Blue Anesthesia

by Daniel Lidman

  He felt like he’d been sitting here for at least a few hours, but who knew? Time in here, versus time outside, was a snail racing a leopard.

  Axel did have one thing to accompany him and absorb speckles of time with, though: his thoughts. Usually, most of his thoughts surrounded him and his emotions. They told the tale of Axel Gardner. But, Axel’s life was not the issue anymore. He thought of Susanne’s life. If Humphrey were to show up at her house, she would greet him with stars for teeth. She would show her utmost respect for him, listening to his every word with patient ears, as she did with everyone. Axel saw how the stars in her smile vanished as Humphrey’s true intentions were revealed. Confusing blackness would fill her heart. An image of his sister, fashioning eyes without any pupils, displaying a black smile, repeated in his head. However, the image that kept appearing in his head more than any was the one where her smile starts to shrink. He saw all the joy and love in her smile, which she always carried, leave with the hurry of wind; the exterior of that smile, stretching across her cheeks, retreating slowly. Then she would cry. Oh, how she would cry. And, when she would be taken away to a place where no one would ever find her, he knew what thoughts would repeat in her mind: What’s going to happen to my baby? What’s going to happen to Emma? Oh God, please tell me that she’s safe.

  3

  Susanne, along with her husband, Samuel, had Emma in 2007. She’ll turn seven in March, two months from now. Before his depression struck him, Axel went over to their house and spent quite a lot of time with Emma. In the first two years of her life, she crawled around the house, filling the air with the innocence of child laughter. Susanne was never too busy for her daughter, and she would carry rays of bliss in her eyes when she watched Axel play with Emma. Samuel would always trace back and forth between his wife, and then Axel and Emma, making sure that everyone was okay. Samuel was much like the nurses in blue in that regard; the kind of person who made sure that everyone felt okay. Sometimes Samuel would take part in Axel and Emma’s favorite game: hide-and-seek. Samuel would count to twenty, and Axel would carry a giggling Emma to a hiding spot. Both of them would laugh whilst hiding, especially Emma, for Axel always pulled funny faces.

  A few weeks before the first depressed family dinner, Axel sat with Susanne in the park. Emma sat on the grass a few feet in front of them. Both Axel and Susanne were watchful of her, rarely turning to look at each other during their conversation.

  “I finally feel complete,” Susanne said. “I always had a lingering fear when I was growing up, you know? I thought it would go away when I got a good job, but it didn’t. Even when I married Samuel there was still something lingering. When we first had Emma, that lingering fear became stronger than ever. But now, when she’s older, that lingering fear has disappeared. That anxious feeling of growing up has turned more into excitement than anything else.”

  “It must be great to be off the hook, Susanne. Hey, I’ll let you know when I get there, if ever. Depends on whether or not dead people can talk. I’ll be like a zombie—“

  She gave him a sibling-slap on the shoulder. “Don’t think like that, Axel.” She smiled, but her tone turned serious. “I think you need laughter in your life, not from yourself, but from someone you love. Have you tried online dating?”

  Axel rubbed his shoulder, still looking at Emma. “I was joking when I said that, and I sure as hell hope that you’re joking now. Online dating?”

  “Sure, why not? Women use online dating because they’ve probably had enough of men at bars and clubs. They’re tired of games, and they’re looking for real romance, like you.”

  “Yeah,” Axel said. “They’re looking for real romance in men that look like models. If you have a heart of gold, that’s great, but unless you got the looks to go with it, bye-bye, sugar.”

  Susanne looked at him now. “When did you become so negative? God, you’re silly.” She ended the sentence on a warm chuckle.

  “It’s nothing,” Axel replied, feeling the regret of his first lie in the pit of his stomach. “It’s just work. I’ve been stressed out lately.”

  “Why don’t you take a vacation?” Her voice had a hint of concern. “You can start to work on your looks if that would help you get out there and find someone. It builds confidence to work-out.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Ma. Do you realize that?”

  “I sound like someone who cares about you. All I’m saying is—“

  “Look,” Axel interrupted. Their eyes met. She carried no annoyance in her glare, just interest. “You said before how you now feel complete. Working is what makes me feel complete. I could go on vacation, sure, but I’d feel lost. Work is stressful at times but it doesn’t change the fact that I love what I’m doing.”

