Fantasy What do I think about, when I'm standing so still, my eyes unfocused and my breath shallow? When afterward I give a little shudder and a mental slap to the face, then turn back to Life, laughing and smiling?

I daydream.

Some people daydream about flowers, puppy-dogs, fluffy white clouds floating by in a bright blue sky. Some people fantasize about 'the perfect boy'. 'The perfect girl'. I don't. The pictures I see in my mind rise, unbidden. They aren't daydreams as much as daymares, chillingly detailed paintings materializing behind my eyes, so real that I can see the brushstrokes in the air in before me.

Wrists. Pale and slender, smooth side up. The skin already riddled with scars, faded from the effects of time's sand slipping through the hourglass, shallow depressions existing still as the morbid footprints of the blade. But now the hands attached to the wrists are still and lifeless, and the wrists themselves are slashed, crimson syrup spilled from the veins.

It's disturbing, seeing those arms in my head all day. I know that it can't be normal; be 'right'. But what makes it worse is that I know who's wrists they are - mine.

I wouldn't do it. The fear of death is still strong in me - or, if not death itself, what happens afterwards. I couldn't have the courage - or strength, or stupidity, or cowardice, or whatever it takes to put the knife to my flesh and tear, literally cutting short my time here on earth. I don't want to die.

But the pictures fascinate me, in a twisted sort of way. They nauseate me; frighten me; give me cause to doubt my sanity - but they fascinate me. I study them carefully, searching for any clue that I am still alive. But I must be alive.

I do daydream, after all. And who has ever heard of a dead person dreaming?