Little Brat Demons

Last week I started taking some new medications to try to relieve some anxiety and already I am feeling a positive change in myself - a lightening, a quickening.

Let me just say here, I never expected to want so badly to share my experiences in dealing with depression & anxiety. In fact, in the beginning I completely withdrew into myself, sought the comfort of only my family and was resistant to speaking with friends.

Then, I left friends. Broke up with some like I'm a mean junior high girlfriend. Dumped my best. Moved on, lighter, freer. Happier?

It's still hard to say.

I have been going to sleep earlier and waking up earlier, with more energy. I have been writing more and reading more. Everything has been MORE except for the things I want to be less. So overall, it seems like things are working.

Yesterday Chana came over for lunch and I kept apologizing to her because I found myself to be too quiet, boring even. I simply did not have anything to say, and so I refrained from making small talk to fill up our little silences.

"I feel quiet," I told her.

Usually, at any given moment even though my mouth may be silent, my brain is screaming on the inside.

What's going on? What do I have to do? Do I have to be somewhere? I have to go grocery shopping. Oh my god, I don't want to go grocery shopping, what if I freak out in the store again? Oh my god, but I don't have anything here to eat and I can't spend money eating out. Oh my god, I have no money, I'm so broke, I'm so fucked, I'm so hopelessincapableworthlessFUCKED. 

On the outside I'm trying so hard to keep smiling for you. On the inside I'm curled up in the corner of the room, shaking.

So why am I sharing this? Because it's so hard to believe that this happens to people. It's impossible to imagine what it feels like until it happens to you. You'll never understand losing your mind until you break down and lose your mind.

Drugs are great. Better living through chemicals and all that. But nothing has made me feel better than knowing I'm not the only one who has little brat demons in her head, fucking with me all the time.

The Tesseract

Chris sprinted through the woods, dodging trees and rocks and the deadfalls of old leaves he knew must be hiding out there. The rain stung his face. It was a hard, cold rain for so late in the spring, and he wiped his eyes again with the back of his hand, not as if it would do anything, but because it was habit. When you couldn't see, you tried as hard as you could to see.

In his left hand, Chris clutched his backpack by one shoulder strap. He had been too panicked to strap it to his back before he began running, and too panicked to stop. Occasionally as he ran, the backpack would jostle and slam against something, and Chris was caught between terror that what was in the bag would break, and equal terror that it wouldn't.

Finally he saw his garage through the trees. He had left a light on in one of the rooms above the garage where he lived, and it was a beacon guiding him home.

Chris sprang from the woods and beat feet to his door. He fumbled in his pocket for his keys, tried putting the key into the lock, and failed. He dropped them in a puddle of water at his doorstep.

"Oh, shit," he squealed. Frantic now, Chris dropped to his knees and plunged his shaking hands into the puddle to search for his keys and found them finally.

Standing to try again, Chris froze when he heard something behind him. The crack of a tree branch, perhaps? Something falling from a great height onto a rock, it could be...

But this time his key slid in and he turned the door handle and dashed inside.

Image courtesy of liam_101 via Flickr Creative Commons

He ran up the steep stairs to his filthy apartment, flipping on light switches as he went. In his kitchen, he slammed his bag down on the table that was covered with weeks worth of litter - old coffee cups, cigarette packs, the detritus of a lonely life, and he swept it all to the floor.

He opened the bag and dumped it out onto the table. The cause of all his miseries, the source of the lights.

It was a tesseract. Chris remembered what these were from high school physics class. A cube within a cube within a cube. It was built of what looked like glass, though it was lighter than glass and shimmered like a diamond as he watched with revulsion as the thing lit up his apartment with its sickening glow.

"Baby?"

Chris's heart slammed in his chest. It was Rachel, in the bedroom. He had completely forgotten she was there.

"Baby what is that, what are you doing out there?"

For a moment he considered telling her everything. About the lights in the woods, about the dreams. But then the light changed again, from that vile green to the calm white, and he was filled with quietude.

Gently, he put the tesseract back into his bag and zipped it up.

"It's nothing, Rach. I'll be back to bed soon."

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This was written for Write at the Merge Week 24 over at Write on Edge, which is becoming my favorite place to link up because it's not (yet?) a huge community. I don't feel lost there, is what I am saying.

The prompt this week was hard but it has inspired me big time. We were to use the image above, and the word "tesseract." Yes, I had to look that up on Google, and you should too.

She Saw the Light

Every muscle in her body was tensed and locked tight, her slim form straight and still under her bedsheet, which she had clutched in white knuckled fists under her nose. You couldn't tell if you looked at her, but she had part of that sheet balled up and crammed into her mouth to keep her from screaming.

It occurred to her though, perhaps screaming would have been the smart thing to do. Of course there was no one around to hear her, not unless there was someone out in the woods or walking past on the road, but since it was the middle of the night, that wouldn't be likely. If she screamed, though, it would at least mean that she was still alive. It would mean that she was actually there, at home in her bed, and this wasn't a nightmare she couldn't wake up from. 

Outside her window she saw the light again. It was pulsing, at first dim and then it grew with brilliance until it was almost as bright as the sunlight, but it came from the opposite direction, from below, not from above. Not to mention, the light changed color, alternating its pulses between a harsh white light, a cool calm blue, and an eerie green. 

What does this mean? She wondered. Are they only watching her, lurking out there in the woods? 

She could picture them among the trees, slim gray figures that shimmered and then blended in with their surroundings, becoming invisible before her eyes. 

That's why she cowered under her sheets, not bothering to look out her window. Even if they were there again, she might not be able to see them.

If they kept taking her away, she knew the day would come when eventually she would disappear, too. 

Once a girl who no one believed when she told them why she was scared of the dark. Then the girl who turned into a shadow. Then the girl who was gone. 

This was written for the Trifecta Writing Challenge - to write a 33-333 word piece of fiction using the third definition of the word 'light.'