  She cupped her hands together. “It’s your choice, boss. But just keep other options in mind, would you?”

  “I will.”

  In his mind, he tried searching for other options but found none. He felt unmotivated to do anything else but work. He would do what he felt comfortable doing, and he was ashamed to admit that he felt too afraid to do anything else. He didn’t know it then, but Axel’s perspective of life had already started to become narrow. Everything outside of his comfort zone, somehow felt scary. As time went on, doing things outside of work went from scary to impossible. After the last regular family dinners, when his depression came out to play, they not only started feeling impossible, but too good for him. Love and joy were part of another world; a world, which Axel felt that he didn’t deserve. It wasn’t just romantic love, but any love, even the one from his family. In spite of that, his family never stopped sharing their love. He hadn’t lost any of their support; and now, as he sat in this dark room, it dawned on him that he might lose something far worse than their support. He might lose them.

  He might lose Susanne.

  4

  Loving mother, wife, and sister—

  He realized that he had imagined her gravestone, reading from it in his mind. Axel shook the thought away.

  Oh, Susanne, he thought. I’m not going to let him lay a hand on you. Emma will grow up with the love that she deserves, from you. She won’t lose her mother. I promise you that. I will do everything in my power to get out of this place and warn you, and everyone else.

  He thought of his family’s faces, recalling the photograph that saved him from taking his life. Tears began to grow, tickling inside of his eyelids. He blinked, setting them free. A huge pressure left his chest. Slowly, with each tear, depression loosened its chokehold. He still suffered from depression, but his will to make sure that his family would be left unharmed overpowered everything. The tears were a reminder of that.

  Maybe love does conquer all, Axel thought, smiling to himself.

  He drifted to sleep.

  5

  Axel woke up in a gasp for air. He observed his surroundings with frantic unease, eyes squinted. A sound had brought him back to the waking world; a familiar sound. Axel denied that he ever heard it, for the terror was too overwhelming to accept.

  He heard it again.

  When he woke up, his consciousness only caught the remaining echo of the sound, still heavy in the air. But now, he experienced the entire sound. The knock was light and playful, just loud enough for the sound to have a tickle of touch attached, tugging on his veins and making his heart jump. In the slow second between each knock, Axel heard another sound—panting, seeming to come from behind the door, as if Humphrey was so excited that he lost the ability to control his breath.

  Another knock struck the door, followed by more panting. When the darkness swallowed the echo, only the sound of panting remained. The knocking came to an abrupt stop. A minute went by, and still, Axel heard panting in the dark. It wasn’t loud, which made it unbearable; Axel couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. It seemed to come from behind the door, but something told him that perhaps it was already in the room with him. Maybe Humphrey had sneaked into his the room, knocked on the door from inside o
f the room, and then sneaked toward Axel along the wall. The thought that someone could be standing behind him right now, only inches away from the back of his head, struck him with the voltage of paranoia.

  Axel tried to lean backward to look. He saw nothing but darkness. In his paranoia, the panting seemed to be all around him, coming from every direction. His temples turned into screws, spinning with sharp metal, deepening the throb in his head. Axel felt intense warmth behind his eyes. His flesh seemed to boil, pulsating with the heat of flames. Saliva turned the dried strings of flesh in his mouth back to their original, moist texture. Axel realized that he now panted himself. The two sounds of panting correlated in the air, until belly laughter choked the breathing from both parties; the kind of laughter teenagers snort whilst covering their mouth. It was loud enough for Axel to pinpoint where it came from. It came from behind the metal door, as he first suspected. Another snort rose, followed by rapid, muffled laughter.

  The laughter turned into roars, heavy against a cupped hand. They turned hysterical, gained an edge, and needles pierced the dusty air of the darkness. Axel’s heart felt like it dropped from his chest, rolled down his midsection, down his legs, and now rested at his feet.

  He heard how the laughter transformed into relief. The process was maddening. He had been around all kinds of laughter as a comedian, but this one was different, as if Humphrey had forgotten how to laugh with his stomach. Instead of a happy, contagious sound, it leaned toward sounding more sinister. Axel had never heard anything like it.

