by Gina Ranalli
Please, just let me die now.
Don’t let her see how worried you are.
Finally, I stopped puking and Rabia gave me a napkin to clean up and then a sip of water.
If I have to, I’ll take her to a specialist. Someone must know what this is.
I wonder what time it is.
The doctor came into the room with a smile. “Sorry to keep you ladies waiting.”
My gods, I bet you could watch her come inside her body!
“Well, we’ve run some tests and so far, everything looks fine. We’ll have to wait until the lab gets back to us with the blood work, but I’m sure that will be normal as well. In the meantime, I think we’ll keep you here for a while and
Damn, I would love to get a video of these two together. How hot would that be?
I can’t believe the asshole is trying to look down my blouse!
The nurse entered carrying a tray. She smiled and said, “I brought you some Jello and a few crackers. You’ll need to put something in your stomach before you take your meds.”
Look at him! Could he be anymore obvious?
I bet I could bag her if I get her into my office.
If he looks at my tits one more time, I’m going to break his goddamn nose!
I really need to sit down. She’s totally checking me out. I hope Crispin is asleep by the time I get home. I think I’ll call in sick tomorrowshewantstosuckoneIjustknowitthefcukingdickfaceislookingatSkynowIneedtostopandgetsomethingformycornsitsbeenforeversinceshesbeenwithamanyoucantellistillneedtocorrectpaperstonightifonlychuckwouldlendahandonceinawhilesuckmebitchyouknowyouwanttoIhopeshegetsbettersoonthenmaybeicouldgetenoughrestandfuckherintheasshowsweetwouldthatbegoddmankids
I started screaming and couldn’t stop.
68
If it hadn’t been for the physical part of my illness, I’m sure they would have thrown me in the psycho ward. But once my screaming began being punctuated by vomiting, they knew I was seriously sick.
I was transferred immediately to the California State Hospital and underwent three days of every kind of test imaginable. I tried not to think but it was next to impossible. I tried not to scream but that was also impossible. It was the only thing that drowned out the thinking and kept me sane.
A specialist in World Diseases was sent in to examine me, but she didn’t do a whole lot of examining. Mostly she asked questions. One of them being, can you tell what I’m thinking?
She asked without moving her lips so I started screaming again. She shouted over my screams. “ESP Flu!”
“What?” I screamed.
“ESP Flu! I know what you have! It can’t be cured but we can treat it!”
“Thank fucking gods!”
She smiled and gave me a big thumbs up.
Then she left the room to tell the news to my wife.
69
Treatment for the ESP Flu is not particularly pleasant but it sure beats the hell out of the symptoms.
First, they put me in what was called a Shielded Room, which basically meant an empty room with steel walls.
I was sat down at a table facing a window—Plexiglas, four inches thick—-and the specialist sat on the other side writing questions on cardstock paper. I also had a Sharpie and paper to write down my responses, but since most of the questions had yes or no answers, I mostly just nodded or shook my head
When the question and answer part of the treatment ended, it took three orderlies to drag me from The Shielded Room. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to live there forever, where my mind was blessedly my own and I wasn’t being bombarded by other peoples thoughts.
Then I was doped to the gills, unable to think a single thought of my own, never mind hear other people’s thoughts.
It was during this drugged state that they drilled into my head and drained out the infected fluid. I had to be awake for it so they could ask me questions during the process and I could give them at least some semblance of an answer.
I remember watching the fluid drain out of my head and into a bad similar to an IV bag. It flowed from a tube I couldn’t see straight into the bag. The fluid was first red, then pink and white, then a sickly yellow-green color, then just yellow. Then yellow-green, white, pink and red again.
It seemed like I watched it for hours, watched the nurse change the full bags to empty ones, but I’m told the procedure lasted little more than seventy-five minutes.
When it was over, I remember one of the nurses telling me I wouldn’t remember anything, I wouldn’t remember anything, I wouldn’t remember anything…
But here I am now and I remember everything. It’s all hazy, as if watching someone else’s dream through a telescope, but I remember just the same.
I remember having nightmares in the hospital that night, one quite vividly.
It was nighttime and there were many Mues in a field, dozens, and everyone was terrified. A man, large and dark, walked through the crowd touching people. After he touched them they screamed in agony and often fell to the ground. It was too dark to see what was happening, but the Mues were fleeing before him. Trying to avoid being touched by him. I was scared too, but curious and so I stood still, watching him approach. Mues kept slamming into me in their efforts to escape the dark man, almost knocking me down but no matter how hard I was hit, I remained standing.
As the dark man drew closer, I had a better view of what was happening to the Mues he touched. One Mue, a female Skin, wasn’t quick enough and he reached out and brushed her back. The woman screamed and as I watched her human tongue turned into the tongue of a dog, long and flopping, drooling down her chin.
Another man was touched and his tongue turned into that of a pig.
