Flashback

by Amanda Carpenter

  “Dana, for the love of Heaven, will you cut that out?”

  She jumped violently, completely disconcerted, and footsteps came rapidly down the hall. David’s large bulk appeared at the bottom of the stairs and he paused, one foot resting on the first step, his expression now concerned. “What is it? What’s frightened you?” he called up.

  She pulled herself up tight, clamped down on the turbulence in her, and said irritably, “Nothing. Nothing at all! Excuse me.” With that she whirled and dashed into the bathroom, and shut and locked the door. She showered furiously, rubbing at her tender skin until it was red, and roughly shampooing her hair in deliberate ignorance of her smarting scalp. Then she marched back to her room, slammed the door and dressed as jerkily and as haphazardly as she’d showered, yanking at a delicate summer top so hard that a spaghetti string snapped. She threw it viciously into a corner and yanked on another. Dragging a comb through her thick, long hair, she then tossed it back over her shoulder where it fell with a damp plop, and she marched out of her room and down the stairs.

  When she went into the kitchen, she found it occupied, with her mother at the coffee maker and both Peter and David sitting at the table. Everyone looked up when she entered. She nodded shortly to Peter, looked once at David, and touched her mother on the shoulder as she went by. She opened the refrigerator, hearing absolutely nothing behind her. She clamped down on her thoughts and feelings instinctively, trying to shut out the possibility of David inquiring into her mind. She then heard a muffled sound like a snort of laughter, but she wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of turning around to see who stood behind her.

  She grabbed out the milk and slammed the cubicle’s door shut, whisked a box of cereal down from the cupboard, and slammed them on the table before going back for a spoon. The only available chair was next to David.

  As she opened the box and started to shake out some corn flakes, the man beside her moved and put both hands down flat on the table as he asked flatly, “Okay, what gives?”

  Dana looked up and encountered three pairs of interested eyes on her, one pair full of impatience and too close for comfort. “There’s no privacy in this world, is there?” she muttered, hunching a shoulder. She splashed milk into the bowl and then dumped a spoonful of sugar on top of everything, glaring at it furiously as if she wanted to pick it up and throw it across the room for just sitting there.

  “Both your mother and Peter know fully well what is going on between us,” he said very softly, as she jabbed her spoon into her soggy cereal. He leaned forward as if to stare her down. “They aren’t going to be shocked or surprised by anything said.”

  “And who’s fault is that?” she snapped irritably, her eyes, mouth and neck taut with effort to suppress her frustration and upset. It wasn’t working.

  “Why, you little—” he bit out.

  “Don’t swear at me, I won’t—” she exploded, standing furiously.

  He surged to his feet also. “—And you’re dictating my behaviour, now, is that—”

  “—Because you’re striking out with absolutely no—”

  “—I’ve had a hell of a lot of provocation, and it’s not exactly—”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Dana clapped her hands over her ears as she screamed, and the metal spoon she still held smacked painfully and wetly against her ear.

  “Ouch!” David thundered, seeming bigger than life because of his anger. He clapped a right hand to his ear. “Dammit, you nearly took off—”

  Taking both fists, she pounded once on the table, very hard, and she yelled furiously, “—And it’s my blessed ear, not yours, so get out of my head, will you?” And all four of them watched as the full bowl of cereal and milk that she’d knocked with the spoon still clenched in her hand, arced up into the air, almost in slow motion, to flip twice and spew its content of soggy flakes all over the table, the wall, and both Dana and David. The bowl clattered to the floor with an ear splitting crack! and the fragments shot out to speckle the tiled floor with jagged stoneware.

  Dana looked at the floor in appalled silence after the accident, her face tight, her jaw jutting out and her expression fed up. Then without a backward glance, she marched for the door determinedly. On the way out she grabbed at the tea towel hanging on the refrigerator door latch and mopped her face. She stalked into the living room and threw herself on to the couch.

  Peter said humorously, “I suppose you two had a complete and intelligible argument underneath all that?” David shot him a piercing black glance, but it apparently bounced right off the older man’s thick skin.

