Nightwalker

by Ime Atakpa

  As expected of any lodge, paying guests command the bulk of their attention, but when they do not occupy their time, the two spend it in my company, inquiring all about the chain of events which brought me to be so displaced from my home. Knowing little myself of how my body orchestrates itself during night walks, I can divulge few concrete insights as to my condition or the volition of the subconscious mind. Rinaldo leans in deeply as I mull over my blood curse, grasping and turning each word in his mind. He, as the country man he is, cannot possibly hope to properly dissect matters best handled by philosophers and doctors (or perhaps only the former, for the latter has already proven its uselessness in that regard). “What do you feel?” he asks me during a lull in the conversation, and I’m loathe to answer honestly, for I feel nothing but the lean of fate’s bitter hand against me.

  “Mostly subdued,” I offer. “Somewhat uplifted.” I turn to his wife who pulls her hands to her mouth and steps back. Rinaldo turns to look at her knowingly. He signals something to her and she straightens up. Then he returns his attention to me.

  “Is this a typical effect of these walks?”

  This second question, I do not answer. For a while, I’m cold. A heavy draft falls upon me like so many sheets of snow. Light and warmth alike spill out of the room.

  Rinaldo’s wife steps forward now, showering me with longing glares and bearing my hands in her own. She offers no words, but hearty smiles; Rinaldo offers grim concern and doleful consolations. The draft falters.

  Lodged on the main road, on the immediate boundary between far-off towns, Rinaldo hardly interacts with either community except to restock supplies, much like my family. Community uproars come and go uneventfully as the dearth of cars passing through their neck of the woods. The stories of travelers provide all the amusement he and his wife expect on a day-to-day basis. In this regard, I pity them. But then I suppose I must pity myself for living the same life, secluded from the greater community, living alone on a forested road with my parents.

  Nonetheless, as soon as my energy returns to me and I’m well enough to be about, I don’t delay in surveying the land around me. The sun has finally supplanted the moon and a healthy spread of sunlight extends visibility far down the road. My hopes aren’t grand, but there must be a nearby landmark that might assist me in putting a name to my location and, by extension, providing me a tether by which to find my way home. When I express this intention to Rinaldo, he’s more than happy to oblige me, escorting me out to the strip of road where he first laid eyes on me.

  We move eastward from his lodge and progress some way down the road, keeping close to its forested side. Cars rush by on their morning commutes, punching us with their bursts of wind.

  “Pleasant, isn’t it?” he asks, now unsmiling.

  “The breeze?”

  “Indeed. Something powerful enough to take control over the wind, to augment nature itself. People aren’t meant to command those forces, but here they are passing us by. It’s splendid how much they’ve grown. I only hope their growth continues.”

  I begin to respond, but he overtakes me with sharp words.

  “Right there.” Rinaldo points to a patch of flattened grass. “Suppose you crawled over there from deeper in and passed out.” He gestures frantically to illustrate his point, and I notice for the first time his eccentric, metronomic manner of speech. We discuss briefly the various possibilities for precisely how or why I woke, traveled to the edge of the forest, and lost consciousness again, but we give it no more thought than necessary before proceeding to venture deeper into the redwood forest. Some ways in, Rinaldo calls my attention to a trail of matted grass which he suggests is the path I traveled on my way to the road. Having no immediate knowledge at my disposal that might prove otherwise, I’m in no position to dispute his interpretation and duly follow him along that flattened trail until we reach a small clearing, no larger than two meters in diameter.

  There on the grass sits a stoic figure, fiddling with his fingers and humming a pleasant tune. I wonder about him shortly and think to consult Rinaldo about his presence here, but something quite extraordinary happens. My mind blanks. And like that, the figure has disappeared from sight. Its humming fades with it and, in an instant, I’ve completely dismissed the figure from memory.

  “Rinaldo.” I turn to face my guide. “My father brought me here once long ago.”

  The lodge owner lights up as though the joy is his to relish. “Do you remember the way home?”

  “Not precisely. But I know which direction to go.” Hope is not lost. I sit in the center of the clearing and fiddle my fingers and run them through the moist soil. Homely ground! So warm between my fingers. I’m shamelessly gay, making merry in this familiar place. Rinaldo indulges my passions, if only momentarily. Once he’s had his fill, his hand snaps around my wrist. With a gentle shake, he pulls me from bliss.

  “Share what you know with me, and I’ll see you home safely.”

  His wife has prepared a wonderful meal for us by the time we return. I gorge myself and later fall quickly to sleep; and in the evening, Rinaldo fulfills his promise and walks with me the many miles home. He sends me off as soon as the house comes into view, admittedly uncomfortable with the thought of introducing himself to my parents. He does, however, assure me that I’m welcome in his lodge whenever my curse leads me there. With that, he shrinks back down the road.

  I hurry up the steps and press the doorbell once. The door immediately opens. Mother stands there, eyes red. “Oh god.” Her arms begin to suffocate me. “I knew you’d be here.” She squeezes tighter. “A mother can feel it.”

