November212011
I died last night at 1:53am. I mean, actually, I’m not sure when I died. It could have been when my throat swallowed those pills (1, 2, 3, 4, …) or when my fingers, once clutched so tightly around that translucent orange case, relaxed and eventually, fell open. It could have been then, or when my vision faded out or when my stomach busted open with pain. Or—or, what if I never died, and just, experienced the end of dying? What if it were months ago, when I glanced around the room and wondered why I could not suddenly see the future.
Either way, my mother did not notice immediately the next morning. She tapped on my room twice when noon rolled around. My body must have already started to smell by then, because she began scolding me about leaving leftovers in my room as she opened the door. She did not even notice then. No, instead, she yanked open the curtains. With the sunlight streaming against her back, she stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for me to wake.
She began screaming.
I left then, left the house. It’s January here, but the desert warms up quite fast even in the winter. Many of our hummingbirds choose to stay, as opposed to leaving for Mexico, so we always leave the red feeder out. Currently, an Anna’s hovers by a plastic flower. The brilliant sun catches against his bright magenta throat as he, with his curiously tiny feet curled against his chubby iridescent body, pokes at a plastic flower.
We keep basil plants under the hummingbird feeder. My mother has never figured out just how to prevent basil from flowering, so the current pot boasted of a tiny bush with even tinier white flowers. The male Anna’s at the feeder suddenly descends to survey the basil. A few buds peak out among the flowers, and I will never see them bloom.
Back then, life felt like a dream. And, to be honest, death feels no different. I wonder what I had expected, when I sat down on the bed with the pills. I should have, perhaps, snuck out that night—crawled along the roof top and dropped into the garden (yes, we have a garden in the desert!). I could have escaped to that street where all the college kids frequent, and maybe, maybe, I could have felt a surge of adrenaline kicking my heart up and about to confirm that yes, yes, I was alive. And perhaps, then, I could have crawled back home at the start of dawn to watch the hummingbirds fight over the feeder and wave their little feet against their chubby bodies. Maybe. I could have. Woken up.
I won’t be waking up any longer.
Tags: /this was extraordinarily painful to write but I needed it /aerie
