Dec 23, 2004 18:15
I'm worried. It's screaming at me from all sides something is terribly wrong. I try to collect myself and ask but the answer explodes at me. I can't understand even parts of it. There's too much. It runs and splits and bends in ways I can't follow. I can't tell if they're pictures or words. It's faster than thinking. I need it to stop, I can't stand much more.
I pick something out. I'm on the beach, it says. That seems like an odd thing to say, but I guess there's only one. I still can't see. There's a picture that looks like me. I can make it turn if I think the right way. It feels right. Anything to keep me from being dragged along. I'm being rushed into something, I think, something important. I don't want to. There's that sickening dread though. It's telling me I have to hurry.
I find my eyes and open them. Just like the picture said, I'm on my back on the beach, the same oilslick sky overhead. I try to move my arms but they aren't working yet. I don't know why that is. I try the rest of me. I can't even tilt my head. The way my chest feels I think I've stopped breathing. My mouth is fused and my nose is packed with sand. I don't know how I know, but it's true. That must be it, the reason for this confusion. I'm suffocating. Can't even fight to breathe. I try not to be scared. There's nothing I can do.
I count the minutes and after ten I'm still alive. I close my eyes and try to think. Things have slowed down inside me. I start to understand how long it's been. I see more pictures, now strung together to make moments. The sound jitters and snaps. There are voices but they've been pressed down to thin strips of sound. I watch someone else pick their way over rocks. They're green. I remember green, now. The picture breaks off and I hear the sounds of machinery, then more stills. A woman's face, she seems familiar. The wreck of a house by a lake. It's building up to something. I strain for it.
Then it's gone. Just the pulse of blood in my eyelids and total, indifferent silence. I try to open my eyes again and can't. That's when I realise I'm never moving from this spot. Maybe if I'd understood, or if the warning had come sooner. I've seen what happens next, the pieces have started fitting together inside me. The land will give itself to the water, its sands dissolving into that perfectly still grey. The crawling dust will lay claim to the trees and buildings, everything that stands above. They'll tumble apart by degrees. The sky will lose its place and pour down over everything. And then, with slowness like stillness, they'll become one perfect nothing with me at the centre.