Waving Not Drowning

This is an incredible moment of panic. Opening up the freezer and not finding the stash of emergency chocolate. The really expensive kind, too. Fair trade, organic, chips of mint, maybe coconut, she can't remember. It was a spontaneous purchase for occasions just like this one. She knows better. Stay away from the computer. Flashing across her screen. His face. The date. The announcement. Probably as close as she'll ever come to skydiving without a parachute. She imagines that this is what it feels like. Her vision blurs, she feels her pulse pound through the veins in her neck like a torture porn movie, and waits for her heart to explode. Any second now. This is it. Old ghosts. Living in her psyche. Lining her fascia, sheathing her entire body. Tiny tubular webbing filled with fluid, stretching and undulating, tightening, seizing, creating adhesions. Blocks. Sticking patterns. She needs to break it down before it hardens into more scar tissue around her heart. Again. Months of ...

Jesus christ woman, I can smell you from here. I don't know what you've been doing but whatever it is you need to take a shower. Or four. Pronto, capiche? You know I love you but seriously, what have you eaten, a dead baby? Holy dinah, darlin' you are not fit for public consumption. Oh! Oh oh oh oh! Put your shoes back on. PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON! For the love of all that's holy and I include among that our glorious, sacred, if somewhat left of center, occasionally anachronistic union, put 'em back on your feet and then take them off in an airtight, sealed chamber where they shall promptly be incinerated. Can you not smell that? How can you NOT smell that. How can the entire neighbourhood not smell that? It's worse than the worst ridiculously over priced cheese you could imagine. Worse than that runny Belgian cheese you brought home at christmas! Phew. They let you train in those? In a group? You didn't gas the entire class with the stench? Tell me, I'm s...