Be in the Real

by Denise Mathew

  “What are you doing Kaila?”

  Kaila drew her attention away from her hand, onto the gangly nurse who was dressed all in white. She noted that like a chameleon, the nurse could have easily been swallowed from view in the White Room.

  Kaila knew all the nurses, orderlies, and general staff in Wildwind, even the floaters that covered when needed, but she didn’t know this woman. She grabbed Kaila’s hand in her blue-gloved hands, pressing on the bloody mess with a gauze bandage that had appeared as if by magic. Kaila felt the tingle of spider legs very soon after.

  “I can do it,” Kaila said, giving the woman’s fingers a little shove.

  The nurse locked eyes with Kaila as if gauging the next move of a dangerous predator. Obviously she had seen something in Kaila’s eyes that made her heed the statement because she took a few steps back, but her stare remained fixed on Kaila.

  “Make sure you apply enough pressure to get the bleeding to stop, you know you really shouldn’t pull IV’s out like that, it can cause a lot of problems.”

  Her brown eyes moved from Kaila’s face, to her hand, then back to her face.

  Kaila nodded. She appraised the woman that stood before her for the first time, as if she were a specimen under a microscope. It was the way Kaila always took in new information, with precision, gathering every possible detail to store in her memory banks with all her other important Intel. Kaila noticed that there was little of interest in this woman, mid-forties, with a shoulder length bob that curled under at the ends. Her hair was dyed blond because half an inch of grey roots were visible at the top of her head. Her nose was thin, her nostrils pulled in tight, her lips matched her nose and her eyes were hard and cold. Age spots speckled her leathery looking skin, indicating that she loved to sun bathe.

  “I think it’s stopped,” the nurse said, pulling Kaila back to the present.

  “Where’s Norm?” Kaila asked, suddenly aware of the last moment she had remembered before she had woken up in the White Room.

  The nurse cocked her head to the side. Kaila knew that this woman had no idea who Norm was. This fact combined with the idea that she had already lost three days made her agitation grow.

  “I need to be out of here,” Kaila said.

  It was in that moment that a very human growling sound came from her stomach. She became painfully aware of just how hungry she was.

  But more than satisfying her hunger, her fingers itched for a keyboard, a distraction, to be out of the White Room so she could make sense of her world again. Kaila needed to regain the order that she had lost. Kaila was more than willing to let Trillian take control because there was something dark that was opening inside her, something that she hadn’t felt before now. And that darkness was linked to Norm and the realization that he had probably already left Wildwind. Trillian didn’t come forward though, and instead stayed far back and away.

  The nurse ignored Kaila’s question. She tugged at the Band-Aid on Kaila’s hand, careful to avoid contact with Kaila’s skin.

  “I need to go back to my room, I’m ready now. I want to be back in my own bed.”

  Kaila heard the desperation in her voice, the slightly unhinged tone that said she was teetering on the edge of losing control. The nurse continued working on the strips of tape, as if there was nothing as important as her present job at hand. For a fraction of a second Kaila wanted to grab the nurses hand, squeeze her fingers until they were crushed, bones cracking with pops, like snapping branches.

  “There,” the nurse said when she had pulled the last piece of tape away.

  A half-smile curved her lips. That smile alone was a catalyst that ignited fury that seemed to have no boundaries within Kaila. She wasn’t sure where it had come from, only that it entwined with the loss of Norm. But even imagining that she had lost Norm would have meant that she’d had him in the first place, something that she couldn’t admit was even true. And the thoughts that skated through her mind on the thinnest of ice that crackled when you placed a foot on it, threatened to shatter her. Kaila fisted a hand in the bed sheets, trying by sheer will and force to remain there, to not slip back into the world where she knew nothing but a black hole of time existed.

  “Can I go now?”

  There was even more pleading and urgency in her tone. Neither emotion seemed to be of her; they were of others, those who cared about the humans that circulated around her in a symbol of infinity without end and having no beginning.

  “I’ll have to check with what Dr. Rosell says,” the nurse said.

  She had applied a fresh Band-Aid to Kaila’s hand and was now a few feet away.

  “Are you feeling okay?” she said, studying Kaila with a critical eye.

  Kaila could feel a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. Another drop dripped down the small of her back from the sheer will of holding on to this reality. Because it would be so easy to slip away again, where everything was blank and there were no emotions only a space of being.

  “I’m okay,” Kaila said through clenched teeth, feeling anything but what she had just stated. “I just want to go back to my bed…my room and…please let me go.”

  Her hands clasped together in supplication without her volition. She wondered who was controlling her.

  The nurse’s wary expression didn’t waver even fractionally. She nodded all the same, as if trying to convince Kaila that she would heed her pleas, though that was clearly so far from the truth.

  “Please, let me go,” Kaila said one octave below a screech.

  It was enough for the nurse to turn tail and flee the last few feet to the partially cracked door that led to freedom. Something snapped in Kaila and she was off the bed, and in one smooth move had pounced on the nurse. The two fell together. The nurse took the full brunt of the fall, flailing her arms for less than a second before all the wind was knocked out of her and she was left gasping for breath. Now atop the flattened nurse, Kaila tried to make sense of what had just happened. Up until seconds before she’d had no intention of doing anything other than watching the nurse push through the door. She had planned to allow the wheels that ran Wildwind to spin until she was out of her White Prison.

