Secret Letter

"Brittney, this killed me," I remember texting my friend at the time as the fluorescent lights shone brightly above the curtain, shielded by the late 90's early millennium looking pattern that always reminded me of the opening card sequence from Rograts. When it swung open and the light splashed its intense brilliance over my cold, confused, exhausted body, which was now sitting up and aware that the light was life. And the light, that had been turned off so I could get some sleep, meant death. Was now waiting for news on whether I could go home or not.

By this time, I had already seen the rainbow road, fallen in and out of sleep, and screamed, "I am Loki!" And now I was awake again, watching as the doctor on call that night checked in to the computer at the end of my curtained-off room. Slowly it was starting to sink in what it was that I had woken up and come to, and how embarrassing that all felt in the moment, wondering if by this time tomorrow morning if I'd be on TikTok or worse for it.

The sun was barely starting to rise when the doctor finally said I could go home. My mom, who hadn't slept at all that night, pulled away from the game she was on on her phone and looked at me. A mix of anger and exhaustion was not just painted on that pretty face of hers, but printed on her blank expression as she looked for her daughter in it.

Her daughter, who had just told her best friend that she was dead. A text she would later regret for a multitude of reasons.

The drive home was interesting, to say the least. I always had a knack for knowing what was coming from me and what was going on around me. I could only describe this as an adult as Tunnelverse, and I hadn't had an episode this severe since I was a little girl, having a bad day at the local church's after-school program. A day I had held onto for so long that it was almost second nature to recall to as I was healing from this:

The longest Day and what followed:

That morning as I sat in the silence, so thick you could use meat shears to slice through it, I started to notice how many people were out for that early in the morning. The sun was well on its way to rising, kissing the surface with its orange glow. We turned right at the Spaceman and drove up the street softly as I watched in amazement as these people were silently going about their morning out of sync with the rest of the planet. When we pulled up to the house, men in hazmat bubble suits emerged from the front door, but my mom walked past them and into the living room. That's when I knew I still wasn't feeling great.

I took a quick nap, and Mom got us Chipotle for lunch when I noticed Hecate's black beetle disappear into the wreath that was sitting on the front door, comfortably cool on that warming Southern California day.

I didn't say much to my mom for a while after that night. After that night I wasn't really up to talking much personally to anyone. Because at that point in the morning, much like the light was life and the dark was death, the backyard was heaven and the front yard was Hell. This random bit of dialogue that I was overhearing would later prove important to what my end goal would be getting off marijuana altogether.