She couldn’t believe she could breathe underwater for 43,829 minutes. Especially with all the constipated looks of sympathy.
Poor girl stuck in a box, they thought as they tapped the glass.
Some days she would float, barely moving, unresistant to the small currents that swayed her whichever way. Others she nestled away, trying to find something the temperature of blood to bury her face into.
But most days she acted normal. When they watched, she swam.
It wasn’t until she was alone that she removed the ceramic vase from where it sat and wedged it into her armpit, her arm wrapped around its base.
Ah, yes. The vase that once held flowers with promises of decay. She rocked it and rubbed her face against its glossy exterior. She ate fettuccini alfredo with it. She watched “Gone with the Wind” and “It’s a “Wonderful Life” with it. She sang Beatles classics to it.
But on the 43,829th minute, the vase slipped from her cold and slimy palms, shattering on the hardwood floor like an exhausted piece of coral.
She retrieved the broom, swept and took a seat next to the broken pile.
When she looked at her naked feet, she realized she hadn’t groomed them in a month. And with that, she hand-peeled her long and yellowed toe nails, flicked them into a dust pan full of ashes, looked up at the water stain on the ceiling and said, “here’s looking at you, kid.”