance into her world was surprising. And he had exceeded her expectations—more than anything though, he was scary. She was afraid of hurting him. And that very fear scared her because it meant she already cared a little. Being hurt by care is always a dangerous thing. But there was more to it. The possibility of hurting him meant that something about him was challenging. He pushed some button…something deep inside of her that had been waiting to be triggered.

They say, “It is like fitting a square peg into a round hole.”

It had something to do with how well he fit, and how much that surprised her. She had changed. She was changing. And that fear was more overwhelming than the rest. Forces beyond her control had defined her for so long. Finally, she stumbled upon a dreadful yet liberating desire to wipe everything away and start over. For some very uncanny reason, he represented her yearning for a fresh start. He set her in motion and, purely by accident, abruptly invaded her inner workings. So in the midst of losing, erasing and redefining self, her world was slowly unraveling. On the other side of the wall existed a man who had as much fear and as many issues as her. And the insecurity and uncertainty over everything around her finally seemed to be catching up to her.

Sleep, at this point, had become the ideal escape. If it wasn’t attainable, television was the next best option. It filled the void until her mind wearied enough to let her pass through the gate of consciousness into a world free of anxiety. He shouldered part of the blame for her weary mind and recent pursuit of sleep, but she’d never tell him that: it would give him an unbearable amount of power. She hated even admitting it to herself, but when she would face this ugly truth, she would turn on herself, and fuel the flame of self-contempt. Worse still, the small simple thing she hated to admit even more is that she still had hope. She still believed in finding love, someday. Though the pursuit of it, so far, had proven that the search was like fumbling through a tangled labyrinth without design, or end or meaning or structure.

Her voyage seemed as though it would never end or find resolve.

At the end of every day, she could not face the swirling sickness of her mind’s contemplations. Her thoughts offered no safe haven of escape. Beyond hypothetical death conversations, a blossoming romance that feels unfairly and unreasonably doomed from the start (perhaps because it was so lovely or as they say, “too good to be true”), and her new search for identity, other layers of anxiety lay beneath the surface.

If she were to pause, she might count the number of things on her to do list (wedding gifts to buy, an oil change, traffic school, the drycleaners), calculate the number of bills she had to pay, or worse yet, the cumulative amount of debt she had as a whole. Her list of phone calls to make grows exponentially, and all the while her tiny little apartment, seemingly just like her world, is collecting dust, as it sits neglected and un-maintained. She runs and hides and hates herself for the inability to face these seemingly insignificant and conquerable little demons. Rather than fight, she does nothing and lets the pile grow and grow and grow. She had lost the will to fight and was in no mood to conquer any world—not even her own. Survival mode had taken over as she wrestled to stay afloat, using what little strength remained to keep from a complete demise.

Drugs, this evening, were no longer an option. In light of her afternoon’s brush with death, she had had enough. Her cramps persisted and kept her from what she really wanted: that sweet escape of sleep. With a mind and body intent on keeping her awake, she set to ease her sleeplessness and turned to writing, zealously tapping on her keyboard and emoting furiously onto a blank page.

After some time, a bubble popped up on the screen. “Go to sleep,” it said. Her sister had sent a message. They “chatted” for a while. God bless those instant message geniuses. “I almost over-dosed today,” she told her sister, “on Midol…I could have died.” “Wow. That is dangerous.” They joked back and forth, but the conversation secretly found its way into the depths of her. “If I ever die,” she typed to her sister, “please carry peonies at your wedding.” She knew if she were alive for the event, she would have been there to make sure this happened: fresh and light in a simple dress, striding down the aisle…and definitely carrying peonies. Her sister had to know: “big white ones” and she could see them—soft and exaggerated airy petals that looked like her sister’s personality. And then she began to cry. The need to share the thought made her cry. Something in her hurt.

The thought of dying was sad. And it always is, one might suppose. But today, for her, it was sad because she was exploring and changing and therefore distancing herself from an intimate family circle that defined her. In an attempt to start over and find a new self, she was pulling away.

They say, “It is like fitting a square peg in a round hole.”
Which was she? The concerted effort to discover this, and god forbid, begin to change, made her feel like a traitor. If the Midol had taken her, she didn’t want them to feel betrayed. Can a square peg still be loved by a round hole? This was the saddest thought. “I’m glad you didn’t die,” her sister said, both in jest and truth. “I’m glad you are glad,” she typed back. And then she cried again. And it finally struck her.

It was not about dying physically; she certainly wasn’t in need of an epitaph yet. But she was decidedly putting her own self to death—the self both she and her family knew. And that was a thing to mourn. And though she couldn’t explain to her family what was really going on, something in her connected with the fear of dying, losing herself and even more, putting to death the woman that they loved. What if this newly defined self was unrecognizable? Or worse yet, unlovable?

And finally, having articulated a clear thought, she began to conclude. Writing had faired her well. At least that was her initial supposition. After filling in gaps and editing, she finally faced the clock: the top of the screen predicted a dreadful morning. She would soon curse the late night ruminations for their seductive magnetism. A book might have been easier to abandon. If only she hated writing—swindler of sleep.