This story ends with a dead man.
Before we get into that, I want to give you an idea of my memory of events before everything went wrong.
I am a nurse who works the night shift in the psych ward of a hospital. Needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of crazy things and have heard more than my share of miserable stories. This patient was different. He wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t crazy.
He was severely troubled. Extreme loss can do that do a person, they say he did it all but after treating him I’m not so sure. We tried everything. Therapy was a lost cause and the medication gave him only the relief of being severely lethargic. I could tell we weren’t really helping but protocol is protocol.
I was drawn to him, his life, his story, and his pain. We watch our patients like they are feral animals, making sure they are in no danger, to themselves or others. But this case was so different for some reason. He was doing everything he was supposed to do, and we were doing everything we were told to do to help him. But nothing. No light at the end of the tunnel.
I was optimistic about seeing him everyday, hoping for a sign of improvement, or just to make sure everything was okay. And it usually was, until today.
I know how to handle these situations. I’ve done it time and time again. But as I said before, everything about this case was different. I felt like I needed an explanation, a reason why, and so I snooped. I looked all over his room before I called security (against protocol) until I finally found a dirty, tear streaked mesh of papers stowed away under his mattress.
I’m transcribing his papers because I think it’s important for everyone to know his story. It’s something I’ve been debating for several weeks, and ultimately decided needs to be shared and known. I don’t want anyone to suffer the way he did. I’m working through it all now but everything I’ve found is in disarray and hard to read in parts. I'll post more as I get through it all. I just want to make sense of it, and I’m posting here because I’ve been a lurker for a while and I feel like this is the only community that can make sense of it all.
It was snowing when he came.
He may have come because of the snow, it’s hard to remember. They keep me so full of drugs now, force feeding me the bitter pills when I refuse to take them, and don’t I always refuse to take them? I do, and I’ll tell you why; they make me forget, taking the last I have of my family, my goddamned FAMILY, my wife, my beautiful daughter, twisting those memories, already faint without the help of those goddamned pills, forcing them into squeakily shaped balloon animals that drift up, up, up... up and away, towards the horizon, beyond the dark cusp of the world, never to return...
Until tonight. The memories are back tonight, drifting down and settling around me in the casual manner of old friends, settling into their accustomed positions, and are we not friends? I suppose we are. I know these memories better than I know anything else... anyone else... and tonight, at least, they are all I know.
How? Well, I will tell you that. Earlier, with a practiced slip of the hand, just the tiniest slip, and I can remember again. The pills are lying somewhere downstairs, perhaps kicked into the dusty overhang of a wheezing furnace, perhaps swept away by the night janitor’s inattentive broom... perhaps. It makes no matter where they are now, not now. All that matters are the memories, one in particular, one that needs to be told.
Why, you might ask, why does it need to be told? I tell you because he is still out there. There is no way of knowing if there are others like him. But for me, for us, for the sake of this story, this memory, the most IMPORTANT one, he is enough and there need be no others. Others may have made the same mistake as I, I cannot presume otherwise... hopefully, with the telling of this story, the revisiting of those old friends gathered around me tonight, it will never happen again. All I can hope is after you read this, after you hear my tale, you will think twice about letting him into your home when he comes. All I can hope is that you tell him no. That you will smile blandly, politely, in the face of evil, that cold, porcelain mask, and you will close the door, twisting the lock although there’s no need, pulling the curtains although here’s no need, and turning away, oh, how I should have just said no and turned away, why didn’t I tell him no, why did I allow him into my house, why, I don’t know why...
It was snowing the night he came...
"Is it still fucking snowing?"
I looked up from my place on the couch and glanced outside. It was. Had been for the past three hours, and if the weather lady knew half of what she was talking about, half of what they were telling her to say, it wasn’t planning on stopping until morning. The snow fell in clumps as I watched, alighting owlishly along the skeletal branches of the trees across the road, perching in those ossiferous branches with white wings. Some might have called it a winter wonderland, the weather lady did, I think. I called it bullshit, but I was only one man. “Yeah,” I called toward the bedroom, turning my attention to the TV, back to the weather reporter. She looked like an extra for the Addams Family show, maybe someone that didn’t quite make the cut. Her voice was squeaky; I pitied the sad fuck that had to wake up to that shit. Nice tits, but nice tits don’t make a fuck at five in the morning. She seemed happier than a pig in shit about a bunch of shitty weather she wasn’t going to have to drive in because of she had that sad fuck, some errand-running, feet-rubbing, doe-eyed bastard, to pick her up later. “I’m not going anywhere, Michelle, so we need to figure something out for dinner out of the fridge. Road’s are fucked up.”
