The Nocturnal Voice
Page 5
Chapter 2 - Save the Little Girl
The day passed quickly and dinner was now over. Nightly visitation had begun and as Daryl predicted, the day room was a lively encounter between people of every class, character and temperament. As Ali entered the room, she found herself stepping around oddly placed groups of chairs and tables that were pulled together so fellow patients could spend this cherished time with their family and friends.
Looking across the room, she could see Daryl sitting on a love seat close to the large window where they spoke earlier in the day. He had his feet up purposely taking up the entire chair while maintaining an irritated expression on his normally gentle looking face. She couldn’t help but to smile in appreciation of his ingenuity and although hidden from conscious thought, she found his courage to make himself appear brazen very attractive at times.
When he saw her warm gentle smile from across the room, he dropped his feet onto the floor and spoke loudly,
“Cousin Ali! Over here, I saved you a window seat.”
Everyone in the room glanced at her and she turned bright red from embarrassment. Now reaching the love seat and sitting down she glared at him with a smile.
“You are such a dork, I should punch you for that.”
“Now, now cousin Ali.” he said.
“Striking family members will only get you more therapy. Then again, they may ask us both to leave, but I kind of doubt it.”
As she giggled and shook her head at him.
“You‘re still a dork.”
“Perhaps I am, but I had an epiphany sitting here.”
What’s that?”
“Holding this prime location on the loveseat was a breeze. Apparently most visitors will not ask a potential psychopath if this seat is taken.”
Ali burst into laughter.
“Yes, well I would imagine that’s true, and what do you mean “potential” psychopath? You are absolutely out of your damn mind!”
Laughing back he nodded in agreement.
“Well given the current state of affairs, I would have to agree.
Speaking of that, I think that was the reason for us getting together this evening. I was going to let you into my brain. God help you.”
“That’s up to you. Even if you don’t want to talk about that stuff it’s ok. I still enjoy your company. What can I say, you make me laugh.”
She smiled warmly and looked into his eyes making him shyly looked down.
“Yeah, well I like being with you too.”
He then turned his body in the chair to face her.
“The thing about what you just said, you know? I mean about having the choice not to talk about my issues. It’s tempting believe me.
I’m kind of worried you‘ll think less of me.”
He took a deep breath and continued.
“Unfortunately however, it’s what I want to do. I really want you to know.”
Ali nodded and speaking sincerely.
“I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t going crazy with curiosity.
You seem so, well for lack of a better word, healthy. I mean I can figure out that you don’t always seem happy, but then again who does? I just can’t figure you out.”
“Ok then here it comes. That whole synchronicity thing? Well the fact is it kind of messes with me from time to time.”
Ali sat quietly intensely listening to every word he spoke.
“This all started about five years ago when I had this recurring dream. In the dream, I was sitting at a park close to my house. I’m just relaxing and it’s a nice summer day. There are people jogging and kids are playing, you know the usual.
For some reason I keep noticing this little girl on the swing who is going really high in the air. I can see that her Mom is standing by a tree nearby and everything is business as usual. All of a sudden, this voice talks to me in a very direct tone and says,
“Save the little girl!”
Ali shook her head in confusion.
“Kind of creepy.”
“Yeah, I know right. I also makes no sense or so I thought.
As the dream goes on, I get this really disturbing vision of what I need to do to save the little girl. I need to run over to the little girls Mom, and push her down on the ground. Not hurt her or anything, just push her down.
Kind of disturbing at first I know but who cares, it’s a dream.
I’m thinking that dreams are pretty fucked up visions anyway so whatever. Anyway, in the dream, I run across the park full on and push this poor lady down on the grass.
She screams, the little girl jumps off the swing and runs over to us because she’s scared that someone is hurting her Mom. Meanwhile my heart is beating out of my chest because this goes against anything I would ever do someone.
Then within a second, I see this flash and feel like I’m falling and I wake up feeling kind of weird. I can’t explain what weird feels like, but I just don’t feel right, you know?”
