MegaMymy

Maya had trouble sleeping. She would’ve wanted to browse the internet, but her eyes were strained already, and she will have to wake early tomorrow to get to school. To lay down was simply the easiest option. She did not hate sleep: it was preferable to most things, but she had no wish to embrace it, either. Her mind was clouded with regrets, and a sense of partiality, as if a bone was ripped out of her ribcage, or her abdomen hollowed out; she could not rest like this, and a noise inside her head was ever more forcefully threatening: „sleep would see you worse off”. She got up and took a few steps in her room, walking to the door, then to her computer, looked out the window, walked back to her bed, but found herself unable to return to it. What would’ve been a place of comfort on a cold, winter night was now the site of an unwanted task she had no wish to do. She opened her wardrobe, glanced at the shelves, took notice of her cactus, but could not settle on a single object. Her thoughts were scattered all around her, as if they were separate of her and merely inhabited her mind, not unlike the chaotic state of the objects within the room. Wherever she looked, she found something unsettling, something she did not wish to see. It was almost repulsive: seeing how she lived, what surrounded her, what she herself had made of her vicinity, like a mirror held too close to her face to gloss over the imperfections, too close to comfortably glance at and ignore. It was suffocating, finding not a single place she could occupy and claim as sanctuary in what was a portion of her home entitled entirely to her. She opened the door of her room and looked out into the hallway. The clock struck midnight not long ago, her sisters were likely sleeping by now. It was dark, of course it was, what else would it have been, who else is going to walk about at this hour? What was she even doing, why was she here, what time was it and why could she not sleep? She made no attempt to shake these questions from her mind, partly because she could not, partly because she cared not. She had grown to resent herself, and was not deterred by it. It all ceased making sense a long time ago: who she was, what she liked, why she did what she did. She moved out into the hallway, down the stairs, and out the door. Her heart raced, and she made every effort not to rouse her parents from their sleep. She felt the ground shake as she turned the keys in the door, and once out, she felt closing it might bring the walls themselves down. But the house stood, and she was now outside. The cool wind was quite unlike the scorching, humid day that preceded it. It was almost uncomfortably cold in contrast, but she did not mind it. She walked out to the street, looking more often at the windows of her home than at the road ahead of her. She feared being seen walking, feared her parents might become worried and bear down on her with the full might of parental concern. She feared their inquiries, the disruption that would follow both in her routine of comfortable complacency, and in her perception of herself. Regret washed over her: what a stupid idea it was to sneak out in the middle of the night, what was she even looking for here, why couldn’t she just stay there and sleep? But she could not turn back. Her limbs were in open revolt against her every intention, and they would sooner toss themselves before a truck on the road were one to emerge, than move an inch towards her room, that most disgusting of witnesses to what she was. She moved further, looking at the road and her feet upon it rather than think of where she was headed. It was easier to just count her steps than to think of herself. She hastened her movement, throwing her legs forward with anger and determination, but without any direction or intent. The ground beneath her turned from concrete to a dirt path, from a dirt path to soil with grassy patches. She became so focused on her steps that she hardly heard the creek, stopping only when she was about to trudge into it. She snapped out of her focus. It felt cold: the open sky with its many stars, the quiet running of the water, the wind brushing against her face. She did not mind it. The smell of the trees hit her, forcing her out of her shell and thrusting her into the unchanging perfection of nature. She heard the owls and the endless concert of crickets as they did what was obvious to them, never doubting why they emerged at night to serenade the stars, never doing that which they found wrong. The dim moon shone down to illuminate her surroundings just enough for her to make out where she was. She saw street lights in the distance, which seemed so foreign to her right now. She was aware of this place, saw it daily when going to school. She sat by the water and cried.