“Can’t you look, Justin?” she called back, and I could hear the harried, wind-blown quality of her hair in her voice. “I’m in the middle of- ASHLEY MARIE! Get BACK here!”
I heard the patter of tiny bare feet, a squealing giggle that always reminded me of tire swings in the middle of summer. Half a second later she rounded the corner, grasping at the corner with slippery fingers and gaining just enough purchase to slingshot herself into the living room. She was completely naked and her skin held the sun-kissed tint of summer’s dying stand, its final breath. Her eyes, the color of dying lilacs, were wild and alive with the excitement of the chase. Her captor, formerly so, might have been in hot pursuit or kneeling dejectedly in the spot only recently vacated by that tiny ball of pure energy, but it makes no matter either way. She was free, goddamnit, FREE, and that was all that mattered.
She dashed toward me, laughing as her chubby legs churned across the hardwood floor. I reached for her, catching her beneath the arms as she launched herself at me. I swung her up into my lap and she plopped down on my leg.
“Save me, daddy,” she squealed, clasping her soft arms around my neck. Her skin was softer than falling feathers as she pressed her face against the sand-papered texture of my own. Her breaths are the excited fluttering of springtime butterflies in my ear. “Save me, save me!” I smiled, bordering on outright laughter, and hugged her closer. “Save you from what, sweet pea? Mama trying to get you?”
She giggled and squirmed against me like a ball of wriggly snakes, twisting herself around impossibly, in that way that only young children can, and checked behind for her pursuer. “Yeah, she want me to pants and I don’t wanna.”
I felt my lips curving more into a bigger smile. I knew what she meant, of course. The Pants Monster, close relative of the Clothes Monster, the utmost enemy of young people, that terrible being, that antonym to the general enjoyment of LIFE. Fucking pants. Ashley had battled them her entire life and could be found without them as often as not.
“You need pants, sweetie,” I said gently, obligatorily. I braced myself for the inevitable tantrum, fiercely miniature, that would follow as she realized me for a traitorous wretch.
“Daddy, I don’t WANNA pants!” she whined, turning back to me. Her bottom lip was outthrust, the unfurling petal of a sun-warmed rose. Her dark blue eyes were filled with worry, distraught with the prospect of being forced to don the demonic clothing, especially after her oh-so-successful escape. “Daddy, please, why I gotta?”
"Everybody has to have pants, Ash." I reached down and plucked at my own. "See?" She looked down and I could see her mind buzzing with the unfettered rationale of youth. She shook her head briskly, her blonde hair wisping against her cheeks. “You gotta cause you’re grown up. Kids don’t hafta pants.” She clutched herself to me, her pulse fluttering against my chest. “Kids don’t hafta pants, daddy,” she whispered comfortingly, as if she were telling me something I didn’t know.
I hugged her against me again, smiling. She always weakened me, that little girl. The pants thing was insignificant, as well as unrealistic, but in that moment, I wouldn’t have cared if she never “hafta pants” again, as long as she stayed that way forever, as happy as a field of swaying sunflowers, as young as green blurs outlining the naked branches of a cold tree in spring.
I hugged her closer to me and our hearts carried on a conversation in Morse. I waited. The pants thing would resolve itself. Rather, Michelle would resolve it. She was the enforcer in these situations, the reason why she had been in the bedroom trying to force Ashley into a pair of pants in the first place. I patted Ashley on the back, reassuring pats, and clicked through the channels. Waiting...
"Ashley!"
I looked down at her. Her eyes were fringed with a sun-burst of soft lashes. She looked up at me, a quick glance, before snapping her eyes shut and feigning sleep. Playing dead was her answer to life’s biggest problems. Sleep, whether real or feigned, always seemed o make things just a little bit better.
"Justin, can you please!"
"Just bring the fucking pants out here!" I called, cupping Ashley's ear. "Jesus, it's not that hard." "Yeah, bring a fuckin pants," Ashley murmured into my chest, giggling.
"Hush that," I said, holding back a laugh as I patted her squirming bottom. The sound of stomping footsteps reverberated through the floor and suddenly, there she was. She stalked down the hallway, tucking her dark brown hair behind her ears, and placed herself in the doorway. She planted her hands on her hips, the tiny elfish pants twisted tightly in her fingers, and glared at me with the purpled blue that dominated the curious gaze now hidden behind curtains of blond lashes in my lap.
