by C. B. Wiant
Hudson is there.
He’s only a few yards behind me. He’s a mirage. He appears in the refraction of light.
I’m still running, looking behind me, trying to understand why Hudson isn’t more solid? How did his opacity decrease?
I run directly into traffic. A truck horn blares in protest. I fall back and tear my hands on gravel. It doesn’t matter. I’m scurrying and spinning. Crawling to the cave’s gaping mouth again—Hudson’s gone. Gone, Gone. Not just around the corner, but GONE.
What? I search the cave’s gnawing mouth for him. I search in crannies too small to slip through.
“Gurl, ya aight?”
I turn at the voice. It’s the trucker with a red trucker cap. Inscribed on the front of the cap in cursive is Marshall.
“Gurl… you hear’in me gurl?” He’s closer, now within the opening of the cave, his heavy boots remind me of Guardian’s boots.
“Did you see a guy?” I ask, inching closer to the pathway back to the forest.
“You mean befo’ I almost hit ya?”
“Ya.” I say replicating his jargon.
“Nah, I just saw ya.” He’s in the cave with me. “Ya can’t go back there. These caves ain’t safe.” The trucker wears blue coveralls with the name Ward sewed in.
I reach for my tin of pills and they’re gone. Frantically patting myself, I check my pockets. I have no pockets, so I’m gripping at seams. I try to separate sewn fabric with my fingernails. I check my hair. I check under my slippers. I go back to the crevices I searched for Hudson.
Whoop whoop. Blue and red lights flash on the dirt ground and walls.
“What’s going on here folks?” The Officer of the law asks. He walks off the road towards us.
“Checkin’ on this gurl.” I’m pointed at.
The Officer points back to the road, “Is that your truck pulled over?”
Each of us looks at the parked truck. The driver’s door swings haphazardly, waiting for its driver.
“Ya that’s mine,” the trucker replies. He pulls out a fat heavy wallet and passes his driver’s license to the Officer. The trucker’s spine must be a question mark from sitting with half an ass a few inches higher.
“Thank you, Dennis.” The Officer holds the identification close to his eyes. Then he holds the license at arm's distance. Then back to his face.
“Dennis?” I ask, certain his name would be Ward or Marshall.
“You two don’t know each other?” The Officer asks. He uses Dennis’s driver’s license as a pointer.
“Nah Officer, I was just checkin’ on her. She ran out into the road from this here cave.”
The Officer nods. He gives Dennis his ID and tells him to get on his way. It’s too foggy to have your truck pulled over with no hazard lights flashing. Dennis apologizes, and hurries off before the Officer can search the contents of his cargo.
Once Dennis leaves, the Officer squirms and looks around. There is no other vehicle or modes of transportation. How did I get here? Where did I come from? All solid questions, but what he inquires is, “What’s your name Miss.?”
I can’t find a reaction to give him. My head is on swivel continually checking the cave for Hudson or any signs of my tin of pomegranate pills.
“Miss.?”
I look down either side of the road. No cars are approaching. No billboard or road signs in view. I see a state marker, but it’s too far to read or decipher its shape. It may be a heart. Or a square. I’m in a square-ish state.
“Misty. My name is Misty.”
“Misty do you have any identification on you?” The Officer searches the grounds for drug paraphernalia. His change of heart comes with the introduction of his Maglite. He adds a white stream of light to the red and blue orb light show. No needles. No pills. Nothing is found in the immediate area.
I wave him down into the cave. I want him to shine and light the way into the cave’s depth. I want a deeper conversation.
The Officer refuses. In fact, he calls in for backup.
“Officer….” I crane my neck to catch his badge. He won’t stop moving and searching. MAESON is scripted dark against the glint of his nametag. “Officer Maeson, we need to go back there. Hudson is back there. He can’t be far. I don’t know why he’d turn back—he doesn’t have a light.”
“Misty.” Officer Maeson says three or four times before I remember I renamed myself Misty and he’s trying to get my attention.