  Denise said helplessly, “I’m very sorry for Dana’s behaviour today. I just don’t know what to say.”

  Peter stood up. “Don’t be sorry. Both David and Dana are responsible for their own actions, not you. They’re both under a lot of stress, and it is, after all, understandable. And I think I might know what to say.” He too headed for the door, crunching on broken china, which Denise hastened to begin picking up.

  David shot out a hand to halt Peter’s progress. “I think this time I’d better go and talk to her,” he said shortly.

  Peter carefully removed the other man’s hand. “But I have a previous appointment,” he replied smilingly. “Calm down a bit, David. There’s plenty of time.”

  David’s lips tightened but he remained behind and let the slighter man have his way. After Peter left the room, he sighed, shook his head, and started to help clean up the mess left behind.

  Dana didn’t look up immediately when she heard someone enter the room. She’d instantly put all of her concentration on clamming up her fury and frustration, appalled at how she’d erupted like a volcano and determined not to let it happen again, no matter what David said. Then Peter was talking and she sagged with relief. She’d been expecting David.

  “You do realise that it’s all right to get upset and scream things out once in a while, don’t you?” he asked her, smiling at her tense, unhappy face. The kindliness in his voice made her sniff madly. The older man’s voice was gentle as he sat down next to her. “Are you one of those people who are afraid to get angry and cause a scene?”

  She nodded miserably, a sneaky tear slipping down her face. She swiped at it, angry at herself, and muttered, “I’ve never shouted like that in my life. I…I don’t know what came over me, I…he was so angry and tense, it…it beat at my head like a hammer and I couldn’t get it out.”

  And somehow she was telling him everything. It just poured out of her in a flood. Peter weathered the storm well, asking a quiet question here, interposing a word of encouragement there. She found herself telling of her horror and fear of the nightmares, how she’d thought she was going mad. She told him of the unbearable stretched tight feeling of the recent past, the strange waking nightmare of the day before, and her own attempted suicide. She told him of her recent lack of sensitivity, how she felt the world was being turned upside down on her, how she didn’t know what to trust in herself any more. When she mentioned to him that she thought of herself as an aberration of normality, he interrupted.

  “And do you really think you are so unique?” he queried quietly, smiling at her in such a way that she couldn’t take offence at his words.

  “I really don’t know what to think,” she said wretchedly. “I’ve nothing and no one to compare myself with.”

  “And that is such an important part of our reality, isn’t it? It gives us a measuring stick and a common bond with each other. In our own individualities, we are similar and yet separate entities. What is your reality, Dana?”

  She brooded, chin tucked in and arms wrapped around herself. “The awareness of my self and my awareness of others,” she finally whispered.

  “And you are afraid that you are losing part of your reality.”

  Echoing his words, she said, “And I am afraid I am losing part of my reality.” And she couldn’t keep her next words in: “But my reality is so abnormal, it’s not…I can’t survive with it, and I can’t surviv
e without it!”

  She covered her face and drew in a shuddering breath. She didn’t see the dark man appear soundlessly at the doorway, his questioning glance directed at Peter, who shook his head. David disappeared.

  “Dana, listen to me a moment. Just listen to what you said. Do you know anything about psychic phenomena? Have you done any reading on the subject at all?” She felt one of her hands taken and forced down as Peter continued in his gentle, inexorable voice. “I’ve been doing a little bit of reading on the subject since I’ve been told about you. It hasn’t made me an expert on the subject, by any means, but it has been an eye opener in a lot of ways. Why should you view yourself as being abnormal? Why has this particular idea held on in your mind? We all—most of us, anyway—are presently using a mere fraction of our own brains. Who is to say either way whether your individual use of your mind is right or wrong? I certainly could not make such a judgment, and I’ve made medicine and the mind my life’s work. And you must know that you’re not the only one who has experienced some sort of Extra Sensory Perception. How can you explain away the psychic who helps police in their investigations of murder victims? How does one explain away the rocking chair that starts to move of its own volition in the middle of the day? How can one explain away a certain sense of danger or disaster that some people experience, or those who know just exactly when a loved one has died? The brain emits powerful waves of energy, Dana! What if these waves are somehow bouncing back and forth in a house, let off by the original mind of the occupant who has recently died? Do we call these old, unoriginal waves a ghost or poltergeist, fearing its existence? There are hundreds of tales of people who have sensed what a loved one was thinking, though they are across a crowded room. How many times is this sheer intimate knowledge, or perhaps a crude telepathy? What is normality? Isn’t your normality the existence of your particular gift?”

