The tide
Tipping the scales
Hello. This post is about Death & Birds.
Sometimes, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to find myself in the grip of a very specific type of dread. This dread only visits at 3 am, when all is dark and seemingly still. It consistently goes for my throat and chest, latching on with a ferocity that I can’t help but feel is malevolent. I have found that my only recourse in the face of this visitor is my imagination—instead of laying paralysed in bed, I picture myself in a hole, deep in the ground. Sometimes, I can smell the earth which makes up the walls of my imaginary container. I am not covered, I can see the mouth of this make-believe well far above me, where the surface is—where the dread is. This earthen cocoon feels sentient. It offers to hold me until morning and allows me to drift back to sleep.