  Everything turned quiet. Axel thought he could hear the darkness: a slow, heavy wind.

  The panting returned.

  Axel was mystified with the bizarre nature of the situation. To Axel, it seemed that after the laughing episode, Humphrey had turned to run down the corridor. When he reached the end of the corridor, he had turned once more, running back to Axel. And now, here he stood again, panting behind the door. Yet, there was something Axel couldn’t quite figure out. How come Axel hadn’t heard him running? From experience, Axel knew how the corridor drummed with sound if you sprinted upon it.

  A light tapping of fingers was applied on the door. Unlike the knocks, they had no structure to them. They were uneven, unpredictable. A nail struck the door, followed by three constant taps. Two nails, four nails; now, an entire hand tapped against the door.

  As the tapping increased in speed, Axel heard giggling. He was both horrified and baffled that the giggling sounded like that of a baby. An image of Emma punched against the window of his mind.

  “Humphrey,” Axel called. “Is that you?”

  The tapping against the door stopped, but the giggling grew in volume. There were noticeable struggles to try and stay quiet in that giggle.

  “Humphrey—“

  The door swung open. A figure ran toward him with incredible speed. When the lesser darkness of the corridor mixed with the thicker darkness in Axel’s room, he was able to see much better. And, as the figure got closer, Axel saw that it wasn’t running at all; it jumped and danced. It looked childish, almost silly, and seeing an adult figure perform it sent shivers down Axel’s back.

  Humphrey was almost directly in front of him now, and Axel figured out why he hadn’t heard him running down the corridor. Humphrey wasn’t wearing any shoes. In fact, he wasn’t wearing anything at all. He jumped around Axel’s chair in wide stretches with his legs, speaking an alien language. Axel saw that not even the surgical mask had been put on. Humphrey sounded like an adult with the vocabulary of a baby. He mumbled his inaudible language, almost singing it, and added the swing of his arms to the movement.

  Axel was too dumbfounded to speak. Humphrey jumped and danced back toward the door. Axel began to feel a pinch of comforting relief, but Humphrey turned away from the door, and performed front flips on the floor, toward Axel. They were awkward, crooked. Humphrey managed two before he fell over on his third one, lying curled up on the floor with his back against Axel. He brewed hysterical laughter again. When the laughing stopped, it stopped in an instant, as if someone had just pushed an OFF button.

  Humphrey stood up in a slow manner and walked toward the door with his head down.

  He seems to be ashamed.

  He was close to the door now, feet dragging behind him, catching all the dirt on the floor. Humphrey put his hand on the door and turned to face Axel. The look on his face was brief, and it was difficult to make out in the dark, but Axel thought he saw a glint of sadness in that look. Humphrey walked out of the door, not bothering to shut it.

  6

  Later that same night, Humphrey returned with his usual outfit. Axel was still awake; he never slept. Humphrey’s shoes clicked against the corridor. Once he stepped inside of Axel’s room, he stopped, staring.

  “Am I not funny to you?”

  Axel’s mouth hung ajar. He didn’t answer.

  Humphrey walked toward him.

  “Be honest with me, crabby. Am I not funny?”

  Axel slithered his tongue around his mouth, thinking of something to say. “I don’t know, Humphrey. It was too dark to see anything, and I couldn’t make out any of it.”

  Humphrey gave a one-sided smile. It stretched across the right side of his surgical mask. He squatted down on the floor. “Yeah,” he said, running his fingers along the floor. “I guess that makes sense. I didn’t think about that. It would be kind of silly if you were to do a comedy show with all the lights out, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would,” Axel agreed, and cleared his throat to try and cover the false tone in his voice. When the good-ole-quiet-time-with-Humphrey started to creep into the room, Axel started talking again. “What time is it?”

  “It’s around two A.M.” Humphrey dropped to the floor on his back. “You know, you’re a real trooper, crabby. How you can stand all this blackness, without any blue, I will never know. Do you think about the greater good a lot? How you’re going to be part of changing the world for the better with The Valuables? Is that what gets you through it all?”

