A Parallel

Big yellow eyes blinked at me. I watched them approach. Nimble feet, quiet as crickets. I watched them light up their path, as if the sun burned behind them.

It was a cold night, the kind of cold that made it hard to breathe. Every time I inhaled, I found my chest burning, slowly freezing solid. Soon I would have no lungs left, only blocks of ice to carve my breath from.

It was a cold night as I watched curious eyes blink at me and I wondered what it would feel like to die. My hands shook with the cold and I wondered if it would hurt to freeze to death, or if I would be too numb to feel anything. Little eyes watched me as I stared back at the sun burning behind them and I wondered if they could burn me alive if they looked too hard.

It was a cold night as I stared at burning eyes and wondered about dying. My mother had never been afraid to die and she professed it until the day she shot herself in our living room. I found her lying there in a pool of blood shaped like a forgotten daughter and that was when I started believing her. It only took me three tries to dial 911 into the phone on the counter.

It was a cold night as I thought about my mother and watched little yellow eyes get closer to where I stood. I held my hands out, reached for them. Don’t be afraid, I thought. It’s okay.

Closer and closer. There was a new found confidence in how fast they approached me now. I watched them and I thought of my mother and of cold nights and curious eyes and about being afraid.

I’m not afraid, mother, I thought. I’m brave now, just like you.

Those were my last thoughts as the air filled with the sound of screeching brakes.