There is a pond in the cow pasture. It's near the road that people don't like to travel because it is so long and curvy. The pond reaches a maximum of about fifteen feet deep. Not too far down, but with the water mixed with mud and bacteria and fish, deep enough to block the sunlight, and deprive a person of warmth. Deep enough to suffocate.
So many times I had given thoughts to this pond and its contents. I wonder how cold it really is where the sun doesn't reach. I can't really imagine going to the bottom myself, for I am small and weak, and no match for the lack of oxygen.
There is a dull noise in my right ear. I don't remember when it started or when I first noticed it, but I know that I've counted up to 1,753 and it hasn't gone away. It's very staticky, and I can seem to pull small whispers from it. Words like "yellow" and "breath."
The other day, I was looking through my old room. It was purple and pink, with a mural of Winne The Pooh on the wall opposite to the window. Every horizontal surface was cluttered with small trinkets; glowsticks, old photographs, origami paper, still-filled bottles of nail polish, and Japanese candy wrappers amongst other things that I can't remember. I sat for a while, trying to figure out who was who in what photograph. I eventually stopped and looked at the side of my old, off-white dresser. It was and still is covered in pink Sharpie, words that used to haunt me. I thought, for old time's sake, I would write a new word on there, but I couldn't find the marker. It wasn't hard to find another marker, but it was red instead of pink. I wrote the word "trouble."
Shortly thereafter I went to the bathroom and found three small scratches on my left knee. I couldn't remember what they felt like, but the thought of it made me twitch a little. I left the bathroom.
Now, I'm just sitting on my couch, staring into space. I'm not thinking. I taste sodium. What did I eat?
My father calls to me from the bottom of the stairwell that leads to our basement. When I respond with a simple "hmm," he asks me to throw him his flannel shirt that he left on the rail during his lunch. I do so. I can't tell him no.
My father taught me multiple large words when I was younger. He called me a nerd a lot.
I walk further out onto the concrete of the front porch. I don't remember coming out here. I stare at everything around me, my eyes generally unfocused. I hear the engine of my neighbor's dirtbike. He has never thought to get a muffler. I look down, and the dull noise becomes crisper. Suddenly the world is darker than it was when I first noticed I was outside.
I walk back inside and try to fall asleep in my bed.
I once heard that it's normal for people to not remember falling asleep, but I've never had that experience. The memory of falling asleep the night before always comes back to me when I wake up.
I am startled by the house phone ringing and the abrupt taste of blue in my mouth. The answering machine picks up. My mother carefully tells me that I should take my medicine if I'm still awake. All that medicine does is "help" me sleep. It really doesn't do anything, but I keep taking it to make my mother happy.
I don't move.
