She screamed over and over and over and over (and then some) with the college postcard in hand, filled out in sparkling pink Crayola
“I was only trying to help…” I mouthed the words but they did not come out as I coughed up water and breathed it into my lungs and felt my eyes water with tears as my head bobbed above the chlorine, arms and legs kicking, flailing, everything but swimming until my father jumped in the pool and picked me up and brought me up on the cement.
I didn’t need the help when I climbed into Tubey the Wonder Dog’s gall bladder and stuck my legs through the skin of his abdomen and floated across the deep end when no one was home.
The front right leg of the white plastic chair stood parallel to the dividing line between life and death, shallow end and deep, but I liked to dance on the dangerous side, I liked to jump in the ocean despite the canyon wall created by the red flag waves then grip the shore with my tiny hands and feel the sand go under my nails and into my mouth as I yell for someone to get me out of here.
I was only trying to help, “I am helping,” I sang as my pink Crayola spelled out the name Miss Kate Houlihan on the cardboard line but I guess it wasn’t much help.
So instead I lay in between the bed and the heater that makes noises at night and bangs your foot in the morning, under the bedskirt covered in bears and dogs and bunnies for hours and hours and hours (and then some) till finally it’s safe to come out and I’m the last survivor in the post-apocalyptic world where all the dinosaurs have exploded from meteorites straight to the head, no more screaming IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT