Anxiety: A Short Story

In my dream, I’m in my room, and there’s this old bulletin board and a blue cooler. The board looks like something out a cop drama. It’s covered with newspaper clippings traced together with red string and push pins. The cooler is covered in clotted blood and melted ice. Sometimes I know my dreams are just that, and sometimes it’s not clear. I remember looking down to my arm and gathering as much skin as possible and squeezing, That’s the way to tell, right? Pinch yourself and if it doesn’t hurt, you’re just dreaming. My subconscious is cruel to me; because it hurts a lot. Anxiety is crawling up in my throat. I keep pinching until I’m just pulling at the skin, and it still hurts just like it would if I had been awake. If I could rationalize

My anxiety is palpable. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest. I can’t feel the fiction in this I this moment at all. In dreams, time isn’t exactly linear; so, all at once, I have a visitor and I’m sitting as still and straight as a stalagmite in this chair. I know her, unfortunately. In her life, she would be considered a beauty, pale and red headed, freckled face and free. In life, she’s a beacon, and in death, she’s the darkness. This woman, this Freddy to my Nancy, is my aunt. She’s my uncle’s wife and he killed her. I didn’t do anything to aide him, or encourage him. I was 6 when it happened and I just wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheese. I always felt

I’m sweaty and panting, and I can barely breath. I want to wake up my mom, or my sister but I know what they’ll say. They’ll say it was just a dream. I shouldn’t feel guilty because I didn’t do anything. I know this already but it doesn’t change anything at all. It didn’t feel like a dream because I can taste metal and smell her. I don’t sleep in my bed for months. I move to the couch. I never turn off the TV. It’s a constant marathon of Arrested Development, or Parks and Recreation. Anything funny so I don’t have to deal with the sadness and terror that has a white-knuckled grip on my spine. I prayed constantly and it didn’t seem to help. I barely slept for weeks. I felt like I was haunted, maybe cursed. Eventually, the smell faded and I couldn’t taste the blood in my mouth. The prays started to work. I still didn’t return to my bed and it took me months too. I’m still trying to overcome my guilt. I still struggle with bad