Title Unknown

Restored from the crash. First thing I ever posted on here.

Cold. The kind that penetrates the bone. It's 1:42 in the afternoon and I can barely sit upright. The fever has gone haywire somewhere in my brain. 104 Fahrenheit, but I can only tremble before this imaginary wind that blows from every direction. It's as if my body will shatter should I try and move. Yes, it will shatter and spill. It will fall from the desk onto the floor in a thousand pieces. Exactly one thousand pieces. And though they may sweep up those pieces, even smaller pieces will remain. Fragments that break off during the fall and inevitable impact will embed themselves into the carpet, locking me in this room forever. Later, I will go home. I will crawl into my bed and stay there for seventeen days. But right now I'm not moving a muscle. I'm not even lifting a finger. Not because it would be insignificant, it just frightens me to hear my bones creak like that.

 

Ten minutes have passed and it is apparent that my situation has not gone unnoticed. I can only imagine how odd I must look. The old man drapes his blazer over my shoulders. I can't tell if it is a simple gesture of kindness, or if he has mistaken me for the back of the chair. I am sitting perfectly still after all. The jacket is padded and warm. It seems to fend off the freezing winter I have created in my head. I know it's wrong. I know it's only feeding the fever, trapping the heat, but I'm sick of being cold. I ponder going through the pockets, but then it occurs to me that I don't care what this crazy old man keeps in his pockets. I'm just glad he let me wear his jacket.

 

The pounding in my head gets worse. Like a metal trashcan filled with glass being slammed against the inside of my skull. In the midst of the blistering heat and the shuddering cold, the ear-splitting pulse and the dull ache in my bones, an epiphany. I just want to die. Just give up. Lay down on the floor and die. Later, the doctor will tell me I have double pneumonia with a side of bronchitis. He will also tell me that I have probably made it worse by trying to keep warm under an electric blanket for the last two weeks...

The fact that I am actually dying is not the point. This is the first time I want to die. To have that feeling inside. To feel nothing. To feel everything. Where a hole opens wide enough to drive a Buick through the middle of my chest. And this murky, humid wind rips out every good feeling I ever had, bringing all my nightmares to the surface. A feeling I will entertain far too many times in my life. And as I sit here, trying to be still, trying to be alone with my troubles, I wonder: Does the fear of what lies ahead outweigh the will to survive?

Reviews

[Hedra Helix]

Woo love this s**t, STILL.

[Wendi Lee]

"Does the fear of what lies ahead outweigh the will to survive?"

Nice ending to your short story! I must say that in times of wanting to give in and the wanting part of dying must go through everyone's mind at some point in our lives! When one is as strong minded as we are, the will to survive will out weigh everything in life itself! Just when one wants to give up on life, something comes along to make us want to hang on that much harder!

I enjoyed your story! I hope all is well your way. Remember you are loved and thought of by me!

Love always,
Wendi Lee