A dream
Kat had a superpower that made her afraid to sleep. Whenever she dreamt, she could not feel pain. And because she could not feel pain, her mind took it as license to imagine morbid things. Thus were her dreams: painful scenes without the pain, nightmares with fear but no adrenaline, surreal, disturbed pictures she would gladly forget over her morning cereal.
Kat was in a plane. It was crashing into the Atlantic, flinging her into the seat in front. Kat bounced, skipped into the water and sank, feeling the cold water in her lungs but not the paralyzing fear. She watched fishes swim by as she sank deeper and her diaphragm spasmed with the numb twitches of a jittery muscle. Constant, small jerks that moved her ribs. And her eyes sank into the black.
Kat was sitting at a fire, hands cold, too cold. So she pushed them into the fire, feeling the gentle warmth and pleasant tingling. She watched as her skin blistered and shriveled, as her bones turned black from the soot rising from below. That was how her hands were supposed to be – not too cold, not too hot.
Kat was sitting at the ledge of the Grand Canyon. She wanted a photo, something to remember the exhilaration. But the wind was blowing, and as she stood up, she fluttered into the air over the Colorado River below. And she fell. She hit a rock, a surprising bump. And then another. And another. And she looked at the red lines forming on her limbs, wondering why the blood blossomed like her mother’s rhododendrons. And she thought to herself: aren’t rhododendrons pretty?
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