  “I guess so,” she mumbled, almost afraid to trust the incredible easing of tension at his support.

  “Don’t carry your talent around as if it were a blemish on your soul. You are what you are, and though I’m a great believer of a person’s ability to change for the better, there are some things one cannot alter. I will always be five foot eight. I may stoop more as I age, but I can never be four feet, nor seven feet tall. By the same token, dear girl, you have a powerful mind. It may at times be very hard to bear, but it is as precious as your very identity.” His hand tightened on her briefly and then dropped away.

  “But I’ve never experienced anything as intensely as I have in the last few weeks with David,” she replied uncertainly, still groping for answers. “And I’ve never felt this—this lessening of sensitivity. What if I am really losing it?”

  “What’s your mother doing?” Peter asked her, in such a normal, off hand manner that she answered quite without thinking.

  “She’s taking a roast out of the freezer—oh!” She laughed a bit shakily as she encountered his thoughtful gaze.

  “At an educated guess, I’d say your talent is inherent in you, Dana, and though it may change as you change, you’ll always have something in you of its nature.”

  “Did—did David talk to you much about what—happened the day before yesterday?” she asked slowly and painfully.

  Peter replied calmly, “Yes, he did. And from what you’ve told me, if sounds like you all had quite a fright.”

  “I’ve never been so terrified of myself in my life,” she whispered, pressing her fingers to her temples, where a headache was beginning to pound. “I’d always been afraid that I would pick up a crazy person’s ranting and go completely mad myself, and then I blanked out like I did, doing just as I’d feared, and—”

  And she looked up with a gasp, because David was standing there, his face a total, unfamiliar mask. He gripped a glass of water until his knuckles were white and she thought the glass would shatter, and then he thrust it into her hand, along with a bottle of aspirin. “Here,” he said emotionlessly, thrusting them both at her, as if he would like to throw them. “They’re for your headache.” And he disappeared before she had a chance to say anything.

  Tears pricked at her eyes, and her face slowly crumpled into misery. Alarmed, Peter took a hold of the water glass, which had begun to shake violently. “What’s wrong, Dana?”

  She looked at him sadly. “He overheard what I said,” she said dully. “He thought that I’d meant him.”

  The sun was very bright, reminding her of the day when she’d nearly ended her life, the day of blackness. She trudged slowly up the hill, feeling the pleasurable tug of leg muscles, feeling them work. Now, instead of being dead, she was so very glad to be alive. As she reached the clearing on the hilltop, her eyes shot over to the pine tree and found him sitting there in the shade, gazing over the view, his face and mind closed against her scrutiny, completely walled off.

  She walked over to sit down beside him, not too close, as she felt the pangs of uncertainty assail her. He never turned his head to acknowledge her presence, never so much as flickered an eyelid. She sighed. His head rested against the tree behind him, his dark hair falling back and brushing the wood, his profile rocklike, as hard as the bottom of the cliff. She searched his face, the expressionless eyes, the straight, thinned mouth, his hands on his knees. They clenched.

  She flexed her fingers and spoke, softly, “You misunderstood what you heard.”

  No answer. Wind sighing, trees bowing, mind silence. She was at a loss; she didn’t know how to break through this barrier, what to say to him. He’d blocked himself up so, she wasn’t even sure if she knew just exactly what was wrong. All she could do was guess. And the only thing she could do about it was to send to him a wordless wave of longing and intensity, and strong reassurance. She put everything she had into it. He flinched physically, bowed his head, ran his fingers through his dark, thick hair. His wide shoulders hunched.

