Origins: Part One

by Milo Abrams

Sitting down to wait, an overweight woman across from him with fried bleach-blonde hair glared at him while her son, who looked fresh out of prison, ignored them both and picked at his fingernails. Before Ruby could even sit down, Dr. Benson opened the door and called her in.

  As she always did, Ruby waited for Dr. Benson to invite her to sit before actually sitting down. Like an institutionalized inmate who won’t pee without permission, Ruby found it somehow rude to sit down before being asked to do so, even though she had been coming to see Dr. Benson for the better part of twenty years. Dr. Benson knew this, and always made it a point to ask her to sit immediately.

  “Please,” she said with her hand angled toward a florally decorated sofa. “I hope you don’t mind me sitting at the desk while we talk, it’s my only real chance for lunch.”

  The pit in Ruby’s stomach ached at the words. Her soft face turned into a mushy frown. “I’m sorry, we can do this another time. I don’t want to bother you.”

  Dr. Benson simply smiled, “No, really, it’s okay! Sit and get comfortable.”

  Ruby wasn’t sure where to begin. They sat there in silence for a few minutes while Dr. Benson pulled a turkey sandwich out of a small lunch bag hidden from somewhere behind the desk. It wasn’t that Ruby didn’t have anything to say, it’s just that she knew the emergency session was prompted by her husband’s phone call from the night before. And the only thing she remembered about that night was whatever Will had told her.

  “So, you had a rough night last night?” Dr. Benson asked. Her tone with Ruby was as conversational as possible. They had built a bond and mutual respect over the years, and she knew that seeming too stiff would only cause Ruby to close up. She needed comfort, not isolation.

  “Yes, I suppose I did,” Ruby replied softly.

  “Is everything alright at home? Are you having any adverse reactions to the medication I prescribed you?”

  Ruby looked at the floor instead of looking her in the eyes. Whenever they talked, Dr. Benson would always sit in the chair directly across from her. It was their routine. Now she was halfway across the room hidden behind a large oak slab and it felt cold. Their routine had been broken and it was unconsciously causing unrest inside Ruby.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said, “the pills are fine, Will and I are fine.”

  “Fine?” Dr. Benson asked between chewing. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, everything is just fine.” She stared at the empty seat across from her and shivered.

  “Ruby, we’ve been talking a long time, and I think it’s safe to say that I know you a little bit.”

  Ruby nodded.

  “Fine is not a word that you use casually. It’s more the sort of thing you say when you’re upset but don’t want to admit that you’re upset. There’s something bothering you, and that’s okay. That’s why you’re here. So let’s talk. We’ve done that lots of times, right?”

  Ruby nodded again. Yes, but never with you behind the desk.

  Dr. Benson smiled and then finished her sandwich. Ruby wasn’t sure why the tiniest break in their routine was bothering her so much, but it was. Her feet shifted nervously beneath her, squeaking periodically on the wood floor.

  “So, what happened last night? Why did you husband feel the need to call me?”

  Ruby picked up something in her tone that may have been unintentional. A sort of sourness and anger. Feel the need to call me, she repeated in her mind. It sounded so rude, so offensive, so unlike the usual tone of conversation that they always had.

  “He said I had the nightmare again.”

  Dr. Benson’s eyebrow raised as she sipped her tea. “He said?”

  Ruby shook her head. “I had the nightmare. He said that I had the nightmare because I had it, not because I didn’t.”

  “It’s okay,” Dr. Benson said, “relax. So, you had the nightmare again. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  Ruby looked at the floor. “I don’t know, I was asleep. All I remember was a sort of wavy disorientation as Will came back and handed me a glass of milk. He said that he called you. He was really happy about that. He told me that I told him to, or that I wanted him to, I can’t really remember.”

  “So, Will said that you told him to call me?”

  Ruby pushed some hair behind her ear and sighed. “I don’t know. No, not exactly.” She looked out the window as a small blue jay landed on a branch. “He didn’t say that I wanted him to call you. He said that I wanted to talk to you, that I was very upset. Calling you was just something he did to make me feel better.”

  “I see,” Dr. Benson said. Ruby watched her as she quickly glanced down at her watch. “And the nightmare, it was the same as it’s always been?”

