Things that have Frightened Me Today

1. The reflection of an eagle in my iPad;

2. The reflection of another eagle in my iPad;

3. When I dozed off after lunch and dreamt my upstairs neighbour was crouched on his balcony, watching me sleep;

4. My downstairs neighbour watering his plants;

5. A piece of carrot that went down the wrong way, and I thought I was done. I shouldn’t eat carrots. I can’t chew them right with the stubs of my teeth. That carrot almost got me. I couldn’t breathe. I was dying. There’s still a piece in my lung, nestled there, drawing bacteria.

I’ll get pneumonia. Just see if I don’t.

(That carrot, man, that carrot’s still frightening me.)

6. A weird noise like guheeeeeeeeeee when I turned off the shower;

7. The thought of losing my job and not finding another, and going back to fortune-telling;

8. A nibbling feeling in my chest, just below my heart.

These are the things that have rattled me today. If I had to rank them from most to least frightening, it’d go carrot, upstairs neighbour, job, eagle, eagle, downstairs neighbour, shower noise, nibbling feeling. That probably means the nibbling feeling is a heart attack. (But it’s not. I have no other symptoms, or none I can distinguish from the lingering effects of the carrot.)

You know what crossed my mind while that carrot was killing me? It was the weirdest thing. I thought it wasn’t fair ’cause my feet were cold, like this…this whole-body cold feet distress. It was all I could focus on, only for a second, then I had to cough up the carrot. But the first thing I thought was cold feet. I’d been going for my slippers, chewing and walking. I could’ve died on my way to the closet.

You always want to finish things on a good note, y’know? Like, you break up with someone, you want to do it with a kiss. You eat dinner and end with dessert. Life’s seldom like that. The best parts come first, and the end is a shambles.

I want to go home.