Squinting through the windshield into an unusually dark afternoon,
headlights reflecting off of white rain and sleet, I slowly ease on my
brakes. A ways ahead, a wave of brake lights exclaim red. Their
exclamations
are brightly lit, aligned ahead of one another, stretching up and over
the top of a small hill. I let out a sigh of frustration and fear as
the car slows to a stop. Between the sleet, my shoddy
windshield
wipers, and my wounded red eyes, I can barely see the car in front of
me. Confusion. I can’t stop thinking about all of the details of the
night, and I try desperately to think about something, anything less
painful Nothing. Everything else I try to think about comes back to
Tonight. It’s like that board game Chutes and Ladders, where every
memory I used to be able to find soothing is a space on the board, and
there are two chutes spiraling down. One back to the Start, before any
of this mess started. That’s the place I wish I could escape to. But
my mind keeps rolling unlucky, down the other chute, whipping past all
the other spaces on the board. Memories of childhood, first kisses with
new
boyfriends, humiliation, denial, triumph, loss. As hard as I
try, there is no use. My brain has already rerouted everything back to
Tonight. Just get away. Drive far away.Reality snaps back into place,
and I haven’t driven but ten miles from Tonight. Damned traffic. My
attention now turns back to the exclamations ahead, and I’ve made my way
up to the top of the hill. Just below, down the road are white and red
flashing lights. Four police cars, two ambulances, and two small cars
twisted and tangled
together. It didn’t look like the kind of
accident people were walking away from. The accident only brings my mind
back to Tonight. My mind keeps rolling unlucky. Escape now. Skip town.
Get out. There is
nothing left now. Not anymore. As I slowly roll passed the accident, I don’t stare out of my window
into
the wreckage like the people in the cars in front of me. I always
found that sort of thing cruel and in some ways, sadistic.
Disrespectful. Looking for an arm, a leg maybe, spilling out of a
shattered window…I’ve always been afraid to see a body that wounded, not
eager to. As I pass, I feel an overwhelming swarm of pressure and
isolated pain in my temples. It’s happening. I feel myself folding from
the outside in. I’ve fallen down the long descending chute that leads
back to Tonight. Down a twisting spiral and around a long turn, then
down again. There is a straight-away ahead now, and the end of the
narrow chute is quickly approaching. Stop. Turn back. It is not too
late. But I’ve spilt out of the chute onto my kitchen floor. The
bright halogen lights from my new ceiling fixtures are sharp on my eyes,
but in my mind, in this world, I seem to feel no pain. The fall from
the chute left me virtually spotless. Everything is familiar.
My kitchen, my chairs, my countertops, my new light fixtures. The
kitchen table. The opened white envelope with my name on it. The
letter he wrote folded in half. The white gold birthday watch sitting
there between the letter and the opened white envelope. And the
answering machine on the countertop. Blinking red with a message I’d
rather not hear. Not again. I start spinning… The room begins to look
unfamiliar. Focus. The red light. The blinking red light. Just then I
blink my eyes and I’m back in my car.The traffic is gone.The police cars
are gone. The ambulances are gone. I don’t know how much time has
passed. Maybe hours. I must have had an ‘episode’ again. The doctors
have some medical term for it, but they’ve been referring to it as “the
folding”. When it happens it feels like my body folds up into origami
as I recede into my subconscious. It’s like narcolepsy meets lucid
dreaming meets the most painful fucking headaches you could imagine.
Ahead
there is a soft, blinking red light. It’s not the terrible voice
message on my machine. It’s a caution light blinking red above a stop
sign a quarter mile up the road. What is happening to me? I reach into
my coat pocket to get my pills and I pull out a white envelope with my
name on it. Inside is the letter he wrote, folded in half. In the bottom
of the envelope, hiding in the corner sits his watch. The watch my
grandmother gave to my grandfather. The watch my grandmother left to me
when she passed, to give to a boy I love one day. I open the letter and
read the words that I already know by heart.
“I’ve left. Don’t try to find me. I’m so sorry but I can’t be there for
you this time. Not after how you’ve changed. Check the answering
machine. I’m so sorry. Your brother is dead. ~Patch”
I’m out of my medication.
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