Borders Journal Archive3

11/8/06

Just write. Write anything that comes to your mind. I’m very anxious. I feel like there’s a knot in my stomach that is tightening its grip ever-so slowly. Soon it will squeeze so hard it will begin to bleed. In fact, I think it’s already bleeding. I can feel the acid in my stomach roil around as it feeds on the knot. And now for something different:
The leaves are blood-red against the sharp green of the lawn. They spray across the black-top of the parking lot. The wind blows and pushes them along the ground. It herds them like a bull man with a whip. Snapping above and beneath them and scaring them into motion. They move in jerking motions around the parking lot. Sometimes they move as one, sometimes they all move in different directions, but they always move. The wind won't let them rest. It won't leave them alone. I realize it's the first time I ever felt such menace from the wind, ever felt the leaves as being so helpless before. It makes me want to cry. As soon as I realize this, I am ashamed of myself. They are only leaves after all. And it is only the wind. But then why do I feel the wind's cold arms grab at me as if it's trying to take my soul with it? Why do I feel as if it's out for blood? Can a thing so transient and shapeless really be that harmful? That's when I remember the water from that night. I feel it's claws on my chest an neck and suddenly I can't breathe. I grasp my throat, pulling on it with my hands, hoping that it will somehow bring the oxygen back into my body. It helps a little I think, because I start to feel cool air in my lungs once more. I try to breathe deeply, remembering to count my breaths as the doctor instructed me. After a few moments, my heart rate is back to normal and I feel calm again. Yes, it's definitely possible to be harmful without having a shape, to be menacing and evil and out for blood. The water wanted to kill me. It would have succeeded too. If it weren't for him. The thought of him makes me warm from the inside. I hug myself to keep the warmth in, a gentle smile playing at the corners of my mouth. Yes, he would save me again if I were in danger, and he's nowhere around, so I must be ok. I begin to walk again at this thought. The angry wind is clutching at me still, and the blood-red leaves are screaming against the street as they pass me, but my courage has returned and I don't want to loose it before I'm out of danger. He will keep my safe. He has to.