by Tess McInnis
“I don't know, you tell me...because I believe there is something more to your story and your not saying. It's as if you were forced to be a doctor by vicarious parents and you sadly missed a true calling as a result of it. You just don't seem all that damn happy to be doing it...I can tell”.
He turned away from me. Just like that. And he walked on. Just like that. I hurried to catch up so I could see his face. I needed to see faces. Faces told me things words couldn't. I needed to see his clicking lamps...the sadness, if it was still there.
“What is it with you?” he yelled directly to the sky. “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” He threw his hands up in unison to mark his words in the exact place he had said them. Like Jesus come down to raise the dead in sermon.
“Because I hate life, thought YOU knew that” I yelled at his back. He was annoyed now I had hit a nerve with my Doctor gentle and I didn't know why. He turned fast at me with his hands sharp on his hips.
“Oh for fuck's sake, don't you think MOST of us do at some point OUR lives...doesn't mean we go to the edge and jump. Whoever told you it was an option?”
“Well, no one, but if the pain won't stop, I can make it stop all together...don't you get it?” I said feeling almost stupid and immature for saying so
“NO, don't YOU get it? Don't YOU get that YOU matter to someone out there whether YOU acknowledge it or not? It isn't all about you...” he was fast in pointing a finger in my face and quicker to remove it. Dangling words sputtering back and forth in nonsense of blame. Our walk was turning into an argue fest. Conversation not reflective of professional but more like a lover's quarrel.
It was almost unnerving. I was not done defending my position, nor was he. I was unaware of any courtyard, any pine tree, any flowers...just the bubble he and I shared in heightened gestures. Odd I thought given it all, until I realized he was skirting around my questions with attacks on my failing coping mechanisms.
“Wait a minute....you are yelling at me, YOUR patient, for being sick and you claim to be a healing doctor...what is it with YOU?” I wasn't certain if I was behaving rational or irrational, it had been too long to discern the difference.
“There is so much you don't know, and I can't tell you and I want to...”he was rambling on fast and I swore I saw his eyes tearing. “If you only knew half of it, and this is the simple reason I didn't want to go on being your doctor”. He was pacing like a man with a burden or...a secret.
“What do you mean..I mean, what are you saying?” I didn't understand. I was scared. I was too frail for this now. But I felt a freight train coming.
“We need to get back inside, looks like it might rain” and he hurried ahead of me, head down. I looked up and didn't see a cloud in the sky. He left me standing alone there, to walk through the group room by myself. Or so I thought, until Roach showed up.
“Come on girlie, gotta put you to bed” he smirked and grabbed me by the elbow. I pulled away.
“Do NOT talk to me like that again” I clenched my teeth as I purposely moved faster ahead of him, head down into the group room.
“Hey...don't you wanna stop and talk to some of your friends?” he laughed. Without warning, Roach pushed me into a group of three crazies standing against the wall. I hit the wall hard and the three crazies started laughing and mauling my head. They were touching the skin on my neck, and Roach was touching the skin on my breast. I didn't imagine that. I might be crazy, but the one thing I do know is a man's hand on my breast. The hate fumes were coming up. I pushed my way hysterically from the wall and all the touches, including his. I was inches from Roach's face, smelling his rancid breath.
“If you ever, EVER, touch me like that again....”my eyes wild to his “I will kill you...make no mistake about it...and I will find a heavenly pleasure in doing so” leaving the last lines whispered into his fat ears.
“Whatever bitch” he responded by brushing his hand over the top of his hair and shoving me on, down towards my room. I stopped, turned and glared. Startling him enough to bring his hands up in a defensive motion.
“Just get in there” he was irritated now, shaking his keys on the door lock. He reminded me of a prison guard, and that was not good. Not good for him at all.