I won’t move from where the darkness meets natural light. I hover near the border like a skittish cat.
Officer Maeson searches further up and down the road for his buddy. However, there is no sign of anyone coming here, wherever here is. “You say there’s a man back in the cave?” He asks on his return.
“Yes, Hudson turned back,” I confirm straining my eyes to see deeper into the cave. While Officer Maeson continually consults the mouth of the cave, I search its depths—because that’s where answers lie, in the darkness of secrets.
Officer Maeson’s face relaxes. His pinched eyebrows no longer smash together.
An additional set of red and blue lights swarm the dusty earth. The boundary line of darkness pushes back further into the cave. I take a few steps towards my new boundary line.
“Maeson!” A new voice hollers.
Officer Maeson waves frantically, “In here!”
I snicker because there’s nowhere else to go—the cave or the open road are the only options.
The new Officer, with a shiny badge that reads Ginger, joins Officer Maeson and me in the cave. They’re both at the mouth of the cave. I’m shuffling further and further into the cave as they discuss me. It’s unfortunate that my circumstances yield me to appear as if I’m having a psychotic break. My dirty scrubs don’t assist matters. My hair is a nest. I saw myself in the cube of mirrors; I look battle-worn, like a mother outnumbered by toddlers—is anyone aware of what’s happening?
“They detonated this cave three years ago. Halstead led the charge.” Officer Ginger says inching towards me. My movements are making him itchy, “Misty walk over here.”
“He’s right, it’s dangerous, come on back over here,” Officer Maeson says.
Neither of them plays a decent good or bad cop. They’re both attempting to casually migrate towards me like I won’t notice or expect their breach of my personal space.
I book it and sprint down the tunnel.
Two streams of light crisscross behind me as if an amateur stagehand jostles the lighting equipment backstage. My hair whips around me like a sixth sense. The Officers can’t keep pace, so I have to slow mine to keep the illumination. I need to steal their light. I have no light of my own. I lost the help.
I don’t believe the wall in front of me until I run smack into it and fall on my ass.
“Easy there,” Officer Ginger says.
“Hey, Misty.” Officer Maeson says gasping, out of breath, he kneels beside me. His head goes between his knees. I’m breathing regularly. Officer Ginger is red, yet I suspect that’s his normal complexion.
Between heaved breaths, Officer Maeson says, “We can’t be in here. Misty, where do you need to be?”
“How did you even get here?” Officer Ginger interjects finding it far more relevant to prosecute than help me.
I’m looking between both of them. “Hudson was right behind me. I saw him.” I saw him.
Officer Ginger looks at the solid wall. He knocks on the wall testing its stability. There’s no echo. It is a wall. We’re all staring at a solid wall.
Yet I came through this cave system. Similar to the wells and black holes, the forest led me to this cave. This very cave. How else would I get here?
Officer Maeson steps into my line of sight, “Now this Hudson character, you say he was with you?”
“Yes, I’ve said that multiple times now.”
Office Ginger mocks me, “Did he vanish?”
“How d’you get here?” Officer Maeson asks overlapping his partner.
I point to the
wall and don’t respond verbally to either Officer.
Officer Ginger knocks on the wall again to reiterate its sturdiness. Show and tell of my insanity. If he can show I’m not rational, maybe he doesn’t have to tell me. Nobody wants to be the bearer of that news, let alone the one that has to explain the condition.
“Misty let’s go back to the vehicles.” Officer Maeson says leading the way with his light. Officer Ginger follows.
I lower down with my back against the newly formed cave wall. The Officers disappear from view before backtracking to collect me. They try to give a good reason for leaving the cave, but I’m not hearing it. I can’t. I can’t face it.
I’m showing disorderly conduct. I am disorderly. My manners are not behaving within the context according to procedure. Officer Ginger handcuffs me for my safety. All the police require is suspicion to rationalize cuffing me.
I’m transported and tossed in a psychiatric ward. I’m told by nurses that a doctor will consult with me soon. The nurses can’t divulge any information other than their last names, which I’ll never retain.
