24
I lay awake, following the whirlpool of thoughts deeper into my self-consciousness. At first, it was trepidation about the anxiousness exploding into a panic attack. I existed on this brink that represented this horrible danger. Beyond it, I didn’t know what else there was. Madness, maybe. Or that’s what I thought when I was younger and naïve. Then it was worrying about possible health issues. Like that small lump that appeared on my hip following a game of tennis when I was just sixteen. Cancer, maybe? That was a weekend of worry, until my GP told me it was some fatty deposit. There were other things that cropped up. Like,…
23
I wake to the sight of five shadowy black pulses wafting through the doorway into my bedroom and approaching my bed. And that’s it. I sit up, fully roused. The shadowy pulses are gone. They didn’t just disappear. They might’ve never been. I’m alone in my bedroom. Nothing but me and what happened. I think of this in-between world between waking and sleep, this realm where the conscious mind is shutting down, and dreaming and reality blurs. There’s an alarm here, but I’m not overly worried. I haven’t kicked into fight or flight mode. My anxiety is not cycling up to catastrophising what’s going on. Of course, I’m older now.…