FUCK YOU LIKE AN ANIMAL by Nine Inch Nails
I can't get out. I am in a pool of hell's laughter. Thousands moaning, screaming, demonic laughing and it is pulling at my breath. The constant cop knock coming from somewhere, but I see no door. I think I might be blind. I feel my way to metal, along the metal to the brick until I have made it all the way around. There is no opening here. The knocking is getting louder and I am blind. I am naked. I sense a breath on my back shoulder. I am terrified...I am too scared to turn around. So vulnerable here. There is a pushing and pain. And the laughter gets louder. I am being pinned on my stomach while a deep burning finds me in between my legs. The knocking gets louder, the laughter gets louder, and the fucking of my body is reaching my soul. Constant in jerks and exploration, I am splitting in two. My physical self is bloody and aching, but the burning pumps will not stop. The things entering me are unfamiliar now, not of man, but of everyday objects, shoved deep in rhythmic motion. I am opened further, legs spread for demon's pleasure. All of me is being consumed by perversion. I can't make this stop. They won't stop. I separate myself to watch over me. I can see one of the demon's face and all goes black.
THE REFLECTING GOD by Marilyn Manson
“Oh God...” my screaming to the real world. I sit up in my bed and look between my legs. Blood.
I hurt. Yet, I have no sense of remembering. I was dreaming...or did something happen here? Terrified, I jump out of my soaked sheets and look through the door window. I check the door lock, which doesn't make sense, because it locks from the outside. I begin my pacing, my talking to myself. I am sweaty, but that is not the salt I smell. Something happened here. Blood is running down my legs. Pacing. Blood dripping on the floor. Red. I begin to tear at my wet hair, pulling so hard it is dropping on the floor, mixing with the blood. Something happened here. I roll my thoughts between becoming the wounded animal in the corner or the murderer at the door. I cannot rationalize even the tiniest bit of information. If I call for help, it could be a beautiful mistake. If I don't, something else is going to happen, and I am going down the rabbit hole. I am pacing, mumbling and pulling hair. I stop with a notion. A notion to handle my ignited red. I crawl under the bed to retrieve a pen I saw earlier in the day. I stay under the bed, with more blood and more yanked out hair. I am on my stomach breathing heavily, not knowing what I am waiting on. But I am waiting, in my pool of russet.. “Goddamn motherfuckers out to get me” I say aloud in frightened breathes.
“All of them, every last goddamn one of them” talking and waiting. Waiting. Foraging my way through breaking images of a lucid dream mixed with obscure reality. The pen is tight gripped in my hands. My eyes are wide with fear peering out from under my bed. “They'll be back, those fuckers...” rambling on and shutting up fast when I think I hear something. My crotch burns like I had just birthed my last child naturally. I am too afraid to look down between my legs. I look around the room instead. And in the corner laid my affirmation to reality. In the darkness, it was there. I listened for another minute...nothing. So as a soldier crawling through “incoming”, I elbowed my way to the corner fast. Scurrying like a hungry rat towards a rotten morsel. I grabbed out of the dark, in the corner what I had saw, and moved like the worst wind back under the bed. In my hand held evidence of my blood. This was no dream. The object was of plastic. I achingly pushed my head down to see in my hand a flashlight wet of me. Now I would wait for my prey to once again walk through my door. When craziness comes to call, time is non existent. Only the workings from the mind ruminating it's repetitions. Like the hamster on the running wheel, is the irrational nonsense making sense in a feared moment. Resolution hanging by a thread of an action waiting to happen. To end the invasive voices begging for fairness in pain. Whoever caused it, must receive it back t
hreefold. Killing is the cherry on the ice cream. Footsteps. Keys massaging a lock. My heart is pounding sick bile to my throat. From where I am at...I can see the shoes, man shoes. They are coming closer to the bed. But stop dead center of the room. I watch the shoes pivot and turn. They are smelling me out. The hound dogs from hell have finally arrived to finish the job. The shoes, six inches from the bed and standing there. My hand gripped firm with the pen married together with my blood and hair. Rage invited herself once more. I use all my force and begin stabbing the ankles belonging to the shoes. Meaning to drive impact in every jab I could get. The shoes wouldn't hold still now and a man's voice was oozing pain sounds around the room. The ants are running in, because I see many shoes now. I see heads, looking in at me upside down. Trying to grab me and I am fighting, scratching, even finding a way to kick a leg out at them. Ankle stabbee is hopping while another ant helps him. They are pulling me out in pieces. Some pieces go back under the bed. My two legs being pulled, and ants are covered in blood and hair too. I feel a needle hit my backside, I believe they are trying to kill me, I am sure of this now. The ants are collecting me for their meal, I am sure of it now...I am closing down by liquid interference. My eyes are fighting more than any other part of my body. Slowly, down I go, while the ants carry me off. I turn my head to see who the demon was. The last glimpse I took, looking down at bloody ankles and following it up to the face of none other than Doctor gentle.
