An Ambiance of Technology

This is the third part of what will hopefully be a nine-part entry in the River of Mnemosyne challenge that’s going on over at The Tenth Daughter of Memory.

I can’t breathe.

I’m lying in a dark, dank hole in the ground and there’s something huge and heavy on my chest, crushing me and I can’t breathe.

Above me, in the dark and the shadows, someone is shoveling dirt on me. I can feel it land on my face and my body, filling in the hole around me.

I can’t breathe.

Heart pounding in my chest and gasping for breath, I try to find enough air to drag into my lungs. I’m pinned and suffocating and I can’t get my body to move.

There’s a burning in my chest, like someone’s shoved a spear on fire clean through, front to back.

It burns and I can’t breathe as I sit bolt upright in my bed, scared out of my mind, sweating, shaking, just trying to find enough air to breathe.

With years of practice my husband rolls over and reaches for me, out of habit, still half-asleep. “Are you ok?”

For all that this is our script he never fails to say the words with love and concern.

“No.” I push the strangled word through a dry, tight throat.

I was too damn hot. It was too damn hot in the room and I couldn’t breathe.

I need to move. Throwing the covers back, I roll off the bed, stand locked and rigid. Rapid-fire bursts of light from the changing images on the tv flicker in the dark, dance along the walls.

The only sound in the stillness is the roar of my pulse in my ears.

I grab the tiny bottles on the nightstand and stagger out of the bedroom.

************************

Soft, silver light from the full-moon hanging bright-white in a black sky streams in through the foyer window, meets me at the foot of the stairs.

I throw open the door and step out onto the porch, stand barefoot on the threshold, pulling huge shuddering breaths of cold, clear, night air deep into my lungs.

It’s like a slap in the face, forcing my head to snap back in physical response. The effect on my panic is almost like magic.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The shock is just enough to knock down the terror, the panic, and along with the deep breathing I could feel the anxiety begin to back off just enough, just under the border of panic.

My fingers curl white-knuckled around the bottles in my hand. I don’t need to see the labels to know what they are.

Ambien. Lorazepam. Effexor. Wellbutrin. Clonazepam. Celexa. Buspar.

Mix and match. I think I should be able to sleep for weeks.

Forever.

I think that would be really nice; a really welcome change.

So sad, too bad.

The wind shifts, a cold arctic breeze that sweeps down from the north and slides through trees and power lines already coated with a fine crystalline sheen.

A hard shiver rips through me and I wrap my arms around myself as I back into the house and close the door.

************************

I’m wrapped up in my blanket and the spill of light from the street lamp that pools on my desk top.

Tension coils in my gut, claws its way up and out into my chest, creeps up my spine toward my shoulders. I can feel it trying to wrap its fingers around the base of my neck.

I pop the top on the Lorazapam, shake two pills into the palm of my hand.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I pop the pills and sip on my coffee as I sit and stare at the warm, backlit glow of my monitor and click in the stillness and the dark.

Upstairs my husband and children are sleeping. I imagine I can hear soft breathing and wish I could sleep like they do.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Alone is good. Quiet is good.

Better living through chemistry.

Hunched into myself, I sit and stare and click in the dark as I wait for the pills to kick in.