  “I guess so, I mean, I don’t remember. I don’t even remember having the nightmare. I just remember Will coming back and my hands hurting.”

  This piqued the doctor’s interest. “Your hands hurt. What do you mean by that?”

  Ruby opened and closed her hands slowly, the same as she had done the night before. “When I did this, I could feel a soreness in them all the way to my fingertips. Will said I had been gripping the bed tightly. I bunched up the sheet so bad that I had to iron it this morning to get the creases out.”

  “But you don’t remember squeezing the sheet?”

  “No. Why, is that important?”

  Dr. Benson shook her head. “I’m just asking questions is all. Why don’t you tell me about the nightmare?”

  Ruby’s eyes squinted in confusion. “I told you that I didn’t remember having it.”

  “I know, but you’ve been having it for such a long time, and it’s been a while since you had it last, right? So why don’t you tell me about the last time you remembered having it. Tell me what happened in the nightmare.”

  Ruby didn’t understand the point. “Renee, with all due respect, I don’t see what this has to do with anything. The nightmare has always been the same, for twenty years the nightmare has been the same.”

  “I know,” Dr. Benson said, “but just go ahead and tell me anyway. I want to see if there are any subtle differences, to see if the dream as transformed over time.”

  Dream, Ruby thought. She hated it when people called her nightmare a dream. It wasn’t a dream. Dreams were hallucinations of pleasant things, the sorts of things she wanted to have happen, or good memories from her past. There was nothing dream-like about her nightmare at all. If nothing else, it felt more like a horrific memory than a dream.

  “Well,” she said sitting up and adjusting the wrinkles in her coat, “it’s always been the same. I go to sleep at night without any sort of thoughts at all, and then I’m transported to a different place. No matter how I fall asleep, I find myself lying on my back. I know I’m facing up because there are lights. They start from somewhere off to my side where I can’t see. All I can see is their glow. Wherever I am is dark, very dark, and the light just seems to melt into the darkness. And I can’t move, no matter how hard I try. I just can’t move. It’s like my arms and legs are tied down to something or being restrained. I don’t know where I am, I just know that I’m not in my bedroom anymore and I’m not alone. There are whispers off to the side but I can’t turn my head. I can’t see much of anything. I try to see, I try so hard, but I can’t. It’s just dark and there’s this light off to the side and a sort of whispering sound I don’t recognize.

  “It feels like forever. Whatever I’m lying on must be the same temperature as me because I can’t feel its texture like I can feel the lumps in my bed. It’s almost as if I’m just floating there, but that’s crazy.”

  Dr. Benson looked back at her with an expression of boredom. This only upset Ruby more.

  “And so, I’m there and nothing is happening and I don’t know where I am and after a while I get frustrated. I want out. I try to move my arms and legs again but I can’t. I try to move my head side to side but I can’t and so there’s nothing I can do. I just scream. I scream hoping someone will hear me and
help me. I scream because I’m being swallowed in a sea of helplessness. I scream because it’s the only thing I can do. And the screaming works. Whatever noises that were off to my side stops and the light begins to move. I see it move because I’m screaming, so I scream more—I scream louder. The light moves towards me until it’s over top of me and pointing into my eyes. I can’t see because it’s so bright. It’s so bright that my eyes won’t adjust so I squeeze them shut, but I can feel the warmth of the light on my face. I scream and I scream and then I feel something touching me. Something is poking me and I open my eyes and the light has shifted upwards and there are strange people standing all around me. I can’t see them because the light is behind them and it’s too bright. They’re nothing but silhouettes. And so, I scream again and they don’t move, but I can feel something cold go inside me. A cold liquid runs into me and moves so quickly all over and it makes me numb and then I start to feel very tired again. By the time I wake up, I feel like I’m being suffocated.”

  “I see,” Dr. Benson said.

  “But it’s the same as it’s always been. See? Nothing has changed. And we’ve been over it a million times. I’ve told you about my childhood and my fears. We’ve dissected my marriage and my insecurities over Will. We’ve picked apart every piece of every feeling I have about everything and nothing ever changes. I just want things to change, Renee.”

  Dr. Benson nodded.