Tag: anxiety

Travelling Alone

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

Hello Hello and welcome to my sci-fi micro fiction based on the prompt: Write about a character travelling. This follows the story of Gem, who is travelling alone for the first time and has some anxiety about it. The goal was to work in the worldbuilding. *Note, I am going back to bi-weekly updating for a bit, taking two night classes and I just am not quite on top of weekly microfiction AND weekly six sentence stories

It wasn’t Gem’s first trip to the Geren, but it was a fair number of credits to take the trip, and though her parents were fairly well off, even they could not afford the trip more than once a decade. 

It was why Gem was alone this time, strapped in between two strangers, eyes squeezed shut, more scared than she had been in her entire life. 

It seemed, to Gem at least, that knowing that you had taken a jump ship before, was not the same as remembering it, and she kind of wished that she was little enough that she didn’t know the 3000 ways that this could go wrong, or that 1 in 20000 flights never made it to their destination, or that there was were 100000 flights per day in the commonwealth, so that meant that 5 would likely go catastrophically wrong, and she could be on that flight right now.

She was pulled from her musings by a woman in from of her, a Graxan, Gem guessed from the deep blue of her skin and overly large eyes.  Gem had only ever seen pictures in books, Franme was not exactly a diverse world.

“Are you coming dear?” The Graxan asked, voice echoing through multiple chambers to sound like a chorus.

“Coming?” Coming where exactly, was what Gem wanted to ask, but didn’t.

“Off the ship dear.”

“Was there a problem?” Maybe this ship wasn’t making it, a little less catastrophically than Gem had imagined, or well, dreaded.

“No dear, we are here.  Welcome to Geren.”

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Panic Attack

~ annemcsommers ~ 8 Comments

This weeks six based on the word RHYTHM is the story of a man on the way somewhere important (maybe a job interview), and not having a great time of it. Despite the tone, this one isn’t based on experience, as strangely the huge moments almost never give me anxiety… Also the title is based on the song of the same name.

The anxiety went flashed through him, every muscle primed for a fight that was only in his head, and he tried to will himself to relax. The sensation of unfamiliar fabric rubbing across his skin with every movement set his teeth on edge, and the press of the tie into his neck felt like it was choking him.

He tried to focus on the rhythm of the engine, but gave up when he could barely hear it over the sounds of horns from the traffic jam outside. The possibility of being late ratcheted his anxiety up to a whole new level, and he fumbled his headphones out of his pockets, to pair with his phone.

It would eat his battery, but it would be worth it, and when they beeping of the blue-tooth was replaced with the sound of electric guitars, he cranked the volume until the lady sitting beside him gave him a dirty look. He closed his eyes and let the music fill him, tapping his feet to the beat as the chorus rose and he took in a deep breath, then let it out, he could do this.

The Little Death

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

If you are thinking La petitie mort, you barking up the wrong tree here. This one is a microfiction about someone hiding out in the washroom at a holiday party. I tried to stay bright and happy for a whole month, but oh well….Ironically this will come out the day after my own office holiday party, to which I am still so on edge about, I can’t quite decide if it is worth attending or not.

“Only I will remain”
“Only I will remain”

She didn’t think this was what her therapist had in mind when he recommended mantras, but it was a mantra against fear, and that was all anxiety was, right? Fear?

One thing she was certain of was that her body was NOT a temple. She did not want to surrender herself to a higher power, always sounded like an invitation to possession really. Abundance was not something she had to be accepting of. I have everything I need, true, but it always made her feel shitty for people who didn’t, so she stuck with her mantra coined from science fiction.

After all, if authors could make religion, then the mantras were legit, and it always made her giggle when she thought it, which cut the anxiety. She squared her shoulder, looked her self straight on in the mirror and said aloud “I can do this.”

With a last nod towards her reflection, she stepped out and back into the fray that was the office Christmas party with the one lingering thought: Her therapist was going to have a field day with this…