The world is so heavy compared to water.
She rolled her eye in their sockets. They stung when she blinked. Salt. Brine in the eyes. She could smell the puke. It followed her out of the dream. It was all over her. Everywhere. Up the nose and around her mouth and down her neck. Her body was wet, but not water wet, sweat wet and she stank like a real man.
Salt stung her eyes. A dirty ceiling fan hung motionless. The air was so humid, and it had a strange taste to it. Bubblegum. It smelt like bubblegum mixed with nail varnish.
Her head weighted a ton, either that, or her neck was lame. She lifted her head, slowly, deliberately, so as not to offend her headache. By lifting the chin the abdomen would engage and in turn curl the spine and do all the other stuff that needs doing to sit up. But her head was lead. It was too heavy for the neck. She set her head down carefully.
Her shoulder was sore, like she had been punched, a deep dull pain, and she had pins and needles on her palm. She clutched her hands into fists and relaxed them.
She looked over her nose and saw a neatly folded note on her chest.
She rolls to one side, and twists herself up write, and leans on her weight on the left arm, but the arm is numb, and doesn't respond in time and she falls sideways on to her shoulder, which burns in pain. Charlie screams in agony and reached to her shoulder.
She starts screaming and screaming, and by pure force of will sits herself upright. As she does something slips off her chest, bounces on the table edge and clatters to the floor. Instructively she turns to see what it was, just in time to a folded paper slip off her chest and flutter to the floor. She looks down.
Scrawled on the page, in black in is a message. It reads "fone 911 o you can dead 3 horas". The object that fell was her cell phone.
Sobbing she holds her bleeding stump. It is so hot, and the movement makes it throb. The severed part is bound and dressed. On the counter top is a iron, the base is black. The bandage is soggy and Charlie whimpers and sobs. It is so hot, as if the sun itself was burning through her bone. Charlie reached her good hand and carefully pulled the half arm closer, to have a better look.
Charlie vomited on herself and screamed in anguish.
And sobbed for a moment, looking down at the note on the floor then swung her legs to the table edge and eased her weight onto her toes, slowly testing her strength and eased her weight on to the legs, little by little until she was upright.
The phone had bounced under the table, she picked it up and slid the lock open, the screen changed and asked for her finger print. It was at that point when Charlie was overwhelmed with fear. The only thing that stood between her survival and her death was a fingerprint, and arm holding that finger was gone. She gasped and screamed. She pressed her other finger on the scanner in vain.
She can't unlock the phone, because her arm is gone, she cant remember the pattern any more, she tries, and tries, and becomes more and more panic stricken, and weeping, and crying.
The sterile wrapped stub is bleeding more and more, she starts screaming for help, but there is not reply.
Charlie head for the door, and left the flat. She crossed the landing and banged on the neightbours door. Nobody answered. She summoned the elevator, and saw herself for the first time in the facing mirror, and again burst into tears, and rode the eleveator ddown to ground floor.
Charlie left the aparment block which was one street away from a busy main road. She was feeling very light headed and rested against the wall.
Two padestrians where approaching and Charlie waved to the them.
"Help me please, i need a hospital" she said.
The two woman stopped short and covered their eyes and shook her head, and crossed her chest.
"PLEASE help me" she shouted.
But her hysterial alarmed the two ladies and they backed away with hands over their mouths, a wave of dizziness make Charlie stagger and trip into a parked car. Instictively she reach out her missing arm to break the impact and instead the force of her movement smashed the stump into the window and she fainted from the blot of pain.