  ***

  The image of Mother’s desperation…I cannot bear to witness it again. Should this all be some fancy ruse, it has affected me most deeply. For the moment, I decide against agitating her further, instead following my father up the stairs to my room. On my arrival, he’s already well into his unenthusiastic search for my cell phone.

  “On the stand next to my bed,” I tell him. As expected, my words garner no response. I watch him continue lazily along his course. He can play at being deaf for as long as it suits him. However, I might distract him or bring him discomfort, anything to force him from character. But as I step forward to better guide him to my phone, I come upon a revelation.

  As a matter of habit, when I round the corner of my bed, I steal a glance toward the wall-mounted mirror. And when I do, I recognize without a shadow of doubt that nothing reflects on that sheet of glass.

  I focus again, hoping my perception was skewed.

  The glass remains as it was, reflecting the bedpost behind me, my father lifting my phone from behind the black lamp on my bedside table, and the general clutter Mother insists I find time to clean. All of these things exist with irrefutable physicality, but the one thing I most desperately need to see remains out of sight. Sure as I breathe, I’m but air to human eyes! All my time spent struggling to flag down a motorist, I reevaluate under this new light. It now becomes clear that my every action has been undermined by the strangeness of my condition.

  I raise my hands in front of my face. There they are, clear as anything. I turn defiantly to Father and march toward him. Anger rushes through me in heavy waves of discontent. I channel it all into one great motion, gripping his sleeve and hauling it sideways. Father stumbles but regains his balance against the bed.

  “He really needs to clean this place up,” he says, carefully finding his way past me and out of my room.

  I stand dumbfounded. What’s happened to me, I cannot say. I look down at my legs and feet, then back to my hands and arms. Everything is in its place and moves as it should. My limbs obey my every command, but that mirror denies me as my parents have. What have these night walks made of me? A man who can see but can’t be seen, and still six years remain until this cursed blood runs thin.

  -IV-

  The Clattering Gale

  Anxiety gives way to deep thought, and deep thought steals what’s left of the day. I
pace around the house, testing every reflective surface until it’s clear they all agree upon the status of my visibility. Everything from the marble countertop to the windows corroborate the tale told by the mirror. A thorough combing of my memory reveals no story of Mother’s wherein a bearer of our blood experienced an existential crisis such as mine. Nor does logic connect cause with consequence. I slept and walked and awoke no differently than before, yet only now do I experience this strange symptom. In the endeavor to discover the systems innate to my present condition, failure has been my closest companion.

  I stare at the blank television, bobbing from side to side, observing the shifts in light and shape, none representative of my body. I’d settle for even the smallest indication that I’m as present as I know myself to be. It little matters how long I gaze into the black glass, and I’m soon pressed to admit the futility of my search for affirmation. I retreat to my bedroom, but when I see that mirror, I cannot bear the trauma of revisiting the first proof of my condition. I shun it for all its honesty.

  Darkness hangs over the house like a thick cloth, frightening and warm. I’ve lost the day to fruitless efforts. This place where I’ve always felt most secure now fills me with unease and loneliness. And although I know my seeing them will do little to ease that loneliness, where else have I to go, except to see my parents?

  I leave the isolation of my own room and saunter down the hall. The door to their bedroom is cracked open enough to permit me. It strikes me when I enter, the authenticity of it all. I feel their sadness at my disappearance, the way it clings to this darkness and nestles in it. They both slumber deeply though burdened by the unsettling realization that unforeseen tragedy may have befallen me. The fervor of their lifting chests confirms what the heaviness of the room already explained. The strength of their spirits draws me close. I’m poised so close to their bedside yet but a ghost to them. Their waking eyes shall pass through me as though nothing at all divides them from the bedroom window.

  Restless and starved of a solution, I remain here for countless hours, watching for the occasional hard pressing of their eyelids that signals a malicious dream-thought. I cannot see those dreams but need not be a member of my parents’ consciousnesses to know what nightmares plague them. In this suffering, they are not solitary. The three of us together bear the sadness of separation.

  Lightning flashes outside. Even nature sheds its tears for us. A storm rages like a thousand souls howling in unison, wrecking their way through the sky. Torrential beads play their drum-song against the window, threatening to shatter the glass. Farther off into this great storm, thunder originates, its fading echo reaching me as only a whimper. Slightly closer are the flashes that light the chaotic scene. Though the tempest knows nothing of temperance, my parents’ deep sleep shelters their ears from its song. For me alone, it is reserved. Drawn to the phenomenon by its compelling splendor, I depart the bedside and meander with little apprehension toward the window. Pellets of rain splinter into tiny fragments against it, dispersing into intricate patterns and thereafter sliding away. Their melancholy resonates with me—the unseen descent and fleetingness of arrival. I become ascetic, tracing the streaks against the glass, admiring how their path is laid only for erasure to follow: the consecutive beats that wash away all indication that anything before had come.

  Pained roars of the clattering gale continue in line with the heavy rain. Its shrill cries end mid-note, overtaken by newer and fiercer screeching. The storm competes with itself, intensely escalating for the hour I spend awe-struck by the beauty of it.

  If the beast raging outside these walls wore a human skin, what words might we exchange? How might it further cull me into its tragic company? There’s a hope in me, a longing, that it may one day reveal its words to me.

