Wednesday, November 29, 2017

T

ravis Gibbs's eyes were wide like a rabid dog's. They searched across my waist, where he found a field of bright crimson blood oozing from where the wardrobe's edge pressed into my ribs. His breathing was heavy, and, shaking all the while, he said, "We've got to get this thing off of you."

I shook my head. Don't touch it, said my eyes. Don't touch me-- "Where's Jack? Where is everyone?"

Travis ignored my question. His hands grabbed for my waist anyway, and he meant to evaluate the damage. Then he moved around and slid to a squat so he could begin pulling the heavy wardrobe off of me.

"Did you hear me?" I said. "Where are the others?"

But Travis seemed to just ignore me, as his veins erupted from the temples on his forehead, and he began a series of aggravated grunting sounds and pulled with all his might to lift the wardrobe from off my burning stomach. I could feel the pressure of air within my abdomen rising as the wardrobe pinched with the weight of a heavy boulder on my digestive system. I had felt something like this before, something like having a pyramid of toddlers I used to babysit jump on my stomach while I was sleeping, or the first time I went to the gym for strength training and dropped the bar on my bellybutton. But this was worse than both of those combined and with the added idea that those jumping toddlers would have been jumping up and down on me while stabbing me with kitchen knives, or that bar could have been lined with serrated strips of needles before it fell into my flesh. So analogous were those scenarios to the sensation of this heavy broken wardrobe on my stomach. And as Travis attempted to play superman to lift the giant furniture off of me, all he managed to do was twist and deepen the chipped and flaking edge of the wooden wardrobe so that it dug into my flesh with worse burns similar to sandpaper.

"Stop, Travis! Get help!" I moaned and the tears streamed down in a burning tide.

My shouts shocked Travis and he knocked backward onto his ass in a fright, his hair suddenly standing up on his head. "I'm sorry, am I hurting you?" he said. "I was trying--"

But I cut him off. That the most useless man of the five was the only one here to help irritated me. I drew my finger in the other direction. "Find someone! Go get someone who has actually been to the gym in their life!"

He looked at me with amazed offense, but managed to see that the blood around my waist circled down to my buttocks and dripped onto the balcony tiles. He scrambled to his feet, looked every which way in a panic (his emotions muddled his mind) and burst off into the distance. I could not see him behind the wardrobe, but I could sure hear his feet as he ran.

"Where are you going?" I said, now curious where he would look. All went quiet for a moment, and I was suddenly left alone to the sound of my raspy breath. I tilted my head forward and tried with my own arms to push the wardrobe off me before it would close off all circulation to my lower body. It was surely pinching a nerve in my lower spine, for I could no longer feel my feet. I pushed for a long miserable moment before I gasped and let go. I dropped my head back and gritted my teeth in pain as the wardrobe sunk even further into my pelvis. My stomach started to swell where my circulation cut off. I looked up to the sky. My head hung like a tire swing which beneath the limp branches of a dead tree.

The sharp upturned tile beneath my lower back still stabbed the flesh of my lumbar region. Ironically my lower back grew numb as the shard sunk deeper into my back. Overstimulation seemed to fade my senses. My body might be giving up on itself, and as the blood seeped down into my skull, the waters below seemed to accelerate.

I thought I heard screams, but it was only wishful thinking. No one was around, no one alive. The clouds above were grey and racing. . . the grey clouds overcame the blue sky in a battle to dominate the heavens above. Grey turned to black while the clouds grew denser.

In a moment, thunder struck. Raindrops started to dance on my upturned chin. I closed my eyes, and let the drops roll down my skin, trespass the crease between my lips, and even fill my nostrils.

Let me die this way. It doesn't matter anymore.

I hope Travis never returns.