Embedded Files
A deep breath. This breath is not like the others.
The lungs are filled with air atoms down to their smallest cells. The lungs have taken in so much oxygen that they no longer fit inside the chest cavity. They have squeezed all the other organs and claimed their space as their own. Even inside the cage that cannot contain them, between the ribs themselves, the lungs swell and push outward.
The lungs have grown so large that they press against the cage from within. Every rib has become a prison bar. The lungs spill between them, wrap themselves around the iron bars, embrace them, and push hard enough to reshape the cage itself. As the bones resist, the pain grows. The wretched one thinks a great weight has been placed upon his chest. But this wretched one does not understand. What is crushing him does not come from outside. It comes from within.
And I haven't even mentioned the heart.
The lungs have squeezed it completely. Squeezed it so tightly that the heart feels as though it has torn free from its place and slid to the side of his chest. So little room remains that it cannot expand and contract enough to pump blood. The wretched one feels as though his heart has been forced into a container smaller than itself. So small that to shut the lid, they crammed the heart inside and stuffed whatever would not fit into the empty corners around it.
The helpless heart can no longer send blood to the brain.
He feels as though he is floating in the emptiness of space. In that moment he can feel nothing. He is not even aware of what is happening.
Never mind the brain. The blood cannot even reach its nearest neighbors on their daily routes. Like a train stranded in a tunnel after the power has been cut, the blood remains trapped inside the vessels. It cannot go anywhere. The stations wait. The train does not move.
Because the blood is no longer being pumped, the muscles do not receive the oxygen they need. Deprived of oxygen, the body can no longer carry its own weight. It sags where it stands. The slightest force feels like enough to move it. Like a boat tied to the shore, the body sways in empty space. Every invisible blow throws it from one side to the other.
The being that has begun to drift from reality believes that this is how the rest of its life will be.
If only it understood. All it has to do is say, "Breathe in, and let go." Everything would be fixed. The lungs would retreat. The heart would find its place again. The blood would continue its journey. The order within would return.
But the wretched one longs so deeply for this moment to last. That the lungs never empty, that the heart never beats again, that the brain never works again, that the muscles never respond again, that the eyes never open again, and that this body simply drifts into the darkness of space and disappears.
But the lungs release the air they have gathered.
The heart begins to beat again.
The blood begins to move again.
Everything returns to where it was.
His eyes open.
He is still here.
He still sees the life continuing around him.
And in a span of time no longer than a single breath, he knows he will go through it again.
by Vusal Yusif
June 4, 2026 @ 12:44 AM
Google Sites
Report abuse