Rocking Horse

My life before was different and that's all I can remember, just about.

I remember, of course, the day we met because I've always known he was a murderer.

But aside from that, there's only one thing, one event that's stuck through my life now. I had a rocking horse, those little wooden kid toys cut out like a horse and set on curved pieces of wood like a rocking chair but with a horse attached to it. It was in my bedroom near the windows so the sun would light the play space. I remember the carpet was thick and pale, some off-white, I can't remember the hue exactly, you left feet prints for a while wherever you walked. When you rocked on the horse, you'd scoot the whole thing back and forth, back and forth through the carpet plush, towards the windows with the gauze curtains. I got really into it, I'd fling my body back and forth, back and forth and scream like the crazy happy brat I was.

This one day though, from my life before, I was rocking all out, back and forth, coming off the seat I was going so fast and so hard. All I could feel was the air and the bump of the end of each tilt, all I could hear was the whoosh and the thud in the secretive carpet that made me think it was safe.

Bam.

Over the handles, into the window, under the horse.

I didn't do anything for fifteen minutes. It felt like the world was still rocking into oblivion but at the same time, I'd hit the end of the world, I'd flown off out of life, I thought I was dead.

My nose was just bleeding.

My neck was just bruised.

I never rode it again and just a month or so later I learned what death was for real and my life before became my life now while I fell asleep in a stranger's lap. And now, I know that feeling, I've hit the end of the world.

I'm watching and not moving, I'm falling inside, waiting to stop and go back and forth, back and forth. I'm alone again and I can't do anything for fifteen minutes.

Bam.

Only, I wasn't the one who died.

His nose is bruised.

His neck is bleeding.

There isn't any carpet.