"Ashley," she said quietly, slowly, after a deep breath. The syllables fought their way out through gritted teeth. "Get over here and put these pants on."
Ashley went limp, becoming as still as a wad of pillow cotton and fully committing herself to being dead. She wasn’t the best actress in the world, but she wasn’t the worse.
"Justin, put her down, quit babying her. Ashley, come here, NOW!" Michelle said. Her voice was tired; I could hear it hiding beneath every word. Exasperation. Frustration. I thought about taking over, grabbing the pants from her and coaxing Ashley into them, and thought twice about it. Doing that meant having to hear about how I always undermined her authority in front of our impressionable daughter, something I didn’t want to have a conversation about. On the other hand, I was going to hear about how I should back her up more, so I was kind of fucked every which way I turned.
I pried the marshmallow soft arms from around me and they fell away limply. An unforgiving anguish spread across her face, the corners of her rosebud mouth turning down, tiny patches of spider webs collecting at the edge of her clenched eyes. I picked her up and set her down gently. She collapsed against me, latching onto my leg like a wad of sticky bubble gum.
“Daddy, noooo,” she sobbed, pressing her face against my leg. “Please, daddy, no pants, I don’t-“
“Ashley Marie, get over here this instant!”
Ashley straightened up, her face taking on an oppressed rage. Her body stiffened as if it had been touched with a live wire and the cords in her neck stood out. “I DONT WANNA HAFTA FUCKIN PANTS!” she screamed, her face purpling alarmingly, her tiny hands balled into shaking fists.
A silence descended, short-lived though it was. Michelle stomped across the living room, the glare of the TV on her glasses hiding a hot anger that had been building all night. She grabbed for Ashley’s arm and snatched her up so hard her head snapped forward.
“Hey, fucking chill, Michelle, goddamn,” I said, standing up.
“Chill?” she demanded over the leg-kicking screams filling the room, her voice sounding like the hissing fizzle of hot grease. “So I guess you think its okay then, huh, our daughter cussing like a sailor?”
“No, but-“
“No, but,” she mimicked. “Shut the fuck up. Next time you can do it, since you’re so clearly fucking invested in it.”
She hefted Ashley into her arms and wheeled around, stomping back to the bedroom and slamming the door behind her. Ashley’s crying took on a muffled sound, giving them a muffled quality that always reminded me of drowning.
Since I was so invested? The fuck was that supposed to mean? My ability as a father was being questioned because our daughter didn’t want to put on some fucking pants. What kind of shit was that?
“The rag,” I muttered to the squeaking TV, getting no response in return. “On the fucking rag, is all. God help me when Ashley grows up, I’ll be neck deep in the shit.”
I aimed the remote at the TV and settled back on the couch. There wasn't shit to do about it now. Seriously, what did she want me to do, hold her fucking hand? Getting a child dressed was a one man job, too many chiefs in the kitchen and all that shit. Besides, had she wanted me to do it, I would have. It wasn’t like-
“Since you aren’t doing shit, Justin, you think you could get dinner started?”
Her voice came through the door, overlapping an abated sniffling that indicated that Ashley had at last agreed to comply with the dress code. I rolled my eyes and shoved myself off the couch. “Yeah, I got it,” I called as I walked toward the kitchen, my footsteps transitioning from hardwood to-
The cold linoleum floor, remember it? You were standing in the kitchen when you saw him for the first time; standing on those icy tiles as you looked out the window above the sink, remember? Of course I remember, like one of last week’s yesterdays, like I remember the blood that just wouldn’t go away. It stayed there, congealing into ocherous puddles, reminding me of melted fruit rollups, and how many hours did I sit there, my back against the refrigerator door, cradling her tiny body and rocking, rocking... wasn’t I rocking back and forth? I assume I was... it’s hard to remember everything. I do remember the blood though, all of the fucking blood, gathered in pools of so many shapes and sizes, and what else? Well, I remember Michelle’s eyes. They were open, staring up at the stucco underbelly of the ceiling... no, past it, she was staring past it, I think, yeah. Her eyes seemed to study the outermost limits of the infinitely expanding universe, and I remember... well, I remember those pants. Those tiny pants, it was important that I told you about them because... because I remember thinking... as I’m thinking now... about how if Michelle hadn’t made her put them on, if she hadn’t made her hafta pants, then... well, then there wouldn’t have been so much blood on them, all of that fucking blood, so much... there was so goddamned much...
Submitted November 29, 2015 at 06:07AM by georgia2796 http://ift.tt/1jqpsvX nosleep