  Panting from adrenalin and her rapid moves, Kaila placed all the pieces to the puzzle of her sudden and unexplained actions on a mental blackboard. She had read of this phenomenon, where fear was like a scent that made an otherwise uninterested predator attack. Kaila didn’t know what she had planned to do when she had tackled the nurse, only that it was all she could think of and she had acted on her instincts.

  “What the hell is going on Kaila?”

  Kaila remained frozen in place, confused and unsure about how she was going to fix what she had done. When she felt hands wrap around her upper arms she relaxed in their grip and waited for the next part. The slight pinch came just as the spiders arrived. Darkness returned.

  CHAPTER 7

  Three days later and after several adjustments to her meds, Kaila was released into her world again.

  CHAPTER 8

  The truth is this, there is no truth. No world where every wish is fulfilled and magically you are done, satisfied, where all the happiness that you so desired and believed attached to this dream is immediately realized. True peace and bliss cannot be achieved at the flick of a switch, the push of a button, it is not the treasure at the end of a rainbow. I am sorry to have to tell you this dear readers, but I feel it is my given task to guide you through the realities that few like to see. That even though we may strive for perfection, work until our fingers are raw, our clothes tattered, and all that is us has been given to the cause that is called the goal of our life, this may indeed not bring the happiness that you had imagined. Oh I hear your heart cracking in the center at this reality, at this information that you may feel you are better away from, because isn’t it in the power of our dreams that we find purpose, we find hope. Because if what I am telling you is true then why continue to push through, why struggle each day at a job that you feel sucks your
very life force from your being? For if this is true and there is no greater plan, why bother?

  I understand your sadness and I commiserate with it, but before you shed another tear we must have another conversation. I pray that you will hear me, really hear me, for what I have to say may very well change your reality and bring you the clarity that you have always wanted.

  If happiness is not an assured destination with the manifestation of our deepest desire, then why stay in the place that is your life?

  Because my dear reader, in that life that you have lived, a voice has been heard, a hand has been held, a story has been told. And maybe you cannot see that truth beyond the thinness of your wallet or the tattered clothes you must endure. Maybe you cannot see that truth beyond the house that is not your home, the souls who do not see the true you, but I must ask you this, is it true, can you indeed say that in all the days your feet have traveled this path on the planet Earth, that you have never touched a being, provided comfort, listened, given a kind word, opened your purse and passed a coin to a person. Given away happiness, and in doing so, felt that happiness returned.

  There is so much need and there is so much that we can give, but to assume that without that beautiful abode you are nothing, your life is less, than that is pure folly. I Trillian, am here to tell you that nothing is insignificant, you are not insignificant and that you too, great or small are a cog in the wheel of life, you my lady or sir are a magician because who other than a magician might put a smile on another’s face, create life in an act of love or sex. It matters not if your greatest deed is that you woke up this fine a.m., with the sun bearing down on your beautiful face and spoke the words I AM ALIVE, then that is enough, the world will breathe a sigh that will be heard across the galaxy because we are one, we are all one and in our oneness we are never alone, no kindness is in vain. Happiness is all around us for the taking, and is never in just one moment, it is spread and scattered throughout our journey, there for us to see if we so desire. This very day you are here with me, have read my words, are present in this moment of life, there is a smile waiting to curve your lips, and so much mirth to be found, even if just for the blink of an eye, it is there, and that my lady or sir, is enough.

  Trillian

  Kaila typed the last word of her blog entry, but oddly didn’t feel the exhilaration that she normally did when she had the luxury of completing a thought. As strange as it felt to her, she longed for the interruption that she had grown accustomed to, she longed for Norm. And in the quiet that enclosed her she felt the loss as if it were a physical reality, as if someone had sliced a part of her away. Though she had no idea what part had been removed from her body, she felt it all the same. An ache that couldn’t be healed.

  She scanned through her memories, searching for the exact moment when it had shifted, when Norm had become part of her reality, but she couldn’t find it. Trillian would have told her that there is no measure of a heart and its ability to love, or the moment that it chooses to love. To Kaila, Trillian’s notions sounded so very stupid. Because a heart couldn’t love, it beat a rhythm, delivered blood through arteries and veins, through the whole body, regulated blood pressure, sped up or slowed down accordingly, but it couldn’t love. It was a muscle, a muscle couldn’t love, it didn’t have a consciousness, it didn’t decide to beat, it worked from the electrical impulses of the body.

  Normally all these rational thoughts and explanations would have brought comfort to Kaila, but right then they only brought anger, bubbling and hot. In that moment love was like a meaningless word written all around her, and all she wanted to do was pull out its heart and know that it was real. But she knew it wasn’t, because how could something exist that had no measure. Where was the science behind it? Was it the need to nurture like a mother did with its baby or…

  “Hi.”

