Drowning Above Water--a scene

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My head throbs and the screeching of chairs crowds my ears. I could hear my father ten feet away yelling about the cake not being done enough and my sisters fighting next to the rice. my skin prickles and itches but I can’t scratch it because I'm shaking my hands next to my head like they’re wet or something. But they’re not. I could feel and hear and see everyone and everything squeezing closer and closer together. I didn’t know you could drown above water. My scalp feels bare and my shirt feels too tight, too bright. Bright. Sight. Light. The light, blinding me from above, sways and threatens to drop, down, down, down—onto me like the burdens I keep in my mind, off my face, trying to burst forth like grapes in a broken bag. I fix my gaze on the flashing green of the stove clock. But I can’t understand the sequence of the image before me. the floor below me is buzzing and I realize my hands are tangled in my hair and pulling and tugging and someone’s talking to me. but I can’t listen. I hear my quickening breaths and the ripping sounds of my skin as the seams bust. The air is static and the ceiling-fan is going too fast and the wooden planks below my feet is sinking as Dad’s voice gets bigger and bigger, shaking the walls and vibrating the counters. Everything is too close and too loud, blurring, whirring, screaming my name within each stretched syllable is stop, stop— “Stop!” I scream, and then nothing. I stand there, panting, my hands in my hair, my knees bent, as the whole world quiets and turns to stare at me.

Then I run.