  “…back.” A word disturbs my thought. It belongs to my mother. She squirms in bed, tearing at the sheets and quietly mouthing “come back.”

  I glance out at the storm once more. I still hope. I’ll long for as long as this condition keeps me captive. But the words of the gale come second to those of my mother. I return compliantly to her side. “I’m here.”

  Like the storm, I’m a voiceless thing whose utterances are mere abstractions. Try as I might to elicit from her a meaningful response, an unknown law divides us. How naïve I must appear holding to false hopes that my presence here denies the seed of torture its growth. No, the gestating bud has already been planted and shall thrive to fruition.

  And yet the storm wanes.

  -V-

  Genealogy of the Thrush

  Mother stirs many hours later. Her eyes flutter to life. Her limbs taste the energy brought upon by rest, and her lips part for a deep inhalation. She rolls over once to check on Father who’s still fast asleep. She kisses him gently and just as gently shimmies out of bed. I don’t care to examine her morning routine; even in anonymity, I know better than to disturb a personal moment.

  Instead, I return downstairs intending to nourish myself. Having not eaten in so long, I’m ill at ease. Attentiveness to my health might reverse this dreadful effect. I find an abundance of items lining the pantry, so much so that I’m encumbered in my selection. Remembering how many groceries Mother brought home yesterday, I don’t bother checking the refrigerator. It’ll be as overstocked as the pantry. I circle around to the living room and let the next moments pass me over in silence, stillness.

  Time endows me again, in short measure, with my mother’s presence. She comes downstairs washed and ready to face the day as best she can. Her eyes express a deep resentment either for these waking hours or my continued absence, or perhaps both. From the fridge, she assembles the ingredients of a standard breakfast and goes about its preparation. I watch her throughout most of the process and wonder when next I’ll be the recipient of one of her meals. Fluffy buttered biscuits, cuts of meat dripping with flavor, zesty sauce atop lightly salted angel hair. I long to taste them again. In the meantime, I conduct my admiration from afar. She gathers two slices of lightly toasted bread, scrambled eggs infused with bacon, and a glass of orange juice at her place at the table.

  Father starts down the steps now and emerges at the bottom of the flight right as she places the first bite against her shuddering tongue. “Are you alright?” he asks.

  She doesn’t answer but places another bite against her tongue. Her jawline turns sharp with her slow and methodical chewing. She goes on like that until the food is salivated mush; then she swallows. “This isn’t the first time.”

  There’s a piercing silence. Father searches her eyes for clarity. Finding none, he nervously swallows and pulls closer. “What do you mean?”

  “My sister—”

  “No, don’t.”

  “You know she—”

  “Lyn.” Mother gasps, holding her mouth agape. All else goes silent, save Father in his reply. “This is nothing like that.”

  I’m surprised, though I don’t know that I should be. The terrible history of my family, it would seem, is not confined merely to these night walks. An aunt I never knew I had surfaced this morning. And all it took for me to learn of her was my perceived death. Misery begets more misery.

  “Everything that happens has happened before,” she mutters to Father who is understandably confused. As for myself, I’ve heard those words many times before. She spoke them often during our trips in the wilderness, often before beginning a tale of our lineage. In my youth, I fancied the tales of my ancestors, their struggles, and the virtue with which they faced them. But then, those tales mostly involved our blood curse and its perseverance through every generation. Whatever tale she plans on sharing with Father, I doubt it can be one I’ve yet to hear.

  “It was a long time ago,” she begins, bowing her head.

  Father senses he’s in for the long haul of whatever story Mother has to tell and relaxes in his seat. I stand by.

  “I don’t remember how many generations back it was, but it was sometime in the 1700s. Whichever of my grand
mothers it was that was alive back then, she’d been in love with her independence. She had a wild side that she flaunted whenever she could. Everyone knew about her. She was always coming home from some exotic place with stories of how she met ‘this great person’ or done ‘this great thing.’ The married women all envied her since their husbands needed them at home to keep things tidy. My ancestor never held her freedom over them. Her stories made them happy. And she liked seeing the women in town happy. But it fell apart one day, when she fell in love.” Mother’s head bows further down. Her tale isn’t unfamiliar, though I only vaguely recollect the details. “She fell in love with another woman. She knew it was wrong and that she’d be shunned for it. But she’d always had that wild side, and it told her not to care about what people in town might say. She would have come out with the truth of it, but her lover was too scared of the punishment to dare to announce their relationship. So they did everything that was expected of normal women. They both married men and had children, and they rarely saw each other after dark. They had to hide their relationship behind their husbands’ friendship.” She pauses again and lifts her head momentarily. Her entire body seems to waver, stricken by the deep emotionality the story elicits within her. A cold sweat darkens the cloth on her backside. “So my ancestor—”

  “What was her name?” His question sucks the breath from her. She glances around the room quizzically, eyes vacant. The search for an answer goes on for some time. She narrows her eyes at the far wall, then widens them in seeming revelation, but even that seems not to be the answer she seeks because she swings her head dismissively and mutters under her breath that she doesn’t quite remember.