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Mary ran the water and heard the screaming. The dog bites didn’t
bother her anymore but the persistent shriek, like fingernails on a
blackboard down the right side of her soul; this bothered
her. She knew there was no one there. The doctor told her so. That
made it all the worse. There was no one for her to hush. No one whose
head she could, as a last resort, cave in to stop the madness. It was
her own. Something misfiring in her brain.
The water was
cold. Cold. Cold. “Goddamn it,” she said. She turned the hot water
tap all the way open; cold water ran faster. Frustrated, she turned it
off. It only made matters worse; now there was a blood-covered girl
huddled howling in her bathtub. Mary wanted to yell at her; she had no
desire to clean up the blood. Some part of her mind that was no longer
fooled reminded her that she wouldn’t have to. Turn away, it said. Have breakfast. Give the water time.
Still bleary-eyed, she lurched down the hall, past her living room,
into her kitchen. A bowl of blood that was really strawberries. A
bowl of brains that were really oat-ring cereal in milk. Slipping,
squeaking noises from the bathroom; the wailing, dog-bitten girl. Mary
wanted to throw a thousand darts at her, leaving her a silent, leaden
pin cushion. “Can’t I eat in peace?” she asked her cereal as she
piloted its shoals with her spoon. She slammed her hand on the table;
the spoon whirled away into space, astonished, trailing
Cheerios. “Don’t you think I know? Don’t you think I feel? I know
how you feel! Now feel what I do!”
There was silence, for the
first time in hours. She sank into the chair. The milk and cereal
rocked in the bowl, perhaps trembling, perhaps complacent. She watched
until all motion ceased.
The water was warm, anyway. Tepid at
least, at last. She dabbed her face, able for the first time in a long
time to hear the crystal fullness of the water trickling back down into
itself, delighting in the pure audio experience of it.
“Will you
wash my bites? Please, please,” the girl pleaded. It was the first
time Mary could remember her having spoken, ever. She turned to the
girl, the red-rimmed blue eyes under greasy black curls, the blood
still pulsing up from the myriad punctures after all these years.
“Of
course I will,” she nodded, kneeling beside the tub. Lifting the warm
washcloth, she let her eyes play over the smooth white stars in her own
arms that made a mockery of the world ‘healing’. But she knew warm
water would do it. |
Again, Impressed
Written by Dark_Angel (53 comments posted) 1st October 2007 | Not much else to say. It was excellent and I'm impressed, as usual.
Keep up the good work! |
Written by echelon*mindfreak (5 comments posted) 1st October 2007 | | this is weird and cool, I like it! lol |
Written by smidge (9 comments posted) 1st October 2007 | | Surreal, took me a minute or so to get my head around it. Very effective. |
Written by Asferthecat (834 comments posted) 2nd October 2007 | | Wow, this is so good. She was driven mad by a dog attack. It took me a bit of figuring out. Loved the bit with the astonished Cheerios spoon. |
Written by Lizzy (790 comments posted) 2nd October 2007 | Very good, it sent shivers down my spine.
In a very short piece you managed to convey an awful lot which was also just enough. Not a spare word in the whole thing.
Well done.
Lizzy |
Written by NeilTollfree (51 comments posted) 2nd October 2007 | | Very good. I really can't find a bad word to say about it. very unsettling. |
Written by Fledermaus (3246 comments posted) 2nd October 2007 | | Strange but fascinating... Yet it wasn't clear to me what did the trick. What brought the change? |
Written by andybyers (171 comments posted) 2nd October 2007 | The change... I guess for me, the watershed moment is where Mary calls on the girl to empathize with her. I read somewhere, long ago, that this is one of the techniques psychologists use in ego reintegration. Might be just gobbledy-gook but I think it makes for a nice plot point... especially in so short a plot.  |
Written by Livinginanattic (456 comments posted) 6th October 2007 | This is superb. You've given a vivid insight into a subject I know little about and you've shown what it must be like to have this type of illness.
Thanks for the read. |
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