Nightwalker

by Ime Atakpa

  “Maybe Alice.” She ponders the name for a while, hoping to procure a better answer, but none comes. “Yeah, Alice. She decided to start sending these short poems. Her husband’s study was off limits though, so she’d have to buy all her own supplies. So that’s exactly what she did. She started meeting her lover more frequently. After nightfall, they’d go to the pier. Alice would read a new poem to her lover, they’d talk for a little bit, and then they’d say goodbye. Things went on like that for months. But in such a small town, you can’t keep your secrets buried forever.”

  Mother’s face rises sternly as she says this. A fresh tear runs down the side of her face, like liquefied wax escaping the fire of her eyes. It melts down to her chin and drips onto the table. A soft tap. “Someone found out. Someone saw them, and they started to talk, and the rumors started to spread, and soon it reached Alice’s husband. The funny thing is, he wasn’t necessarily upset that she was taken with someone else.” She chuckles and turns her gaze upward. “He was upset because that person was a woman. In a town like that, no one took it well. Alice’s husband wanted her dead. It wasn’t exactly illegal, but it wasn’t exactly legal either. No one would want justice for her murder. Alice figured as much, so she went out to the pier where she had read so many poems to the woman she loved. And she threw herself in.”

  Not knowing what to say, Father holds to his silence. He sits there twiddling his fingers and stroking his face. No one needs to say anything for him to comprehend the nature of Mother’s assumption regarding my loss. Still, he states that obvious implication. “You think he drowned?”

  “My sister drowned.” Her voice is a high-pitched wail.

  Father’s eyes, typically inclined to disbelieve the supernatural, are open and accepting. He lays both hands flat against the table, fingers spread. “This is connected to his episodes,” he says. “We know that much. If he wakes up before we notice he’s missing, he comes home. We know that.”

  Mother nods feebly. I take a place between the two of them, facing forward and deliberately avoiding eye contact. I don’t wish to see them look through me.

  “So if he’s not home…” He pauses to think. His fingers drum against the table in a steady rhythm. “If he’s not home, either he hasn’t woken up. Or…”

  A hard stop. We all return to the postulation that I’m in imminent peril, or already drowned. If only I could comfort them. I’d barter with my life if it allowed my presence here to touch them. Alas, those dreams are just that: fantasy, the offspring of undue optimism.

  “My baby.” Mother’s voice trembles. I needn’t look in her direction to know the sadness in her eyes or touch her skin to feel the panic-warmed flesh.

  “Listen. Lyn. We both know what happens the longer we wait. If we—”

  “He’s safe!” Two slightly offset shockwaves surge through the table. She’s on her feet now, hoisted up on two vein-laden hands. She flinches at the sound of the chair crashing down behind her but presses her fists harder against the marble. “Hubert is safe. He’ll—he’ll be. He’s on his way home right now.”

  “I’m home, Mother.” So I wish to tell her.

  Father’s head drops and shakes. I catch it in my peripheral. “Brooklyn, I want him home too.”

  “He’s already on his way,” she continues to argue.

  “And what if he’s not?”

  “He is!” Shockwaves run through the table once more.

  “I am,” I whimper uselessly. Neither of them hears me. I repeat it once more to hear the sound of my own voice, the voice that eludes them.

  “Come here.” Father’s voice is stern and steady, comforting. I recall he used to speak to me in that same tone when I’d scraped my knee or broken a toy. Serenity lurks behind the choked, broken sound. Mother knows this and obeys his call. She passes me by on her way across the table, feet dragging, muscles weakening with every step.

  Without words, she collapses onto him, head landing in the space between his neck and shoulder. “We’ll find him,” he whispers and commences to stroke her skull with long, gentle stretches of his fingers.

  I follow her to him and orient myself against his free shoulder. I wish desperately against possibility, straining myself to transmute this deplorable scene from one of loss into one of reunion, and for the warmth of my body to be felt against these two dying hearts. For as long as they’re here in silence, I wait and mourn alongside them. Muffled sniffles. Gentle shushing. The sound of Father’s fingers running from the roots to the tips of her hair. A whisper to break the silence.

  “My sister died young.”

  His fingers pause mid-stroke. “I know.”

  “She woke up in a lake.” A hysterical giggle follows. “She loved to swim.”

  “I remember.”

  “Hubert loves the lake, doesn’t he?”

  “He does.”

  They pull slightly apart once Father understands exactly what Mother is suggesting. His face, already grim, darkens more still. He brushes the tears from her and strokes her cheek gently, and he whispers something such that not even Mother hears it, close as she is. But she comes away completely and gazes at him, somehow both lovingly and despairingly. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Remember how we found him the first time it happened? He was sitting out on the dock with his feet in the lake. He was leaning back just a bit, like he was scared of it. Like he just wanted a small dip. That’s the kind of kid he is. Gets his feet wet in everything, but from the ankles up, dry as can be.”

  “He is,” she laughs. A faint smile sneaks its way back onto her lips which until now have been twisted in an ugly frown. Her body shifts closer to his, her head presses against his chest; and he drives his fingers once, twice though her hair. “I had to force him to go camping with me. He was so scared of everything.”

