Manifesting Shadow, #1

by Church K Calvert

  “I don’t think you imagined what happened. I think your mind just exaggerated what it saw and interpreted it in a way that made the emotional sensations you went through seem like a real physical experience.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head, “You’re wrong.”

  “Danielle, I’m right, and you need to see that!” she slammed her hand down on her desk, harder than she probably intended. She was visibly frustrated.

  “I didn’t imagine it!” I retorted. I almost didn’t believe my own words, but I remembered those experiences. They felt so real, and I could not live thinking that those events never actually happened.

  “Dani, you need to come to terms with this,” she said.

  “No, that stuff really happened, I know it did!”

  The doctor stood up suddenly, pulled open her desk drawer, and snatched something from it. She then went to her door and locked it. This made me nervous. Doctors were never supposed to lock the doors to their office. This was for their safety, mostly. I sat up straighter in my chair not knowing what to expect. She strode over to my chair and began undoing the restraints around my wrists. She freed my hands, and I laid them to the sides of the chair, trying to show that it was okay, and I posed no threat.

  “Look at me,” she said, “You do not have super powers, you cannot heal people, you cannot hurt people, it is all in your head.”

  I was beginning to become angered by her actions but remembered that I wasn’t restrained, so I used all my self-control to remain in my seat.

  “I’m telling you, it happened,” I said in an almost pleading tone.

  She snatched something out of her pocket and held it up to my face. I had to move back to realize she had a knife in my face. The blade was bright, reflecting off the light coming in the window. I caught my reflection for a second and noticed the amount of doubt that was showing through my expression. She held it there for a second then said the words I was expecting.

  “Then prove it.”

  I sat there for a second. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, all I knew was, that no matter what, I was afraid.

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “Who said you have a choice?” She responded.

  “I thought you said you could, that it was real. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to prove to me this whole time?”

  “I don’t control it,” I gripped the chair arms as tightly as I could.

  “Right . . . it controls you . . . Well, what if you had to make a choice?” She slid the blade lightly across my wrist, “What if you had to save yourself? You don’t have any scars, right?”

  “You’re sick,” I said, disgusted by her.

  “Better yet, what if you had to save me?” she sat back and held the knife against her own arm, “What would they think if they came in here, and I was bleeding all over the floor. I’m not sure if I could remember what really happened. What would they do to you?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Before I could react, or comprehend, she flipped the knife in her hand and dug it into her arm. For a second, I wasn’t sure she had cut herself. There was just a thin slit in her arm. She stared at it for a second. Then, blood suddenly came rushing out of her arm, dripping onto the floor.

  “Oh, my God,” I said, I could barely look, “Oh my God.”

  “Do something,” she said, paying no mind to her bleeding arm, and grabbing the collar of my shirt.

  I sat there waiting, but nothing happened. I began seeing flashes of the worst day of my life in red and blue. I tried to remain focused but was consumed by the thoughts of my past swirling in and out of my mind. I knew I had to save her this time, but I felt nothing like I had said I once did.

  She was right.

  I saw her begin to sway, and I knew that she was losing blood too fast. I jumped up and quickly got behind her and pulled off the thin sweater she was wearing and wrapped it around her arm to slow the bleeding. She resisted.

  “No, do what you said you could do,” she said.

  I tried to apply pressure to her wound and reached over the desk and slammed on as many buttons on the phone as I could without looking. Then, I finally got a response.

  “Dr. Joy? Do you need assistance?”

  “Get in here, fast,” I yelled, “The door is locked!”

  They didn’t wait for further instruction. The force they exerted removing the door from its hinges seemed to shake the room. They were inside within seconds. I was snatched away from the doctor and slammed face down on the floor with at least three people holding me down. I felt knees in my back, and someone’s heavy hand pressing my face hard into the linoleum floor.

  “Why are you unrestrained?” about three people shouted at me.

  “What did you do? Why was the door locked?” another asked.

  “What happened?”

  I remained silent. I had no idea how to explain what just occurred and knew nothing I said would be believed.

  “It wasn’t her,” Dr. Joy said in a low voice. They all continued to yell, demanding answers.

  “It wasn’t her!” She repeated as loud as she could manage. They fell quiet and turned their attention to her. One of them continued to wrap her arm to suppress the bleeding. No one knew quite what to do at that point, not even me. They eased off a little and allowed me to sit up.

  “I was opening that letter, and my hand . . .” she glanced at me, “slipped. She was only helping me.”

  “Doctor, you know it’s against policy to have weapons in the building; much less around patients, dangerous patients at that,” one of them remonstrated, while looking at me as if I were garbage.

  “Dangerous? I wouldn’t be so sure.” She looked at me with evident disappointment.

