maelstrom
Blinding, brilliant, and so terrifying all at once, the lightning hits home right outside, illuminating the room with a spectrum of light. My veins almost buzz with electricity. Cold fingers make contact with warm glass, leaving smudges in its wake. The world beyond the window begins to define, my eyes’ autofocus kicking in. Outside, Alamogordo’s monsoon season toys with the desert willows as if it was a baby with its playthings.
Little toy cars submerged in pixelated stormwater. Wilted purple flowers being dragged in the undertow, dissipating. Jagged clouds rolling over the horizon like the high tide. Pattering static against the window.
I can only hope he gets back sooner. Absentmindedly, I run my calloused hands over the fleecy …show more content…
Despite that long period between my arrival to New Mexico and now, I still struggle to disconnect myself from that experience. Often, when I lie in my bed at night, I feel like my younger self, baking and half-dead, the merciless ocean tossing us around on countless wavelengths’ oscillations on the rotting boat under the deck like ragdolls, along with squirming bodies that were no different from corpses. The only comfort back then was the firm grip of my mother’s hands on mine as we waited in the …show more content…
The storm was as wild as ever. Parents huddled in closed brackets around their children protectively, trying to quiet their whimpering. On the other hand, my mother and I were asterisks, standing out among all of them as we clung to each other desperately. We were all forced out onto the deck to make room for the weapons. As the boat rocked, those who were weak would hold onto the stronger ones for leverage. But my mother was especially weak, and I was just a child. Hands fumbled for slippery hands. Tumbling over the rail. Watching my mother sink below the waves, dissolving into static, tiny pixels dragging down into saturated