A Fish

All I can do is stand there, completely numb, my arms and legs becoming impossibly heavy, as if they’re being pumped full of liquid steel.

Commotion ensues all around me, a collective ruckus with no beginning or end, growing by the second, but I continue to stand there in silence, my breathing becoming more and more shallow and erratic.

This. Is. Not. Real.

This. Is. Not. Happening.

It just isn’t.

There is simply no way in hell any of this is real.

None.

I repeat this to myself again and again, telling my mind over and over that this isn’t true.

And yet…I can’t seem to convince myself of it.

Despite my bewilderment, I can’t bring myself to refute what I’m seeing; whether I understand how or why it happened or not. All I know is that it did.

And that…I caused it.