numb

This is a draft that I hoped to put in my folio, but realised that this was all I could write, and to pad it out to the required length would just ruin what I tried to do. Also, it's a bit nothing-ish. But hopefully interesting...

Everything felt so numb. My eyes were still closed but I imagined that should I open them, the bright light would be too painful, so I kept them shut. I dared not move for fear that I’d broken something. How long had I been lying here? I must have blanked out. Unconsciousness isn’t how I’d expected it; I’d imagined it would feel like that knowledge that you’ve been asleep, and that it might be painful, like a headache, or possibly just a dizzy sensation. Instead, it seemed as if my mind had suddenly rebooted and all the junk in my head had been deleted and all thoughts and sensations realigned. Perfect harmony, utter bliss; but absolute numbness.

Still I lay there, savouring every moment before someone would come to see if I was alright. It was quite a height I’d fallen from. Twenty foot wouldn’t surprise me. Even still though, I had to climb up there to untangle it from the branches. Every spiny twig scraping past my face on the way down; strange how I can’t feel them because they would surely have cut my cheeks.

I couldn’t raise my head, but I figured that the kite was now wrapped around my leg. I took a breath and opened my eyes, anticipating the glare of the bright afternoon sun. Nothing; for a fleeting moment, I considered whether I’d opened them at all. Complete darkness – both soothing and distressing at one time – had I been lying there for longer than I thought?

A slight, but steadily increasing anxiety crept into my body, and I began to feel the intense beating of my heart from inside my ribcage. I could hear it through the gound as my head lay with an ear to the gravel. Where was everyone? Why weren’t they coming to check on me? I remember them all standing below me, egging me on; all with the same smug sound in their voices. All secretly laughing that I was the one to get my kite stuck in the tree. I kew that I should have felt searing panic somewhere within me, but as I lay there, that panic was missing. Just plain contentment; and it felt good. The beating settled, and the sound in my ear and the thudding of my chestsubsided to the gentle whispering and whistling that accompanies silence. I used to hate this sound at night, when I couldn’t decipher where it came from, and was forced to try and sleep through it. Now, however, it was calming and consumed my entire body. I slipped into the quiet subconscious and I stopped caring about everything. Where everything was and what was around me. I was peaceful, and waned to sleep. And the whispers and whistles sang to me, as I imagined oblivion and sank slowly into the darkness; happy.