Flatlining

Sometimes I feel like I am drowning. Like I am trapped in a car that had just gone over the edge of a bridge. The car is slowly filling with water, the icy cold stream flowing through the windows, filling my shoes and making me gasp. If this were real life I have an average of 2 minutes before the vehicle is fully submerged. After that I have an additional one to three minutes before I drown. I have to get out before then.

But I am not in a car. I am not in a lake. Water is not climbing up my legs, gripping my thighs with it’s icy fingers. I’m sitting in class, elbow to elbow with my peers, watching Professor Hurtz talk about the American Revolution. I can see Stacy in the front row, popping her gum and twirling her frizzy blonde hair. My vision becomes murky, like I just jumped in the lake. I gasp in a deep breath, preparing for what comes next.

My lungs begin to fill with water. No one else is reacting, Professor Hurtz, carries on, clicking over to his next slide.

This is just a panic attack. It’s not real.

That’s what my therapist says. It’s not real. It certainly feels real. I choke on the nonexistent water, trying to clear my lungs. I shake my head, trying to shake the entire vision off. This isn’t rea, this isn’t reall. The murky haze of the classroom becomes spotty. I squeeze my eyes shut, starting to pray to whoever will listen that the panic attack will pass before my lungs give out.

All of sudden I am on the floor, gasping for breath. Professor Hurtz kneels in front of me, in perfect clarity. The hazy lake water dissipated. Patting my back with a look of worry on his face. Stacy snaps her gum to my left.

“You good?” Professor Hurtz stands up, offering me his hand. I grab it, and he pulls me to my feet. The hem of his right leg is discolored. Weird.

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m not sure what happened there.” I shrug, trying to appear nonchalant, like it was perfectly normal to drown in the middle of a landlocked classroom, on a perfectly sunny Tuesday afternoon. I look around the room, at all the wide eyes of the other students. Half of them looked sorry for me, a fourth look amused, like this is the best thing to have happened to them today. The last fourth look agitated. Those are probably the History Majors, and I just ruined the lesson for them.

I go to sit in my chair, and Stacy snaps her gum again. I clench my jaw and take a deep breath. The pounding in my head coinciding with each of her obnoxious clench and unclench of her jaw. Hurtz starts his lecture back up and I’m relieved he’s acting as if nothing happened. I guess I played it cooler than I thought. Or Hurtz was just a nice guy to not draw attention to my embarrassing display. I just have to get through the rest of this class, then I can go back to my apartment, and hide under the covers for the rest of the day.

Rubbing my temples, I try to take slow and steady breaths, relishing the feeling of air in my lungs. My panic attacks used to be few and far between, but lately they have been getting worse. I don’t feel like I am under any new stress. My anxiety is fine, and in check. But the panic attacks… Being drowned in the middle of the day… I don’t know how many more I can take. My chest hurts, like I was choking on water. I try to clear my throat. Maybe I swallowed some spit wrong during my panic attack.

The students around me begin closing their laptops, putting their notes away. I guess the lesson is over.

“Cassia?” I snap my laptop shut at the same time my gaze meets Professor Hurtz’. “Can you stay for a few minutes?”

I nod my head and pack up all my supplies, waiting for the room to clear.

Once everyone was gone, I suppress a sigh and head towards the professors desk. “Hey, I’m sorry about that, I have panic attacks and I’m working on getting them under control, I will try to not interrupt your class ag…”

“Cassia, please sit down.” He motioned towards the spot Stacy was sitting in.

So, he’s for sure mad right?

I take a seat. Folding my hands, and bowing my head, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“Have you ever thought about flatlining?” he sits on the edge of his desk, crossing his arms, looking perfectly relaxed, and like he didn’t just ask one of the oddest questions a professor has ever asked a student?

“Excuse me?” I set my hands in my lap, fidgeting with my cuticles. I bite my lip, trying to figure out his angle.

Flatlining. The Chosen Death.

I didn’t understand why people would choose death without knowing the end result. For most people, once they died that was it. They went to the afterlife and walked this plane of existence no more. But for a small portion of people, they were reborn. They came back from the dead, stronger, faster, more resilient and with longer lifespans. They also came back with some form of magic. Inhuman strength, shapeshifting, the ability to control fire.

As a little girl, I always dreamed I would flatline. That I would die and come back to life with the power to talk to animals. Finding a family in the only things I found solace in. The other kids in the group home making fun of me for believing such a thing. As an adult, I find it to be a ridiculous tradition, for the average joe. There was no way to tell who would come back. It seemed to follow family lines, the wealthy and rich families gaining their success through their powers and passing them on to their children. Most of their children, being reborn, with similar powers to their parents. Those families have huge Flatlining parties, inviting entire towns to celebrate the rebirth of their children. Having ceremonies, similar to a baptism, where family and friends could and watch their child die and pray with them that he would come back.

But again, there was no way to know. There was a story in the news last week that one of the big families lost their son when he tried to flatline. The dad announcing his disappointment in his fallen son, the mom holding back tears. Another story of an average person with no known magical lineage, getting hit by a car, coming back with minor clairvoyancy. Being celebrated, gifted money, friends, his family talking about incredibly proud they were of their no longer average son.

It was barbaric. It was sad. Diappointed or proud of your kids for dying. Sometimes those stories made me glad I didn’t know my parents. I couldn’t disappointment with my average panic attacks.

“Is that an appropriate question?” I look away from my torn cuticles, tucking my bleeding thumbs into my fists, and meet his eyes.

“Is it an inappropriate question?” he raises an eyebrow, cokcing his head with a small, mocking smile on his lips.

“I supposed not, is there a reason you are asking? That is kind of a personal decision, asking if someone has considered killing themselves to see what happens.” My anger flares. I squeeze my fists in my lap, trying to reign it in.

He gestures to his pant leg, the discolored one, then pointed to a wet spot on the floor next to where I fell. “Well, you kind of threw up a ton of water during your panic attack.

Huh… That was new. I had never thrown up because of a panic attack.

“Did you know my sister flatlined? Drowned. I was the one who pulled her out of the water. When she came back she threw up water, much like you just did. I don’t see a water bottle with you today either.”

I look at where I was sitting, my neat bag, filled with my notebook and laptop, no water bottle in sight.

I decided to go for nonchalance again, a quick shrug. “Looks like I forgot it today. Weird.” My mind was going a mile a minute. Why was I able to puke so much water? Was it a coincidence? I tried to think back to everything I had consumed today. It definitely didn’t amount to the stains on the floor and on my professors pants… fuck that was embarrassing.

“Did you think you might be experiencing the inevitable? That you might be seeing something that is going to happen?”

“No.” I went back to my cuticles. This wasn’t the conversation I expected to have today. I expected to have a one sided conversation with cat about potentially overfeeding her, and my cat very definitely disagreeing with me. Where had my day gone?

“So you think youre drowning in the middle of the day due to a panic disorder? You know most panic attacks dpnt involve actual drowning, right?” He coked a brow, and crossed his left leg over his right.

I kept silent. I knew my panic disorders were more than that. That there was a reason I was drowning in the middle of the day, but I couldn’t think of a beneficial reason for it. My therapist said it was all in my head, that nothing was wrong, but I knew it was something more.

“Maybe you are seeing your flatline? That you’re sub conscience self is trying to tell you that you what is inevitable?”

I snort. “That’s ridiculous.” My thumbs were bleeding by this point. I stuck one in my mouth, and sucked.