ANGELS ON THE MOON by Thriving Ivy
I have swallowed my words, wrapped them in a package for no one to hear anymore. Violation of my body has left my soul curled unresponsive to time. My body is cleaned. No evidence to prove to me or to anyone else, something had happened. I don't trust my mind to acknowledge the scene as a reality.. In the air, I hear a child singing “Row, row, row your boat...” over and over. A distinct voice of confirmation to humility. A song for the thief who keeps stealing the dreams. If there was a God, then I would recognize the voice as my own. I have no need to open my eyes. The demons are here and dancing. Indifference is worse than love or hate. My pendulum has stopped dead in it's swing. There will be no more quarry's of love or thirsts for hate. I am not safe. Not here or out there. My feet have given up as well. There is no such thing as self preservation. There is no such thing as life. Nothing matters now. I am fool for lending my words out at all to these people. I am fool for those steps I made to a false entrance back to the living. I crawl deeper into myself, wishing for blank pallet in my head. Seeing black run down my skin to the floor. Something happened here. Or did it? I will my body to weaken more. I want it to catch up to my failing spirit. I want to sleep forever. Torn clouds split and a long endless staircase appears. Golden rails traveling in shapes to an endless destination. I stand at the bottom with my face down. I am too afraid to look up. I am too ashamed to show myself in a divine way. For underneath my feet the movie of my life is playing. The floor beneath me, a screen of reminders of ugliness I have caused on earth. Vines of sadness begin to grow out of the cracks and corners of this realms ballroom surface. I watch the vines and listen to the weeping violin sound coming from their branches. I am overcome with the pain and suffering I have caused. I want to climb the silver steps but cannot. The vines have reached my feet and put their despair inside me. I feel the burning hopelessness from them slowly creeping up towards my heart. I am frightened, but cannot speak. My mouth has been stitched shut by years of wishful thinking. Wrapping around me in unison, singing violins of judgment, the vines are intentionally tightening their grip for my suffocation. I beg God for forgiveness with my tears, beg he hears me there. I beg for the vines not to pull me down and take me somewhere darker than here. I beg for light, for color, for words, for anything worthy of my keeping. I see tiny hands desperately reaching out to pull me up. I aim for those little fingers, but I miss. My knees are crumbling, but the hands are still trying to show me the way. Cold surrounds my knees...I look down and I am cement.
CREEP by Radiohead
An ant walks in, drops a tray, picks up an untouched old one and leaves. Days of this. Until the ants force feed me by a needle and a bag. Still, it is on them. I don't care. No sign of Doctor gentle. Perhaps I killed him. Serves him right for whatever happened back there in room 206. I trusted him and he failed. My mind is talking again, not to people but to itself. I hear the gibberish, but I understand it. When the ants appear, I hide my head under a pillow for complete black. To not be here or see them. One ant says “yea, I'd hide too if I only had one side of hair” and another snaps back “shhh, she can hear you”. After they leave, I make an effort with my weak arm to find my head. She was right, I have no hair on my left side of my head. “Fuck” I finally speak aloud. I cannot remember what happened to my hair. I play with the little spots of growth and the clustered areas while wondering if Doctor gentle had something to do with this as well. A man doctor enters the room and sits down. I can see the words leaving his mouth like a long banner coming towards me. I even catch the question marks. I put my hands up to shield my eyes from the words getting closer. This man doctor is making screaming scribbles on his book of me. His loudness and attacking words force my head with half hair back under the pillow.
