---

One Minute and Forty Seven Seconds

by Shi Y, Arizona, USA, Age 16

One day in spring Johnnie, Sally, and I weren’t doing much of anything. I was sitting on a chair spacing out, Johnnie was lying with his eyes closed on the hammock in our room, and Sally was pacing back and forth across the floor like a caged animal. The creaking of the third floorboard on the right was beginning to grate on my nerves.

“Sally,” I eventually commented. “That is a very annoying noise.”
She glanced at me quickly and paused her feverish nail-biting. “Annoying,” she echoed without comprehension.
“Yes, annoying.” I paused to think for a second. “And you shouldn’t bite your nails, either.”

She withdrew her fingers from her mouth and examined them. After a moment, she dropped her hand into her jacket pocket, only for it to reappear immediately with her lighter in tow. A cigarette followed soon after.
“You shouldn’t smoke either,” I announced wisely.
She stopped flicking the flame and whirled on me. “When will you finally get the message that I don’t care what you think?”
“When will you get the message that I don’t care if you care what I think?” I countered.

She turned her back on me abruptly. I continued gazing out the window. I was lost in a philosophical analysis of the relationship between birds and trees when a persistent squeaking interrupted my reverie. I ignored it at first, but it just got louder and faster until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and wheeled around to face Sally.

She was jumping up and down on the screeching floorboard, biting the nails of both hands with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Her eyes were bulging out of her head and her mouth was beginning to froth at the corners. As the minutes bore on, her face developed a slightly bluish tinge.

Johnnie was watching with delight. “How long do you think she can keep doing it?” he asked.
I shook my head in wonder. “I don’t even know, but her cigarette is going to burn out soon.”
Sally heard me and jerked it out of her mouth, threw it down, and stomped it savagely into the floor, all the while continuing her angry jumping. She pulled out another one and lit it, resting it back on her bottom lip.

“Sally,” I began. “You might want to stop that before you pass out. I think you’re inhaling too much smoke.”
She swore unintelligibly and grabbed her pack of cigarettes, lighting them one by one and viciously jamming them into her mouth until the box was empty and her mouth was bulging.
“Sally, that’s really not a good idea,” I advised. She began jumping faster. Veins were spasming in her neck.
Johnnie whipped out his stopwatch. “She can’t last long,” he explained. One minute and forty-seven seconds later, she was down, the cigarettes still burning, their smoke forming a cloudy ring above her head.
I tsk-tsked her prostrate, unmoving body. “I told her…” I trailed off.
“Sometimes,” Johnnie spoke up, “…sometimes black darkness chokes your lungs with a tightening lynch, sharply blinds your eyes in bloody hot tears, and is too real to ignore.”
I stared at him. “That is probably the wisest and most appropriate string of words I have ever heard you utter.”
He grinned. “I had a whole minute and forty-seven seconds to think about it,” he said.
“That you did, Johnnie,” I nodded, and stared at Sally’s prone body, fancying it as a corpse. “That you did.”