A Storming Thought

I can’t remember exactly when I lost it. The feeling is similar to losing your keys or your phone. You think that you have it with you but when you go to grab it you find nothing. There is a sense of panic at first. You could have sworn that you just had it. It feels like someone played a trick on you. Like you’ve been cheated out of something that was yours by right. It's unfair and frustrating. You feel like a fool because you know that the memory you need is in your head somewhere but you just can’t recall it. I do know that I forgot how to be human sometime between the end of elementary and the start of high school. Maybe I had forgotten it all at once or maybe it just gradually slipped away. I’m not entirely sure. I don’t even remember what caused me to forget. Was it disuse or something else?  I do remember being painfully aware of the absence of that knowledge. It’s a strange feeling when you’re not human anymore. It’s a numb feeling edged with spikes of anxiety and uncertai...

It is 10:34 a.m. on a Tuesday. I am now 18 minutes late for work and counting. There is a small but noticeable coffee stain on my favorite blue shirt. A nasty purple bruise has formed on my left hand from where I slammed it in the car door earlier. I have been conscious for exactly four hours and forty-eight minutes. I look up and see a twelve floating in sickly yellow light half a foot above my head. Already the mistakes are piling up. I am dying.  As I walk into the building the elevator is shutting. Trills of anxiety run up my spine at the sight so I make a mad dash for it. I have been plagued, among other things, with an absence of coordination since birth so I wasn’t surprised when maybe five inches from the doors I stumbled. The first thing I notice is the hollow bang as I  ram my face into the sliding door. Shame dulls the burning pain in my jaw only slightly. I refuse to look up. I know what it says. Internally I feel screams rattle inside me. Eleven . My impact wit...

You and I share a body. That is quite unfortunate because I hate you as I’m sure you must hate me in return. It is because of this sole fact that I know that we are not the same person. How could one be so diametrically opposed in both action and thought unless they were, in fact, two people? I am nothing like you and you are nothing like me but yet here we are. Forced to be bound together in this mortal vehicle. Unable to escape one another no matter how much we may wish for it.  We never speak to one another. That's not entirely true. I speak. You are silent. You talk to others and sometimes in moments of temporary truce, you decide to talk for me but never to me. I wonder if you have that ability at all. To return conversation and engage in dialogue. Maybe you do speak just not in words. That must be it because I can feel you. Your anger, anxiety, and fear. Those rare and precious moments of happiness. I feel it all. You have known very few moments of peace and they are far be...

Age has made me increasingly less patient. I had been standing in the hallway outside the examination room playing on my phone while the nurse got the chart prepared. In the span of five minutes, the typical social media apps had somehow left me both anxious and annoyed. After responding to six comments of varying levels of ignorance and malice I was pacing to work off the excess anxiety. During the walk, I fiddled with the stiff fingers on my right hand. I despise confrontation above most things. It often makes me feel judged and looked down upon, but it is a necessity. The sound of steps joined my own as Nurse Bailey approached with a metal clipboard. She handed it over but stopped maybe an inch short of my hand when she got a clear look at my face. The brows furrowed, the eyes narrowed, and the mouth became a hard line. She let out a loud snap that demanded my attention. “Hey. Focus up. You’re helping people remember.” Her voice was edged which spiked the anxiety in me even higher, ...

During college, I took a world history class. It was required, and I had put it off for long enough. The course covered significant events from the mid-20th century to the current day. The class was mundane, and the professor was exactly what you would expect. A white dude in his mid-sixties with a fascination for a subject that he never realized no one else cared about. His name was Mr. Morris. I remember one day, he came to class unusually somber. His face sagged with sorrow, and his red-rimmed eyes were wet with pain. In old leather shoes, he stood there. For maybe thirty seconds, he did nothing but take deep breaths, and then he began. “The university requires me to teach you about the Black Eye.”  There was silence. Not one born of fear or respect for an authority figure. Not a comfortable silence found in easy moments of boredom or contentment. It was the silence one wishes to avoid at all cost. The quiet that gestates in awkwardness and unease then slithers out of its egg, c...

               Malcolm loved the temple. Its grand image was one of his first memories. Large, intimidating towers watched over the city. Magnificent stained-glass windows, depicting a blue phoenix rising from its ashes, looked upon the citizens like the glowing eyes of a giant. It was a marvelous scarlet edifice, rightfully named the Red Star Temple. The temple could be seen from  anywhere in the city. It even outshone the king’s palace, Blackrock Castle, a rather dull monolith made of jet stone.  As the capital city, Redhaven was often filled with citizens going about their day, but none more so than early in the morning. The temple was so revered that all of the city’s residents would congregate at its steps every morning for the scarlet hour, a dazzling moment when the sun’s first light hit the temple. The sun would bathe the temple in its light and in return, the temple would glow a brilliant blood color, like a giant red star....