Dulled and Distant

Edna was tumbling in turmoil, all of it trapped inside her own mind. There was no single thought anymore—only a collision of them, smashed together without order or mercy. Cobwebs stretched from one moment to the next, thin and trembling, catching fragments of memory the way insects are caught mid-flight.

A child’s laugh.
Rain on glass.
Henry’s hand.
A blank page.
A farm fence warm beneath her palms.

None of them belonged where they landed.

Time no longer moved forward. It folded in on itself, crumpling decades into a single breath. She could not tell if she was young or old, loved or abandoned, awake or dreaming. Even her own body felt unfamiliar—hunched, heavy, barely responding to her will, like something borrowed and poorly fitted.

She tried to stand inside her mind.

Tried to call out.

But the words tangled in the web before they could reach her mouth.

Inside, the storm raged. Thoughts surged and collapsed like waves, each one erasing the last. Faces appeared without names. Names without faces. Places without doors. She felt herself slipping between them, unable to anchor to anything solid.

“I’m here,” she tried to say.

But she wasn’t sure where here was anymore.

The world beyond her skin—chairs, walls, windows, rain—pressed faintly against her senses, dulled and distant. Somewhere a voice called her name, or maybe it was Henry’s, or maybe it was her mother’s voice reaching across decades.

The sound echoed, then fractured.

She folded inward, shoulders rounded, chin tucked close to her chest as if she could protect what little remained. Her hands twitched in her lap, fingers searching for something familiar—a pencil, a glass, a hand to hold—but found only fabric and air.

Memories broke apart as soon as they formed.

A wedding without vows.
A goodbye without a face.
A childhood without edges.

She felt herself thinning, unraveling strand by strand. Not disappearing all at once—but eroding, the way rain wears down stone. Slowly. Relentlessly.

Somewhere deep beneath the confusion, a quiet fear pulsed—not sharp, not loud, just constant. The fear of being lost without knowing how to be found.

She didn’t know the day.
She didn’t know the place.
She barely knew the shape of herself.

Edna remained hunched and nearly still, weathering the storm as best she could, though each gust tore something loose. Thoughts slipped away before she could hold them. Pieces of herself drifted off into the fog, unclaimed.

And still the storm pressed on.

And still, Edna was losing herself.