My Hand Mitten

by Austin Thacker

  Three hours prior, Kenny had told him that he couldn’t see Mary anymore, that if only the nurse exposed herself to Mary’s delicate, degrading body, she had a much better chance of survival. He told him that recent blood work was proof, as she no longer had any immune system at all. “If you touch her,” Kenny yelled at Mark, “she will die! If you breathe on her, she will die. If you are even in the same room as her, she will die. You selfish man—if you see your wife again, you wouldn’t see her to make her feel any better than she felt before, you would see her for your own selfish desires.” Then he placed a hand on his shoulder as Mark continued to cry in the corner of his house. “You must leave for her own sake. I understand that you are upset, but everything you’ve done in your life was for her. Now please, please…don’t make this about you. If you refuse, she’s my daughter and as a father I must protect her.”

  Mark continued to stare through the checks on the fridge. His eyes were puffed up more than ever before as rain began to fall outside. He burned with hatred, uncontrollable, blind hatred that ran through his entire body, more than ever in his entire life. He was demoted, exiled from his wife’s side, and now he had closed the gap between their paychecks.

  The next day he would work out in the morning, doing an assortment, a mixture of different muscle groups. He would push himself as much as he could toward this goal to regain the mass he once had before the cancer, yet would always fall short, still in complete agony from what happened the day before. Then he would space out, for hours on end, toward the pristine, pine-green door, contemplating his options for hours, if he should see her again. He would imagine her in the room, regaining strength at tremendous speeds, dancing in the sterile environment with a bright yellow dress, painting while she twirled endlessly in bliss from his absence. He was slowly losing touch with reality, emotions much more unstable than anyone ever imagined. Then, at seven o’clock, as the sun began to descend behind the dark blue mountains, he would leave his house with his police car, and the wild goose chase began. Mark would wait for a simple call on some arrogant minor out past curfew, or, while he directed traffic through a broken light, have the moment escalate completely out of control. He wanted instability and panic to rush into pedestrians’ faces, for some mass shooting to be unleashed so he could be heroic, to feed his needy addiction for adrenaline, and to feel the cold kiss of death on his cheek like the tongue of a rotting dog. He wanted the fear Kamikaze pilots felt the moment before, seconds prior to their bodies exploding along with their planes. He wanted to feel the uncontrollable rush of fear of a French man during the French Revolution, hearing the snap of the strings and pulleys releasing the knife at the top of the shaft, his head milliseconds from bouncing off, and his mind being released into the next life. His burning rage was built up, the rage that came with the downfall of his life, the unfortunate events that stole everything he held dear and left him feeling more isolated than ever before. Mark wanted to release the pressure. He wanted to release his worries, doubts, and madness onto someone who deserved the punishment. In fact, that specific day of January 6, 1992, was not the worst day of his life, but the most memorable. As the day after the worst, he reflected, waking up in the morning and realizing the day before was not a nightmare, it was not a twisted, false reality, the roads he took led to the sounds of an accelerating train. His life as he knew it was soon to be desolated by tragedy he could not escape. Yet for over twenty years, Mark repeated that day, waking up in his dysfunctional room full of laundry thrown in patternless disarray. His sheets not even connected to his mattress, lying there limp and winded, as half were on the bed and the half other on the floor. He would believe that his wife was still in that room, not even a full day since his banishment from her side. He would believe that the old, hypocritical chief, who died from a heart attack in 2002 while yelling at his grandson during Thanksgiving, still threw his lucky solid black stapler across tables, slept at his desk more than worked, and had his grim, stern face that he only saw once morph into an uncomfortable smile. He always believed that it was January 6, even in the heat of summer, the falling leaves of autumn, the blooming patches of grass in the spring, because his mind was so absent from the thoughts of the day before. He would pass newspapers that said October 8, 2008, or ignore records of police cases that were filed from dates he only saw in science fiction. It was true. His mind was occupied with overwhelming traumatic thoughts about the day before, yet suspicion should have risen once he began to gray, and the police station’s white bricks began to adopt faint black outlines from endless neglect through nature’s unforgiving elements. Mark began to thin even more, developing heavy bags, his skin beginning to wrinkle at the joints. As automobiles around him became smoother on the edges, more technological, and the gym completely replaced every workout machine, dumbbell, curling bar, and even the carpet and paint color on the walls, after only ten years, Mark continued to live everyday as if nothing changed, as if it were still 1992, he was twenty-three, and his wife was moments from death, undisturbed from his surroundings.

  Why?