This was enough for me. I turned and ran with the crowd, desperate to get away from the dark man, but by now he was beside me. He walked and I ran but still we went the same speed. He reached out and touched a naked Outie as she passed. Her back turned into a braided rug, woven right into her skin. Looking away, I saw a hill up ahead, the end of the field, and I knew salvation was just over the top, out of sight.
I raced for the hill, gathering all my remaining speed and reached it before the dark man was able to touch me. Panting, running up the hill as fast as I could, I made it to the top and saw that it wasn’t a hill at all. It was a cliff and just like all the other Mues around me, I was unable to stop myself in time and sailed right over the edge of the cliff to land in an frozen black ocean beneath an frozen black sky. Icebergs floating off in the distance, mountainous and mocking.
We were drowning, freezing and behind us, high up on the cliff, the dark man laughed and laughed.
70
I stayed in the hospital for another week, despite the studios protests. We had to figure out how I had caught the ESP Flu. According to the specialist, it was very rare in West California, but not so rare on the mainland. In the end it was decided that I must have come into contact with someone else who had contracted the nasty bug. There was no other explanation. I was just happy that I hadn’t given it to my family, a fact confirmed when they were both tested. We could only imagine what effect that particular flu would have on a toddler and from what the doctor said, we didn’t want to know.
“Left to spread in a small child,” she said, “the psychological damage is usually irreparable.”
Everyone who had spent anytime at all with me within the previous weeks was also advised to get a check-up and keep an eye out for early symptoms.
Pretty much everyone I knew ended up making certain to have their seasonal flu shots after that.
You can never be too careful.
71
Back at work, while David, Lavinia and I were in the middle of shooting a scene, a carpet row bigwig came out to the set and interrupted us. He asked everyone to gather round and in a somber tone told us that they had just received a call from Lucia’s manager. Lucia was in the hospital, having been E-vaced there after an intentional drug overdose.
We were all told that she
would be written out of the rest of the season and Hazel our head writer was upstairs the very next minute brainstorming ideas with her staff on how to explain Frederica’s absence.
Then everyone started asking questions all at once. What was her condition, did they know for sure that she’d meant to it, had she left a note, how was her husband holding up, where exactly was she, and on and on.
I didn’t ask a single question. I left the circle of people and sat down on my pretend couch in my pretend apartment, staring up at the non-existent ceiling. I felt the whole world unraveling around me. Soon it would be a spun-out spool of time tangled at my feet.
Had we pushed our luck too far? Carried on with a show when we should have quit while we were ahead? I wondered if this was fate, telling us simply, game over. Clock out.
The word curse was on my mind when David came and sat beside me. He looked tired and pitifully sad. “I was in love with her, you know,” he said quietly. “For so long, I kept trying to get her to take me seriously, but she never would. I even loved her after she married that bloody ass.” He began to weep, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. I reached over and touched his knee with my tongues. “For years I loved her,” he said.
I sighed heavily, blinking back my own tears. “I know.”
72
It was shortly thereafter that the tongues of my right hand were slammed in the door of a stretch limo by an inept driver. Just before an awards show no less. About two dozen paparazzi slimes caught the whole thing on their damn cameras and there I was, gracing covers the world over in a million dollar dress, screaming and looking like I’d just been shot. It was delightful.
All my tongues except my thumb tongue turned black-black and I began to wonder if they might fall off. And then, after not being able to move them for days without gasping, I began to wish they would fall off.
The Afterlife curse continued.
Dove was in a skiing accident (breaking the safety clause) and Lavinia came down with none other than the ESP Flu.
Various bizarre and unpleasant things happened to some of the crew as well.
By the time season six was over, we were all dancing a jig that we’d made it out alive and had our biggest, wildest wrap party ever.
We prayed to the gods that our string of bad luck had ended and we could all breathe a sigh of relief.
73
Rabia was pregnant again and we couldn’t have been happier.
Crispin was growing up and turning into a little Tasmanian devil. Naturally, we thought a younger sibling for him to terrorize would be just the thing for all of us. (I’m kidding, of course.)
As it turned out, we had another son, just as beautiful as his brother.
Saada, like his brother and siring mother, was born with tongues instead of fingers and only tiny patches of transparent skin scattered over his entire body the way some people have freckles. So, he wasn’t exactly like Rabia but was certainly unique enough to be registered as a Uni, which pleased her greatly.
Home was always the place where I was the most content and being able to stay there with my wife and kids for the whole summer was truly a gift I gave to myself and hopefully to them as well.
I did nothing during that hiatus except be with my family. I did no appearances and interviews; nothing work related at all. I didn’t read a single script.
It was a great few months I’ll never forget.
74
Back on set, it seemed that the time off had helped everyone. Even Dove seemed happy and rejuvenated. He had agreed to come back for another season but under the stipulation that he would only appear in 7 of our 18 episodes. They were gently phasing him out.
