Alexander
In three hours and twenty-nine minutes exactly, Alexander would have to get out of bed and face the responsibilities of his day. But until then he got to stare at the ceiling in his dark dorm room and pretend that, without his books and electronics (taken by Hercules and stashed by Eliza until class at 8 a.m.), he was not having an existential crisis. He got to pretend that he was asleep and not shaking so hard that the entire bed frame was nearly vibrating. He got to pretend that he didn’t want to scream loud enough to wake the entire campus.
If he could not write, could not act, could not do, how could he be? Without his words, Alex felt his very grip on existence slipping. All of his writing supplies were gone. Hercules had stopped entertaining his talking what seemed like an age ago. Was he real anymore? Was any of this real?
Perhaps it was all a death dream, the last flashes of his brain as the ocean drowned him back on St. Croix. Or maybe that was part of the dream, too. Maybe he was dying of that fever in his mother’s arms. He pinched himself hard. If this was all a dream so be it. But let him wake up, God please let him wake up. Even if to wake was to die.
What time was it? Did time even exist? Did space? Did anything? Was he living? Was he dying? Was he dead? Could he be any of those things if he didn’t exist? Tears streaked down his face, leaving tracks of salt on his cheeks. He sat up, gripping the sheets as though the bed would throw him at any moment. The night remained still except for his buzzing head. He gasped a ragged breath, looked around the dark room.
What was the difference between life and death for one person? If he pitched himself from the window or sat here until morning did it even make a difference in the grand scheme? But he couldn’t. There was so much he had to do. He was only nineteen for God’s sake there was so much he could do. Maybe he was mostly stalled for the moment, but surely his actions, his life, could matter. What he did could create another instance of the butterfly effect. He just needed to do.
As quietly as possible, Alex slid out of bed, onto his hands and knees on the floor. He crawled, slowly to avoid waking Hercules, over to the man’s bag and quickly rifled through it for a pen and paper. Hopefully, his friend and roommate wouldn’t mind. And then, by the light of the moon and the streetlights outside, he began to write.
In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet,
for just a moment,
a yellow sky.
When I was seventeen a hurricane
destroyed my town. I didn’t drown.
I couldn’t seem to die. . .