Moving through Molasses

Inspired by the 1919 Boston Molasses Flood

Moving through the Ground feels like moving through molasses — not the kitchen kind, not the syrup on a spoon, but the kind that drowned a city in 1919. Thick. Relentless. Slow enough to watch, heavy enough to crush.

That’s the texture of this chapter of my mind.

Every movement feels resisted, as if the air has turned viscous.

Every thought drags behind me like a weight I can’t lift.

Every step feels swallowed by something dense and sticky.

The molasses of 1919 didn’t rush.

It didn’t roar.

It didn’t explode outward in a dramatic wave.

It crept.

It pressed.

It consumed.

That’s what this feels like — a slow disaster.

The first thing I notice is the drag.

My limbs feel coated in something thick, something that clings to me no matter how I move. Lifting an arm feels like pulling it out of a barrel. Walking feels like wading through a substance that wants to keep me in place.

The molasses doesn’t hurt.

It holds.

It holds my ankles.

It holds my breath.

It holds my thoughts in a slow, sticky suspension.

The second thing is the resistance.

Every action requires more force than I have.

Standing up feels like pushing against a tide.

Reaching for something feels like stretching through glue.

Even turning my head feels delayed, as if the world is moving faster than I can.

The molasses of 1919 trapped people not because it was fast, but because it was everywhere.

It filled the streets.

It coated the walls.

It seeped into every crack.

That’s what this heaviness does inside me.

It fills the spaces between my thoughts.

It coats the edges of my intentions.

It seeps into every part of my day until even the simplest tasks feel impossible.

The third thing is the distortion.

Sound feels muffled, like it’s traveling through syrup.

Voices reach me slowly, warped at the edges.

My children’s words feel delayed, as if they’re speaking from behind a thick pane of amber.

I hear them.

I just can’t reach them quickly enough.

The molasses slows everything — not just my body, but my reactions, my timing, my presence. I am always a few seconds behind myself, behind the world, behind the moment I’m supposed to be in.

The fourth thing is the stickiness.

Thoughts cling to me long after they should have passed.

Worries stick.

Tasks stick.

Guilt sticks.

Nothing slides off.

Nothing moves cleanly.

Nothing feels light.

And then there’s the impossibility — the quiet, devastating truth that no matter how hard I push, I can’t move at the speed the world expects. The molasses doesn’t care about urgency. It doesn’t care about responsibility. It doesn’t care about willpower.

It only cares about density.

The Great Molasses Flood left a city coated for months.

Even after the wave receded, the residue remained — thick, stubborn, impossible to scrub away.

That’s what this feels like.

Even when I manage to move, the heaviness stays on my skin.

Even when I push through, the drag follows me.

Even when I rise for a moment, the stickiness pulls me back down.

This is not laziness.

This is not weakness.

This is physics.

This is what it feels like to move through the Ground —

slow, heavy, resisted, swallowed by a substance that refuses to let me move freely.

This is my molasses flood.

And I am trying to walk through it without the ability to swim.