Ittan Momen
By Jaslynn Middleton
It was still dark out. It’s always dark these days, even after 8 AM.
The floor is freezing. I hate winter.
The bathroom is even colder and I swear my feet would stick to the tile floor if not for my thick socks and slippers. I should shower, warm my body and fully wake my mind, but I’m already running late and I know myself. I’ll stand in the hot water until I’m boiled alive.
Teeth brushed. Hair combed. Deodorant? Check.
Where is my work shirt? I specifically put it on the chair last night after I finished the laundry so I wouldn’t have to search for it this morning.
There it is. How did it get under the bed?
It’s almost slimy with the morning chill when I slip it over my head and I’m so startled by the feeling that I can’t find the holes. The shirt is too big for me in the first place; I have to make do with a XXL because it’s the only size they had left. I swim through the shirt, trying to put my head through the neck, yet no matter how much I struggle I can’t surface from the fabric.
I stretch my arms as high as they’ll go and then as wide as I can, trying to sort out the twists in the excess fabric to find the arm holes I know exist, and the shirt resists, actually resists. Its fabric coils tighter around me, like a cocoon or—
It’s just a shirt.
It constricts and suddenly I can’t breathe. A burst of adrenaline banishes my residual grogginess. I struggle harder, but the more I strain the tighter the shirt squeezes until it immobilizes my arms against my ears. A small wrinkle across my face leaves a gap large enough to allow me to breathe, but even that’s rapidly closing.
My apartment walls are thin, so I scream. I scream as loud and as long as I can. If there’s any answer, it’s muffled by my cocoon.
The air is growing stale, and now the fabric presses hungrily against my mouth as if it wants to dive down my throat. I clamp my lips shut and breathe through my nostrils.
I’m getting lightheaded, and I have no choice but to sit. I have too many things scattered across the floor that might cause injury if I fall on them.
I can barely breathe through my nose. The fabric threads deeper into my skin with each inhalation like it’s become part of me now.
It’s so dark and cold.
Jaslynn Middleton started writing as a teenager to cope with being neurodivergent. She is currently writing her third novel, a sci-fi story set on a derelict spaceship. When she’s not writing, she picks fights with technology (especially office equipment) or hangs out with her two stubborn shiba inu.