  Kaila startled at the sound of the voice that to her ears was unfamiliar. She swiveled her body, until her eyes came to rest on the man standing just a few feet away from her. He wore loose fitting cotton pants with an elastic waist and a matching V-neck, short-sleeved shirt. His attire resembled hospital scrubs, but unlike the greens and sometimes blues, these yellow Wildwind standard issue clothes told of a newly acquired patient, one who hadn’t been granted the luxury of wearing his own clothes yet. She didn’t need to see this person’s wardrobe to know that he was new, because who other than a newbie would deign to interrupt her when she was in work mode.

  “Hi, I’m Derrick,” the man said, stretching out a hand to Kaila as if he had a right to, as if he had no idea that one touch could activate something that might well land her back in the White Room. A place that she had no intention of returning to ever again.

  “I don’t care who you are, only that you are in my personal space, and I want you to leave now,” she said.

  There was an edge in her tone that said she was trying to maintain her calm, she didn’t want to allow this intrusion to goad her into something bad. The White Room was still too fresh in her memory.

  Kaila took her first real look at this person, who somehow believed he had supremacy in Wildwind and over her. He was of Asian descent with thick black hair that was cut in what some might consider a stylish way, with a small flip at the front while the rest of his head had been sheared until the hair stood porcupine straight. His face was shaved smooth, yet a dark shadow highlighted where his beard might have grown. His eyes were black-brown, his nose neither thin, nor wide, falling precisely in the middle and was above a pair of rosebud pink lips that seemed a little too cute for a male. He wasn’t classically handsome, yet there was something appealing about him that Kaila couldn’t quite put her finger on. But none of that mattered because he was clogging up her space, stepping into an area that was hers alone.

  “Leave now,” she said again, getting to her feet.

  His height matched hers almost exactly, so their eyes were directly across from one another. Kaila glared at him, willing him to whither and disappear from her sight. He stood stationary, as though he had every right to be there.

  A crooked smiled quirked at his lips, and he ran a slender-fingered hand over the top of is prickly hair. He seemed more amused than affronted or even scared, which surprised Kaila, one or both of those reactions had been what she had predicted, and she was good at predicting…

  “Leave now.”

  Her voice was higher, shriller. She stretched her body to its full height; attempting to loom over this man or boy, now that she’d had a closer look at him she wasn’t sure which category he fell into.

  Derrick shrugged and took a few steps away from her. Still, there was no fear in his expression. For a brief flash his bravery made her think about Norm and how no matter how many times she had beaten him, he had come back for more. But now that was all over, Norm was over. Once again, the sinking feeling that had weighed on her from the moment it had been confirmed that he was gone, resurfaced. And with that feeling came a rancor for this man-boy who had triggered her, made her remember her loss.

  “GO,” Kaila hollered in his face.

  Her breath came out in a rush as the fury and pain pushed into her mind, making her want to retreat, to escape from it all, because Norm had been just another patient. Patients came and went, there were no feelings attached to the routine, no care for the outcome or where they went when they left Wildwind. What they did in the outside world didn’t matter. Even if they came back, Kaila didn’t care much, because they were just like an old sweater that you had forgotten in a drawer, until one day you found it again and you wore it. There was no emotion attached to a piece of clothing. But when Kaila thought about it she realized that maybe she did put more attention into the things that surrounded her, more than she had ever imagined. Her computer for instance was a lifeline to Trillian, and without it she wouldn’t have been able to connect with, and to a degree control, Trillian.

  “Are you okay?” Derrick’s voice broke into her thoughts, bringing her back to the moment, to him. />
  The fact that he was still standing there, even after she had bellowed her disapproval interested her. People never hung around when she ordered them away, but he had, and that fact alone made her pause.

  She studied him more closely, noting the pale yellow fiberglass walking cast on his right foot and his rosy toes, poking out from the end of it.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, signaling toward his cast.

  Kaila watched a flush work up his neck, to his face and even the tips of his ears. To her eyes it looked a lot like embarrassment and maybe discomfort too. She might have expected that kind of a reaction after she had yelled into his face, but not with a question that seemed more than benign. Oddly he was exhibiting behavior that he should have already shown her when she had yelled. Once again she was shocked at how she was unable to predict the future with this new person, as if her connection to the knowing had been severed.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  Without another word he spun on the base of his cast and hobbled away from her. There was purpose in his broken step, as if it meant everything for him to get away from her. Satisfied that she had achieved her goal and had removed Derrick from her environment, she snapped her laptop shut then tucked it into the crook of her arm. Still, even with him out of her line of sight, she couldn’t help but wonder about who he was, and why she couldn’t predict his moves and actions in the least bit. There were few who could move in and out of her orb and be like shadows, hidden and unknown.

  Because of this very fact alone, her inability to determine his moves before they happened, she found her thoughts drifting to the man-boy. Without her permission Derrick had entered her world, bypassing the periphery. He had landed plum in the center. What happened after that was anyone’s guess. One thing she was certain about was the absolute lack of her ability to understand why or even how he had stepped into the center of her circle. This occurrence had her wondering if she in fact was losing her grasp on reality and order.