I Wish I Was a Cat

Chapter 1: A Busy Life

It is quite oppressive to be in a 3 meter to 5 meter room all the time. You may feel the walls about to close down on you, crush you. You can feel the oxygen wasting away. What would be left? Burning the candle on two ends diminishes it; the molten wax is all that's left. Dally fancied the aftereffects already. However, stabilized walls do not collapse alone without a force; it is nothing heard of before. If there was a switch to destroy it all, would she pull it down herself? Maybe death is mercy, for death is rest.

The loud buzzing in her ears might have been her fancy too, but, unfortunately, it was her phone reminding her of the emergency of wrapping up her break and getting back to work. She sat on the desk slowly as if afraid the chair could suddenly spring up and turn into snakes. As if a switch was turned on, all her thoughts vanished and focused on the task in hand. A university exam was due in a few hours. She would not normally have done herself so; keeping everything till the last few hours. Alas, the exhaustion was starting to slow her down, pulling her from behind. After a while of exclusive focus, she lost the ability to process anything anymore as her brain looked like fish stew.

Would that stop her? No. And God forbid she ever gives herself a break, for how could she when everything was requiring her immediate attention. Her side job, the house chores, and the university work. Everything was merging and separating in her mind. Just the other day, she mixed up her client with her professor, her classmate with her mother, and the sky to be the white of a sheet while the clouds the blue of the sea. Her vision bubbled and danced before her. A few hours of sleep could fix it all, it really could! She knew, but maybe her sound reasoning left her. 

It was torture. She was tormenting herself and for what! As if she was simultaneously a judge and an offender. She indeed had done a crime, and it was against herself. God knows what might have convinced her that she had to suffer to earn some achievements that only might come in handy in her resume. Maybe she couldn't fancy anymore, her brain was all muddled. Did she even consider herself anything at all? The tiredness was eating away at her; there might be nothing left at all. A second time, the alarm rang. The dreaded hour has come. She walked down her dorms slowly as if she was a perpetrator waiting to be hung. She never made it down the stairs though or at least not in the way she wanted. Her face paled and her body's control slipped. She fell and slid down a few stairs. She was in so much pain she could not scream. A few students saw her and rushed to her. She heard a scream before her senses fully left her.

Next, a room filled with beds came into view. A woman was speaking to her, but she could not make out anything. Everything around her was spinning. She was trying her hardest to grasp at anything, but it kept sliding from her. She fancied herself lost between the thin thread of life and death. Her thoughts jumbled together as if it were not her own but somebody else's whisperings. When she finally came about there were not multiple beds neither a woman by her side. It was a small hospital room. She still could not move about. How ever did she get here? Her head ached and throbbed. Her recollection of the previous events finally came about. She glanced at the ticking of the clock that has immensely agitated her. She missed her exam and multiple other things. Weirdly though, some kind of relief came over her. Free the patient is of anything but their health. There was nothing for her to do in this state after all, she was wired to some monitor, and she was too tired to move around. 'I'll take care of it when I am better', Dally thought, 'yes, I will just work as twice as hard when I am better'. She plunged into sleep as soon as she said the words, but it was an oath she locked onto her heart.

The slumber was not in the least restful; instead it just made her more uneasy and nauseous. She wanted to pick at her skin and to tear it apart as she grinded against her teeth in insensible anger that was targeted towards her and everybody else. Her mother was there, pleading and beseeching her to open her eyes. Weirdly, someone else was there, but it was not her brother. It was a classmate in her biochemistry lectures, Sawsan. "Oh, thank God! You have woken up! How I was terrified when I heard those terrible news! Thankfully, the doctors said there is not anything to be worried about and that you will be back on your feet in no time. However, when I came to see you, and you were lying in your hospital bed completely knocked out, well, I could have been knocked out myself. My dear, I am old. Do not pull stunts like these again, okay?", her mother said obviously pleased with the turn of events with a stray tear on the side. For some reason, Dally found her mother's words even more fuel to her ridiculous vexation. The presence of that girl too seemed to add gasoline onto the already igniting fire.

She wanted to get back to her books and duties. If it meant this break is just going to mean being surrounded by this dullness and inner heat, she did not want it. "I am fine. You need not have come over mama. I just haven't slept well", she retorted. "See, what I would have just expected, you are not made to live alone", her mom said as a matter of fact. Dally bit her tongue back, yes, she was exasperated but not as much as she was exhausted. The nurses came into the room and took her pulses and all her vitals before they concluded that she was good to go. Nonetheless, when they came to help her up as to test her balance, she collapsed. They were ordering her to get up to check, but she could not. She was told that it was not funny to fake it, but she was not.

Her mother looked at her in a way she had often seen throughout her life, that condescending look where she felt herself turn into something so insignificant. She was so small; she could be crushed. Why was she frightened if it was familiar? Isn't it the normal to get used to the usual? Her pride might have shielded her a bit, but her mother's shadow was still wandering over her, and it looked like a demon fresh out of another realm. "Dally, get up. What do you think you are doing? Stop bothering the poor nurses! Behave! You are 20 for crying out loud. How much time do you need till you grow up? Get up! Get up now!", she almost yelled. Dally's knees wobbled. She could not stand no matter how hard she tried. Her head spun. The nurses concluded she might have still been dizzy and allowed her to lie down for more time and to get some sleep. She was left alone in the room with that annoying clock again. No relief was due this time, all there was were some shocked hot tears. 

Even after a while of rest, the results did not improve much. Could it have been the irritable inner scratching of the brain slowing down the development? Was the anxiety too bad it put the body into self-feeding? Dally have stayed for days, and the days have turned into months. Her mother showed her around from hospital to hospital, and just how many numerous tests has she done! The only response they got from the doctors was "she's fine, nothing shows up". She has been living a nightmare; she could have sworn she was. She started calculating everything she have missed from lectures, resumed work, and all the exams she have not attended. Falling into an endless circle of worry, it felt like she was going down a one-way road. Her sanity was on the line.

Until things have gotten so bad it was beyond a 3 meter to 5 meter room, she has woken up in a new form.