  “Get out of my head,” he muttered lowly, and it was such a shock to hear the words, so familiar from her, coming from someone else. Her mouth shook.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered. “I’m very sorry.” Feeling incredibly hurt, she stumbled to her feet and turned away, intent on getting far away from him, appalled that she had intruded on something she’d always valued more highly than anything else: a person’s privacy.

  She only made a few steps, only managed to get just beyond the shade of the pine trees and into the hot sunlight when something behind her moved, rustled, and then she was grabbed from behind, turned very roughly, and yanked into his arms, so hard the breath was knocked out of her. Surprise hit her hard, and she parted her lips on a shocked gasp. His mouth was swooping down on hers, lips shaking, teeth hard and bruising. She moaned, and then she was let go, only to have her shoulders gripped and shaken hard.

  “Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he shouted, dark eyes glittering. She stared into them, mesmerised. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?”

  “Stop it!” she screamed, her hands on his wrists, twisting in an effort to get his grip loosened. “Stop it! Stop it!”

  And much to her horror and dismay, she watched as David stood stock still, his eyes widened and suddenly very vulnerable as the realisation of what he was doing to her sank in, and he slowly sank on to his knees in front of her, wrapped his arms quite gently around her waist, and buried his head in her stomach. Absolutely no sound came from him, but a shudder hit his frame, and then another, and she became even more horrified as she realised that he was crying.

  Dana had never seen or heard a man cry before, and it was a terrible experience. The only man she’d ever been close to had been her father, and her memories of him were of a strong, self-reliant man; they were god-like in their childish simplicity, and one-sided. All of her impressions of David had been that he had been a very powerful man, powerful in character, emotions and instincts, and powerful in convictions. This sight of him so vulnerable and in such need shook her to the core. She couldn’t take the sight.

  “Oh, David. O
h, David,” she said, in words that shook. Her hands went out, touched his hair, stroked it tentatively. There was still no sound from him, and the violent tremors had not ceased. She dug her fingers into his hair and pulled his head back, her own face crumbling. They stared at each other for a very long time. She touched his wet face. His eyes were bleeding. Her own shoulders quaked as she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could.

  Ribs aching from pressure, heart aching from pain, she leaned her face into his neck and he rocked her back and forth. His hard shoulders dug into the fleshy part of her upper arm as she closed them about his neck, his hard cheekbone jutting into her own soft cheek, the wetness making it slippery. She wasn’t sure if the wetness was from him alone anymore, or if it was from her. She wasn’t sure of anything except the bright yellow sunshine, her own chest ache, and his.

  “What do I need from you?” he whispered. “What do I need? Why can’t I get you out of my mind and my life?”

  At that she cried out, more hurt than she could possibly say. She tried to get her arms away from him and draw into herself, but he wouldn’t let her. He took her face between his big hands and searched her eyes. His own were so close, she shut her eyes against it. “What have I done to you?” He asked lowly. “What I done to myself? Why couldn’t I let all of it go like others have, and carry on with my life, instead of becoming this strange sort of psychological cripple that can’t even function—”

  “And do you think you are so unique?” she returned very quietly, intentionally repeating Peter’s words to her of not three hours before. “Do you really think you have a corner on the market here? Oh, David, have you been talking to Peter at all?”

  His features hardened, the bone jutting into the muscle, the face angling out. “Some.”

  “Then you know that Peter thinks we’ve experienced what he called a flashback experience. According to him, it happens to other Vietnam veterans. There were so many men thrust into a bizarre situation and a nightmarish way of life! In a matter of days, all of you were, after training, pushed into guerrilla warfare in a strange, surrealistic setting. Boys were expected to kill as a livelihood, and then after their eighteen months or two years, or whatever they were supposed to be serving, they were sent back home in a matter of days, no deprogramming, no deconditioning—wham! From fighting for your life in a jungle and watching your buddies die to suddenly peaceful Small Town, U.S.A. That’s a severe culture shock to the system, David—”