Silhouette of a Life

When was the last time I had slept for a whole night? A week? A month? When was the last time I had slept the whole night away without medicine to help lull me into a false sense of security? A month? A year?

I rub the sleep from my eyes and yawn, raising my arms up to the sky in a stretch that makes me shiver. It's not that I'm not tired. God, am I tired. I am physically exhausted. Emotionally worn out. But my mind still runs, faster and faster, feeling like it is overheating. The headache is so intense that it has numbed me beyond belief.

I push away from my desk and roll across the floor to my mirror. Average hair color of average length, average features. But the skin is taunt with lack of sleep, the eyes shadowed and haunted. Bags pulled down to the cheek bones in a daunting purple tinge. Hands tremble, tongue protrudes from mouth slightly, like it's too big to be held in such a small, gluey chamber.

I take out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter and light one with some difficulty. I almost catch my hair on fire, but I slowly move my head back from the flame. I blink and try to roll my eyes into awakening. I stick the cancer stick into my mouth and suck in the cloying, slaughtering smoke. Still a young but experienced smoker, the smoke doesn't make me cough, but it does make me extremely dizzy. I smile a bit and lean back in my chair, finishing the cigarette before smashing it out in the ash tray.

I decide on another attempt to sleep. But there's no way I can make it on my own. I stumble to the bathroom and find as many Tylenols I can fit into my mouth without choking and take them all. The little pills slide down my dry throat and congeal somewhere in my esophagus. I can't even care at this point. I stagger back into my bedroom and fall on the bed, barely trying to cover myself up. I curl into a ball and force myself to sleep.

Everything is white, in my dream. Everyone I love is surrounding me. And I feel happy. I feel like this is how things are supposed to be. In reality, I know this is how I should feel. I know there are people that care. That love me. And the realization makes the white world pulse with colors. Yellow, green, blue, red, black, back to white. The white grows brighter and throbs with a rhythm. I wonder lazily if this is the rhythm of life. I vow to make a change as soon as I get up. I want to feel loved. I want to feel happy outside of my dream. I know I can achieve this life outside of this dream. I smile and the white blinks out as I fall deeper into sleep.

I open my eyes slowly. At first I think that I was still in my dream-like epiphany. I smile into the white that blankets me, and I almost feel like falling back asleep into its gentle embrace. I close my eyes. I feel rested for the first time in days… weeks… months… I'd be willing to put my money on even years. But life waits for no one, and I open my eyes again to the white. Since when did my room become so white?

I try to sit up, but as soon as I do so, the screams start. They're not my screams. At least, I don't think they are. I don't feel like I'm screaming. I think they're coming from outside my apartment. I screw my eyes shut and clamp my hands over my ears, trying to block out the screams. They don't subside, but grow louder and louder until I can see the faces of the screamers. Faces taunt and gray, like mine. Tears run down their faces, and their pain becomes mine, and I begin to scream and cry as well.

I force my eyes open and move my hands from my ears to my mouth, trying to stifle my screams. Suddenly the screams stop, and mine do too. The tears abruptly dry. It's completely quiet.

I gaze at my surroundings. Completely white. Not dingy hospital white. Not heaven white. Insane asylum white, a mixture between the two. My breathing quickens as I remember how many pills I took. My breath catches in my throat and I clutch at my neck, trying to move the lump that has formed. I'd been in the mental institutes before for stupid stunts like this. Three times in the past five years. The first time I was in the asylum, I spent a whole year there. I shudder at the thought.

I decide to scream for help. I scream and scream, but no one comes. No one comes. I stop screaming gradually. I get out of the bed I'm in and I wander around the small, white room. It is bare except for the bed, a door with no doorknob, and a small window near the ceiling that I cannot reach. A small chair sits in the corner, a tan thing that looks like it might not hold my weight.

I decide to try the door. I push and whack my hands upon its surface, but I hear nothing. I almost start to scream again, but I think I'm alone. Tears well up. I think I'm dead.

"But… what about my dream?" I rasp, tears spilling over and wetting my cheeks. "What about my dream?" I scream louder, pounding my fists upon the door faster. I feel like everything's spiraling down to crash and burn. Tears race faster and faster down my cheeks. I take a running leap at the door and try to shove it open with my shoulder.

The door suddenly flies open, and I wish that it never had. People are milling about outside the door, screaming soundlessly with tear-stained faces. Most have wounds, and blood pools on the floor. A red tide whips into my room and around my bare feet. I scream louder and louder until they look at me, dead, sightless eyes staring at me with no feeling, no emotions.

The red tide sweeps over me, and I realize that I am dead. The dream was a lie. I realize that it's too late. I seem to have made a hasty, accidental exit. I'll never go back. I'm dead.

I'm dead.