The Tiny Claustrophobe

One in a series of monologues that I'm working on about different aspects of being a young woman.

I'm a small human. I mean, I'm short. I can fit into the space between the floor and this chair fairly easily. More than that, I can fit into a locker, a suitcase, a dustbin - not that I've ever done that to myself; I'm nowhere near strong enough to shove myself into small spaces. I'm also claustrophobic.

Once, a long time ago, I was pushed down a tube half-filled with water and told to find my way out. I had broken my arm the day before - or rather, someone in my class kicked my arm "by accident" because she "didn't see me" - but, I broke my arm. The minute and fourty two seconds it took me to get out of that tube were the longest I've ever experienced. I swallowed some of the muddy water and someone had to put their hand into the tube to pull me out because in a moment I'd forgotten how to swim. I was pulled out of that tube spluttering and gasping - desperate for air like a newborn with the umbilical cord around its neck. The rocks at the bottom of the tube ripped my right leg open and my haemoglobin amalgamated with the mud to create the colour of a shootout at high noon. Or a genocide death pit. 

I realised then that I'd been crying the entire time. My fear of drowning had overrun my entire body and I was petrified to the point where every time someone tried to touch me I would see in slow motion the fingers of the hand that pushed me into the tunnel uncurling like talons and I screamed until they withdrew their attempts at comfort. Eventually, they all tired of my dramatics and began to leave for the warmth of their tents. I stayed; unwilling to zip myself into a limb-choker which seemed more like a straight jacket than a sleeping bag. I curled myself into the littlest ball I could; using this super-human power of invisibility granted to me by my stature so they wouldn't see me as they left. They walked past me. I heard them kicking the dirt around me, giggling, muttering something about a drama queen and an attention seeker, but I never thought they meant me - they couldn't have, I was invisible.

I opened my mud-sealed eyelids and found myself not entirely alone.

He was sitting cross-legged in the mud I had brought up with me. Waiting. My automatic response was to recoil into my ball of safety, but he extended his hand and I recognised it as the one that had hoisted me out of the death tunnel. I stopped. I sat paralysed while he uncurled my legs and proceeded to clean the slowly bleeding gash. He washed my mud-hardened skin with a cream rag that turn brown with one wipe. I was still petrified, but now, for no reason. I was safe up there. He lifted me from the ground after wrapping me in a towel and said,

"Shall I take you away from here?"

Sometimes I dream about that pipe and the brown water and the choking and spluttering and his hand pulling me away. I remember them with immense accuracy; each wrinkle - career, life, love lines - fingertips blackened from camp chores, I remember each callus and why he'd said he had them, but try as I might - and I do try - I cannot remember his face.