My mind isn’t ready to accept this place, this psychiatric ward. I’m internally denying my circumstances.
The staff wants to help me, not hurt me. The staff wants from me.
But I don’t trust them, I keep repeating no, no, no, no, nononono until all I am is chattering teeth n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-.
I stare at the abstract painting in my room. Abstract paintings should be banned from psychiatric facilities. There’s too much chaos.
There’s a knock at the door. I’m sitting, not looking at the new intruder. I expect another nurse.
“Hello Misty, I’m Dr. Morgan.”
I throw up my hand. The good doctor arrives. They can take my gesture as a hello, stop, or fuck off. My hand stays raised long enough to imply hello, stop, or fuck off, nicely.
A piece of paper rolls over a clipboard. “It says here the police picked you up outside Cavanaugh’s Cave? Can you tell me how you got there?”
The good doctor shuts the door. Promptly after the click of the secured door, the clipboard drops to the ground. SLAP.
Papers fall and scatter like doves released at a funeral.
The symbol of peace and unity entirely depends on humans. White doves do not have survival instincts. They aren’t homing pigeons. The doves fly off to false freedom. The sheets of paper fly and then fall dead, white and lifeless.
I’m staring at the sheets as if they’re pulled white feathers when I hear, “Av?”
At first, I don’t reply because that name has become foreign to me. But when my full name pops out of the doctor’s mouth, I turn and see an older version of Ramona. Her hair has gray at the roots, but as a whole is a light silver—almost lavender. She’s gained ten, possibly fifteen pounds. Her glasses are now wireless.
“Aviana, is that you?” She asks twiddling a pen. The pen is all that Ramona keeps in her hand after she dropped the clipboard and released the white paper. I’m mesmerized by the pen, it’s the same movement, same tick, Ramona used to have when I visited her apartment for therapy sessions. She looks different. Aged.
I look around as if my shadow stole my identity.
“It says here your name is Misty. Why would you say your name is Misty? Where have you been?” With each of her concerned questions, she walks closer and closer to my flat mattress.
“Do you know where you are?”
Between my stale lips croaks, “Delaware?”
“No, no Av. You’re in Ohio. Do you know what day it is?”
I shake my head, no.
“How about what year? Do you know the year?”
“2011,” I respond feeling juvenile—as if Ramona will next give me a puzzle full of square pegs and circle holes.
She sits down on the edge of the mattress. The springs whine with the added pressure. Her hand rests gently on my shoulder. She whispers, “It’s 2019.”
Fuck me.
21
Our History
Ramona’s office is not cozy. I’m escorted out of my room once a day and into an exam room, minus the exam table. The computer monitor, sink, and cabinets are standard. My attention focuses on the red biohazard bin; I don’t think I’ll ever look at a vibrant red object again without thinking of the Arena. I’m sitting in a plastic beige chair. The room appears originally designed to be the consultation area. I expected a couch. An overstuffed pillow to clutch. This room is the emotionally vacant afterthought of a break room turned into a therapist’s office.
“I couldn’t get a job in 2012. The job market was saturated with indebted college graduates.” Ramona says twirling her pen between her fingers. “The Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting happened that year. Almost thirty people died.”
“Children included?” I ask, horrified.
Ramona nods eerily. “Most of them were children. I think less than ten of them were faculty.” She taps her pen against her temple, “So, during our last visit you said you have a sister?”
I shake my head, confused, “Had. I never knew my sister.”
“Your parents never mentioned you had a sibling?” Ramona makes a physical note. “You also mentioned she died at fourteen.” She reflects, “How did you come about this information? Do you trust the source?”
I’m stuck between the transition of mass shootings being common tongue and decrypting if Onyx is reliable.
“We were high.”
“Mmmhmmm.” Ramona hums and then stops writing abruptly. She leans over and grabs a tissue from the side table next to me.
She gently folds the tissue into my grip, “Here.”
