I hadn’t seen my home in two weeks. When I opened the door, it was dark and stifling. But it was the smell that struck me most of all. Two weeks of spoiled meat and milk baking in the un-powered refrigerator. Two weeks of molding bread and fermenting fruit on the counter-tops. Two weeks. Worst of all, I knew my cupboards and fridge had been left to rot long before I was committed to Monte Verde Psychiatric. I knew I had been living in the reek of neglect for months; but since Nevada Power had disconnected my apartment for non-payment and no air could circulate, the magnitude of the putridity was finally overpowering. Too bad I forgot to crack a window beforehand, though it was probably that which saved me from complaining neighbors already agitating to have me evicted. I only ever described this place as a wreck, but no one realized the wreck in which I lived was not merely a physical place. It was the wreck of my life, the wreck of my mind. You have so much potential, Mother would say. What happened? What happened to my boy? I could never answer her. I was ashamed of the way I lived, or more precisely, the way I had succumbed to life and its disappointments. Even on the night I took a kitchen knife to my wrist, I still managed to stumble out my front door and lock it behind me before collapsing. I didn’t want the paramedics I had called to see the disgraceful filth and ruin, even as I tried to escape it myself. Somehow even confronting the wretchedness of my apartment still gave me more comfort than I had experienced in the last two weeks under suicide watch. Though summer was at its sweltering apex, no heat touched the sterile, frigid walls of the hospital. The sunlight was dampened out by the hissing fluorescent lamps incessantly burning above my bed. After two weeks in this clinical gulag, I was willing to play the role of recovering patient just to get out. Oh, yes doctor, I’m feeling much, much better. I guess you were right, I didn’t know the gravity of my decision. Maybe I was just confused. I will open up and talk about my feelings to my friends, my family, and others in my support network. At home I could at least be alone. The doctor had warned me that loneliness was a trigger for depression and anxiety, but really I never felt lonely when I was alone. Strangers tended to snigger or gawk when I talked to myself in public, and Mother was insufferable. Daniel, what happened? You were a straight-A student in high school. Even in college, before you dropped out. What happened to my boy? I have some problems, Mother, was always my reply. You are a white, middle-class boy from the suburbs with two parents who love you. Any “problems” you had are no worse than anyone else’s. What if you were starving in some Third World black African shit-hole? Then you’d have some real problems. Yeah, then I’d have some real problems. I just wanted a cup of coffee, but knew I had none. I grabbed a bottle of flat soda from the counter, the only potable drink I could find, and sat down to check my voicemail. Hello, Daniel Norton, this is Longstreet Pharmacy. Your prescriptions are ready to be picked up. Delete. Mr. Norton, this is 9-1-1 Emergency. Please answer if you can. Paramedics and Metro Police are on their way. Delete. Daniel, this is your father. Your mother tells me you were in some sort of accident. Call me back. Delete. Daniel, it’s Mom. I went by the hospital today and they said you had just been released. I’m coming by your place today to check on you. Delete. Hello, Daniel Norton, this is Longstreet Pharmacy. Your new prescriptions will be ready today at 5. Delete. A knock at the door startled me from an uneasy sleep two hours later. The sun was still high, and light poured in from the blinds like God’s rays through the dust that floated on the stale air. Daniel, are you in there? It’s Mom. Come in, it’s open, I yelled from the back room. Mother, a slight, nervous woman with a hawk-like face stepped across the threshold and onto the narrow path that wound its way through piles of laundry and empty soda cans. Daniel, this is – this is disgusting. Yeah, I know, I said. I came to check on you. Do you have rats? I don’t know, Mother. I haven’t seen any. Do you want to sit down? Mother didn’t answer, but she didn’t sit down. Tell me, are you going to do this again? I don’t know, Mother. Please, Daniel, your father and I are worried sick over you. Please. What happened to my boy? I’m ok, Mother. Really. I just need a little time to myself to think. I’ll be fine. Ok. But for God’s sake, clean up this disaster. I can get Maria to come—
That’s alright, I can manage it myself. Two days passed, and I finally began cleaning. Even if the hospital had done nothing for my emotional stability, the astringent, antiseptic stink of it had disencumbered my ability to ignore the sour odor of filth and decay. I cleared out the kitchen of everything, save some crackers and peanut butter, and filled bag after bag with empty beer bottles and Coke cans. Lastly, I discarded the bowl of rotting fruit on the counter I had been avoiding. It seemed to hum with the wings of pea-sized fruit flies. Nasty things. But at least I didn’t see any rats. Though not spic and span, I was pleased with the apartment, and even more so that I had been able to focus my mind away from the darker, more pitiful recesses and toward something productive. I was dirty and dripping, so I stepped into the shower. The water ran down my face in black rivulets. I breathed in the steam. I then turned my attention to my wound. The gaping slice of two weeks before was healing nicely below the cotton bandages. Black stitches like closed eyelashes bound the ragged flesh together, but at least there was no infection. I don’t like gore. The initial gush of blood from my left wrist made me swoon, and that was really the only reason I didn’t carve into my right. A few moments of inspection were enough. That night my dreams caught up to me. I would never call my dreams “nightmares,” especially when the doctors at Monte Verde had asked. So tell me about your dreams. There’s not much to tell. Dreams can be a window into the unconscious – a way to discover what our bodies are trying implicitly to tell us. Well, my dreams tend to be – anxious. In what way? They are – violent. In what way? Gruesome things. Things – unspeakable. In what way? Someone is talking to me – telling me terrible things about myself. But they are just dreams, right? Yes. Just dreams. These dreams, these gruesome dreams, were cut short that night by the aching of my wound. The sun was just throwing its first glow above the horizon as I switched on the light. The ache, the throbbing of my wrist quickly turned to agony as I shook off the final grasping fingers of sleep. My sheets were sopped in sweat. A fever had seized my body, a fever that seemed to radiate from my wound. Infection had set in. Infection. Dripping, putrid infection. But I thought it was healing so well. I rolled onto the floor, barely able to stand, and threw myself into a cold shower. What is this? I had not re-bandaged my wound, and the inflammation had swollen the stitches to the point of bursting. The eyelashes had opened, behind them lay black dried blood down what seemed like the walls of a chasm. The stench was overwhelming. The stench of rot and rancid decay and disease. The stench of death. Then there was blackness. A horrible sinking nothingness from which I never thought I would awaken. Minutes or hours had passed; the shower ran frigid cold, eventually shocking me back to semi-lucid consciousness. My wound had broken open in the hellish night, and blood swirled around the shower drain. Maybe I should call an ambulance, I thought, but quickly decided against causing another stir with the neighbors. Once I could stand, I stumbled cautiously into the kitchen to get a better look at the foul, oozing flesh. Flesh now pulsing, alive with maggots.
Submitted February 15, 2015 at 06:07AM by aclayhutchings http://ift.tt/1DaGlCU nosleep
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