Brick

She stared up at ceiling, laying with her back on the ground and legs resting up on the couch. It was cold- so cold she could see her breath even in their lounge- but she didn't mind. She needed something to cool her off.

The small of her back pressed comfortably into the carpet as she sang.

She didn't know how long she'd been laying there. Just singing and laying, that was all. The occassional shiver, but she didn't know if that was from the cold or not.

From time to to time she laughed a nervous laugh, or perhaps a hysterical laugh.
If anyone had walked into the room, they might have thought she was losing her mind.
But, no. She'd already lost her mind long ago.

She had that familiar feeling she often encountered in her body. Her nerves were everywhere. She felt like she had an adrenaline rush, but that wasn't it- not anymore, anyway. Adrenaline rushes aren't that long lasting.
It was as if every atom in her body was jumping everywhere at once, battering themselves against her skin, attempting an escape. Whenever they did that, all she wanted to do was run. Run until her legs hurt. Run until she lost control of her arms. Run until her heart stopped and she fell forward so her cheek could rest on the cool, mossy ground for the last time.

But for the moment (and this was rather a long moment), she was laying there. Just listening. Examining the ceiling and thinking about everything, anything and nothing all at once. She could run herself into the ground later.

She was a silly thing, she decided.

She always let everything build up to an incomprehensible level of intensity that could never sustain itself for very long, and then would come the inevitable insanity as it caved in on itself.

Someday, she would learn, she thought.

She wiggled her toes that stuck out from under the shawl that rested over her body. It was only just wide enough to cover her body. She needed to paint her toenails.

Maybe her attention span was her problem. Maybe she was fickle.
But no, she didn't think that was it. She just knew what she wanted.

She laughed out loud at this thought.

She didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know much at all. But someday, someday, she'd learn to stop living the tragedies she wrote over and over again.

The girl laughed again and carried on singing, mist leaving her mouth as she did.