Johanna Lane
The room was still; my eyes felt like the way the walls were looking at me. Dripping off my face, they seemed so tired. And maybe I was tired, but I was wide awake as the walls seemed to drip and drip and I couldn’t understand, were they communicating? Or maybe I was listening in on secrets not meant to be heard. But I heard them anyway as the cold wind tickled my senses. It was why I was awake and standing as the bed creaked when I had left it. The window must have been open, a harsh change to when I had it closed and locked earlier. I reached out, my breathing heavy, as the walls dripped and cried onto my pointer finger. Even stranger yet, it was a single story house. No rain to give the tears of the walls an ounce to leak, but they were and I couldn’t calm them. “Tap, tap, tap,” I went against the wall, trying to figure out where it was crying from.
Instead, my own face was peering back at me with hollow eyes. It almost didn’t feel real. Soon I reached out, cradling my own head, wrapping around it as tight as I could. It was as if I was clutching a child, afraid to let go. It began to even hurt me, as the walls wailed the more I clutched my head. I was begging and pleading with the walls to stop, but they would not stop screaming out their pain. I got so frustrated I dropped my head and banged it against the wall, pounding and pounding to silence it. Then the tiny shiver of wind grew stale as light entered two hollow craters that fit my fists as my eyes bored into them.
Footsteps had made way into my mind the sound alerting me as I turned so hard it felt as if my neck would’ve snapped. While a figure began to speak to me a voice so distorted I could not make sense of who it was or who they were.
“Adene, you know not to make noise while I’m–’’ A pause long escaped from them, as if the clouded eyes tried to fish inside their head for an answer.
“Resting..” A pause that had taken too long but answered in the end.
“I know, Uncle. I was having another dream again.”
“Then why are you lying in your own vomit?”
“The walls were crying again.”
“You know what you did, you know why we have you under lock and key.”
“Yes, Nurse Lily, I know what I did.”
“Then look at me, Adene.”
I looked up as a face so blurry reached out. Adam was that you? My mind tried to think as it filled with frustration. Or were you Adeline? A friend, foe, or who? My mind swirled with questions. I was cradled, more or less awkwardly held, as my mouth was stained with tears, vomit, or blood? My own or the walls Was that why they were crying out in pain, why I had to silence them? So many questions and little answers. But my head had swirled as I tipped on over like a drink in the person’s arms.
I awoke again to more walls, and more crying. I watched as they observed me. Silently crying while staring right at me. What do you want? Are you here to mock? I had so many questions my own thoughts couldn’t take it. I pounded and pounded against my head, trying to silence, trying to scream out. Finally, finally there was silence, the very silence I had craved for so long. I treasured the silence and, unaware of my surroundings someone had observed me, right by the dripping walls that now just stared at me. I was too busy lying on the floor to even notice this person was real. As real as the walls, as their eyes seemed to be as hollow as the thin walls that used to cry. But just like them, they were silent, and I was curled up like a dog on the floor.
“Do you know where you are?” they asked as they kicked me in the side. This must be a different person. This person couldn’t have possibly cradled me or been as gentle to hold me. So I knew it had to be Josephine, after all, she had given birth to me. But I did not love her any less. She was kind with words but never her hands. I suppose kicking me was one of her ways, and I thought the walls were dripping for me. But maybe they were alarming me that she was coming home, and I was wailing like a sailor, ripe for a siren like her to capture me. I don’t know why but she always liked to dress me as a doll; keep my face pretty. Maybe it was now, and that is why I couldn’t recognize it staring at me.
After a while she had stopped kicking, tapping, and prodding at me. Seeing that I was giving no response, she simply muttered under her breath.
“Wake up.”
