flutter

I was ten years old when I swallowed the fairy.

Look. Get your head out of the Brothers Grimm. It wasn't a malicious deed. A ten-year-old child has no control over whether or not it sneezes.

It starts, as always with the unpleasantly prickly feeling in your nostrils. Then the intake of air, rushing down your trachea and preparing for the convulsion of your lungs. Then out it all comes, expelling the foreign matter from your sensitive schnoz. You've been evicted, sorry.

---

I was twenty when I drowned.

I don't include "nearly." I never do. I drowned, plain and simple. It was a pretty big wave. I was hotdogging, showing off. Life has a funny thing of taking your moments of centrality and turning it into a message from the larger universe that you're a joke.

It came up from behind. Like feeling a fifty-pound bag of concrete mix slamming into your back. And then coming around and slamming into your face when you pitch forward. I don't know how my back wasn't broken. Then you've plunged under, through that mirror you see from below. It's all blue, lots of light. There's no up. There's no down. There's nothing but water everywhere, and it's not there for you to drink, either.

Humans can't breathe water. Apparently, neither can fairies.

---

"Your wallet," the kid said. "I want it. Now. Or you get this." He brandished a little handgun.

I had my hands up. Mugged? Really? This would make a good story--someday. Right now, it felt pretty shitty. "Okay. Just let me go for it. It's in my back pocket, all right?"

His face twitched. He was incredibly stressed out, looked like. I didn't blame him. I wasn't feeling so relaxed myself. "Turn around so I can watch you take it out."

"Well." I said. "All right." I turned around and slowly reached my right hand down. Slid into my pocket and grabbed ahold of my wallet. Fished it out.

He grabbed it right away. Then it felt like a fifty-pound bag of concrete hit me in the back. Then the burning began.

---

I gasped, getting ready to ask for a tissue. My face got messy in those days, whenever I sneezed. Snot everywhere. Really horrible.

There was a flash of white right in front of my mouth. Then something was in my throat.

I choked. At first, I thought I'd swallowed a bug.

Then I felt the arms. They were pushing against the walls of my trachea. Little hands, enfisted, pounding. Then a convulsion. The thing in my throat felt like it was getting bigger and smaller over, and over again.

It wasn't until a few moments later that I realized they were wings.

---

I couldn't help it. My lungs were straining. I hadn't had time to fill them up with air, and there was no chance, it seemed, no chance at all that I would ever be able to find the surface again.

I breathed in the salt, the water, the plankton. The ocean was within me.

I felt my heart beginning to flutter. It pounded, it roared.

Wait. Not my heart.

---

I fell on my face. Don't know how my back wasn't broken. I heard running footsteps and thought--you'd better run before I catch you. Then the warmth began to flow out of me. I knew I'd never catch anyone, ever.

But the footsteps were running toward me. A man's voice, shouting at someone. Something about an ambulance.

My heart was beginning to flutter. It was pounding.

No. Not my heart.

---

I think I almost died that day. Air couldn't get through the thing in my windpipe. Tiny fists pounded on my trachea, and tiny wings stretched it. I wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

I started to see black spots and fell forward. No fifty-pound bag of concrete this time. Just an increasing softness, a quietness to everything.

Suddenly my heart gave a huge pound. The blockage disappeared, and I felt something terribly strange in my chest, a fluttering. I gasped reflexively, and air rushed in. It felt so good, like drinking water after days in the desert.

It took several minutes of breathing hard before I could pull myself together and stand up.

---

I woke up on the beach.

"Dude," someone said. "Are you okay?"

My head hurt. My chest hurt. Everything hurt.

"Wha' happened?" I said muzzily. There were dark, round blurs above me. I realized they were people's heads, bent over me in concern. One of them moved from side to side.

"God damn," it said. "You were down there for a good half-hour before I found you. You shouldn't be alive."

"Yeah, man," said another voice. I dimly recognized it as belonging to a childhood friend. "It was amazing. You were pretty much dead. Then when we laid you down here, out comes all this water. It was awesome. Like Lazarus, back from the dead. A fucking fountain."

Apparently, fairies don't like to swim.

---

I woke up in the hospital. There was a nurse.

"Wha' happened?" I said, feeling muzzy.

"You've been sedated, sir," he said. "You were mugged, and the guy shot you. The bullet pierced your right lung, and you had to have emergency surgery." He smiled comfortingly. "But don't worry. You'll be just fine. Your lung's been repaired and reinflated. You'll only be in here for a couple of days."

My right lung? "But what about the--" I stopped myself. The what? The fairy? Right. Sure.

His eyebrows went up. "The mugger? He was caught on camera and arrested. Don't worry, okay? Just lie back and relax."

"Well," I said. "Did you take the bullet out?"

The nurse hesitated. "Yes." Then he sat down next to the bed and looked at me sympathetically. "Sir, I know this may sound strange, but this might be a blessing in disguise."

"Why?"

It was a long minute before he spoke again. "Well, we found something else in your lung. Something that wasn't a bullet."

I felt cold. An...actual fairy? They found it? What had they done? "What? What do you mean?"

He stood up. "You really should be speaking to your doctor about this. Just lie back, relax, and I'll call him, okay?"

I grabbed his arm and gripped it tightly. "No. Tell me. What was it? Tell me now!"

His eyes went cold. "Sir. Remove your hand, please."

I glanced down at his arm, felt ashamed, and removed it. "I'm sorry. Just--please tell me."

He softened. Sighed. "All right. But you should get more details from your doctor later, okay?" After I nodded, he went on. "It appears to have been a tumor of some kind. We're not quite sure what it was, but it stopped the bullet from going straight through your lung and out the front of your chest. It might have saved your life and kept you from bleeding out."

"A...tumor?" I felt numb.

"Well," he said. "A growth. It may not have been cancerous at all."

"So what happened to it?"

The nurse smiled, and looked confidential. "Don't worry, sir. We removed it. Your lung's clean and fine now. It'll be a few days before you feel a hundred percent, and I wouldn't go jogging or do anything strenuous for a few weeks, but you're fine."

"It's gone?"

He nodded.

I felt cold all over. I couldn't think. I dropped back down onto the hospital bed, and felt a fluttering in my chest. A resurgence of hope, then I looked up at the EKG machine.

It was my heart. And only that.