Cabin fever

« Cabin Fever Every summer, for the past seven years, Sophie and I were going to our cabin in the National Park of Yosemite.

When we met, I was in this park because my psychologist, Ms.

Rotfield, told me that it could be of great help for me to take a rest in a non-stressful environment.

Sophie was there because she had nothing better to do, this was typical of her, because it was spontaneous.

The night we met was one of my “bad nights' ' as Ms.

Rotfield called it.

And there, approaching silently from behind the fire camp, she appeared.

The shadows of the flames were dancing on her cheeks, the forest was holding its breath, the only sounds were the cracking of the fire and my heart, beating so loud I was afraid she might hear it.

Our gazes were locked on each other, and at this particular moment, I felt she knew everything about me.

She sat down.

We drank.

We talked.

And every year we met again. We never talked the rest of the year, never saw each other.

We only existed together during the summer in Yosemite.

We found the cabin at the end of the first summer.

It was an abandoned hut. We decided that it would be ours and that we will meet here every summer.

It became our symbol. This is why I was alone in a rusty old cabin in the middle of nowhere on what felt like the hottest day of the year.

I was waiting, the atmosphere was suffocating, the silence was deafening.

I could hear my heart pounding in my chest and resonating in my head, I could feel my blood in my veins.

It is anxiety It is anxiety It is anxiety .

I tried to scream.

I couldn’t.

I tried to move.

I couldn’t.

I tried to close my eyes.

I couldn’t.

However physical paralysis wasn’t what scared me.

My thoughts were the scariest.

I needed Sophie, I needed her to arrive, to help me, to save me.

Usually, she always appeared when I was doing bad, she would look at me, hand me a bottle of rum, and it would all be over.

Not this time. My thoughts were twirling, and I was terrified…terrified of what I might find when it would stop.

I ran inside the cabin as if the wooden planks would create a shell between myself and my thoughts. Where is Sophie? I heard a noise, she was here, I knew it.

I ran outside the cabin.

I saw her back, she ran.

I ran after her.

I couldn’t understand why she kept running away and I kept chasing her.

My thoughts were twirling faster. Everything stopped.

Everything turned dark.

I felt like something unlocked in my mind.

When I opened my eyes, she was standing in front of me.

And there I finally realized what I always knew; that she was me and I was she.

That in order to escape my own reality I had created another one.

I felt wrong.

She was a parasite, she was a representation of my fears, my insecurities, my madness.

I hated her.

And I hated me.. »