The rest of us were doing our regular gigs, working 12 plus hours a day and for the most part, we were glad to be doing so. Lucia appeared to be in great spirits, as well. Whatever pressure she’d been under, whatever her personal problems may have been in the past, that storm seemed to have passed.
Things were looking up for all of us: David had managed to meet a girl he was crazy about, claiming that his days of bachelorhood, however blissful they may have been, were now over and Lavinia had appeared in a musical during the break.
We were back in top form and both the fans and the critics took notice.
That was the season we took home Emmy’s for Best Dramedy, Dove won Best Leading Actor and Lavinia was nominated in the same category.
Just when everyone thought we were dead in the water, Afterlife rose up, a triumphant phoenix ascending from the ashes of itself.
75
By the time the season wrapped, I was ready to take on another part again and signed on to play Death in a remake of Death Takes a Holiday.
The film was to be shot back in the land where I grew up, New Boston, and after talking about it with Rabia, we decided to make it a family adventure. It would be a great opportunity for the kids to see where their mom had grown up and the place where the entire country had been born.
Why parents ever think these kinds of trips will be fun for children is beyond me. Are kids ever interested in historical things at that age? I never met one who was and my own were no exception but still, for whatever reason, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe I was just making excuses. In fact, I know I was. The truth of the matter was just that I wanted them there with me, especially because it was where I myself had been so miserable as a child. Maybe I wanted to give myself new memories, good memories, where children were happy, and there were no such things as favoritism and cruelty for amusement’s sake.
My hopes were that my own children would cleanse a haunted place for me; maybe they would find the small Sky and show her what a parent’s love could really be.
76
Everything went exactly as planned for the first six weeks or so.
Then, while shooting a scene downtown, a few people in the crowd of spectators began shouting my name repeatedly. This is far from an unusual thing but the things they were yelling we at least moderately uncommon.
They were hurling insults at me, calling me names, yelling as loud as they could, informing everyone within earshot that I was a joke, a loser, a lying psychotic bitch.
I did my best to ignore it and it wasn’t long before security ushered them away. But an uneasiness was growing in the pit of my belly. I knew who the hecklers had been even without seeing them and I also knew they’d be back.
And soon.
77
The next day was exactly the same thing.
Nasty shouts from the crowd lasting around ten minutes until the guards located the culprits and escorted them out of the area.
The third day of the location shoot they were arrested for disturbing the peace, as they were the following day.
On that fourth day, I went to the police station to confront them.
To my complete and utter surprise it wasn’t my parents, but my brother and a few of his friends.
Just because I knew it would piss them off more than any slurs I could come up with, I bailed them out, grinning broadly when they each walked to the front counter to collect their belongings.
Zion had grow into a very tall, very wide young man with dark darting eyes squinty with suspicion even before he saw me. When he did, he stopped short and asked, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Still smiling, I said, “I posted your bail.”
“Oh, fuck that!” he bellowed, turning around and facing the nearest officer. “Forget it. Put me back in. I don’t want that cunt’s money.”
I continued to be amused when he literally tried to run back to the cells and was caught and threatened with arrest again. “Get busted as much as you want, Zion,” I said. “I have all the money in the world.”
This enraged him even more than I had hoped. The dumbass went and punched a cinderblock wall and then yowled like a cat with its paw caught in a mouse trap when bones cracked. Then, because he was furious at being hurt, made a move to punch it again, but at the last second tho
ught better of it.
“You bitch!” he screamed at me, holding his injured hand and glaring at me as if I’d done it to him. “I oughta fucking kill you! Wait till mom and dad hear about this.”
Resisting the urge to laugh, I said, “I truly cannot wait.”
“You just wait,” he shrieked and ran past me and out of the station.
I was in a good mood for the rest of the day.
78
That night the hotel started getting calls for me at the front desk.
The clerk, under strict instructions, refused to put them through or to even confirm that the caller had the right hotel. Of course, everyone knew where I was staying anyway. The media had made no secret of it.
Worried, the desk clerk asked if I wanted him to phone the police. Apparently the callers had been none too kind, unsurprisingly resorting to slinging profanities when he wouldn’t put them through.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him as I collected all my other messages. “Just hang up on him if it continues.”
“It wasn’t a him,” he said. “It was a her.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
I rushed for the elevator, anxious to tell Rabia what my mother was up to now.
79
Rabia was not as amused as I was.
“This is not funny,” she insisted. “How can you think this is funny?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea, but for some reason it’s making me feel all giddy with excitement. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
She looked at me as though I were running a high fever. “Sometimes I wonder about you, Sky.”
I smiled, as if she’d just complimented me. “Isn’t it cool?”
80
They continued to harass me in any way their tiny brains could concoct.
They sent a rubber pig with several nails hammered through its head. A bag containing dozens of live millipedes and perhaps hundreds of living lice, all squirming and bouncing around joyfully. And for some mysterious reason unknown to any of us, an aluminum pot filled with frozen grease.