  “And after that first time, do you remember what scared him the most?”

  What scares me the most? I’ve never felt particularly inclined to divulge any such details of myself to them, for fear they might be further burdened by the knowledge. I’ve already, by this condition, enacted a terrible duty upon them. From it, there’s no escape, except by time. But time has expired for us all and fear seems such a fickle thing.

  And yet, here I am, remaining evermore by their sides, torturing myself by witnessing these trials of theirs. But why shouldn’t I? What good have I imparted on their lives? They have striven for as long as I’ve been their child to shelter me from the unpredictable danger of this curse. What I owe them, I cannot give; the debt cannot be repaid. What is the weight of my burden to theirs but penance for the injustice they suffer on my account? It only makes sense that this hell should be my purgatory. My suffering should be to watch helplessly as they suffer, and to suffer more so than they. I deserve worse for the sadness I have brought them.

  I deserve it. But I know better than to wish that fate upon myself. I know of those unspoken fears.

  ***

  I try to smile back but my mouth only trembles. Images blur in the corners of my vision. My lame body refuses to respond to my will. In front of me, the two figures slowly fade away; I note marked changes in their expressions. They’re frantic, concerned. “Don’t leave me,” I try to tell them though I’m sure the utterance contains nothing of those sounds.

  Whenever solitude becomes too heavy a weight, my childish wail summons them back to me. Rinaldo’s wife distills spirits at my bedside. They reek of the outdoors, a scent I’d like no more of, and taste not dissimilar to dirt. I drink them still, having nothing else to cure my debilitation. These people understand more of the natural world than I, and my betterment depends upon my acceptance of their secret arts. While she works at her trade, Rinaldo sits seiza-style beside me, telling stories of the many travelers to lodge at his establishment, puffing on a pipe as he does.

  His stories invigorate me. Men who travel cross-country, free from the burdens of society. Couples fleeing from their parents on quests to elope. Kids much like
myself who become lost during playtime in the forest and stumble across the lodge. All manners of people come to him for relaxation and the pleasure of good company. But the best of his stories have different protagonists. They are men, women, and children alike trapped between two places: one of light and one of darkness. These people always arrive at his lodge during their pilgrimage through darkness, incapable of mustering the strength to muscle into the light. He tells me how he sheltered those pitiable people and nursed the weariness from their bones. And when they were ready to either return to the darkness or work their way into a better condition, he allowed them to go free, wherever their hearts called them. To him, it didn’t matter, for his guidance had provided them the one thing they needed during their journeys. A place where they were not alone.

  ***

  I fade back into the present just in time to hear: “could hardly leave his bedside. He would—”

  “You still can’t.” Mother’s face twists in shock, but not at being interrupted. A kernel of truth was in Father’s last words and they stung her. No matter how deeply I contemplate the meaning of it, the sting is lost on me.

  A deep red of the sorrowful kind fills her cheeks. “I want to.” Her voice cracks and she wails, turning away from Father so as to bear the shame of her tears alone. He allows her the solace though I do not. I draw close to her, and I try as best I can to reveal something of myself. Vibrations move me though my condition is unmoved; I only shudder in place, helplessly at her side.

  She sighs. “But I can’t.”

  -VI-

  The Will of Wind and Waves

  It’s Monday, it would seem, as both my parents come downstairs fully dressed. Neither lingers at the table. They exchange kisses on the cheek and depart. Yesterday and the day before, they hung around the house replicating an old routine out of sheer habit, pretending nothing was amiss. All weekend, I called to them, beating my voice into the house. Neither responded.

  Overnight, I’d vanished and left them alone. Now, I too am left alone. I hadn’t been aware before of how empty the house could become. Not a sound fills it, save the occasional ringing of the grandfather clock. He hangs in the living room, just above the television. My only companion in a world oblivious to my existence. Throughout the day, I count on him for matter-of-fact, one-sided conversations. The sound comforts me though that serenity exists for but a moment each half hour.

  The world spins on around me, not unlike grandfather’s perpetual motion. What’s there to be done by a creature like myself, inconsequential to everything that surrounds me? What, indeed…indeed, it is a useless thought. Honesty creeps over me, touches my skull and fills me with itself; it reminds me how there’s nothing to be done. I can sit, I can wait, I can watch. But I cannot act. I cannot affect. That truth reaches me with such clarity, it hurts.

  I think during some hour that I might prepare a surprise meal for my parents. They’d be quite pleased, I’m sure, to have one less chore. They’d sit down and unwind, each enjoying the company of the other, and gorge away their sorrows. However, the strength of lethargy is greater than that of willfulness.

  A voice in my head warns me of the futility of such a thing. “It’s little use,” the voice says, a voice no different than my own. It rings and echoes in the back of my mind, pounding me with its suggestion. The subterfuge of my subconscious binds me where I am in the living room, idly existing.

  For less than I week, I’ve roamed unseen, and I’ve long soured of this homecoming. They can’t hear me, and I can’t touch them. I can’t really touch them. What else worth touching is there? Pots and pans? They’re nothing to the warmth of human skin, the comfort of bodily contact.

