By Mileva Anastasiadou
The snail crawls into the room, it crawls, until the snail stops, curls inside the shell and stays still.
Mom says I’ve been spending time in movies, says I should go out and live, only I don’t want to, I’d rather watch movies, safe in my room. Therapist says I’m too self-centered, he says I should get out of myself, he makes me choose an action film, asks me to focus on a mission, and I watch Star Wars but too much action is tiring, exhausting, and Luke Skywalker kicks me out of the movie, because I remain still, the plot is demanding, not made out for people like me.
The snail remains still, remains still for long, inside the shell, closes the door, a thing called epiphragm, trails dry up and years pass by without a move.
Therapist shrugs, like I’m a lost case, I tell him snails sleep for up to three years, he suggests I channel my imagination and create something. Like what? I ask. Like a story. My therapist is not happy when I say life is like writing a story, anything can happen, anything I want to. He says life is like writing a story, but only the first draft.
The snail awakens, it crawls, crawls, takes home along, moves slowly, slowly, like snails do.
It takes me a while but I create the perfect story, a story in which nothing happens, and I don’t care if people will read it, as long as the snail is happy, the snail crawls and crawls and crawls, until I run out of pages, it lives happily ever after, and life flows, it flows, as life should. Something must happen, my therapist says, and I shrug, because he’s wrong. It may have taken me a lifetime, but I know now, why fairy tales end with happily ever after, and nobody cares, or remembers what happens next. Every time something happens, it hurts. In movies, in stories, in life.
The snail crawls,
crawls,
crawls,
crawls.
* * *
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of “We Fade With Time” by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, New World Writing, trampset, the Bureau Dispatch, and others.