Still at 11:57

She was looking through the kitchen window. Her eyes were resting on the garden, and yet she felt like she did not really see any of it. Her vision narrowed down, and everything in front of her became blurred. Her body remained in the room, while her presence flew somewhere else. It was the familiar state in which she slipped — halfway between the outer and the inner world. Her gaze passed straight through the solid matter and she was no longer looking at anything specific.

In those moments her reality loosened, her surroundings faded, and she found herself dissolving into that strange middle place where her thoughts overtook the present.

She tried to return to herself, to step into the present moment, but her mind was stronger, and it pulled her back with a force of laziness. She wondered why was she still here, why she kept finding herself in this same place, sitting on this half-broken, century-old wooden chair.

That morning, she had convinced her husband to go to work for her, so she could stay at home, and run errands, clean the house, and bring some familiarity into their new lives. They had just moved from a small apartment into this beautiful house. Here, she thought, her life would sort itself out. It was a new beginning.

She shook her head and turned towards the fig tree. She had planted it because it reminded her of her homeland. There were times when she doubted whether it was still there at all. She couldn’t decide. She would step outside and try to touch it. This time was the same, although she didn’t reach for it. She could see from where she was standing that the leaves were gone.

“Must be insects, or maybe that squirrel from the nearby walnut tree,” she murmured.

She leaned forward, trying to get a sip of the tea she was holding, but to her surprise, there was nothing.

"Am I going crazy?"

She was positive she had made tea.

“I need to get out more,” she mumbled. Out of my head.

“But why am I even trying to come out?” she grimaced in the same second. It feels like trying to crawl out of my own skin, out of my own self. Maybe because being stuck inside is even worse, she continued with her routine morning monologues.

Her thoughts spun in circles like a roller coaster until she imagined the moment it would break, its passengers flying into the air and smashing to the ground, their heads split open. That, she thought, is what will happen to me. I will whirl my brain until it melts.

In the end, this is who I am. As if the outer world doesn’t exist.

“Yes, but the dog needs eye drops,” she continued. He has glaucoma.

She looked around for him but somehow couldn’t find him.

Hmm, strange.

"Where is he?"

She glanced towards the mirror in the hallway, where they had his food and water bowls, but there was nothing.

"Oh, the mirror needs cleaning," she reminded herself. But she postponed it to later, once again.

It was almost noon, and she should start cooking. Her daughter would come home from school.

"I will make pea soup with mashed potatoes and meatballs." Her daughter always liked that.

She rose from the creaking chair and slid toward the kitchen, her fingers brushing across the long wooden dining table. The wood felt warm, earthy. It had a yellowish tint to it, which she really liked. It brought light into the room that was otherwise filled with grey furniture. Yet her own body felt unbearably heavy, pressing her into the floor.

"I need to hold it together, just for a few hours, just enough to cook lunch, to touch my daughter, to ask her about her day." she continued.

"I know what will make me feel better. I can take iron supplements and vitamin B."

She reached out and opened the platinum-grey cabinet. She took a few pills out, but she could not swallow them. She felt fear and could already sense the side effects. Since the birth of her daughter, she had been extra careful with her life, to the point where she was almost paralyzed, and would not make even the simplest decision on her own. Even the smallest decisions made her rethink over and over, and the safest option was alway just to lie on the couch, scroll the phone, searching for confirmation, living her life parallel to herself. She was here only in half. She had become a machine.

She wanted to be there for her daughter, truly present, but another part of her kept reaching for something bigger, something deeper than this life. She had once believed she would get endless chances, that she could mess everything up and be reborn again. But the years passed, her face began to sag, and age caught her. That was when her optimism drained away and her will collapsed.

The footsteps interupted her thoughts.

She could hear the soft shuffle of a jacket and the sound of shoes tossed carelessly on the floor. She looked towards the corner leading to the hallway in anticipation.

“Mama, mama!”

The little girl ran down the long hallway. The woman was waiting for that familiar warm feeling flushing through her body, but nothing. She just stood there in melancholy.

The little girl stopped in front of the big kitchen windows. Her thin, straight hair was falling over her forehead, like a curtain, covering her eyes.

She still doesn’t want to wear hairpins, the woman smiled.

It looked like she was staring right into the fig tree when her little face grew serious. She slowly turned to the left.

The woman could see her eyes widen.

“I’m here, baby. Can you see me?” the woman whispered, her voice filled with fear.

The girl lingered for a moment and looked at the old wooden chair by the window. She almost seemed to recognize something, but then she turned away. She pulled out her baby chair and sat down. She opened her backpack and reached for her crayons. She painted a rainbow. It was the same motif she had been painting for years.

“Papa will be home soon,” the girl softly murmured to herself lifting the head up.

The woman followed her gaze to the clock on the wall.

It was still stuck at 11:57, the second hand frozen.