  If nothing else, the thought of food does me one good service. It reminds me that I have not eaten. It has been long enough since my last meal that my stomach should be churning. My body should be tearing itself apart, but I feel as well fed as the moment I awakened. Time might erase this predicament of mine, but even time thus far has refused to alter any of the hardships endured since my awakening.

  Days have passed uneventfully, in regards to my condition. Morning, evening, and night have come and fled without imparting even a shred of opacity. In that time, Mother managed to relate nearly every tale of her ancestry to Father. Together, they dissected this information and plotted their next course of action.

  Before then, they’d conversed only in the spare moments between work and mourning—and each devoted ample time from their days to search for me in the nearby woods. I appreciated the brevity of their contact. Every meeting surged with raw emotion. Merely seeing Father brought Mother to gentle tears. Her head would slump against his chest, buried in the fabric; and he, feeling no different than she, would offer no consolatory words, no comforting gestures. Neither met the other with me in tow. That considered, they had need for few words. Each day, their hope dimmed evermore, submitting itself to a despair from which desolation is born. But witnessing the rawness of their reunions lit a hope in me. For short moments, I felt as though it’d take but a while longer for my invisibility to rectify itself.

  Their weekend discussions ruined that simplicity. Under limitations of time, emotion was the best language to communicate their feelings, but when time came to them aplenty, reality set a heavy check on their emotion, that they could not be content to merely feel for their loss. It then became their imperative to do what I sought to do: reclaim their lost son.

  From dawn to dusk, they discussed night walks and paced and cried. I stood closer than either dared imagine, soaking in all of their anguish and unwilling to concede to the feelings coalescing in my mind. Intrigue, disgust, and morose passion flooded me all throughout their proceedings, but never once did I allow myself to join in their hopelessness. I had to remain bright, a vigil in the dark. Responsibility for safeguarding our shared dream fell upon me. Little could they know how far off their postulations strayed from the mark.

  “He’s still on his way home,” Mother once suggested to Father’s disbelief.

  “He can’t hunt,” Father sighed. “He refuses to learn how to take care of himself out there.” And Father was right to have said so. Despite all his efforts—all their efforts—I’d found my comfort in good company rather than my own capability for self-preservation. Had I awakened entirely at a loss for my location, I’d surely have perished long before reaching home.

  They tossed ideas back and forth, quick to strike each down for its irrationality or unlikeliness. As their conversation stretched from minutes to hours, their postulations grew evermore absurd until, finally, they conceded to their inability to reach any reasonable conclusion. I watched over them all the while, progressively drained of my optimism. We three departed from the long weekend with neither hope nor passion.

  They sat together in the living room on Sunday night. Father laid across the couch, wrapping Mother in his arms. Her head rested on that place on his chest she loved so much, just below his collarbone. I watched from the edge of the couch as her mouth moved to count his steady heartbeats.

  Then his heartrate heightened. His body shifted against the back of the couch, slightly away from Mother. He bent his neck such that his chin rested on the center of her head and spoke the words that turned Mother to anger. “I think it might be time to call the police.” He threw the suggestion out like the final card from his sleeve, the ultimate play. Then he smiled, as though he’d finally solved the issue two days’ worth of conversation could not remedy.

  “What would people think?” Mother argued. “What would they say?”

  Father’s pained expression told the story he refused to speak. “No one knows anything about us.”

  “That’s my point. They don’t know we have a son. They’ll blame us.”

  “That’s—look, I’ve been a part of this thing because I care about you. You know that. And I care about our son. But there’s a limit. Somewhere along the line, we’ve got to stop and think about him.”

  “I am thinking abo
ut him.”

  “Lyn, just think.”

  “Oh, you think I’m not thinking? You think I’m too stupid to call the police?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Nobody knows my boy or what he’s going through like I know it. Not the police, not you, not—

  She knew she touched something volatile and dangerous, and so did I. The air simmered and Father hoisted himself from the couch. But he couldn’t take even one step from where he stood. The glance Mother cast held him fast. Father crouched down in front of the couch, and Mother propped her chin in her palm such that the two were eye level.

  “I’m sorry,” she sighed.

  “No one is looking but us. No one even knows he’s missing. If other people were looking—”

  “What would they think? He’s out there. I know it. You think I’m crazy, but I know it. He’ll show up. I promise he will.” She somehow convinced Father enough that he dropped the subject.

  Mother fears the police might further exasperate my condition and send me headlong into a fury or that I’ll be institutionalized. How she draws such fantastic conclusions, I do not know. Regardless, I cannot be bothered to whittle away my time at examining the effects of their decisions.

  Be it her maternal instinct or an unfounded hope, I couldn’t care less. Her dedication to the inevitability of my safe return tethers me here and sparks my will to search for an escape from this invisible hell. I may very well deserve this circumstance, but they scarce deserve the resultant sorrow.

  I look to the kitchen awhile, mentally drawing pots and pans and raw foods together in a concoction that never gets made.