I am not deaf. I wish I was, so I would not hear the sky wailing and the earth roaring. First the wail, then the roar. Heaven wailing like a wounded witch, hell roaring like an angry volcano. I hear them, witch and volcano, closer and closer, slowly but surely coming for me.
I wonder: if I was deaf, would I hear my heart pounding like this? Would I feel the drums punching from the deepest corner of my soul? Would I sense the incessant thrashing in my chest, blood sprinting up and down, flogging my brain like an irate bell?
I am not blind. I wish I was, so I would not see the impending dark clouds advancing to find me. Relentless monsters, dire shadows. I close my eyes so hard the drums in my head feel like hammers. I cover my ears with my arms, wishing to sink. I didn’t know it was possible to smell death, but now I do, I smell fresh death surrounded by thick smog, the kind of filthy fog that makes it difficult to breathe.
Here, in my own darkness, clutching my head as if I was going to lose it, I feel the threatening fire that is going to take me. Warm, now warmer. Even with my eyes closed, I see the witch, the volcano, the shadow monsters. I hear the earsplitting crushes. I smell death. I feel the burns. Loud, now louder. They won’t stop. They are coming for me.
Then I taste red metal in my mouth.
