The Unauthorized Autobiography of Ethan Jacobs
Page 16
Chapter 16
Going to work seemed like a never ending penance, some sort of tax he had to pay in order to get back to his only pleasure of late. Real life was becoming a blur and dreams were his preferred reality. They had a soothing quality that he had grown addicted to.
He watched the clock on his computer monitor. Then the clock on the wall. Its incessant ticking could be heard across the cubicle farm, amidst the shuffling of papers and clacking of keyboards. It was maddening. Each click of the second hand seemed to take longer than the last. When the phone rang, he was in another place and he grabbed it with the wrong frame of mind.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hi!” Emily replied.
Her bubbly personality was back. The fever had obviously subsided.
“Hey! How's that little girl?” he said.
There was a long pause before she replied, “Um ... I'm feeling much better… Were you asleep? I did call your office, right?”
Ethan realized what he'd said and grimaced with embarrassment, searching for a fast recovery.
“Yeah. Work. I guess you called at just the right time. I was about to doze off.”
His insides churned. The real Emily on the phone seemed somehow different, less than the Emily that he was falling for. He knew it was unfair, but he didn't know how to explain it to her without scaring her off. What if it was possible he was seeing his future—their future?
“Then it’s a good thing I called, lazy,” she joked.
Ethan smiled, “Maybe.”
“So, you feel like dinner tonight?”
Ethan was still somewhat shaken by asking the real Emily about their imaginary child.
“It's been a long day, Em. I'm not feeling so great, either. Maybe you gave me what you had.”
He could hear the disappointment when she spoke, “Oh. I'm sorry you feel bad. Maybe you just need some sleep?”
“That's possible,” he said.
He wanted nothing more than to get back to that world.
Out of courtesy, he said, “Let’s plan on tomorrow night if I'm feeling better.”
“Okay,” she said. “I'd like that.”
He stopped himself from saying I love you as he hung up. That would've been nearly impossible to dismiss.
“What is wrong with me?”
And still the clock ticked on. It was only 3:45, but he logged out of his computer and left anyway, afraid of what else he might confuse. He was in bed by 7:00 PM.
..ooOOoo..
Like a bus at a regular stop, the dreams began right on time. The once strange house had become completely familiar. He no longer fumbled trying to find his way around. Emily appeared older, and though still beautiful, she had begun to blend into the background during the dreams.
Their daughter was the new focus. She was the spitting image of her mother, and maybe six years old. Ethan could feel the memories. He watched intently as the strange hidden camera roamed about. Time passed slowly in that dream, like highlights of a single day rather than months like in previous segments.
He saw them going through their morning rituals. Emily showered while Ethan was shaving and the little one stood next to him, brushing an adorable smile which lacked a couple of teeth. She giggled as he squirted shaving cream on her nose.
The world went out of focus.
When it cleared, they were at the kitchen table eating breakfast—coffee and toast for the grown-ups, and Froot Loops for the child. She was dressed in purple, hair in a ponytail, and ready for school. He and Emily waved and watched her walk to the corner of the suburban street to wait for the bus. It felt right, like they’d done it a hundred times.
Spinning washes of color jerked him back into the kitchen where he and Em cleaned up from breakfast. Things were less Norman Rockwell than before. The walls were dim and the table was filthy, covered with moldy food. Emily’s hair was a mess, her makeup smudged, and her clothes worn and tattered. She wouldn't look at him. Something was wrong. The anxiety was overwhelming.
The kitchen phone rang. It was the first sound he heard in all of the dreams and it was so loud it almost woke him. He watched Emily answer, placing the handset to her ear.
Everything melted into black as she turned to face him and things were again lensed from his point of view. Her face was hollow with sunken cheeks, and red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes that streamed tears as she screamed and dropped the phone. His eyes followed it to the floor in slow motion. Sound crashed and ebbed, like waves battering a rocky seaside cliff.
Everything appeared grimy, like a group of mechanics covered in used grease and oil had handled everything and then vanished. He tried to comfort Emily, but she shoved his hand away and left from the room, grasping for her coat and car keys.
Disoriented and nauseated with worry, he rushed to follow her. His view flashed to the telephone handset which was still on the floor. Its tiny red LED glowed in the murk.
He jumped into the passenger seat just as the car flew down the street toward some unknown destination. Tears continued to roll down Em’s cheeks, her eyes crazed. The scenery outside was a blur of lights and colors. She was muttering something he couldn’t make out and there was no consoling her. A knot swelled in his throat. Her screaming was focused and the sound was piercing.
“Not my baby! Not my angel!” she yelled.
The car turned a corner into a sea of red and blue flashing lights. Police cruisers and rescue vehicles littered the road, and the sight of them made Ethan's eyes dance. Their front tires jumped the curb and screeched to an abrupt stop just shy of a cyclone fence. Uniforms rushed towards them. Everyone there appeared as haggard and worn as Emily.
There was one familiar face in the crowd of strangers. It was Kay. She grabbed Emily, helping the police hold her behind the yellow plastic tape which was strung between the fence and the surrounding trees. A younger officer held her back, shielding her from whatever they were investigating.
Flesh tones, grass-green, and spinning red and blue swirled together as Ethan forced his way to where a detective sat perched over a white sheet. It was soaked through with spots with blood. The sheet was oddly detailed, disjointed from a background that looked abstract. Dizzy, knee-buckling agony screamed through him as he pushed the man out of the way and tore back the fabric, revealing a lifeless face.
An angel’s face.
It was his little girl’s face, only distorted, her expression twisted with pain. Making it worse was the fact that the face was placed correctly on the head, but that head faced the wrong direction. Fresh blood around her mouth looked like she had just messily eaten a jelly-filled doughnut.
One eyelid was stuck shut, welded by dried blood—her hair was matted with the stuff. It was then that he noticed her neck was swollen and bruised, wrenched in a grotesque fashion that made some vulgar sense of the direction her head faced.
He could hear Emily screaming in the background and turned. She pushed her way past the young officer and saw her devastated child. Ethan wanted to go to her, but something grabbed his arm and diverted his attention back toward the broken little girl.
When he saw the small, bruised hand gripping his arm he realized it was her, his beautiful dead little girl. Then she spoke.
“Daddy, you were supposed to protect me. How could you let him do this?”
His sleeping eyes leaked tears.
Let him do this—Him?
Some man, some fucking monster was to blame. The image and voice burned in his brain, the small broken angel—and those words:
Daddy, you were supposed to protect me.
He sat up, shaken and sweating profusely, but he couldn't scream. Looking around the room, he finally got his bearings and his eyes settled on Emily who was sleeping peacefully beside him. She struggled with sleepy eyes as she realized he was awake and sitting up.
Her brow furrowed, “What's wrong, baby?”
“Nothing, it was just a dream. One weird, fuc
king dream. Go back to sleep.”
Emily sat up concerned and reached to turn on the lamp on the night stand.
“I know what's wrong,” she said.
Ethan yawned and replied, “You do?”
The lamp came to life and Emily turned to face him, her countenance twisted into something hideously evil.
“You killed our baby,” she said.
Her mouth elongated until her chin touched her chest, the teeth inside it growing jagged and yellow before his eyes. Her eyes became black, cavernous pits as she screamed, “You killed our baby!”
Ethan woke up screaming, His body shook as he sobbed from the thought of such utter, irrevocable failure.
He rushed to the bathroom and vomited violently into the toilet. Even though he was now awake, it would take a while to shake that dream-within-a-dream off.
He missed Emily's touch terribly and wanted nothing more than to hold her and tell her how sorry he was for not protecting their child…even though they didn’t have one.