How Does a Daffodil Survive in Winter?

xx | Mommy's Special Water

TW: Substance abuse

I was in the body of my younger self. Everything looked big when you're no taller than a table. The walls seemed so tall and wide. It felt like no matter how big you got you'd never fill up the room. I looked down at my small feet and wondered how I ever got anywhere.

Cautiously, I walked around and immediately recognised the battered walls and dirty carpet. I followed the line of dust in the air into the living room, where the only beam of sunlight shone through a crack between the curtains. A lone couch, the same plain cream colour as the walls surrounding it, sat in the middle of the room. A small television was placed in front of it and it's static noise was the only sound in the room.

At first glance the room was unoccupied but I knew she was there. The bottles of beer littered on the floor gave it away. It was almost like a breadcrumb trail except at the end was a crazy alcoholic woman in her thirties who either spent her days on the verge of passing out or actually passed out.

I took a few careful steps forward and saw her lying on the ground. Again, looks could be deceiving. She looked lifeless but I knew she was alive. Kneeling down beside her, a guarded distance between us, I reached out and poked her lightly. Getting no response except for a groan. Most of the time she was like that. Barely registering, things around her. It was better than her being drunk and fully conscious. That's when she would...

I stood up. I began to grow taller and older. I was 16 years old again back in my comparatively taller body. Placing my foot on the shoulder of the body on the floor, I rolled her onto her back. My face scrunched up in disgust at the sight of her. Her stringy brown hair, the colour of ash, covered her gaunt face. Not a sight I wanted to see after seeing her like that for all the time I lived with her and suffered the consequences of her actions.

As I was about to walk away, her eyes snapped open, revealing a pair of bloodshot brown eyes. I frowned. She didn't have brown eyes. She had blue eyes like her sister.

I turned back to look at the face that haunts my memories. Instead I saw myself on the ground. Same dusty brown hair and scrawny figure, but where her face was, was my face.

That was enough to jolt me out of bed. The clock on the wall showed that it was nearly 3am, which meant that I had only been asleep for a little over an hour. I looked down at my clenched fist as cold sweat ran down my face and landed on my whitened knuckles. The taste of blood fully awakened me. I pressed my tongue against my cheek and felt the place where I had bit it.

I had to practically drag my legs to the bathroom to spit out the blood in my mouth. The mirror above the sink reflected my bloodshot eyes with heavy eye bags from the lack of sleep. I couldn't remember the last time I slept the required amount for my age. It was like 8 hours or some really long time. And I don't think I'll ever sleep for that long every night. Not if I keep getting nightmares.

I leaned my face against the mirror. The images of my nightmare flooded my mind and I couldn't help but shiver from fear. Just the image of my face replacing hers was enough to haunt me even when I was awake. I could no longer look at myself without seeing the similarities between us.

An object above fell from the top of the mirror. It was one of those cabinet mirrors and my aunt had all her things in there neatly organised with it's own labels. So it was strange to me that she had left something just sitting above it all. I picked it up from the sink. It was a pack of sleeping pills.

I checked the back. It wasn't past its use-by date. I looked at my tired face in the mirror. Well, I certainly needed sleep but I wasn't sure how the pills worked or how effective it was. Deciding to keep it just in case, I placed the pills in the pocket of my sweatpants and wandered downstairs to find something to keep me occupied as I spent another night awake.