Written by Shenice Friday.
Do not get out of bed.
I wish I could start over.
After weeks of mellow, lying soullessly in bed waiting for my mind to descend time and take me back to before- I have finally mustered the drop of perseverance required for me to crawl to the bathroom. Recently, I have been finding it hard to process my emotions, so I often end up starting from scratch. From the beginning. The only thing that I am sure of now is that everything is calculated, I know it; my subconscious has been participating in a scheme to route my own body against me. I cannot be trusted.
Walking towards the bathroom my legs pain me, I can see the correlation- in which the aching of my legs intertwines with the burning of my eyes that comes from sleep deprivation. This combination of physical torment swirls throughout my body and into the state of emotional torment that resides permanently in my brain. Together they cloud my memories and warp my thoughts, it hurts.
Plastered open by the light and then by the steam of the running bath, my eyes sting relentlessly, it feels as if they are crying out to me- begging for rest. Just a second of peace. It has been a while.
The cold ceramic of the bath tub brushes against my leg, forcing me into harsh reality. I feel frozen in a state of mediocrity that I can’t seem to escape, nothing is important, or exciting- no positives or negatives- only mediocrity.
After sitting in this tub for 15 minutes or so, my arms and legs have grown goosebumps underneath this boiling coat of fluffy bubbles. My body is no longer against me, I can be trusted. Shivering in the heat, I stare at the black marble walls around me until they feel artificial.
6:45pm
It is now 6:45pm.
Something is coming for me. This is not paranoia. Every hour I feel it inch closer. Do not get out of bed. I am disintegrating. This is not paranoia. My organs and limbs can sense the future, it is as if they are peeling away from my body in preparation. Curled up and naked, I look at my cold, wet skin and my eyes do not even recognise it as my own. I think I am inhabiting a foreign body. This is not paranoia.
I won’t move from this place.
The only thing that is currently blatant to me is that my exhaustion has surpassed all ranks of emotional drainage and therefore sleep is no longer a viable option. I do not think that I am capable of finding any comfort in this realisation.
7:30pm
Everything is calculated. Do not get out of bed. I am not depressed, I am haunted. I can see the flickers in reality, I know nothing is real. I know I do not have much time left before the rot comes for me. I can hear the clock ticking like it is echoing the beat of my heart. I am going to be consumed today, fed to the rot. My body will become it, used as nutrition so it can grow, so it can infect others.
9pm
What is the use in trying if my body cannot co-operate?
Every hour I envision it: getting up and running away. I picture myself, my body, fleeing the house and heading for the woods. I run and run and do not stop, never stop, never look back. In the end everything transforms, it is all so blurry, I always come to the end of the road, trapped. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Then somehow I am back here, inside, it is like I never left. How long have I been in here, confined to this seated position? I am the servant of restriction. I will not make it out.
11:45pm
This room feels emotionally vacant. I hear the ticking coming from inside my chest - the time is here.
Sweating hands and feet; I stalk the clock. Giving up on me, the blood in my veins begins to freeze. I can feel my lungs closing up- my heart palpitating. Decaying flakes of flesh fall off of my brittle bones one by one. Stripping my arms, my torso, my neck. Now the clock strikes midnight. Warts of flaky mould are birthed out of my bones as sheets of my velvet flesh fall to the ground. I feel my organs begin to decompose.
I see her within a fraction of my sight. She has deep eyes that are filled with death. The rot is here.
As she consumes me from afar I gradually deteriorate- my mouth becomes frozen in place and my lips have turned green with mould. My stomach flutters and oesophagus burns as lengthy spiders and red-eyed critters start crawling out of my body. They exit from my mouth, nose, eye sockets and the crevices within my palms. Mould and thick scarlet clots of blood spew out of my mouth until my insides have painted the room in its entirety.
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