Hyponatremia
by Savannah Stutevoss
University of the Incarnate Word
Savannah Stutevoss is a senior at the University of the Incarnate Word majoring in English. She is set to graduate May 2023 and hopes to attend law school in the fall. Writing has always been one of her hobbies, and she is excited to submit to Quirk after working the 2022 edition.
“I can’t let you go,” I say to him. I feel guilt inside as the water slowly rises. I stare into his face, so worn, so tired. It cracks like the bones of an ancient home, yet still stands, regardless of it all. I fear what I am doing to him.
“Why am I here?” he asks. The obvious question, the stupid question. The question used in the movies to buy time, to stall, to settle.
“Let me tell you a little story” I say, “before the water rises up higher”.
It generally begins early, when I’ve just awoken and the sky is still a dark gray. I lay amongst my bamboo fiber sheets and think, slowly, as if I could disturb some unformed entity with my perturbed mental creations. Even the worst nightmare would cower and flee in fear with the visions I entertain in my mind. I don't have a television in my room. It is a distraction. There is a desk I purchased from my mother when I moved out, as well as a chair I stole from my last job. You’ve sat there, many times. Next to the bed, another smaller table. A clock, analog. It glows a faint blue all night and all day. There is no window in my room either. You always call me a vampire. I prefer it this way, and specifically hunted out an apartment that could accommodate for no sunlight, or any light at all for that matter. My mind needs the darkness.
When I was seven, I fed my 4-month-old baby sister water and she died. My mother always told me she was already sick, she was already destined to die. But I never believed her. You’ve told me countless times to not feel the guilt, to forget her little scrunched up face, pale on her blanket. How could I? I don’t know if it was outright jealousy or an attempt at love that caused me to pry her little jaws open and drip ice cold water down her throat. The summers were so hot in our tiny air condition-less apartment. So now, I think of murder. An unending stream of killing anyone and everyone. Stabbing, slashing, bashing the head in with a rock. I’ve learned so much about guns and chemicals in school. I use those in my mind too.
I never allow myself to stray from my typical routine, any changes or infractions leave me angry and irritable, causing my thoughts to worsen dramatically, to the point of my throwing myself into my duvet and screaming, screaming so silently. It engulfs me so maniacally, so fundamentally, so completely that there is no other alternative than to think meager, helpless thoughts. You’ve heard me cry and beg.
I’ve tried therapy but was too ill and afraid of the repercussions of my mental instability. At least that’s what I was told it was. A pathology, a cremation of the accepted and normal, an insolent and taboo pastime. A trauma response. A guilty obsession. A filthy escape into my sins. Even you tell me that I am abnormal, flawed, broken. I choose to view it as more of a hobby. The thoughts aren’t sexual in nature, although they could be. They are equally as gratifying, but in a more unbecoming and unphysical way. The coldness of the pain I describe so sweetly in my head warms me deeper than any sensual pleasure could have. When you first came to terms with it, you called me a sick bastard. You hit me and tore at my skin and pled with me to stop. It made me happy to see you hurt yourself.
And time makes it grow stronger. Like an aphrodisiac, but for my obsession. I save the worst of all thoughts particularly difficult week or for a specifically angering encounter. They envelop me in a cloud of unconsciousness and a desire for regret that can never be found. I increase my creativity and allow myself to fathom far deeper excursions into somebody else’s hell than I normally can procreate. So, I save it as an allowance for myself, when I need a deeper escape and delight.
I walked last week to the supermarket and it was almost unbearable. It was dark out, and the streetlights shone dimly in the lost suburbia. There was another man walking, not quite in front of me, but far enough along to where it wasn’t obvious I was behind him. I walked faster. I could see my hands around his neck. He wouldn't have seen it coming. He wouldn’t have been able to fight. There was a large stick on the ground. The trees shed so much with the wind. I raised it up above my head, and could see myself bashing his head with it, blood pooling around his glassy eyes as he fell to the ground. Suddenly, I thought of you. I saw you as I see you now and know what I must do.
“That is why you’re here,” I say aloud, to the face in the mirror that I see from the bathtub. The sunken eyes, the hollow cheeks, the scraggly beard I haven’t shaved. I feel the water rising and kissing the tip of my nose slowly, sweetly. The ropes around my hands and feet, held down by the old exercise weights I found in the apartment gym, cradle me so sweetly. I hear the water rushing into my ears, and I open my mouth, letting its sweet nectar overflow my throat.