Him
BY ERIN CHOI
I close my eyes and confine them in darkness.
My mind is clear for a singular moment until shapes emerge out of nothingness and morph into thoughts. I roll black over them but new paint never covers graffiti all the way and traces remain.
Past regrets and future worries disturb my drowsiness and deny me rest. Doctors say I think too much. They don’t understand that my train of thought has no destination, and the breadth of my imagination is unreachable. Aboard that train, seconds drip into minutes and trickle into hours—we travel uninhibited.
And the same heat I embrace on sleepy mornings suffocates me at night. Damp clothes cling onto my body and I yearn dry cold. I haul my body up; stumbling feet carry it to the twin windows of my room. My hands scramble at the tough latches: they remember these motions too well.
My body collapses back in bed, weary. Eyes stare at the ceiling for so long I forget to close them. I try to close them. They don’t. Not even slow molten honey – crystallized.
I panic. I fight to move, I fight to scream, but my body is not mine anymore.
My bedroom and a scene from a familiar dream converge. Edges of two realms collide but I am stuck in the middle, left alone to witness the horrific border between dreams and reality. My world spins and I tumble, falling through my bed, into the dream, then whirling back into my bed again.
Over the schism between my mind and body, He reigns King. I must bridge this incongruity before He climbs out but how? I don’t know. There is nothing I can do. There is nothing I can do. My eyes can’t be trusted, but my feelings are sound, and my feelings say: He’s here.
He has no body, but the noise around Him is tangible; His dismembered voice is hushed delirium around me. I’m not sure if the unbearable ringing is from Him or the thrashing of my heart; but I am sure of my fear. He demands for me to obey Him in underlined bold that flashes black and white and I fall asleep pillow-faced, teeth clenched, fingers latticed in a prayer above my head.
I tell my mom the next day, and she insists that God is speaking to me. I know what I felt; I know
I met the Devil.
About the Author
Erin Choi is a sophomore in high school.
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