HOW FAR I CAN LET YOU SINK

Blame the limitless water

[I advice you to listen to "how far we've come by Boyce Avenue" because i think it really fits or the song i put on the right. ]

I can't breathe. I feel like I'm flying but I can't feel the wind taking control of my body, guiding me somewhere. Seems like an icy sheet covers me and makes every movement impossible, it keeps me immobile .Every sound is padded. The echo of the thunders is the only sound my brain can distinguish from the other noises that seem to be far away. I keep my nose, mouth and eyes closed but my survival instinct yells at me; it wants me to breathe. The fact is that I can't. This black sheet won't allow any movement, it won't let me survive. Eventually I stop fighting against it. I give up. My body is in oxygen debt. Suddenly something happens though. I start breathing again, I can feel my arms and legs, no longer numb and I finally manage to open my eyes, realizing that nothing has changed from when I kept them shut. The only light I can see is the one the moon sends me, the feeble one that filters through the dark water that surrounds me. The moon: so big and bright that it almost hurts my eyes, heedless of what is happening to me, careless. Maybe it's just the salty water's fault. It makes me float in this somber, limitless universe: the ocean.

As I look down I see something below me. Something that doesn't want to attack me or drag me into the abysses because it doesn't have the strength to. It's a simple body that has stopped waving its arms to try and return to the surface. He let the violent waves haul him, with the promise of a safe shore but all they gave him is a pair of lungs full of heavy water. His only hope is me. His eyes beg, cry for help with their aware silence. I try to swim, to shift my weight towards him but the water and its invisible chains keep me still and make me see my best friend sink with his last hopes, with his hand still towards me. Anthony sinks and gradually becomes part of that icy ocean and then he becomes dark and nothing else. In my head, just screams.

As I saw my reassuring bedroom I relaxed a little, started to breathe regularly, trying to dispel those bad thoughts. Nothing could hurt me there. Or at least, it was what I convinced myself of. I had to give myself wrong few minutes after, when I heard some heavy steps coming from the living room. I got off the bed slowly and grabbed a baseball bat I used to keep under my bed. Having it made me feel safe when I lived there, when I was a little kid full of fears and phobias. I walked in the corridor trying not to make any noise. The carpet under my sweaty feet was starting to be annoying. I saw something moving in the dark and raised the bat over my head, ready to hit. The figure that was wandering in my house lit up the lamp next to the couch and I saw his face. It was just a confused Anthony with disheveled hair and a hood I had never seen before. He looked at me and said nothing; he didn't let any emotion leak from his tired face. But then he started to talk :"Woah dude, did you want to kill me?" said Anthony raising his hands. He gave me a chocked laugh and sat on the couch.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him getting closer to him.

"Could you please lower that bat first?" He said pointing at the object in my not-anymore-shaking hands. I sighed and did what he asked me.

"I'm home." Anthony finally said looking always more tired.

"This is not your house anymore, remember?"

"Well then is not yours too."

"I told you that I'm here because Melanie had to leave for a couple days, Anthony." Said I and he didn't move. He just kept staring at the ground that apparently looked more interesting than me. Without looking at his hands he grabbed the blanked that rested on the arm of the couch, covered himself with it, curled up and decided to lie down, facing the backrest. "Are you ok?" I asked him without hiding my concern, with a more apprehensive voice. No answer came from him. His body was immobile, his breath too fast. I let him "sleep" and went back to my bed, where sleep didn't give me the time to think, it switched off my brain and closed my eyes. I didn't have more nightmares that night, maybe because I was too tired and preoccupied to dream, or maybe because I had my best friend safe and sound near me.