Excerpts from “Max”

“The muffled din of a distant alarm pierced through the fog of sleep and dream. In the background of a nightmare, it was a welcome disruption. Max’s eyes darted rapidly as she struggled to pull herself loose from the grips of unconsciousness, and back into her body. Reality slogged into focus as she took a few deep breaths. Quickly, the dark hallucinations faded.

Hallucinations or prophecies, she wondered to herself.

            Early morning sun trickled warmly into the room through miniscule cracks in the downy curtains, made permissive by the gentle nudge of the ceiling fan. She would accept the breach of light over waking in a sweltering prison of stale heat. Opening the window only seemed to make it worse; like all the cool air was being sucked greedily outward.”

“She felt her guts turn wretchedly when she thought back to that night. Why were some memories stickier, trapped as if fossilized in the dark tar of shame, making a pit of her unconscious?”

“The dreams had picked her up from the night before, right where she thought she’d shook free from their grasp. They had only set her down momentarily, as if out of pity. There was the overwhelming sense of something to be untangled, but most nights her left clutching knotted fistfuls of sheet and hair.”