  “Mostly,” Axel said. “I just do what I can to help.”

  “That’s my boy!” Humphrey cried out into the dark. The last of his voice still remained in an echo as he started talking again. “Hang in there, crabby. That beetle should be coming out in a day or two.”

  Humphrey’s smiled remained on his face long after his words had been spoken. It turned into an excited grin.

  “Hey, how does a shared breakfast tomorrow morning sound?”

  7

  Axel hadn’t slept at all since Humphrey left his room for the second time that night. Thoughts of protecting his sister occupied him all night. Humphrey had also forgotten to turn off the dental light. Axel tried to plan an escape; a safe way to escape, mind you. He had turned over every rock in his head, and yet he came up with nothing. He assumed that the opportunity would present itself when the time was right.

  Axel felt positive that it would be a spontaneous thing. That bothered him. All of this hung onto a chance that might not even exist. The only way to know if it existed for sure was to wait. He couldn’t know, and feel positive that the chance would or would not grant itself. No; he would have to wait. Axel Gardner would have to wait to see if he could ensure the safety of his loved ones.

  He never felt more restless in his life. God, how he wanted to just get up and run. He would run the entire way home if he could. Sitting here and waiting had turned into a mental battle of the ages.

  When Humphrey knocked on the door, Axel still vibrated with a bad mood.

  This fucker tortures me but is still polite enough to knock.

  The door opened. Humphrey carried a plastic bag, and a familiar blue cup. In spite of Axel’s bad mood, the sight of Humphrey, with what Axel assumed to be breakfast was the tiniest fraction of a pleasant sight.

  “I thought you’d be sleeping,” Humphrey said. “I have some news for you, crabby.”

  Axel looked at Humphrey with a curious stare.

  “I killed your s
ister. I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything before, but I sort of felt bad about it.”

  A black entity sucked the life out of Axel’s body. In a breath of mold, Axel’s body instead filled with death, covering every living organ with decay. His body lost all physical awareness and turned into rubber. Despite being seated, Axel still somehow dropped into the chair. His legs stretched out across the floor.

  “When you tried to escape, I was just so mad. The thought of losing The Valuables broke me. I’m sorry, crabby. Honestly, I am.”

  When the first tears poured down Axel’s face, Humphrey was quick to catch them with the blue cup. Tears from previous days of torture rose upward in a puddle with the help of these fresh ones. The cup wasn’t full by any means, but a substantial amount of liquid existed at the bottom.

  Axel didn’t say a word. He felt too weak to rupture into anger. He prayed that his heart would give out any minute, and closed his eyes to wait for that to happen.

  “There we go,” Humphrey said. He snapped his fingers, creating a terrible, muffled sound with his gloves. “I didn’t actually kill your sister, crabby.”

  Axel breathed in disbelief. Before, he didn’t know what to say; now he didn’t know what to think.

  “Look,” Humphrey began, shaking the cup of tears. “I only needed to make you cry to gather the sauce.”

  Axel faced Humphrey. His look pulsated with enigma; the enigma of a broken man.

  “Well, we are eating breakfast, are we not? You didn’t strike me as a man who eats bland breakfast, crabby.”

  Humphrey set the cup aside on the floor. He kneeled in front of Axel.

  “Open your mouth.”

  Axel’s mind turned stale. He tried to find thoughts, chew on them, experience them; but chewing on thoughts right now felt like chewing on the rough bark of a tree. The roots were the organs of his body, making sure that enough blood circulated, as water would to grass, keeping everything alive. The branches, some longer and some shorter, were his thoughts; the longer, more thick branches were the most vivid. Right now, most of Axel’s branches had been sawed down to their tip. The leaves of green symbolized not only physical health but mental health. When the branches on top of the tree’s afro—his mind—were the color of green, his thoughts were healthy. However, no leaves of green were in sight. Axel’s mind was a hollow tree in the middle of a field, on the whitest winter day. Humphrey was a woodpecker, nagging at Axel’s hollow trunk with his beak, looking for something to reinforce his schemes of delusion. According to the woodpecker, black thoughts of worms and insects are tastier than thoughts of green.