Waking Up

Lorna Amador

A young woman, around her early twenties, wakes up on a normal day like any other. She starts her day as normal, she goes for her usual morning routine and looks at the clock, 5:00 a.m. She has never woken up this early in the morning before. She decides she will use this time she never has throughout the day. Most of the time, she wakes up around 10 a.m., having little to no time to enjoy her day. She starts by making her coffee, but she realizes her coffee machine works a little slower than usual. 

This feeling makes her even more depressed, so she sits watching the steam of her coffee rising from her cup. The silence in the house feels heavier than usual, but she decides to ignore it and takes a sip from her coffee, although…something feels off. The taste of it seems dull, almost like it's missing something.

Looking around, almost contemplating her house, she notices how still everything looks. The clock on the wall ticks slower than she remembers, the first hand not moving at all, the second hand dragging itself forward. She decides to get up to shake that feeling off a bit, even though deep down she believes there's nothing that can take away that miserable, empty feeling. She moves towards the window, expecting a morning light breaking through, but the sky outside remains its deep, lifeless gray. No birds, wind, people, no movement at all. As if time itself has slowed down, leaving her stuck in the moment. She stares down at a small diary on a table right next to the window. Her chest tightens, every time she writes in that book, it's for those melancholic moments where she doesn't know how to feel her feelings, like the only thing that has been there for her for years. She opens it, looking how worn out it is, looking through the pages, she skims through the entries where they are written from years ago, but she suddenly notices how it stops…that's weird, she could have sworn she wrote something yesterday, but the last entry is from a year ago, after that, there's scribbles, torn pages, or words with no sense or meaning. It's like nothing has been written since, like time stopped that day. 

She flips through the pages again, faster this time, as if looking harder will change the reality in front of her. But nothing. No memories from yesterday. No proof that time has moved at all. Just a scattered mess of scribbles, torn pages, and words that no longer make sense. Her breath quickens. She suddenly feels the weight of the silence pressing down on her. Her fingers tighten around the diary. She turns back to the room, looking at it, really looking at it. The furniture is the same, the clock is the same, the sky is the same, but for some reason everything feels wrong. Stagnant. Like it hasn't moved or changed for years. Her stomach twists as a thought creeps into her mind, one she doesn't want to acknowledge, avoiding it. Thinking to herself. Have I ever left the house?

The air feels thicker. The walls seem closer. She moves towards the door, heart pounding, reaching for the handle with trembling hands. It doesn't budge. She pulls harder. Nothing. Her breath becomes short, panicked gasps. She turns to the windows. They are there, right where they have always been. She runs towards them. She presses her hands against the glass. It's solid, unmoving like a painted backdrop. Her gaze falls back into the diary, lying open on the table, its empty pages almost taunting her. She hasn't been living. She has been existing, repeating the same day over and over. Lost in routine, in numbness, emptiness. She isn't trapped in the house. She is trapped in herself. Her own head. Her own reality.

This realization makes the house react. The walls blur. The clock ticks, but she no longer knows if it's moving forward or backward. Her knees feel weak, and she stumbles back into the chair, staring at the diary, at the mess of meaningless words, at the proof that time has swallowed her whole. She grips into the edges of the book. What now? Do I stay here? Do I move? She ponders to herself. A shaky breath escapes her lips. I can’t let this be. With a sudden burst of desperation, she throws the diary across the room. It crashes against the wall and falls to the floor, pages scattering like broken pieces of herself. 

“I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice feels dry, like she hasn't spoken in years. 

The words come out before she even realizes she's saying them. Her voice cuts through the silence like a blade. She has never said it out loud before. A low creaking house echoes through the walls. The floor beneath her trembles slightly, as if the entire structure is breathing, shifting. She stumbles back, eyes darting around. The windows were once solid and lifeless, but they are now begging to distort, like ripples in water. The walls feel like they're moving, nothing is no longer rigid. She clutches her chest, gasping. The house isn't even real; she left this house years ago. 

It was truly her mind, her prison, built from isolation. From routine, from the days she let slip by without living. And now it's falling apart. All of a sudden a gust of wind rushes through the room like it's pulling her almost lifting her off her feet. And yet, she doesn't fight it, she closes her eyes, lets herself feel it; the fear, the sadness, the exhaustion, everything she has buried for so long. 

And then…she lets go. 

The walls shatter. The floor crumbles. The gray sky above her splits open, flooding everything with a warm light. She opens her eyes, but everything looks different now. The air is fresh, the sky is a warm sunrise orange, the warmth of the sun touches her skin. She is outside, both just outside the house, but outside of everything that kept her trapped. She is free. The diary is gone, the house is gone, but…she is still here. 

And for the first time in a long time, she takes a deep breath, full breath. Proof that she exists beyond the pages, beyond the walls, beyond this time she lost. And as the sun rises, painting the world in warmth. She steps forward, finally ready to live. 

Reflection: I decided to write this story “Waking Up” based on an actual life experience many have, including myself. This was one of the reasons why our protagonist doesn't have any background story, not even a name, making it universal. By keeping her almost anonymous we can focus only on her struggle or situation and not give as much attention and weight to what could’ve been her background, or why she feels that way. This also adds to the surreal part of the story, it adds to the distortion of reality the story and our protagonist has. This story is something that can happen to anyone, so I wanted to bring some awareness of how this type of situation really feels even if it seems exaggerated. Personally, I went through this situation some time ago, and it really felt like something surreal, just like in my story it was something where you felt the time going slow, even stuck at times, where you are stuck in routine making your life boring and dull, taking away the hope you have to keep living day by day. 

Additionally, the item I used to build the story up to the climax was the diary, which is something that I actually use, which can be really helpful, although it can be somewhat hurtful for someone, by keeping the memories of past struggles and attaching yourself to them. This is the reason why I decided to make the diary disappear at the end of the story, representing her letting go of all of her past. The torn pages, scribbles represent the chaos in her mind before she even acknowledges those feelings. The avoidance of those types of feelings can add to the depressing and miserable feeling someone can experience during those periods of time. The fact that she ‘hasn't spoken in years’ is an exaggeration, but it's not an exaggeration coming from the emotional past. People can decide to suffer in silence about their pains, struggles and problems due to suppression, avoidance, fear or apathy from others around them. 

This derealization is something that can happen to anyone after a depressive episode or during it. The whole inspiration behind this story, like mentioned before, is because I went through a really similar experience, so I decided to materialize this feeling with a short story, adding details and symbolism to certain stuff which are attached to my personal experience. Meaning, the story itself and the things I explained previously, are all from my experience in this type of situation.