The wind blew away the papers from my hands. My grip was not tight enough. I stood still watching them fly to the rhythm of the wind gushing and blowing them far. They are important documents but not worth missing this moment for. If you are anywhere close to my age, then you might understand what I am talking about. Remember that movie, American Beauty. Wes Bentley and the dancing plastic bag scene. It is quite a known one, with a hidden meaning. A plastic bag being blown by the wind against the backdrop of closed shutters; going up and falling. It is quite a scene. Of all the scenes in that movie; that were many, this one stands fresh in my memory. I don’t know why it felt so important. Being slammed and then gently laid down to rest for 2 seconds followed by a fast flight to the top, isn’t that what life is? Unpredictable and unfair. Showing you highs and lows and moments when you feel it would be easier to just drop dead. Standing here watching these papers fly away in the sky, nothing spectacular, the wind dropped them off in a muddy puddle. I will definitely need to reprint them. By the way, they are the introduction to my new novel.
I didn’t like the first chapter anyway. Maybe it is a sign and that I should rewrite the introduction. It clearly was worth falling into a muddy puddle, not even on the grass. It was literary garbage that deserved to be muddled with dirty slimy water breeding mosquitoes. Regular, annoying and scratchy mosquitoes, not the malarial ones. My work does not deserve the high-class mosquito breeding puddle. Ok, so back to the introductory chapter that I will need to rewrite. And most likely my agent will drop me after I inform her of this clumsiness.
I feel my anxiety showing up. I can always breathe easily. It is normal for me to identify my breathing and exercise long breathes. So, when I have a panic attack my symptoms are different from those of my friends. Maybe that is why I am not taken seriously. For me, panic attack is, my face turns red, my body feels the shivers but does not show it. And I cry uncontrollably. Off late I have started crying loudly. The first time it happened, I was driving. I had just left my friend’s house and the moment I got on the road at a comfortable speed, I began to cry. At first gentle tears beautifully trickled down my cheeks. But within seconds, I was screaming and crying. It scared me. My own screams scared me into silence. An abrupt empty silence. It felt good to let it all out, but it also scared me. For I was finally realizing, my pain might not look the same as others. But it was real. As real as my hands on the keyboard typing and creating a world.
It wasn’t always like this. I am kidding, it was always like this. Earlier or I should say growing up, I learned to hide it behind my anger now I openly let it show. You know by crying alone in the car.
Yet here, in this moment, my hard work of 6 months is being used by slimy frogs to sunbathe on does not feel like a moment worth crying. I already have thoughts about what I am going to change in the introduction. It will be awesome.
Damn, why am I in the air? Am I high? No, I did not, wait.
“Somebody call an ambulance; she is still alive.”
“Hey, hey don’t die ok. Help is on the way.”
Damn it. Right before I was going to rewrite. I am going to die unpublished. Aaaarrrrghhhhh!
Black Coffee and Grey Stories 