Ali nods and says,
“That is a strange dream, so do you know what it means?”
As she asked Daryl that question, she felt horrible seeing that the question hit him hard for some reason. He dropped his head and took a few deep breaths to apparently stop himself from crying.
His face seemed tense, his eyes closed for a moment and he answered her quietly.
“Yes, I know what it means, but I didn’t back then. I swear to god I had no idea. I just kept having this ridiculous dream.
All I know is, one day I went to the park. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I grew up in the neighborhood and I must have visited that park hundreds of times over the years. I was walking by the playground and looked over to see something incredible. I saw the same little girl that I knew from my dream just playing by the slide.
I was so amazed I went to sit down in the exact spot I knew I was sitting during my dream and waited. As I sat there, these unbelievable events began to unfold. I saw the little girls mother on her cell phone standing in the sun, then she hung up and walked over to stand in the shade of the tree.
The little girl left the slide, hopped on the swing and started to swing higher and higher. Then it happened.
It was my dream.
Every image, every sound, the warm breeze, even the damn birds were in the same place singing the same song! I felt like I was in a dream because of the surreal moment in front of me. Then in my head I heard that voice say,
“Save the little girl”
Daryl stopped talking and again seemed to be trying to maintain his composure. He was breathing shallow, his fists were clenched with fear and he seemed to be experiencing an extreme level of emotional distress.
Ali took hold of his hand.
“It’s ok, it’s ok. Whatever happened its ok.”
Daryl took hold of her hands and calmed down for the moment but replied,
“It’s not ok Ali.”
She sat silently knowing what must have happened.
“Daryl, that was a pretty significant mind fuck, don’t be so hard on yourself. You just reacted to the moment.”
Daryl looked into her consoling eyes and shook his head in disagreement.
“No. No I didn’t react.
I know what you’re thinking. You think I knocked down her mother don’t you?”
Ali now seemingly perplexed asked,
“You mean you didn’t? I’m sorry, then what happened?”
“I ran! I got up from that bench and I ran in primal terror until that park was a half mile away. Then I went home.”
Ali sat mystified as Daryl continued to explain.
“Listen, I know this makes no sense but it will.
At this point, this was just a really crazy messed up event and nothing more, but that wasn’t the end of it. I got home and broke open a bottle of wine to calm down. Then I just sat quietly deciding what I should do about all of this and after a while had this urge to go back to the park.
I
don’t even know why I had to do it, maybe just to see if it was real. As I got closer, I saw that there was a lot of activity. Police, Fire trucks, ambulances, the works. I just froze afraid to walk any closer. Then I saw these teenage boys riding bikes toward me and I yelled out to them.
“Hey, do you guys know what’s going on at the park?” On yells,
“Some girl fell off the swing. I guess she got hurt really bad.”
Ali locked her gaze on Daryl’s eyes as she placed her hands over her mouth in shock. She could see that his eyes were moist and void of any happiness.
He spoke with the voice of a frightened child and said,
“She died Ali. She fell off the swing and died. She broke her neck.
It was because I didn’t do what that dream told me to do. I could have saved the little girl but I didn’t.”
Ali felt the blood drain from her face and sat frozen in place trying to put all of the facts together.
Daryl looking slightly angry now said,
“Before you ask the next set of questions I seem to get, let me save you the trouble.
Yes, I’m sure it was the same girl and no, I’m not making this up to get attention!”
He could see that Ali didn’t know how to respond looking slightly hurt by his comment.
“Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak to you like that.
It just seems that people always seem to…”
Ali without warning lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him. He was startled at first but took hold of her and found himself lost in the divine warmth of human embrace.
He felt the tension relax from his body as she held on to him.
Her voice whispered in his ear. “I’m sorry Daryl, I’m sorry.”
After a short time they relaxed their embrace on one another.
Ali was still at a loss about what to say to make him feel