What does your anxiety feel like?

I'd love to ask this question of everybody who cares to share. There's obviously this shortness of breath, like you're breathing, but it feels like you're suffocating. I feel guilt, I've done nothing wrong, but my mind is racing trying to disprove me. Anxiety holds on long enough I feel anger, I lash out at those who don't deserve it. I feel fucking tired, no amount of sleep is enough to fix it. I feel embarrassed, I've suppressed it long enough that I'm confident only those closest to me can see it, but I feel embarrassment as a grown man experiencing these feelings. In my mind I'm manic, but I'm physically immobile. All I can muster here is this ramble, and that's maybe the clearest description of what my anxiety feels like.

“A superhero whose only power is finding the perfect parking spot.”

He was about to give up, he had spent 20 minutes rounding the block, with 15 minutes before the show started he was ready to throw in the towel and take the loss. He slowed to a crawl, turned off the radio so that he could focus. He had driven past the venue 5 times now, the doorman had started giving him dirty looks as he crept by.

His brother, whose band was going on at 6pm, had told him not to drive, that Allston wasn’t a great town to park on the weekends when the shows were playing. Who drives in Boston on a Friday night?

He had resigned himself to failure, began to make his way back out to the main road, when it happened;

A beaten, blue Honda Civic pulled away from the curb, only one block from the venue, he swooped in. A flawless parallel park, he prided himself on quality of his parallel parking, straight, perfectly situated between two cars. He hopped out and came around to the meter, out of order, absolute win. Locking the car he made his way off to the show, plenty of time to grab a drink and settle in before the show.

The house was packed, the band was amazing, after the show they hung around and closed the bar. Afterward his brother walked him up the block while they smoked a cigarette in the cool evening air. He was excited to show off his parking spot.

“Bro.” His brother chuckled as they stopped. “I told you not to drive.”

There, to his horror, pinned under his windshield wiper, was that ominous orange envelope.

A parking ticket.

Who am I?

A philosophical question with a simple answer.

My name is Mike Leary and I write fiction. I have a single published novella, Smoking Cigarettes, and you can buy it right now.

I live in Massachusetts with my wife and two children.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (that’s right, Twitter).

My goal for this blog is to post writings every day based on simple prompts. I hope that you can aid me in my goal by sending me prompts via email to AuthorMikeLeary@gmail.com. I will always include the prompt in my posts, so please feel free to send me what your brain came up with as well. If you choose to send me prompts, please be sure to include any relevant links or socials so I can send some traffic your way.