Time Winding

Tick.

I stared at the ceiling - a blue glow from my alarm clock illuminating the far corner.

Tick.

My eyes, being open far too long, burned. The lids fluttered, straining from the effort.

Tick.

My heart rate was already up. I tried taking long, slow, deep breaths...it changed nothing.

Tick.

Exhaling, I gave in, braced myself, and allowed my eyes to close.

Tick.

Immediately the patterns appeared across the burgundy darkness of my shut eyes. But it wasn't right. They weren't the normal starbursts, worms, and floating bubbles I could see when I closed my eyes at other times. They were intensely vivid, deceptively fast, sporadic in their movements, and intricately detailed. And they scared the hell out of me. I was a smart girl, and I knew that my mind was just playing tricks on me, but I couldn't stop the patterns from speeding up time. I tried to lay still and keep my eyes closed, enduring their spinning and shuddering for as long as possible. I even tried to trick my mind (that was tricking me) into believing that time was ticking by just as slowly as it always was by slowly and methodically wiggling my toes against the sheets.

My eyes are wrong...things aren't moving to the Prestissimo Agitato tempo on the metronome in my head. Listen to the clock next to the bed. The ticks are in real time. Feel my toes on against the covers, moving steadily in time with the ticking. Slow. Slow. Slow. Slow.

Tick.

It didn't work. It never had. For the third time that week I opened my eyes and prepared to sit up. I knew what would happen when I went downstairs. Dad would switch the station on the television, from whatever was on, to something more "child friendly." Mom would ask what was wrong. I would lie on the couch until my body could bear being awake no longer and, after I finally conked out, Dad would carry me back up to bed.

Tick.

But before that came the part I dreaded the most. The part I called time winding. I would spend between fifteen minutes and half an hour moving the blankets and sheets off my body, sliding my legs off the bed and onto the floor, pulling myself into a sitting position, standing up, and walking like I had cement shoes from my room, through my sister's room, down the stairs, and into the living room where my parents were. I would move so slowly that, on some occasions, by the time I actually got downstairs my parents would've already gone to bed. Moving at such a sluggish pace was my counteraction to my mind's pace, but it was never slow enough. No matter what I did, it would feel as if I had thrown back the covers, jumped out of bed, and sprinted the entire way to the living room. I would be breathing laboriously by the time I was in the presence of my parents.

Tick.

There I was, sucking in ragged breaths, my mom asking what was wrong.

Tick.

"My mind is moving too fast."

Tick.

Same question. Same answer. Same deal, time and again. My folks didn't understand, but at ten years old I didn't exactly know what was going on either. How to explain it was beyond me as well. If I knew, I wouldn't have to leave my bed to be near them...for all I knew my mind or heart was at risk for exploding.

Tick.

While I laid on the couch, facing the back rest so they couldn't see my wide-open eyes, they would whisper. I didn't mean to listen, but it was hard not to.

"Should we take her to a doctor?"

"I don't know if Abbott can do anything about this."

"No, not a pediatrician...a psychiatrist."

"She doesn't need a shrink, she's nine."

"Nine or ninety, this isn't normal. And it's probably all in her head."

"She's fine, it's just a phase. She'll get a grip eventually. She probably just wants the attention, you know what a ham she is."

"Maybe...so what do we do? This can't keep happening. It's been over eight months."

"What can we do other than stop indulging her? Tonight she can stay, but from now on we'll just send her back to bed. We just say, 'No more.'"

"Are you sure that's wise? What if she's telling the truth? Then we're just ignoring what could be a potentially serious problem."

"Be serious, Pat. 'My mind's moving too fast??' It sounds like a poor excuse for being with Mommy and Daddy after a scary dream."

"Okay, but if she's having this many nightmares there still might be a problem."

"She's a kid! This is what kids do...she'll grow out of it as long as we stop giving her the attention she wants. I'm telling you."

Tick.

Some number of years later my parents brought the issue up at a cocktail party. Laughing about the silly things their little girl used to do. I've tried to explain it to them, but they still pass it off as nothing.

"You grew out of it, didn't you?"

Tick.

