(Dianne) Fox Writes

Jasper woke long before the lights came on, dragged out of sleep by the dreadful feeling of something going terribly wrong. He woke pawing at his head, trying to untangle the thing that was wrapped around it and finding nothing but his own hair. The thing that was tightening around his brain wasn’t there. There was nothing there to fight.

There never was. Jasper sat up with his back to the cinderblock wall and tried to breathe. Breathing didn’t help, even if he breathed right, but Jasper had to try. Everyone said he would feel better if he just tried. No one seemed to notice that he was trying, that he had been trying ever since he was a kid. He breathed, in through the nose and out through the mouth, counting and trying to relax his shoulders and warm his fingers. The blue nightlight at the foot of his bed cast everything in an eerie glow, but Jasper tried to use it as a focus. If you were trying, he thought, it wouldn’t happen.

It happened anyway. It always did.