Haunted by My Vibrations.
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Perhaps it is the first time you eat ice cream.
Maybe it is when you fall down the hill just outside your childhood home, colliding with green and brown, and then hard, solid grey. It shakes your skull as it rips skin from your nose. Perhaps it is when your little body hacks and hollers from the chainsaw sickness — something you don’t remember but can definitely imagine.
Remember freezing pods. Exploding on the surface of skin. A squeal like that of a rabbit in pain. Except it isn’t pain. It’s delight. It’s uncontrollable. You find yourself soaking it up — sand on the Atlantic. It shakes. It rattles. You hear your mother’s voice and it turns warm, familiar.
You begin to understand it as vibrations. In sixth grade, you feel it when tears collide with shoulders, wails roll into reassurance. It’s in her voice as she says Goodbye, and leaves you crashing. A 4.4 Richter-scale earthquake.
That summer you’re sitting in the living room at 10 o’clock at night, foolishly watching Ghost Hunters by yourself. You adjust so that your back is against something solid. It’s there, poking at your spine. A noise makes you turn. Arms weak, head woozy. A figure glides down the staircase, all in white. She doesn’t show up in the mirror. You turn the sound up louder, hating the claws at the back of your neck.
It’s the second year of junior high. They’ve been quiet. You think there is a hole. Maybe they’re gone for good. Then she hugs you for the first time, placing her lips on your temple. They awaken. You become champagne. She’s dressed from head to toe in black. Someone you never expected.
People begin to reverberate. Now you name them vibes, as if they were a downbeat, a sudden drop, in your favorite song. You find yourself dictating other’s vibes. You find yourself saying, “He creeps me out, I just have this vibe.” You say this a lot without being heard.
One time you express this. “He reminds me of a 40-year-old man. I just have this vibe.” She doesn’t listen. She begins to drift. Her echo fades. You both arrive at graduation, and there is nothing when you brush arms. Instead, it is empty. A blue waterfall covers her body, and it sparkles in the +30 weather. But for you there are no sparkles, no pop rocks.
You are now 20, in your second year of university. They’ve returned full force. His hands hold yours. Your heart could suffocate your lungs. Ladybugs crawl into your ears. You don’t mention this vibe to him.
A month later, they are replaced with nausea. You wake sweating one night and start to cry. Water trickles onto your stomach. Skin crawls as he takes your hand. Your fingers try to pull away and find they can’t. The vibe has turned into an unwelcome nightmare.
21. They still surround you. They shimmer around your friends, roommates, mostly strangers. Heatwaves on burning asphalt. The mind finds comfort in them. The heart is another story.
***
Justina Deardoff is currently finishing off her degree in Journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. Since she could hold a pen, she has loved telling stories — from exploring fantasy worlds of fairies and witches, to coming to appreciate the beauty in things that are ordinary. When she is not trying to catch someone to interview for a story, she is often found with a good book, a cup of coffee, or getting lost in the mountains. She hopes to one day share her words with those souls that feel somewhat lost, and yet found in their own writing, through her future journalistic endeavors.
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