***

It's difficult to focus on changes in time until the seconds start to slip from your grasp unwillingly. When I was young, I fought with my mind constantly for several years, trying to slow it down. As I got older that feeling dissipated and time smoothed the creases from its folds. Now time seems to be speeding up again. Days disappear each time I blink. For every other breath I take, a month is gone. I sneeze and there goes a year.

"Wait until you're my age," my father says.
         
I hope I can.

***

         

Braeburn Apples - check
Baby Carrots - check
Instant Oatmeal - check
Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds - check
Yoplait Yogurt - check
Roman Meal Super Seed Bread - check
Steamfresh Vegetables - ...

Checking my basket to make sure I had everything, I put the list back in my pocket and began walking toward the frozen food section. After three steps or so my head shook slightly and my vision went out in a burst of starry blackness. Half a second passed and I could see again, only I was looking several feet further away than before. I looked around me and, seeing that no one was close enough to mistake my movements for those of a mentally disabled person, I continued on my way. It happened several more times, and began to occur more and more frequently...several times a minute. My head began to jerk more pronouncedly and with a shudder I felt my face flush with heat. Suddenly my head twisted upward and to the right, as if being pulled by an unseen force.

Tick.

Are those sirens? I'm so cold. So cold. Who's voice is that? Mom? My mind...my mind is moving too fast.

Opening my eyes I saw wires, bags, monitors, lights brighter than I could take - I was shaking from cold and felt like I was going to be sick.

"Oh, Kate, thank God."

Turning towards the voice I saw my cousin Darcie and Aunt Deb. They lived only a few minutes from my college, in Hampstead. I didn't understand what was going on. I felt a burning, pinching, stinging sensation in my arm and rolled my head to the other side where a nurse was attaching another IV to my arm. I was in the hospital. I leaned forward and a nurse stuck a bin under my chest just in time to catch the vomit.

Tick.

I was informed that my parents were on their way from Ocean City, which I felt horribly guilty about. They were supposed to take a week long trip to Charleston, SC the following day, to tour a college with my younger sister. A six hour round-trip car ride the night before was definitely not something they needed. But I was shaking from the cold and throwing up too much to protest it.

Tick.

My cousin Darcie, who was training to be a nurse for mentally handicapped individuals, was doing a better job of taking care of me than the nurses at Carroll County Hospital. They were all very sweet, but very young, and their age showed in their rough handling of my various wires and tubes. Weeks later I still had a bald spot on my arm from where they continuously ripped out the hair, pulling the tape of the IV off against the grain.

Tick.

The clock on the wall showed that it was only just after 10 pm. I wondered how long I had been there, or what was wrong with me. I learned that a woman had found me lying in the isle of Giant Foods, shaking and unconscious. She had called 911. Apparently I had talked to my mother on the phone while en route to the hospital in the ambulance...but I had been incoherent and the doctors decided that chitchat could wait till later.

Tick.

One MRI, one CAT scan, three X-rays, one urine sample, and four IVs later a doctor finally came in. He was young. Blonde. Handsome. I liked him instantly, but wished that I had someone with more years under their belt handling my case. My parents arrived about the same time, looking scared shitless, but relieved that I was conscious and talking.

Tick.

Syncope, scalp bruises, facial contusions, mild-acute pancreatitis, and severe dehydration. That was the diagnosis. When asked for a translation, my parents were told that syncope was a technical term for fainting. The bruises and cuts were from falling to the floor. The dehydration was, most likely, from my celebration the previous night of my 21st birthday, as well as my only beverage intake of that day being coffee and tea. The pancreatitis, however, they didn't have much of an explanation of. I still don't know anything about it, other than that my amylase levels were up to 118 and my lipase levels were 75. Whatever that means.

Tick.

I was discharged that night at around 2:30am, and my family and I slept at my Aunt Deb and cousin Darcie's house. The next morning I returned to school, but was given a note not to return to classes for two days...I ignored it. Time was too precious to waste. I drank plenty of water and took the medicine they prescribed me, and I felt fine. Weak, but fine. Still, I had places to go, things to do, and as long as I could I was planning on keeping up with time, regardless of the pace it set.

Tick.