My worst nightmare

I wrote this at a time I was absolutely petrified that I would lose one of my closest friends. We agreed that if we ever got "four missed calls" from each other, it was an emergency.

Corpse, Skeleton

Four missed calls. I run to the car. Alarm bells ring. The blood drains out of my body, leaving a scarlet robe rolling down the road behind me. Warning. Warning.

Four missed calls mean only one thing. I phone for an ambulance, praying -praying- that I’m not too late. I’m hypersensitive. The seatbelt is a chainsaw, slicing off my skin in great slabs that get left behind as I speed through roads. As I speed through buildings. As I speed through people.

Four missed calls- emergency. I crash through the universe, weightless but with direction, on a collision course set for --- I can’t even say it. The emptiness of the void squeezes my barely beating heart. I can’t find enough air. Where is all the oxygen? I keep my foot on the pedal. I need to get home. I need to get home. I need to get –

I’m home. The ambulance lights are flashing, flashing. The sirens are screaming but my ears are filled with silence. She’s not breathing. I’m breathing. Her heart is broken. I’m heartbroken. There she is, dangling like a broken chandelier. I was not enough. Now she is a corpse. And I am a skeleton.