I'm Fine

Chapter 7 Nora

The next morning I forget how I felt walking in the rain, or watching McKenzie's wave of domino's crash down, I forget the world through a lense. I just feel numb. Feeling numb is a tight feeling, if it's very bad, it may even suffocate you, which is the case for me. It barely gives me room to breathe, it wakes me with a choke, only I don't choke, I don't feel my reluctant breathing because I can't feel anything more than my fingertips brushing my skin. Because when I wake up I can't feel anything.

What's worse than feeling numb? It's being numb. Because my mind is numb, and it refuses to work, its gears are jammed up with a wad of bubble gum. By the time both eyelids are fully open, I am aware of two things;

I am awake

I will have to get out of bed

"Why" I mentally protest. I'm sick of the gears always turning in the same circle. Before I'm even fully awake I know that when I return to my bed at night, nothing new or extraordinary will make my day feel worth the investment of being alive for it.

Eventually I do get out of bed, like I always do each morning, and it's not because I have an epiphany but because my mom's yelling has gotten better.

"Wake up, Nora!" I groan as if to say 'I am awake' it fools nobody.

"Downstairs in two minutes, Nora!" And that gets the ball rolling. Suddenly I understand McKenzie's need to make the Rube Goldberg, because dropping a marble isn't nearly as hard as opening your bedroom door. Everything becomes real outside your doorway.

Only how can something feel real when everything's numb? When you're numb you see what's real, but you're wrapped up tight to do anything, and there's no way to let something as strong as the concept of 'real' sink in when you're numb. School. Friends. Homework. All real, and the haze I'm trapped in is numb. It's not real because nobody sees it, including myself, I only see the destruction it leaves behind.

You always think that it will get better, but then you feel something wrap around you, and it whispers in your ear:

"I'm still here, I'll never leave you" the words never change, it's the voice. On some days, all it does is keep me from feeling life, I feel only the reassurance that at least something is there for me. On the worst days it maddens me, so much that I'm willing to drag a knife across my wrist. I felt that. I still feel it, and that two will never leave me. Two concealed cuts, a weight on my wrist. Whenever the voice comes around, however, I can't deny that it feels like the only thing in the world that's there for me and still invested.

The only other way I can and will attempt to describe how it feels to be numb is this; your head's in a fishbowl, not only can the world all look in, but you can look out and see everyone's reactions. Most people don't notice, some even assume you enjoy being in the fish bowl. There's only a small amount of people who see that the water is drowning you, they see you gasping for air, but they can't reach you, because time is slower inside the glass dome you know so well, and by the time you blink, they've passed.

Time passed, a day exactly. I experienced nothing to pierce my numbness, my camera wasn't charged by the last kid to use it so I had to just watch. There was no color today. There was just a cereal. In a serial collection of identical days.

By the time my head reached my pillow again, I felt no pride, no relief, no regrets, no last thoughts regarding my day that hadn't sparked any emotion. I just knew I'd do it all over again. The numb days stacked up like building blocks, they formed a tower that reached Saturday, an outlier in a cereal.

Finally the outlier arrived. It was noon, and I was still in a groggy state of being half awake and half asleep, it was 'Kenzie who decided to change that.