Excerpt: THE HANDS THAT HELD ME by Lisa Jo Symonds

“Lisa!”              “Hey, Lisa. Wake up!”              “Lisa!”              “You need to wake up. You aren’t breathing!”              I can barely hear his voice. Nothing seems to be making sense. I have to stay focused. I am struggling. Struggling to breathe, struggling to think, struggling to fight the fog that seems to be closing in on my mind.              From a distance, I hear his voice shout out even louder now, “LISA, WAKE UP! YOU ARE NOT BREATHING!”              He sounds so desperate. I feel so confused. I hear myself screaming back, “What is going on? What is wrong? I need to figure this out!” Yet, my lips never spoke a word.              I am fading…. fading in and out of blackness, where nothing - not even myself, exists. My head fell forward, my body folding into an awkward position.              “LISA, WAKE UP! YOU ARE NOT BREATHING!”              I am fighting hard to make sense of what I am hearing. Someone is shaking me. From a far-away place, I hear the words being yelled again, “LISA, YOU ARE NOT BREATHING!”              My brain was screaming an answer, but I still wasn’t making a sound. “Oh my God. Just leave me alone !”



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