  The same recurring dream, a dream he saw every night after the summer of 1997 on the second week of July, before awaking from the bridge between the same two days. It was only a glimpse, a grim glimpse of a moment he couldn’t recall. His forehead gaping open as blood continued to gush through, a young paramedic screaming for them to hurry, as one of her thumbs plugged the stream of blood on his head. He felt the heat on his toes from an explosion and darkness that followed as the two paramedics, a man, vague in the nature of the dream, and the same woman, shut the two doors to the ambulance, wailing its alarming, desperate siren. When Mark would wake, though, the slim moment of agonizing pain was not what he thought of. In fact, seconds after wakening, he would not even recall the sirens, the nurse, the unknown exploding object outside of his peripheral vision. They were the first memories that left. Yet while in the spirit of his dying self in that unexplainable dream, the mind of that man was filled with some sort of overwhelming peace, contentment with the life before and wishful beliefs of an endless future. He became lucid for only a fraction of a second, aware of what happened up until that summer of 1997, feeling the presence of Mary more than himself. His memory sparked itself to life every time, once the doors shut to the ambulance and his eyes closed from the loss of consciousness, the end of his mind’s willingness to document time. Then he would awaken abruptly, a strange feeling pushing his heart forward, begging him to continue as Mary’s recovery was only a few steps away. That spark he couldn’t explain, as the split second of recalling what truly happened woke him during any form of sleep, wanting to escape the never-ending moment of grief, the day after the worst day of his life repeating like a broken record. That spark exploded with shrieks to escape as Mark’s day continued, never reaching the ears of the one who controlled the body, who had the power to suppress the mind. What did the voiceless shrieks from the unknown darkness in the ambulance provide? Hope, a strange, microscopic inward feeling of hope, the remainder of the light before the illness, and the seemingly unreachable bliss after January 6, 1992. Therefore, with this hope, he continued to push on, through the same, never successful ways to cope with his loss, with the same desire to always find a way to be on the brink of death. Maybe to remind himself that death was still there, that he was not lucky, he was only just only, still alive. Yesterday, yesterday pained him. But the day after never seemed to end.

  Tomorrow

  Mark woke up on a hospital bed. His arm was covered with heavy, thick bandages from the bullet, his nose was so severely broken that the doctors had no choice but to give it a metal brace, and his head was full of stitches from Baker’s bright idea. He also felt his back burn in excruciating pain from the car accident a little more than a day ago. Almost no time has passed. Wegman completely forgot about the accident, about Tyler Castillo, his mother Sarah, the hospital and the overpowering rage he couldn’t control. Yesterday was the day he last saw Mary, the
worst day of his life only an arm’s length away. All his limbs—even the wounded arm—were strapped down with thick, leather straps. Mark didn’t understand why he was there or how he managed to become so sore, finding new pains every other second as his eyes widened with panic, not able to help but resist his containment to the bed as his demolished body continued to scream back in disagreement. He then saw a figure standing behind a wall of blurred glass, dividing his room with a hallway. The figure was talking on the phone, his voice getting more and more irritated at the other guy on the other line.

  “Where is he? No, I am not family, but I am a lifelong friend,” the man said with a sharp, demanding tone. “Mention my name and get me in that hospital room… Yes, it’s true. I was involved. Please, I want to talk to my friend!”

  Mark began to scream as his terror grew, struggling with his restraints even more as the local anesthetics applied to his bullet wound began to wear off, as well as his awareness, sharpening. The man rose like a dog hearing a rabbit in the bushes, and Mark could tell he heard, because this mysterious man made a few last remarks through the phone and shoved it deep in his pocket without a second thought. Then the figure walked in. He was very elderly, with light brown eyes, thin white hair with stray hairs of brown from half a lifetime ago, and deep indented wrinkles on his face, shining off from an open window.

  “Do you know who I am?” said the old man, calmly, collected.

  “No,” Mark stated with confidence. “Where am I? Let me out. I am a police officer, and whatever you want you won’t get it!” he yelled. The man’s face fell into a very distraught and upset frown.

  “What do you think happened last night?”

  Mark performed nimble judgments with his surroundings.

  He was in immense pain, with a broken nose, head trauma, and a deep tissue wound on his right arm, possibly a nine-millimeter. He was inside a mysteriously clean room, strapped down to a bed, and unable to move at all. The man who stood by had coal-colored bags under his eyes and looked worn out. His clothes were messy, and the phone he was using seemed to hold clear sound, speaking to another man so he could enter someone’s hospital room.

  I must be the connection to this mysterious man in the hospital room. I must be the bait. Aaron will more than likely come over to my house in the morning to see how I’m doing, since we both have a late-night shift, Mark thought, slightly smiling. Hopefully when I was jumped there were no bloodstains in the house, and the nurse wasn’t awakened. If I am able to escape without any assistance, then that promotion will be mine. I can get out of that useless civilian uniform and put on a badge that means something. Mark glared up at the man and spit at him.

  “You broke into my home while I slept, jumped me to abduct and torture me for information about something you wish to know. I’d like to be the first to say that anything you do won’t assist you in any way, you slob!” he yelled. The man seemed very upset from Mark’s answer and sat in a chair across the brightly lit, peanut-colored room, then hid his face in his palms, Mark’s spit still wet on his forehead and cheeks, soaking deep into his pores. His reaction to Mark’s accusation was so subtle, so controlled, as if he’d half expected him to answer in that way. The man was thinking about something while wiping the spit off with his left sleeve, Mark could tell. He sat there in silence while stretching his face, folding his fingers and resting them on his lap; then, once he made up his mind, he stood up and walked over to Mark’s bed, with a nervous quickness added to his step.

