It hit me when I was walking - a jolting pain in my back that did not go away.

I tried gymnastics, massages, exercise, stretching. The pain only grew worse. There is no time for another obstacle in my life, another construction site to tend to. Maybe the issue will sort itself out, I thought, I can fix it with painkillers for now. First one pill, then two. Then I got harder stuff. Just sit it out. Just sleep it off.

The pain subsided, drowned out by a flood of opioids, as I fell asleep.

When I woke up, the pain was gone. The absence of crippling agony is the strongest drug. Euphoria and ecstasy flooded my limbic system. I tried to jump out of bed, wanting to dance, to skip out of the room like a child. But I got tangled in my bedsheets. My arms were caught in the blanket. I tried to pull them out, but something was holding them under the sheets, tugging and ripping at them. With force, I pulled them out, scratching my skin.

But where my arms should be, hairy, sticky limbs emerged from under the sheets. I looked at the mirror next to my bed. It reflected a giant beetle tucked into my bed. I screamed. The cockroach in the mirror - me - opened its mouth. But no sound came out.

I woke up, in my room. The pain was back, but the cockroach in the mirror, in my bed, was gone. I pushed away the Kafka collection on my nightstand to grab my phone. I then made a doctor’s appointment.