  Chapter Eight—A Bad Day for Everyone

  I replayed every memory I had in my head for the next two days. I kept trying to locate the line between what was real and what wasn’t. Which of my memories were genuine, and which were just figments of my imagination? I began to wonder if I not only imagined occurrences but people as well. Was the way I viewed people even the way they really were? Was everyone as sick and twisted as I thought, or was I the sick one? If I imagined things so vividly, perhaps the people I thought no longer walked this earth, waited behind the doors of this institution. This was the only thing that gave me hope about the doubts I harbored concerning the reality of my life.

  When my door opened a couple days later I was surprised.

  “What?” I asked, wondering why the escort staff was interrupting my thinking time.

  “It’s time for your session,” two escorts said, looking at me as though I was indeed crazy. This did nothing to reassure me. However, I knew what I had experienced my last session, and there is no way that Dr. Joy had any further business with me.

  “Excuse me? With who?” I asked, confused.

  “Same one as always, Dani.”

  I was escorted to the usual office and sat down in the usual chair, feeling so tense my muscles began to ache. When Dr. Joy walked in, I tensed up even further. She began setting her stuff down in her usual fashion.

  “Relax, Danielle,” she said, not looking at me, “We won’t have any repeats of our last session.”

  I observed her relaxed manner as if our little incident never happened. I noticed she had her arm tightly wrapped and tried to push the memories out of my head.

  “Why am I here?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” she said before she finally sat down.

  “Well, you were here last time. You saw what happened,” I sighed. “You were right, there’s something wrong with me, and it’s not exceptional or unbelievable. I’m fucked up in the head, right? What else is there to know? Except you might be quite fucked up too.”

  “Oh, Danielle, we’re just getting started. Admitting you have a problem is just the first step. There’s so much more to figure out about you. More than I thought.”

  “What’s the point of talking when I’m not sure i
f what I’m saying really happened or if I just think it happened.”

  “It’s about more than simply what happened. What did you feel when these things happened? What triggered these responses? Then we have to go through them and sift through reality and delusions. Until we can reach a point where you know who you are and what you are really capable of.”

  “I’m nobody,” I said.

  The doctor looked at me with pity.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “It just feels like nothing matters anymore. I don’t care about anyone or anything. I don’t care if I don’t wake up in the morning. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life in this place.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it wasn’t real. What I saw, what I felt, what I thought other people felt.”

  Dr. Joy was quiet for a minute, surveying my emotions.

  “You need to finish your story, then we’ll figure out if it really doesn’t matter.”

  “If I’m not ever sure what my story is, how can I possibly tell it?”

  “Tell it exactly as you remember it, just like before.”

  I was exhausted at the thought of even trying to tell any more of the story. I knew I would question every word that escaped my lips. I knew I would question every expression she might make. I would wonder if she knew better than I did what really happened in my life.

  “Are there things about me that you know that I don’t?”

  “Since you claim to think that you are nobody, I would say, yes. There’s a lot about you that I know that I think you don’t know. I want to know something.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “When did things start to go downhill with Peyton?”

  I cringed at this thought.

  * * *

  “Dammit, I hope we don’t miss all of it,” I said as we were driving through town, trying to locate the complex.

  “I’ll get us there,” Peyton said and winked at me, as she sped through a stop sign. I gripped the door panel, thinking we should definitely be driving slower, or at least more carefully. The other half of me wanted us to go faster.

  It was the night of my little brother’s baseball game, and I had promised I would be there. Now, I don’t do a lot of things I should or have many values, but when it came to my brother, I always kept my promises.

  I saw the lights of the complex over the trees as we rounded a sharp corner. We drove onto the gravel and parked in a spot not necessarily designated for cars. We both jumped out and ran full speed to his field. I think Peyton must have held back because she was a few paces behind me.

  I sought out my parents and located them seated in the bleachers. Their expressions displayed an air of mild embarrassment.

  “What’s going on?” I greeted them.

  “Hey, you made it!” my dad said, trying to change the expression on his face as best as he could.

  “Of course, how’s he doing?”

  They both gave me a ‘you don’t want to know’ look.

  “He’s . . . struggling,” my mom said.

  “Yeah, and all these assholes in the stands aren’t helping,” my dad added.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He’s struck out every time; the ball’s gone past him twice, and everyone keeps telling the coach to take him out of the game,” said my mom.

  “What? He’s one of the best players on the team. What’s going on?”

  “He probably just lost his confidence,” Peyton said.

  “I’m sure we haven’t seen the worst of it yet either, this is the bottom of the last inning, and we’ve got one person on base; another up to bat, then he’s next. I just know they’re going to rip him to shreds.”

  “Maybe we should just pull him out,” my dad suggested out of pity.

  “We can’t. The only reason he’s even playing is that there’s barely enough to have a full team. If we pull him out, they’ll have to forfeit,” my mom said.

  “Yeah!” the crowd erupts as another player got on base and goes to second.

  One on second, one on third, and Nathan was up. I could see him dragging his bat to home plate, his face dejected.

