I just swallowed. Again, already? Did enough saliva build-up to justify? Two back-to-back swallows have me struggling on the third. About to choke. Have I forgotten how to do this? Maybe choking will show me what it feels like to let go. Instead, I swallow a hard fourth.
My throat is strained and overworked. Saliva pools up at a rate I can’t imagine is happening to everyone else. Did I do something to deserve this? Am I doing something wrong? Are people walking around wondering when to swallow next? Chance drowning in their own drool to prove to themselves they’re being irrational? It’s too much to think about.
Is it a thing? Is saliva overproduction real? Have paramedics ever had to resuscitate someone because their saliva finally got out of control? Got the best of them?
What am I thinking? Of course they have.
I google it in secret while Nicole eyeballs what to throw out next.
She’s always moving things. Tossing out what’s overstayed its welcome. All the time. Always organizing what’s already been organized several times over. I love the look, the new feng shui of the apartment. Then it changes and I love it again, all over. A newer feng shui. But I can’t find my things anymore. They’re in neat places now. Better places, she tells me. I can picture them, snug and undisturbed.
She uses the excuse of spring cleaning though it’s nearly October. Mocks her phobia for laughs though it’s entirely real. She fears she’ll change into her mother, one unnecessary item at a time, crushed under the weight of her own conscience to never let a good box go. Her mother is the hint of a woman you’ll only catch glimpses of behind stacks of old TV guides and leaning towers of fast-food Styrofoam cups. Never a clear view. A ghost behind a wall of the trivial. What’s the opposite of a hoarder? A shedder? I’m just wondering how either one of them swallow without a care.
Nicole piles things by the front door we don’t need any more or should have never had in the first place.
“I’m sorry. I know this is a lot,” she tells me as she drops two more boxes that rattle with things I’d rather not check before tossing. “We need it. I felt so congested. I can’t think straight when it’s so packed in here.”
“It’s okay. I need the exercise anyway,” I say though that’s a lie. I don’t need to do anything. Except swallow. But I won’t tell her that. I can’t. I’ll hold it all in. Then swallow.
Lugging the first stack of boxes downstairs, I realize I do need the exercise and wasn’t lying at all. My body feels like an enemy.
It hasn’t always been swallowing. Swallowing is new. Breathing was before. Breathing took up a better part of my twenties. Watched a video about proper diaphragmatic breathing and was never able to breathe naturally again. It stole from me. I was too aware of my body. Every breath I took too deep. Exhaled too little. My gut ballooned and ached with pain. Nicole was a mess. It took doctor visits and sonograms to tell me there was nothing wrong. Then I stopped caring. So, it stopped too. She didn’t know what to make of it. I couldn’t either. But apparently, I was the one causing it all.
There was also a blinking stint. A stint because it only lasted over the course of a long weekend with Nicole in Colorado. Blinking didn’t seem so dire, so the obsession faded. More of a nuisance than anything. It has to have serious implications to linger for months, or years. Or have a special occasion to ruin. Such as a long weekend in Colorado.
Nicole and I fought about it the whole ride home. My obsessions ruining memories. I didn’t think about blinking once. Swallowing on the other hand…
I fumble downstairs with the large awkward items: floor lamps; chests that were always empty; a fan with a motor on its last leg and enough dust on its blades to coat our lungs several times over — things I never noticed robbed us of space.
I also get migraines only when I’m scared of getting them. I’m not sure if they’re real anymore.
I’m not sure how real anything is anymore. My mind’s fixating into a horrible loop. But the more I worry about it, the worse it gets.
Bits of us surround every side of the dumpster in tidy boxes, ready to be picked over by the other apartment dwellers.
I feel a little naked.
Saliva building. Don’t swallow it. Don’t swallow it. It’s not enough to swallow yet. Time yourself. Count between swallows. No, don’t. Just let go. No. Hold on tight.
Kids from the apartment complex play later than they should. The streetlights coming on mean nothing to them. Just replacements for the sun. Nicole and I sit on our balcony and watch them yank out and throw our clothes around the parking lot. They toss picture frames like frisbees. Use empty mason jars to snatch fireflies. One kid wears my tattered childhood blanket as a cape. I should have checked the boxes. Did she know? They grab kitchen utensils and pretend they’re weapons. A cake beater’s a gun. Plates are shields. Strainers are helmets. Their war games spread.
“Should we be worried?” I ask.
“It’s not our stuff anymore,” Nicole says. “It’s funny.”
She’s cool and collected. She thinks it’s funny. Our stuff is everywhere now, but it’s okay. My blanket’s tossed aside, under the bumper of an SUV. She makes me feel like it’s okay. It’s funny, even.
My saliva builds. Filling to the brim.
I want to let it go. Let it spill out everywhere or else choke me.
I don’t know which is best.
So, I just swallow.
