Picture of Herself (Prompt: Showing and Telling)

She made herself breathe. If she couldn’t breathe she couldn’t think and she wanted, for the time being at least, to be able to think. To see a way out. The darkness made her heart seem more present, its beats faster. It always had. Something in its infinite quality frightened her, the way a squeaking wood door in the night did, or the sound of a gruff voice barking her name. She made herself breathe.

Her bare feet rubbed against the cheap carpet square that never meant for anyone to touch it for too long, feeling more like fake grass than fiber. Her toes wiggled against the plastic lining of the trunk.

Her palms were sweaty and paralyzed behind her, facing away from her back, she could reach out an inch and feel along the jagged metal line of something. A bit of rust, a seam in metal. She imagined it was a tool box. No clue to what was next, only facts outlining the mental image of herself.

It was oppressively silent. the physics of the car speeding up, slowing down and pausing was accompanied by no sirens, no music, no voices. She made herself breathe and listened deeper. There was a rattle below her, like a mouse in a can. The car lurched left and the rough sound of gravel crunched below. Occasional pings, like BB gun bullets from Bobby’s rifle, hit the underside of the car.

Her tongue was thick and she thought that fear tasted metallic. She concentrated hard on creating saliva, wanting to wash the taste of it away. She lost the picture of herself in her mind’s eye again and began to hyperventilate.

She knew how to stop a panic attack. In the dark, when she heard footsteps on wooden stairs or felt stale breath too close, she could close her eyes and wait. She could breathe and picture herself alone and safe. When she would open them again she would be fine. But now there was no difference between her eyes open or shut.

She felt like she had to pee and began to cry. Her mind’s eye returning to see herself curled in her pajama shorts and an old stained t-shirt in the dark, worried what people would think if they found out she had pissed herself. She wanted to be out of the dark, where thoughts like that ran round her mind. She wanted to be out of the dark, where she could choose to close her eyes and be fine.

The car finally rolled to a stop, her body felt the slight incline of a hill towards her back. The release of the door but not the sound of it closing a moment later. She expected the harsh sound of work boots, but instead found the softer sound of shoes against the gravel, a cautious crunch, a lightness to them.

The key scraped the metal and she imagined it turning as she heard the cylinders move. The trunk popped. Two inches of light blinding her. She heard the gruff bark of her name and closed her eyes against the light.

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