The warm breeze allows her hair to cascade around her in a gentle whirlwind.
The sun beams down to her, and everything it touches warms her until she is the fresh cookie pulled from her grandma’s oven.
Her toes dance a bright pink dance, leaving traces of their every whirl in the crystal water.
The sounds of birds, dogs, and chatter die behind her as she takes in the large lake and the warm deck beneath her as the true smell of freedom takes over all of her other senses. She is powerless to stop it until all she can do is feel. No smell, no sight, no hearing; touch remains, and it overwhelms her.
She welcomes everything she feels.
Because for so long, she felt nothing. The cold barrenness of the outside world crawled and clawed its way into her, sinking deep within her skin. She felt the cold for as long as she could, but it turned to numbness and feeling gave way. Her other senses returned, muted by the cold, but overwhelming in the wrong sense nonetheless.
She heard too much, each sound a foghorn directly in her ear. She saw too much, each sharp point of wind hurling at her face as she fought to get back into the warmth. She smelled too much, each poignant drop of cold as though it was death.
Each sense attacked one after another until they were all on top of her, and the numbness from the lack of feeling left her defenseless.
But the sun rose higher and stronger as the days passed, and the senses, one by one, gave up. They rose off of her until only the numbness remained. But sitting at the end of the dock—toes dancing in the water, the sun leaving kisses on her skin, a cookie in one hand, the buzz of noises blocked out behind her, and her hair a small tornado around her head—the numbness ebbed, and feeling came back to her.
She knew the numbness would come back—that she would again face the onslaught of all her senses and be left without feeling, but while the sun was shining strong and mighty, she could ignore the thought. Freedom is here for now, and for the girl, that would be enough; it had to be enough.
So while she had the time, she would fully relinquish herself to feeling.