I throw the tissue back at Ramona. It flops and sinks like a dead origami crane. Tears drop off my jaw.
I snatch a fresh tissue and crush it in my fist.
“I’ve seen your mother’s files. I worked at her long-term facility many years ago during an internship. You and your sister were carried by surrogates. She’s never given birth.”
I snatch another tissue and smash it in my fist. “Why are you telling me this?” This room is not a safe place.
Aggressively, I pull tissues and wad them. “Because even if we can’t scientifically prove that you had a sister, your mother emphatically believes she’s the mother of two girls.”
I have a ball of tissues in my hand. The tissue box is empty. My knuckles scrape across the perforated edges. “Did she say anything about the Arena?”
“No, she mentioned her daughters were both kidnapped. The eldest was taken at fourteen. You we’re younger? Is that true?”
“I bet she didn’t mention that I came back.”
“No, no she didn’t. She wasn’t well. She wasn’t lucid for long.” Ramona leans forward in emphasis, “Eight years Lily—eight years—since I’ve seen you. Where have you been? How did we get here?”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Lily is your legal name. Would you prefer Misty? Aviana? Do you have another name?”
I smile because I do, Nix.
I squeeze my tissue cluster like a stress ball and say, “Aviana. Please call me Aviana.”
“Talk to me Aviana. What happened?” Ramona leans forward and grips her pen.
I open my fist and start shredding my tissue cluster into tiny strips. I wish tissues made a ripping noise. The silence makes the action less fulfilling. I shred the sections as thinly as possible and slip them back into the tissue box like they’re slithering snakes I’m charming back into a basket.
“I killed Tracy with a pen.” I say and slip a particularly straight and even piece along the perforated edges of the tissue box.
I’ve lost years. I’ve also lost my fire.
During one of my initial sessions with Ramona, I spent the hour snapping my fingers raw. I begged for less medication. If I was less medicated I could prove I had the ability to create fire. My cries didn’t illicit support.
Ramona spent more and more time with me.
She tries to
understand.
But here is how my story is going: In Delaware I ran away looking for Tracy, a woman I claimed didn’t exist, even though multiple sources confirmed her existence. While on my drunken hunt, I was kidnapped. Eight years later I’m found outside Cavanaugh’s Cave in Ohio.
Now, I’ve confessed to killing Tracy, a woman I animatedly claimed didn’t exist. I have the ability to light things on fire. But I’ve had the ability before, I just never told her. So, she should definitely believe me now. Now, I’m telling the truth. That makes perfect sense.
The grip on her pen doesn’t lighten.
My face is dried out from the salt of my tears.“Tracy was a tracker. She was sent to make sure Hudson and I battled.” I rip a thick piece of tissue. “What she really wanted was Hudson to kill me.”
Ramona takes a breath. Her body relaxes, “That didn’t happen though.”
“No, I ended up forcing Hudson’s hand to poison me.”
Ramona crosses her legs, wiggles her fingers around her pen and takes a few notes. “How did you recover from the poisoning?”
“Ipsumroot powder? I don’t know.” I run out of tissue and rip into the tissue box. Cardboard provides a much more satisfying shred.
The door opens.
Nelson is in the doorframe waiting for me, “You ready Lily?”
I don’t move.
“We can’t do this each time.”
I cock my head to the left in question. Because we clearly can. We currently are.
Nelson takes a step into the non-comforting exam room. I take one back and put the plastic chair between us. This may be the only benefit of having a therapy session in an exam room—there are no sentimental obstacles. I kick the plastic chair into Nelson’s knees. Everything in this room is corporately manufactured.
Nelson doubles over-grinding his teeth so that he doesn’t curse. “Seriously?” He pushes the chair away and makes a show of apologizing to Ramona. Though he refers, in great esteem, to her as Dr. Morgan.
I slide to the right and slip out the door.
I’m waiting at another locked door when Nelson puffs out of the exam room. “You know I’m supposed to escort you.”