It creeps up on you like nausea mixed with fire. Your stomach muscles tighten as if someone has just thrown cold water on the back of your neck. Beads of sweat form on your forehead; your skin feels both cool and feverish. You can’t hear clearly or focus on peripheral tasks.
A rollercoaster you never paid to ride, there is no visible end to the loops in the rails.
You take notice of everything around you that invokes hatred and irritation: crying children, inconsiderate drivers, the playlist on the radio. You try to ignore the rupturing stream in the hope that you can keep it from igniting a base fury rumbling in the darkness of some primal ancestry.
You cannot sleep. You cannot pay attention.
You are immobilized and nothing anyone can say will help.
You will survive.
There is no devil manipulating things behind the curtain of consciousness; no wheel of fortune spinning capriciously against you. The day will come when you will wake up and the sun will be shining and you will realise that your world, while unpredictable, isn’t likely to combust as you have feared.
You learn to breathe; you wash your face of worry and watch the dirt whirl down the drain into the blackness of limbo. You realise that the future is full of new days, both dark and light, and that those who succeed are the ones who see clearly, who manage to allow the darkness to pass around them and not through.
