“Enim, I ...” My father’s voice petered out in an uncharacteristic uncertainness, and he cleared his throat before trying again. “I came as soon as I heard, son.”
I shut my eyes on the window; the light from the sun had gone cold.
“They ... well, they’ve told you everything already, I think, so there’s no point in reiterating it now. But I ... I want you to know that we’re going to do everything we can to make this as comfortable as possible for you. Karl’s taking care of the situation with the Hadler boy and Beringer, so the police won’t be harassing you ... You can just focus on getting better.”
He waited a long moment for a response that would never come.
“Enim, I ... I’m sorry, son. I should have come home sooner. I should have – should have realized that you weren’t well.”
I moved so that I was staring straight at him but found myself looking right through him instead. He was only a few inches from my face, and his hand laid close to mine on the seat, and yet somehow he was very far away. I didn’t feel close to him at all, and it occurred to me that perhaps I never had.
I turned away and returned my gaze to the window. The parking lot below was just the desolate sight of a stretch of dark pavement scattered with cars. I missed the window overlooking the horizon in the dorm room at Bickerby, and I missed the way that Jack cracked it open even in the middle of winter to let the smoke from his cigarette out of the room. I missed the way his carelessness rubbed off onto me when he convinced me to do something exciting and unfounded, and the way his scent rubbed off onto my clothes and didn’t come out in the wash. I missed him. I missed him so badly.
And they would never understand. They would never look any further than what they already believed that they had seen, and Jack and I would slowly slip further into the roles that they had cut out for us. He would outrun his innocence, and I would be overcome by guilt. If we could meet somewhere in the middle of it all, though, then we could balance one another like we always had. I shut my eyes more tightly as I thought of it, and I tried to imagine where he was at that moment. The idea that he might not have made it out of the ocean was too much to bear, and I shook my head before the thought could enter my mind.
“Enim, they want to transfer you to another part of the hospital now that you’re more stable. It won’t be permanent – we’ve already begun to look for arrangements closer to home.”
He had to be in Canada by now, I thought desperately. I let the idea fall over me and settle behind my eyes, pushing out the less hopeful ones as it came. He would have shoved the rowing boat back out into the ocean once he had made it to land, and then he would have taken the bus from the ferry dock to the largest town. From there he would have boarded a bus heading north, undoubtedly filled with older women and their knitting projects who had come down for some post-holiday shopping. I could see him sitting next to one, leaning his head against the window to avoid making conversation, his head still ducked low into my scarf to hide his broken face as he pretended to sleep.
And he would act nonchalant at the border when they pulled him off for questioning, perhaps with a ready-made excuse as to why he was going up to Canada for a few days. I imagined what he would say to the guard checking my passport: perhaps something in French about visiting Quebec for the weekend and catching part of the winter carnival. I wasn’t worried about what excuses he would make, for I knew that it wouldn’t be a problem for him, and I wasn’t worried about him trying to impersonate me because he knew me better than anyone. I forced myself to smile at the thought of him trekking through the snow as he sought out a place to buy cigarettes near the rest-stop. He would be all right. He had to be.
“Enim, I know that you don’t understand all of this right now, and so I don’t blame you for being confused. But if you just trust me, then I promise it will all make sense very soon.”
I opened my eyes slowly. The sunlight struck them and my vision of Jack taking a long drag turned to white as though he had been caught in a sudden gust of snow.
“No, I understand,” I said quietly.
“You ... you do?”
“I’ll go. I’ll go wherever you want.”
He opened his mouth to respond, but – for what might have been the first time in his life – he didn’t know what to say. It was odd that our roles had been reversed, and he had become the one to stumble and fret over his word choice. At another time it might have been a shock to me, but the world had changed so much that it hardly seemed surprising that we might have changed with it. Now I was the one who was deceiving him with empty sentiments and long-awaited promises that I never intended to fulfill, for my only intention of complying with their demands was to wait out the time before I could slip away again.
“Good, that’s good then. I’m glad that you’re taking this in stride, son. It’ll be – it’ll be good, I think. It’ll work out alright, so long as you take the medication and adhere to the treatments. You don’t have to be ... like her.”
He smiled encouragingly, but the view was broken as I blinked up at him.
“Who should I be?”
“I – what?” He stammered at the words, having expected a polite smile or nod in return to his own. “You can be anyone, Enim. You can be anything, just like always. Anything but this.”
“But I am like this.”
He faltered and gave way to a frown before deciding that we had said enough, and he left the room as empty as he had come upon it. When the door had closed behind him, I stood and turned towards it. It was just a piece of wood, and yet it separated me from the outside, and from the cold air, and from the ability to disappear into the familiarity of the woods. It separated me from my mother, and from knowing my own thoughts and hearing the aria one last time. It separated me from Jack, and from carelessness, and from devising a plan to meet up with him somewhere where we could hide right out in the open.
And sometime later, after they had wheeled me down the hallway and into a sparsely-furnished room and tipped a handful of assorted pills into my hand, I realized that I didn’t know where he was, or where I was, or what would become of either of us. I had the answers to my questions and nothing else, and they weighed down heavily upon me, and the brokenness of the world shined in pieces before my eyesight, too jagged and misplaced to be put back together. And as I watched the door shut on the image of Karl and my father in the hallway outside, standing together but separately as they watched what would become of me, it occurred to me that I was now the secreted, evaded patient in the room at the end of the hall.
Excerpt from “none shall sleep”
by laura giebfried
Fade in:
EXT. Bardom island shore – day
Late autumn. A rocky beach with jagged stones sits below a prestigious all-boys boarding school. The ocean is black, sky colorless. A forsaken place.
