【Isa Zohreh】
It starts small. You’re six years old, swimming in your friend’s pool, and she dares you to
hold your breath for one whole minute. It’s easy at first. Fifteen seconds feels like nothing.
Thirty is… okay, but by forty-five, you’re struggling. Blood cells rush past your ears. They’re
locked in a high-speed chase, competing to see who can be the first to constrict around and
asphyxiate your brain. It hurts; it hurts so fucking bad, but you don’t let go of your nose and quit.
Even at six years old, your mother didn’t raise a bitch.
Fifteen seconds later, the timer dings. You’re free! You’ve done it! You’re gasping for
air; lungs gradually inflating like bicycle tires. Your friend sputters like a beat-up car, still
recovering from her admission of defeat ten long seconds ago. You smile proudly… you’ve won.
You tortured yourself for sixty seconds straight, and you fucking loved it.
By the end of the summer, you’ve trained your lungs to starve for one minute and thirty-
six seconds. You wear this like a badge of honor, pinching your nose until you’re red in the face
in front of your second-grade peers. They are amazed. Your teacher is not. She calls your
mother, who gives you a long lecture on the importance of breathing and the value of life. You
listen; you don’t want to die. Your mother would be upset.
A month later, you’re taking a bath (your mother lets you do that alone now), and you dip
under the water to rinse the shampoo out of your hair. You stay beneath the surface for a second
too long, unintentionally, but the delectable twinge of breathlessness slaps you in the face once
more. You decide to uncover your lungs and take them for a spin again. Sixty-eight seconds.
Regression. Failure. You decide to start training your lungs like you’re Muhammad Ali, but this
time in secret.
By the time you’re eighteen, you can hold your breath for the entire duration of “Sabbath
Bloody Sabbath”. You often do. You don’t practice in the water anymore. Instead, you stand in
front of the mirror, watching as crimson waves wash over you and your eyes start to bulge out of
your head. You’re always a bit disappointed when the song ends.
A week later, you’re watching a film. It’s some sexy French New Wave number and
you’re deep down an IMDB rabbit hole when you come across a new phrase: “La petite mort.”
It’s a French euphemism for orgasms. You’ve never understood anything more. When you cum,
like actually, properly climax, your face starts to tingle from moaning and panting and having the
wind fucked out of you. When you don’t breathe, the tingly feeling is amplified to the hundredth
degree. It feels good, so fucking good, better than sex ever will. It’s a perfect moment…a little
death.