Prompt number fifteen: Addressing fear.

There has to be a reason.  I do not cope well with random events. Logic nudges me to find causes to the effects that are pushing in on me. Once I met someone that was okay with change. Just once. They embraced it fully and wanted every change possible to land in their lap. Poppycock, that is what I say about such nonsense. Really, I do not use the word poppycock. Not actually. It is one of those words that I only work into things that are not real. This is not real. This is something being written by my hand and with my knowledge, but it is removed from reality the minute I put it on paper. reality is what actually happens; I can touch reality, taste it, smell it, hear it.
Sitting on the curb and looking out over the water I felt the weight of every chill I had ever experienced run through my veins and disrupt peace. There could be no more peace when everything was so out of control. People were running around from place to place and a constant and steady stream of beeps and hums filled the air assailing my ears, but I stayed where I was looking straight ahead at the ripples making their way here and there. Shivers ran up and down my arms eventually making their way to my spine and down my legs. The air did not smell fresh, it smelled ill. Death roamed freely around drifting from place to place and waiting patiently. Forcing the air around me to move away, focusing in, I created a deeper illusion. The smells and sounds changed. The curb beneath me changed to an outcropping of rocks. Instead of ripples gently caressing the surface of a small body of water, waves now made their way from the horizon to where I sat. There, now it all seemed very far away. If there was no way to explain all of this away, then suppressing reality and replacing it with my own form of existence would have to do.
Breathing is always the first thing I miss. My heart could stop beating for minutes and I would not notice. It is always the absence of the steady rise and fall of my own chest that brings me back. Somehow, that is what grounds me. Deep breaths, steady breaths, calming breaths. Then it becomes normal again and I ignore it until a time when I, once again, suddenly realize that I have stopped. There are things that should not happen. These things tend to find me. Death, destruction, rage, pain; they all seem drawn to my tiny spot on the planet. There has to be a reason…