  “I am a friend of Aaron and Mary,” the old man calmly stated. “Mark, you did something horrible last night, something that can’t be forgiven.”

  “What have you done to them?” Mark yelled while shaking the bed, burning his arms on the restraints and shoving his shoulders, trying to reach for the man. His lip was quivering while his eyebrows were bent, full of both anger and fear.

  “Many people have given up on you, but I want you to understand that I won’t.” The old man’s voice was louder, more passionate.

  “What have you done with them?” Mark yelled even louder, scraping the bed with his nails. The man continued.

  “I am paying for your stay here. You are in good hands. It was a blessing that you woke up right now because I only had thirty minutes before others would come to question you, and right now it seems there’s only ten left.” The old man checked his watch very quickly.

  Mark continued to look around as he panicked, realizing that he was hooked up to IV fluid, a heart monitor, and a blood pressure pump. Then he saw his wrist. There was a red-and-blue band. It wasn’t an abduction, it was an admission. His confusion was spiraling. The heart monitor began to beep and scream for someone’s assistance as his fear grew. The old man quickly turned it off.

  “Mark, don’t ruin this moment with me. If someone walks in, I won’t see you for a long time,” he whispered firmly.

  “Who are you?” Mark said as his arms began to shake, moments away from peeing his bed.

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me, Mark.”

  “Who are you?” he yelled. The man shook his head and rubbed his eyes before answering.

  “I’m…I’m your doctor.”

  “Where am I?” Mark asked, his eyes glistening. He began to understand that the doctor wasn’t harmful, through his looks and body language. He seemed to care for Mark.

  Kenny thought about the question given to him, where Mark was. Why he was there? Kenny sat in the chair for minutes, thinking. It wasn’t a matter of ignorance toward where they were located, but a matter of words used to explain how the road led there. Kenny has been a doctor for twenty years. He was the messenger; he was the one who told the family that their daughter, husband, or brother died. He was used to being blamed for murdering their loved on;, he was used to being told they would sue for his inadequate skills; and yet he could still enjoy his tortilla soup and chicken wrap an hour later, sleeping that night with little to no regret. But he knew that whatever he told Mark, he would not recover. The guilt he would feel would linger on until he died, disrupting his sleep as a reminder of the dry blood in his fingernails, what both he and Aaron had created. The shadow of his son that would forever live in Hell, the endless torture Mark faced. Kenny was afraid to speak; he continued to imagine Mark as a random patient to ease the tension teasing his nerves. It wasn’t effective. He attempted to psych himself into believing that this event would be wiped clean by the next rising sun from Mark’s amnesia, but that only made it worse. Then, after seven minutes, Kenny checked his watch to find that he only had three minutes left to speak with Mark.

  He imagined that this news was an act of love, a way to aid his son-in-law; then he stood up fearless by looks, but fearful by heart to speak words of knives.

  “Mark, I have three minutes left with you. You are in the Rester Recover Facility and Institution.”

  Mark took a deep breath, his muscles relaxed with relief as he returned a calm response. “I’m here for rehab?”

  Kenny gave off a hard stare. “The institution. Mark, last night you…shot a police officer.” Kenny gulped.

  “How?” Mark asked with anger. “I was at home the entire night. You have the wrong guy!”

  “No Mark. Listen to me, you have amnesia—”

  “You scammed me! I am a police officer and I’ve never committed a crime in my life! I can go into details of what I did yesterday! I first—”

  “You first woke up and ran to your wife’s green door to cry for hours by her side, wishing that she was making you breakfast and painting, dancing in the sun and showing you her warm smile. You sat in that circular chair for so long, your feet went numb, but you didn’t seem to care, Mark. It was how you spent your day off, until about six o’clock your father-in-law walked into the room and told you that, by very recent blood work, Mary’s immune system was so low that even a breath on her skin was fatal. His exact words were, ‘If
you touch her, she will die, Mark. She will…die.’” Kenny began to cry. “‘You must leave for her own sake. I understand that you are upset, but everything you’ve done in your life was for her. Now please, please…don’t make this about you. If you refuse, she’s my daughter and as a father I must protect her.’ Then you sat on your recliner next to Mary’s empty one, thinking about her cooking and her health. Then you walked to the mailbox, received a check of two hundred and one dollars from the police station, and Mark, you know what happened after. You’ve told me before.” Kenny placed both of his hands on Mark’s bed while his eyes puffed up and tears wet the bed from this old man. Mark was crying, too. He was unable to move while tears streamed down his face. There was one minute left; the nurse was outside. Then Mark received an epiphany, and with a shivering lip, he spoke.