A Trip in The Dark

And that’s when I knew I needed to see a doctor.

My muscles coil into padlocks until my body steels into a safe curled up on the floor. A horror slideshow streams through my head. Ghosts of what should-have-been and could-have-been moan through the halls. What-ifs sink their teeth into thought after thought and turn them into vampires that drain my blood, my energy- all of me. 

My therapist says to touch ice, but she’s never spoken to the achingly heavy pressure on my chest as if I am trapped below a lake with my hands tied behind my back. This is a fight I am not going to win. My breath -exhaustively, slow- labors, but round one has just begun. My tongue stays still like a victim strapped to a chair.

My wife comes home and finds me like this. She shakes her head and rocks me in her arms. Her shoulders smell of sweat. The slideshow ends. The thoughts retreat. A sense of shame eats me alive. I throw up my white flag. “Alright, I will go find a psychiatrist.”

The psychiatric nurse nodded. Relief washed over me like a lifebuoy thrown to someone drowning. Help. At. Last.

Author's Note

Hello,

This is a class submission, experimenting with story structure, tense, and figures of speech.

Thanks for stopping by!