Several boys in untucked dress shirts and slacks are gathered at one end of the beach, raucously fooling around. At the other end, ENIM LUND stands alone. He is immaculately dressed yet ghostly looking as he stares at the water. Soft PIANO NOTES sound in the distance, barely audible. He exhales and begins to turn away from the water when -
GLUB. Something stark white rises to the ocean's surface, indistinguishable. Enim halts, staring at it, then steps forward to the water just as -
A young woman's body rises to the surface, her eyes blank and deadened.
JULIAN (o.s.)
What's wrong with you, Lund?
JULIAN WYNNE (17), the type of boy who only has friends because no one wants to be his enemy, catches sight of him and sidles over. His roommate, KYLE TRASK, a brutish boy who loves to fight, follows.
Enim looks back at the water. There's no sign of the body.
Enim
Nothing.
Trask
You look like you're about to wet yourself.
ENIM
No, I just -
He looks back at the water. It's still undisturbed and blue. He smo
oths the front of his sweater down.
Enim (CONT'D)
I'm fine.
JuLIAN
Yeah?
TraSK
He's just lost without his boyfriend
here to speak for him, aren't you, Lund?
He shoves Enim's shoulder, though with a bit too much force to be playful. Julian looks around.
JULIAN
Where is Jack?
EnIM
Class.
JULIAN
Right. Thought he might've been
expelled after that fight last night.
God knows no one would miss him ...
He catches himself and smiles widely to cover the insult.
JuLIAN (CONT'D)
You know, Enim, if you ever wanted a
change in company you could always
come and hang out with me and Kyle sometime.
We haven't seen much of you since ...
ENIM
I've been busy.
TrASK
Busy with Jack.
JULIAN
Too busy for orchestra, even?
EnIM
Yeah, I ... I didn't have
time this semester.
JULIAN
Right.
(beat)
It's too bad. We're missing
our only piano player.
The sharp sound of PIANO NOTES skims the air again, and Enim looks back at the water. Over Julian's shoulder, the girl's body has reappeared closer to the shore. The bluish skin is pulled taut in the winter light, gleaming like a beacon to signal sailors towards shore -
Julian
(following Enim's gaze)
What the -?
TrASK
Holy fuck - look at that!
The boys further down the shore take notice of the excitement and come forward. Trask rushes to the water, but as he grabs up a broken tree branch and begins to prod the body while the other students excitedly watch on, Enim turns and scampers up the slope towards the Bickerby campus, revolted and alarmed.
Ext. BiCKERBY - CAMPUS – later
Sound is MUTED and GARBLED as though recording underwater. Enim stands outside one of the brick buildings that comprise Bickerby Academy. The headmaster, CHARLES BARKER, a huge man in a three-piece green suit, is shouting orders. The local police make their way to the beach to collect the dead girl, shooing away students as they go. VOLUME returns to normal.
Enim's neck CRACKS as he turns to the headmaster.
ENIM
Can I go now?
Barker
Your father's on the phone.
He wants to talk to you.
ENIM
It's not my father.
Barker
No? Karl Lund?
(squints at his clipboard)
Ah, of course: your uncle then.
He wants to talk to you. Ask them to
put you through on the main phone.
INT. BICKERBY - RESIDENCE BUILDING – later
A few students are seated in the main room. Enim retrieves the phone and pulls it as far from the wall as the cord will allow to avoid being heard.
ENIM
Hello?
Int. Connecticut - lawyer's office
KARL LUND, a man in his early 40s, sits at a desk. With his neat suit, blond hair, and worn expression, he looks like an older, tireder version of Enim.
Karl
Enim - finally. I've been waiting half an hour.
INTERCUT BETWEEN ENIM AND KARL
KARL (CONT'D)
They told me what happened at
the beach. Was Jack there?
ENIM
No, he was in class.
KARL
Are you sure?
ENIM
Course I'm sure. I think
I'd know if he was there, Karl.
KARL
Right, well ... I only wondered.
He tends to be around
whenever unsightly things happen.
Enim scowls.
KARL (CONT'D)
Well, anyhow, I just called in
case there was ... If you needed
someone to ... If there was anything
you wanted to talk about.
Enim
(beat)
With you? Like what?
KARL
Like ... like anything, Enim.
ENIM
I'm good, thanks.
KARL
It's only - they said that the -
the body was of a young woman.
And I can't help but think -
ENIM
I said I'm fine, Karl.
KARL
Saying it doesn't make it true,
Enim. You found the body of a
drowned woman: I think that's
worth discussing.
ENIM
You're interested in discussing
some local girl? Why? She was
probably nobody.
KARL
I'm interested in discussing your
mother, Enim. Specifically how
this - this event - might have
brought up some thoughts of what happened -
ENIM
The only thing bringing up
thoughts of my mother is you.
I haven't thought of her. At all.
I never do.
KARL
Right. Well ... I'll be sure
to tell you're father not to worry.
ENIM
He won't.
KARL
He'll be concerned, Enim.
He always is. You should know that.
ENIM
If he's so concerned, why
hasn't he called in eight months?
KARL
He's - it's not like that,
Enim. He's been ... your mother was -
ENIM
Whatever. I don't care.
KARL
I know it's not ideal, Enim –
having me here instead of him,
but it's how it has to be.
Things have to change.
He waits for Enim's answer. Then -
Karl (CONT'D)
Are you wearing your coat?
Enim hesitates. He is only wearing a light sweater.
ENIM
Yes.
KARL
Because it's freezing there,
and you'll catch your death.
(pauses)
Beringer said you've been forgetting.
Enim's face twitches. His fingers curl around the phone cord.
ENIM
I haven't forgotten anything, Karl.
About the Author
Laura Giebfried was born in Bangor, Maine in June of 1992. She is the youngest child of Joseph and Rosemary Giebfried, who moved to Maine from New York in order to raise their family.
None Shall Sleep (Damnatio Memoriae Book 1) Page 39