PORTRAYAL OF MY UNIQUENESS

I wish all and sundry could fathom it.
I witnessed an accident once. I was just a kid. A saloon car rolled myriad times,we all ran to where it finally halted. Only the driver was in it. He was laying on the car seat with his hands clasped around his throat. A man forced me from his side, but I fought myself back to him by climbing around other people legs and spidering over their feet.

He ended up living. I’m not sure how. His lungs had been filling up with blood. I overheard my adults talking about it, later.

I’m in my room, sitting on a bed, darkness engulfed the room. I’m sitting there reckoning, staring through the darkness.

I felt that someone is coming for me.

 I’m not sure why. But I profoundly felt someone is approaching. Can feel someone is coming, the way you feel the coming coming of rain.

I try to bring myself together and lower my breathing. That is not a solution. The darkness seems to deepen.
I can here footsteps almost feeling it. Getting louder and louder. Outside everything seemed to come to a standstill apart from the footsteps.

Then, turning of my room doorknob.

I opened my eyes. I’m in my room. My room. The faces in the frames glinting down in the not-quite-dark belong to my father.

The door slides open. It’s my dad. In his hand he’s holding a newspaper and small ball. My small ball. He asks if I was having another one of my nightmares.

My parents are really concerned about me. They worry that I an introvert. They worry that am not a social person. But they don’t get it, it’s more fun inside my own head. They don’t understand that am unique.

“So, Wako,” Dr. Omar says oftenly, his office shockingly bright, his voice heavy. “Your father tells me you’ve been having your nightmares again.
 “There’s no reason for you to be so anxious.”

I can tell there’s something different about me, but I’m not anxious. Sometimes I just get scared. And I don’t like being bothered. I wish I could articulate that. I wish I could quell their concern with something other than “I’m not.” Beyond that mere defensiveness. I don’t mean to seem so reflexive.

There’s a world inside my head. A better one than the one my parents believe is better. A world where I don’t have to engage in the arbitrary traditions. In my world I know what other people are thinking. In my world, I can decimate a jungle gym and turn the President’s office into a spaceship. In my world, I can do more than what anyone can imagine. I can levitate. I can love.

It’s just that sometimes my world backfires. The atmosphere alters and gravity reverses. Sometimes am pinned by the heaviness of that freedom, heavy as all metals.

“I’m not,” I say, eventually, dropping my head. “I’m not.”

I wish everyone could comprehend that I am fine. That this is just portrayal of my uniqueness.