Day: May 11, 2016

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“Drowning” by Hannah Himes

8 minutes. The water closes over your head. You can feel yourself slipping lower, even though your legs are still moving. Waves are crashing above you, but there’s too much water in your ears to hear them. You think maybe you read something somewhere about the average person being able to hold their breath for 3-4 minutes. You wonder if that’s how long it’s going to take. Drowning, that is.

7 minutes. Your brain is telling you to inhale but your lungs are resisting. Your ribs are starting to be consumed by an almighty burning and the water is getting darker. The level of oxygen in your blood is going down, while the level of carbon dioxide is going up. You think how strange it is that oxygen is what makes cells age, that what we need most kills us in the end.

6 minutes. Your limbs aren’t moving anymore. Your body is more concerned with trying to make your lungs fill. You think the breath-hold break point is coming soon. It must be. Your body is screaming. Every vein, every artery, every fiber, every nerve ending screaming for oxygen. Your brain keeps telling you not to breathe. You know that breathing in water is bad. That’s what your dad said when you were learning to swim, wasn’t it?

5 minutes. Your body forces you to inhale, immediately causing you to cough, which only increases the amount of water in your throat. Your larynx and vocal cords constrict to keep water out of your lungs, so it goes to your stomach. This will last about a minute, you think. Water in the stomach. Then your larynx will relax and water will flood your chest. You saw this on the news once; they call it wet drowning.

4 minutes. Things are black. You’ve passed out. Like the news said it would, your larynx relaxes in your unconscious state. Your heart is slowing down, as it tries to pump your blood. The blood is getting thicker, something with the amount of salt in the water. You read that in your 7th grade science textbook.

3 minutes. You go into cardiac arrest. Your blood stops flowing. Oxygen stops going to your brain. Your body gives up in the amount of time it takes a spaceship to lift off. 3

 

2

 

1

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“Black Grass” by Rachel Babylon

Before the fall, in mid-September

I passed by the fire house and remembered the black ring of grass.

It was that patch of dead grass

Where the too hot kettle had sat

And had burned its mark into the ground beneath it.

 

We’d stood by the fire house,

Watching the kettle heat up,

Smelt the sweet fragrance of corn;

And felt the crisp autumn air around us

Which swirled the smells I can no longer stand.

 

The next few months I avoided that road.

I’d take alternative routes;

Longer trips down other streets

Just to avoid seeing the burnt circle

Amidst the healthy lawn.

 

The sight of that black grass

Brought back painful memories.

Those thoughts scorched my heart

Just as the kettle charred the grass beneath it;

Withering the innocent strands into nothing.

 

Although years have gone by,

I still hate the scent of cooking corn.

But I cannot loathe the road where singed grass once was.

The patch has healed;

It blends within the Just as the kettle charred the grass beneath it;

Withering the innocent strands into nothing.

 

Although years have gone by,

I still hate the scent of cooking corn.

But I cannot loathe the road where singed grass once was.

The patch has healed;

It blends within the other blades, other blades.