In smug frustration, he walks over to my bed with his words and grabs the pillow. I catch “We are trying to investigate” or was it “We are dying to masturbate”. My eyes clamp tight to wish his disappearance, to will him far away from me.
“You have to talk to somebody about this'” he says not budging. “What is it you believe to be true to you about last week's incident? We are all trying to figure this whole thing out, but we need to hear your side of the story”. My side of the story? What story? I don't think there even was a story before the demons came...I don't like this man doctor. He is lying in wait to devour me, just as they all are. Time has passed and he relentlessly gives up. An ant comes in and asks if I would like to try and eat something. I am thinking they have eaten enough. I will not give them a reason to see me as their meal again. I fall back into my self imposed darkness and continue to will my demise. Time must be getting shorter because now man doctor has come back with a feline doctor. Her smile is genuine, young like her hands. I feel happiness drip off of her and I am jealous. My emotions are working again and the first one just has to be jealousy. I watch her in awe of her perfection, letting her yellow aura splash all over my room. I am calm to the color of her soul and her intentions. I watch with silent eyes as she confers with man doctor of loud words. Her voice is a smooth note in music, and I am comforted. Somewhere long ago, I must have had a person like her in my life, the angel types. The ones who say the right things in the right way and you feel changed for the moment. These people are like giant hugs walking, spreading their mother Teresa soul's across the world, and touching with gold on the hopeless. The two doctors nod in unison like dashboard bobble heads. I see with my ears the dissension of both voices. Hers of wavy and melodic trapped in his loaded loud clinical babble. It is to my relief, he leaves and takes the black word energy with him. My room feels heavy of his residue. Feline doctor turns towards my corner with a smile fused with her walk. Before I am fully aware she has put her ivory hand over mine. She is speaking as I beg to comprehend the gentle concern. Was I ever like her? Even in a passing moment in my life? Did I encompass compassion and service to others in a way like this? These questions I ask myself as she continues to reach me.
“Who do you think did this?” is what I finally hear. I shake my head and it falls to my chest.
“I am so sorry...I know this must be so hard for you...” she touches my hairless side of my head. I let the tears seek a river down my face, down my chin and I watch as little wet spots make rain on the fabric of my clothes.
“We don't have to talk about this now...but we do have to see to you, make sure you are going to be okay...” her words are felt, driven in me to speak.
“I am so confused” softly the words leave me as if I were only a child.
“eas
y to see, I can't even imagine how much this hurts you” once again, I believe in angels.
“So it really did happen, didn't it?” I finally look up and meet the kind eyes which belong to the ivory hand. She hands me a tissue, but it becomes a scrunched mess gripped within my fingers. I watch her take a deep breath, her chest rising and falling, and a sigh enters the air.
Quietly, she says, “I am afraid so....I am so, so very sorry”.
I am thinking. No, I am confirming everything I ever believed about my own life. My whole life has been nothing more than a play with every other scene begetting a tragedy. I am stoic. Convinced, that sandwiched between the layers of sane accomplishments, happy moments and pleas for normalcy...was the ugly truth in fillings. I am angry at my God, at myself. For surely it must have been all my fault. Every stroke of evil ever bestowed on me, must be my fault. The good things were just to fool me into a false reality to ensure me life was worth it. From the hells of childhood to at this minute, I see no vindication. Just a laughing reminder it will keep happening until my last breathe is absolute in taking. I mock the world's sense of justice with my eyes. I shake my head and it doesn't stop. I am still thinking.
“It's not your fault...” she says as if she was reading my mind. I imagine it would be easy to do since there is not much left to it.
“We can get this guy...but we need your help to do it. I need you to remember”
“I can't”
“or you won't?” she says quickly, surprisingly.
“I can't” I assure her.
“Okay, well if I was to ask you for one thing, one thing that stood out...maybe you could remember something I can use..” she was priming me, making me call up my memories. Call to the place I never want to wander. I sat head tilted sideways, not in introspection but despair. She patted my arm with compassion and was collecting her stuff to leave. Intermittent to her packing, were her words still confirming her intent to follow this to the end. As she glided towards the door I said, “the flashlight, I remember the flashlight.” She stopped.