Written piece
Am I Mad
Chantel DaCosta
Jamaica
About this piece
A stream of consciousness piece of someone grappling with a manic episode.
All around is darkness. Pitch black I cannot see myself.
This is my dream.
This is my vision.
This is my hallucination.
This is my memory.
Darkness and water.
This is my dream because when I re-emerge I am grateful as if it is a new dawn of a new day and I am awakened again. This is my vision because often it flashes before me while I am wide awake. Twinkling little snippets that I barley register and no else seems to notice any change in me. Hallucinations because I have been wholly overcome by it. I am taken away by the water and while in the dark, those outside myself say they are talking to me and I do not reply. They touch me and I do not react.
It happened in Mrs Ramcharam’s Language Arts class and everyone still talks about it. They asked me what happened to me. They say I was “unresponsive” for half hour. Doesn’t seem possible for it to be all that long. It happened slowly, yes, very slow, the dim of the chalky classroom faded, I can only hear fragments of what Sharlene Berry is stuttering out loud and disjointed from the Caribbean Junior English composition passage. Sharlene spat out, “the whale swam and swam…opened his whole mouth…He ate the raft. He ate the mariner. He ate the suspenders…” And in time I only hear water, the quiet water takes me in and Sharlene Berry, Arriana Chang who is popping watermelon flavoured bubble-gum, Mrs. Ramcharam, all of St. Copres Preparatoty is gone and I am consumed by the darkness.
I sit still and breathe deeply in and out, and stop, my eyes are wide and even after enough time passed for me to adjust, I see nothing, all the time I wait for the adjustment I can hold my breath and I hold it until I cannot and I breathe again in hungry loud gulps. The water is cold, dark pool beneath me. I know I am not alone. He is here too. I cannot see him. And the only sounds I can hear are my own, close to steady breaths and the thuds of my heart but I can feel his presence.
We are sitting on the water. I imagine we are in a boat because this is the only way I can understand this. But there is no boat. We are sitting on the surface of the cool dark pool and we do not get wet. We do not sink. We are not floating. And I feel everything, within and without. Everything ―all of the Universe with its smells, tastes, sights and sounds pulled together until it snapped and dissolved. As fast as it was manifested it was all dissolved. I know that my grandmother is no more, our little yellow house with the red door is non-existent, the apple is gone and the unmarked grave of the couple buried together has vanished, my Afia will never be, even the beautiful and delicate catalya orchids cannot re-bloom. Everything has dissolved and the man behind me is nothingness and only a tiny speck of me is left, my smallest part is left, a single dot of myself and I am waiting, wanting to join everything else that is nothing but I never do. I always return. That day I returned to Mrs. Ramcharam chalk dust room to see the principal Auntie Karen staring at me, she was sweating near to panicking, she shook me and chanted my name.
The first time I dreamed it was after staying up late to watch Bonnie and Clyde with my cousin. After the movie ended I was sad and in shock because I did not expect them to die. Restless, I tossed and turned, I could not sleep and then I did, I dipped deep and dreamed. And when I close to becoming nothing I was jotted awake. My cousin warm snoring loudly beside me. I got to check on my grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa were deep in slumber. Satisfied I returned to bed knowing that the wet darkness is a memory because I always knew it. I should keep this to myself because after 27 years I am unable to adequately describe this. I do not know what it is and what it is not. I am afraid that it will happen again and now after a decade has passed without it I miss it.