Going Under by S. Walden Page A

oblivion.
    ***
    “Do you suffer from panic attacks?” the
school nurse asked. She was old—probably in her mid-fifties—and she
hovered over me, looking into one eye and then the other.
    “I have claustrophobia,” I replied. My voice
shook. My entire body rattled, and the nurse saw. She grabbed a
blanket to wrap around me, but I protested.
    “It’s clean,” she said, and I decided to
believe her because I was freezing. And in shock.
    I pulled the blanket tightly around my body,
huddling into it protectively.
    “Do you know what triggers your
claustrophobia?” the nurse asked.
    And that question told me everything I
needed to know about school nurses.
    I looked at her with raised eyebrows. Was
she an idiot or purposefully ignoring my sarcastic facial
expression?
    “I don’t know,” I said flippantly. “Tight
places. That’s usually what triggers claustrophobia.”
    “But you weren’t in a tight place,” she
replied. “You were in an open hallway.”
    It came out smug, like she was ready to trap
me. Like she knew I thought she was an idiot for asking me such a
stupid question only to prove she wasn’t. I wanted to punch her in
the face.
    “I guess it felt closed up,” I
mumbled. I was angry at the way she made me feel like I had no
legitimate excuse for fainting since I was in a large, open
hallway. Like it was my fault.
    “I see. Have you ever had an attack in any
other open spaces?” she asked.
    I thought for a moment. And then the memory
flooded my mind. It had nothing to do with open spaces. It had to
do with an old McDonald’s playground, particularly one piece of
play equipment: the Officer Big Mac jail. I was seven, and we were
on vacation, traveling down to Texas. We stopped for lunch, and I
asked to play on the playground because none of the McDonalds back
home had a playground like this one. All of ours were plastic and
safe. This one was shiny metal—glittering and dangerous in the hot
sun—and it beckoned me.
    I saw a few children playing in the Officer
Big Mac jail, and I wanted to join them. It was a long metal tube
that housed a ladder. The top of the jail was a huge flattened
sphere in the shape of a hamburger, the top and bottom buns
separated by metal poles to resemble a jail cell.
    I had my first panic attack from
claustrophobia that day as I climbed the ladder to the hamburger.
The inside was just large enough to crawl comfortably, but I
couldn’t stand. And I couldn’t lift my head all the way up to see
in front of me. I crawled once around the whole thing, and decided
I didn’t feel right. I wanted out. But the ladder was blocked. More
kids were climbing in, so I had no choice but to shrink back, wait
for them to get in before making my way down. They kept pouring in,
moving to the left and right, trapping me against the metal
bars.
    I panicked. I tried to move around a skinny
boy, but he yelled at me. I felt hot tears roll down my face as I
looked out beyond the bars to my parents sitting at a table below.
They were immersed in conversation. They didn’t see me. They didn’t
realize I was trapped. I screamed for help, and they finally looked
up. They waved at me and smiled, thinking I was playing. No,
no! I thought, shaking my head so hard I loosened my barrettes. I’m not playing! Help me!
    I couldn’t breathe. I knew I would have to
kill someone to get out. Even at seven years old I thought, Who
builds a playground like this?
    I turned to the children smashed inside the
jail and screamed at the top of my lungs: “Get me out of
here!!”
    Their eyes went wide. I must have looked
crazy. My hair was sticking out everywhere. My face streaked with
tears. The children pushed each other to one side, creating a bit
of space for me to crawl around them for the ladder. Once my foot
hit the first rung, I felt the panic subside. I looked down the
tube at a girl who had just entered and was grasping the sides of
the ladder.
    “Get out of my way!” I screamed at her.
    The girl