Comfortable Madness First PDF 4-13-18

Tragic Morning
Trees on the edge of town reached up and scratched the
sky. The sky screamed. Rain fell like linen in the window. I walked
in the cemetery on the hill. Lights from town filled the valley with
thin light. I sat amongst the tombstones with the dead. I wondered
about them, what they thought, what they did. I let them run their
fingers along the edges of my flesh.
I wondered about death. Not enough to kill myself, but
enough to get close, to hear the voices, to see the faces. Sometimes,
I took too many pills and floated in the room waiting for someone
to come lead me away. No one ever came.
I lit a cigarette and started down the hill. The asphalt road
glittered in the winter night like crushed glass. A car rolled by,
music echoing from the windows. I walked, and the town rose over
me with its sharp edges and hard planes.
Sunrise was more than two hours away. School would
open, and I’d have to go back to pretending that I wasn’t the crazy,
fat girl. I’d have to pretend that I was invisible while everyone
stared at me.
Cars filled the streets. People were going to work or
coming home. Fog and mist haloed their lights. I was all wrapped
up in my head. I stepped off the curb and then it happened. First,
the horn hit me. Loud. Futile. Then the bumper. It felt as if the
world twisted for a moment. I looked up and the sky looked back. I
didn’t know what had happened. Suddenly, faces loomed over me.
They looked scared. They were pale and narrow in the light from
the streetlamps.
“Are you okay?” people asked.
“Can you move?”
I tried to move, the pain blinded me. My leg throbbed, and
my hands stung. Something warm ran from my nose. Darkness
fluttered at the edges of everything. I tried to move again, and it