I squeeze my eyes closed, tilt my head to the side, and jump.

That itch in my ear has been growing.  For weeks.  For years.  Like water stuck after sinking below the surface of a pool.  I rub my ear to my shoulder.  No relief.

I jump again.

Out from my right ear starts a slow leak.  I can feel the moisture trickle out, slide beneath my earlobe and under the line of my jaw.  Every hair on my neck and the back of my arms reaches away from my body – desperately trying to flee from what’s coming.

A tentative hand reaches up to my face only to find it now plays host to a small river pouring from my skull.  My eyes turn to saucers with the realization.  The hair that had rested on my shoulder is soaked through and my cotton t-shirt hangs heavy and clings to my skin.  The river quickens.

I fall forever.  I fall to my hands and knees.  Like rolling the last of the toothpaste out from the bottom of the tube, pressure builds at my ankles and works its way up the back of my legs, through my spine.  My scalp splits open.  A waterfall is hurling itself out from my shoulders.

My limbs give.  I lie flat on my stomach.  The water surrounds me and I float at its surface.
Slowly, slowly, the waterfall loses its force.  The river runs dry.  I drift with nothing more confined to me.

Before falling off the edge of the new ocean, I am gathered up by a massive hand.  A coronal cut separates my back and front and the giant scoops the flesh from the inside of my skin.  The backs of my eyelids are scraped clean and I am truly empty.  My body is a husk.

My halves are thrown back to the sea and they begin to sink.  Before I hit the bottom the tide has pushed me along and washes my pieces onto the shore.  

Here she lies, eternally, a shell face down in the sand.