Flash fiction: Paralysis

Autumn arrives early at Camp Lakehill. The tree leaves seem sadder, like they shrink in on themselves a little bit every night. It smells differently too, or maybe Lucinda’s nose doesn’t work quite the same way in the cold.

Lucinda has been reading an ecology blog and knows the leaves fall away in the cold because the trunk and roots go to sleep, and the sunlight is not intense enough that it’s worth it for the tree to keep them alive, but she aches for the dying leaves anyway. If she could, she’d gather the trees in her thin arms and share her warmth.

Not that she has much warmth to share. None of the girls at camp do. They’ve been pairing up at night and huddling together in their narrow bunks beds. Lucinda’s bed partner is Maria Gomez, another girl between ten and eleven.

Maria’s bigger than Lucinda. Her mom has said that Maria blossomed earlier than expected. Last school year, she shot up almost a foot and her thighs, arms, hips, and chest filled out nice and soft. Lucinda thinks Maria is getting the short end of the deal in their partnership. She doesn’t think her body is large enough to offer Maria much comfort.

Maria spoons her most nights. Lucinda burrows in, her head just under Maria’s chin, her back pressed to Maria’s chest, the back of her thighs cradled by Maria’s hips, and two thin white blankets covering them both. It’s nice in an odd way. At night, Lucinda’s back is warmer than her front. And the familiar, lilac-soap scent of Maria’s skin chases the stink of a dying forest away from Lucinda’s nostrils.

Lucinda’s not sure if she’s asleep when Maria lays a hand over her mouth. She thinks Maria must have dozed off, otherwise her hand would be nowhere near Lucinda’s face. When Lucinda opens her mouth, her neck tensing to nudge Maria’s hand away, Maria slips two fingers inside. They taste like the twigs in the wet forest floor smell like.

It’s too strange to be scary. Maria somehow spreads her hand inside Lucinda’s mouth, one fat finger inside each of her cheeks and another holding her tongue down so the tip presses against her bottom teeth. It doesn’t hurt but Lucinda thinks it should.

A noise too strangled to be a proper scream gets stuck somewhere in Lucinda’s chest.

Lucinda’s heart starts rustling, a crackle reminiscent of the sound dried leaves make when cold wind passes through thin branches coming out her nose. She would cry, but her eyes are as dry as her throat is silent. She would struggle, or maybe just squirm, but her limbs feel as heavy and dead as granite. Her chest expands with every breath she takes, but she still swears she’s drowning.

It takes Lucinda hours to pull away from Maria. The hand is out of her mouth, but Lucinda struggles with the weight of dead meat on her tongue. She thinks she should scream, shake Maria’s shoulder, maybe hit her like an upset boy might punch a friend who played a bad joke on him.

At least, she should escape the narrow bunk bed.

Maria is back on her before Lucinda can make a decision. Except it can’t be Maria because the leg that falls over her hips is that of a grown woman, and Maria’s still a kid even if she’s grown rounder. The leg morphs into a tree and Maria wants to scratch her thigh as she does when she dozes in the forest ground and wake up with twigs and branches rubbing the skin of her calves.

A keen wail, something a dog might let out before a pack of hyenas, escapes Lucinda’s lips before there’s a big hand back in her mouth. It spreads its fingers again, so wide that Lucinda is disturbed when her jaw doesn’t ache. She’s stuck under the weight, her limbs as hollow and immobile as rusty pipes.

She doesn’t know how she stays under the massive tree-woman, terrified that her chest will stop expanding and letting in air. Maybe she squirms out from under it, but it doesn’t matter because she’s back under the warm boulder in seconds.

“Lucinda, come on!” It’s Maria that shakes her. “We’re gonna be late.”

The light, the words, or the hand on her shoulder; something makes Lucinda’s synapses blink, and her mind and body are awake, struck by a thunderbolt.

Though Lucinda feels like a storm swept through her, it must be a quiet affair. Maria’s warm brown eyes do not focus on her and instead frown at the tangle of sheets by their entwined legs.

“Last day at camp,” Maria mutters to herself. “Better make the best of it.”

When I was younger, I suffered sleep paralysis nightmares, especially while taking afternoon naps. Mine were much less dramatic than this: I was convinced my little brother was poking me in the legs, trying to wake me up on purpose. I used to wake up fuming, yelling that my brother was picking on me with such conviction that my mother believed me. My brother got scolded quite a lot. Then one day I took a nap while he was at a friend's house and woke up yelling that he was bothering me. My mother was not amused.

The dreams changed after that. I started having nightmares of something being in my mouth (sometimes a tumor, other times mucus, other times fingers from monsters or strangers). Logically, I knew I ought to be choking, or in pain.

I know the ending of this piece is underwhelming. My intent was to show what if felt like to wake up from a sleep paralysis nightmare: you feel like you're about to die, then you wake up and everything is perfectly fine. Most times, I did. Regardless, I'm not sure if my ending worked at all.