A Cold Blast I Hear

It starts out benign. Just a slight discomfort. I can almost ignore it until without much fanfare or permission. It takes root and grows. It grows offshoots into every corner of my being. The tentacles are alive, burning the grief deeper. It is relentless, pressing hard, invading. My ribs feel as though they are ripping apart. Stretching and tearing.

My elevated heart rate sets off the machines. Buzzers and beeps fill the room as wide-eyed nurses come rushing in. Marsha and Janet jump to their feet. The overhead lights pop on. I lose control.

I breathe hard for less oxygen. My chest heaves. Up. Down. Up. Down. The air stops at the massive lump that was once my heart. Burning, lava tears blind me. Mucus fills my sinuses, dripping and leaking everywhere. Parched lips. I can’t swallow passed my swollen tongue. My heart, the actual muscle, feels twice its normal size. It beats in my eyes, my ears, my head.

Stop. Please slow down. I need. I need. I need to stop. Breathe. Instead of filling with oxygen, the tentacles invade and burn into my lungs.

My jaw tightens like a vise. Swollen arteries beat in my ears. Sweat beads in the small of my back, heat radiating up my shoulder blades and into my head. It feels like a fifty pound bosu ball, crushing the pillow it rests on, tight like a headache but not. My eyes have nothing left to leak out. The lids are sticky and impossible to close.

Nurses look passed me to the monitor.

Lifting my hand, my right hand, the only hand that works, to my eyes, I force them closed. I force the pain inside.

With every breath, I go deeper. The shell wraps around. Breathe. Pressing fingers hard against my eyelids, I’m sealed in. Safe. Alone. Breathe. I cannot love again. Nothing can touch me here.

The tentacles recede. Breathe. The heat dissipates. Breathe. My fingers soften, sliding off my eyes, down my face and rest on my chest.

My eyes open.

I laugh inside at the commotion I just caused. Don’t worry, guys. That cardiac event was just my heart exploding. The nurses realize what I just learned and bow their heads, backing out of the room.

Excerpt: Flying Lessons, Angela Kari Gutwein

“But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.” T.S. Elliot, The Waste Land

The Flying Lessons
Sometimes it’s okay to step outside you skin.
Be willing to walk through hell.

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