  “Oh, you gotta be kidding me, coach!” I heard a parent shout.

  “Make him walk, coach!” shouts another.

  “Hey, they’re just kids,” I hear Peyton call back to them.

  “Well, my kid wants to win a game every once in a while,” some guy shouted back to her.

  I looked down at the field and saw the pitcher getting ready to throw his first pitch.

  “All right, Nathan, this is it. Just like practice!” I hear his coach shout to him.

  The pitcher throws.

  “Strike,” the umpire shouted unnecessarily loudly. I saw tears of frustration attempt to escape Nathan’s eyes.

  “Oh, my god, get him out of the game!” the same man shouted again.

  I become overly anxious for my brother as I watched the events unfold.

  “What do you think?” Peyton asked.

  They had two outs, we’re down by two, and Nathan was up with one strike.

  The pitcher wound up and delivered a ball hard toward Nathan. Everyone held their breath. Nathan didn’t budge an inch.

  “Strike!” shouted the umpire.

  “That’s right, Nathan, just wait for your pitch!” the coach shouted, a little less hopeful.

  The catcher threw the ball back to the pitcher. The pitcher composed himself and wound up. Peyton gripped my hand as tight as possible, and I squeezed hers back just as hard. Three, two, one. The pitcher released the ball.

  Nathan didn’t move at all; he didn’t do anything. He just stood there as the ball flew past him.

  “Strike three,” the umpire announced, less loudly this time. The other team ran onto the field in celebration of the game’s end. Nathan’s teammates straggled to the dugout with their heads down. As they came back out to shake the other team’s hands, Nathan finally made his way to the dugout expressionless.

  My heart ached for him. We avoided the glances of the other families and comments uttered under their breath. Some of them seemed dazed and saddened by Nathan’s performance, others were furious.

  One by one the boys came around and found their families and headed off until there were only a few families left. Nathan had still not appeared.

  “I’m going to go check on Nathan,” my dad said, starting to get up.

  “No,” I said putting out my hand, “I’ll go get him.”

  My dad sat back down with slight relief in his expression.

  “Do you want me to come?” Peyton asked.

  “No, it’s fine, I’ll be right back,” I replied.

  I walked around to their side of the dugout. It was dark, but I could see Nathan sitting inside alone in the dark. I walked inside and sat next to him. He did not acknowledge my presence. He just remained slumped forward.

  “Nathan, don’t worry about the game, everyone has a shitty day every once in a while. You just have to brush it off and keep going,” I said, attempting to be encouraging.

  He continued to stare vacantly at the floor.

  “Nathan, it’s just a game . . .”

  “I hate my life.” He said, glancing over at me for a moment before averting his eyes again. He shook his head, and I saw a tear roll down his cheek. He immediately wiped it away.

  He spoke those four words with such darkness and intensity. I was convinced that he sincerely meant them. I knelt down in front of him.

  “Nathan, look at me,” I said. He lifted his head slightly, “Things are going to get better. I promise. Everything you are feeling right now, you are not going to feel forever. Some days you’re going to get knocked down or feel like you can’t take anymore, but you can. You can endure it, and when you get to the point where you feel like you can’t anymore, you tell me. No matter what it takes, I’ll make it better. When you get older, you’re going to face some dark days, and on your darkest day I
will be there, and I will help you. I will make any sacrifice to help you. You never have to go through anything alone.”

  “Everything okay?” came Peyton’s voice from a safe distance back, so as not to appear to be listening in.

  “Yeah,” I called back to her, “We’ll be right there.”

  I looked back at my brother.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said nodding his head, “Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

  * * *

  I lead him back to my parents, and we all headed back to the house in separate cars.

  “How’s your brother?” Peyton asked as I got in the car.

  I bit the skin around my thumbnail as I looked out the window without response.

  She started the car and headed toward home.

  We pulled up into the driveway. My parents and Nathan were already home, and Christian and Cindy had arrived as well.

  “Hey, someday, right?” Peyton remarked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just thinking about my brother,” I said.

  “He really looks up to you.”

  “Sometimes I wish he didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just worry about letting him down.”

  “You are the kind of person, Danielle, who when you have no choice but to not fail . . . you won’t,” she said.

  “I hope so,” I said. “I’m going to change shirts real quick before dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  I went upstairs thinking about what Peyton had said. I doubted her words. Perhaps because I knew a million things about myself that she didn’t. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. Or, not even that, I was worried, because I felt the power I had to help someone, was equal to the power I had to hurt them. I knocked on the door to the bathroom.

  “Hey, it’s me. Let me in,” I said.

  Cindy cracked open the door and pulled me inside.

  “I need some,” I said, seeing she’d already started without me.

  She passed the straw to me without saying anything, still trying to get the remainder she had already snorted to clear her nasal passage. She was standing next to the counter, and I put my hand on her back to reach around her to grab the card. I felt her twitch almost imperceptibly.