On a perfectly freezing night, thoughts of better things to do soaked my thoughts. I stared at the stars, letting myself get buried in the falling drifts of snow. My hands were already numb and folded in my outermost jacket. The frozen lines of grass stuck to my face and hair. Heat radiated from every frozen flake that melted on my face. I gazed at the moon, the mysteriously full light shining on the snow, just a trick of natural occurrences occurring at once, yet the sparkle of the ground amazed me. 

It would be nearly an hour more before the snow did any real damage to my system underneath the layers of jackets and sweaters but I was in long before that. A cup of hot tea and a movie awaited me like an old friend, inviting me back in with open arms and a smile. Silencing the deadly absences of the house these entities brought sound and substance and suddenly I was healed of any sorrow.

The friends in my living room did not stay forever, and once the empty cup was set down in the sink and the credits rolled on the movie the sounds and warmth were gone. A gust of horrible wind hit the house as I neared the curtains. If only there was a way to drift out of the world. 

It was this thought that sent me floating. Literally, I floated a few inches above my window, staring out on fresh tire tracks in three inch snow. My walls became permeable and I felt a sudden relaxation as if strings were gently attached to my and rocked me on a hammock. I drifted in the world. But it was not this world. It was a world of white tree trunks with fruit made of leathery material that smelled strong and sweet. 

I found myself over a body of water flipping in gently motions over the blue expanse. The warmth of the tea could not compare to this external ecstasy. It was a perfection only matched by a time that was barely memorable in the corner of my mind. This was more than an old friend, this was happiness, this was blissful escape. 

Cathartic screams shot out of my chest, producing a rigid echo throughout the world. I spun like a top, let the momentum spiral me in any direction. Laughter sprouted from my and seemed to physically be pulled out of me.  Laughter that could not be described. The most amazing sense of pleasure, rivaled by nothing, had filled and now I had to let some of it out. This was my explanation, my reason why, to my mind being the way it was. It must have been overfilled, like when you shake a soda bottle and it gets hard, you just have to let the pressure out or it’s no good. I was just too full of things, to full of emotions. 

I began to slow, spinning to a stop, my mind still turning. My screams turned to heavy breaths, gasping inhales and quick exhales as I lay atop a sudden canopy of large green trees. Hundreds of ideas and thoughts had replaced the muck and confusion of moments ago, that person was unrecognizable, that was the pressure filled can, about to break and explode on everyone. Now my mind was clear and I could hardly separate my imagination, every thought, idea, or impulse was radiantly clear and constant, like a barrage of colors on a white piece of paper. 

My mind began to wind down at last. I separated assortments of birds flying above in my mind, color by color, type by type, calming my impulse to free fall through trees and feel the freezing yet refreshing wind. As I settled into a semblance of normalcy I drew in a sharp breath.

I exhaled as I opened my eyes.

The tire tracks outside my window startled me, as if it hadn’t been real. I was alone in the house, the big, lonely house. My mother had yet again driven away. She had gotten mad. She didn’t understand what was in my brain, all those emotions. She didn’t know that I was under pressure. My heart seemed to have stopped beating for a moment.

The remnants of the world just a few inches above me floated away with every footstep towards the living room until I found myself laying on the couch with the TV tuned to C-Span, hoping it would put me to sleep. That night I dreamed of a cherry tree.