This morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. My body ached, my hair was a mess, and the pain in my head would still not go away. I slowly dragged my tired body downstairs. My brain seemed to fall into asleep into deep darkness as I sit there in the kitchen.

My whole body was numb until I heard something; something that made my whole body cringe. It was the sink. My mother had turned on the faucet and wasn’t even using the sink! It seemed like an eternity until somebody spoke, with the water still going down the drain. I tried to stifle my urges, I fought off my words, and I was silent until I could bear the deafening faucet no longer.

“I bet you won’t be able to do that in twenty years,” I shouted over the faucet that was still running.

“Do what,” my mother asked, with a concerned look on her face. She had finally turned off the faucet.

I didn’t know what to say, she would never understand. I was lost in the world of my thoughts. Endless piles of phrases and facts I wanted to say. I moved my lips, but no words came out. I was a prisoner of my own mind, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Nothing,” I finally managed to say, “it’s nothing.”

My mother just smiled, still, with concerned eyes. Then she said she was always there for me if I ever needed to talk to her, but I knew better. And, with that, she turned the water on again, and went to the fridge.

That’s when I lost it. I screamed at the top of my lungs as hundreds of gallons of water escaped the sink every second. Finally, I forced the words I wanted to come out of my mouth.

“There are children in Africa who can’t even get their hands on one glass of water, and this is what you’re doing??!!”

I darted out the front door with the sound of my mother screaming and the faucet still running.

I sprinted down the endless streets faster than the speed of light. I was free-but then, I wasn’t. I still couldn’t escape the madness that so consumed the world. I was trapped in a room with the walls caving in on me. I didn’t want to go home; I didn’t want to go anywhere, not ever again. My body ached, my hair was a mess, and after everything, the pain in my head would still not go away.