I have no idea why she asked or why she mentioned it, but the room slowly began to fill with water as she left with a key, locking me out. I watched the room pour, pour till the water filled my lungs and my sight. I was drowning, and it felt like the snapping of a clock in the corner, ticking and ticking, brought to me as an anchor. Its sweet ticking over and over brought me closer as I wrapped my arm around it. Then it slowly morphed into something new, a little pocket watch with a bright room, so bright I was drowning in it, with a smile staring back at me. Reflecting the faces of the walls was Lily, my nurse. Was she the one holding me gently? And why was the pocket watch so fuzzy? It was still 2004 wasn’t it? Still 8:00 p.m?
Her smile frowned as she took my pocket watch before I could snatch it. She repeated the same words to me—the same words Josephine muttered.
“Wake up.”
But what was there left to wake up from? Was there still anything that I could grasp?
Snapping of fingers caused my eyes to widen. In Lily’s place was Adam, a slightly smaller smile, but still so warm and cruel. I glanced at his phone, which was as fuzzy as the pocket watch, reading 2004, 9:00 a.m. Has time passed? Or was I the one blurring in between the day? Then he said those words again, just like my mother and nurse.
“Wake up.”
But why was my mother not telling the time? Was I meant to see the clock? Or why had time passed and blurred so heavily? Then chewing brought me out; I was in class now with Adeline smacking her lips as she chewed on gum. The clock behind her showed it was 3:00 p.m., still 2004, so time had changed but not the year. Yet she took out her gum and placed it underneath the desk turning to me.
“Wake up.”
“Why?”
“Preservation.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
The world grew dark as I kept hearing the ticking of a clock, mounted or not. I couldn’t get the ticking out of my head. Or how what I saw was the walls continuing to melt. But what were they melting for? Was there a reason or had I simply gone too far? Would Nurse Lily come to my aid now? I swirled as I tried to grasp my head, but my fingers felt as if they sunk right through. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe—that all I was doing was sinking over and over while the walls closed towards me. With their endless wailing, all I could do was listen as they pleaded for me to end their screams.
Then I had finally felt awake. As a hand stroked my forehead, I leaned into it and I felt release. With my eyes barely able to open, the person above looked like an angel straight out of those old paintings; how their hair framed their head like a halo and their wings draped behind them in silver and white hues. I reached out to this angel, to this being of light cradling me, with a question only barely slipping out of my tongue.
“Hello? Were you the one to cradle me?”
“Yes, yes I was, Adene, do you know why I am even here?”
I shake my head as I lean into the angel, through their chest a hollow noise peaks through. A double heartbeat, beating so loud but as gentle as a drum, I couldn’t help but sway in my head hearing it. But the angel lifted my head and raised my chin for me to stare as I closed my eyes quickly, seeing a sight so blinding.
“I know you do not know, but that is the way of preservation, Adene.”
“Preserving me from what?”
“Yourself.”
I gasp out loud as I clutch the angel whose sweet silver light turned dull as I stared at a face morphing and shedding the skin of an angel. To appear so blurry, I reach out, begging for it to all be real. As my hand strokes flesh, the face tilts and smiles at me.
“Do you understand?”
“Should I?”
The angel—no, figure—doesn’t respond but simply stares at me. Those eyes bore into me like the walls. Have I been seeing the angel? Has the angel been screaming at me, begging me to wake? But what have I done to deserve this presence? Why did the angel shed for me and me alone? Is my mind tricking me or is the angel as real as me?
“Sleep Adene, you know the truth.”
“What truth? Must I find it?”
“Yes, and the truth inside of that heart. Now let me go Adene, you can’t join me like this.”
And for a brief moment I saw my Uncle, as silver as he was glowing on that flat line. But, instead of a bed, I was curled up on the floor, the angel disappearing as my head hit the ground and my eyes shut once more. The walls were silent once again, for I had woken in a white, faceless, pale room. A single table and two chairs were inside, and the only exit was behind Nurse Lily who sat in the chair blocking it. Her smile was as pale as the current room but as dim as the one I was in before.
“Take a seat; I hear you want the truth. Are you truly sure you wish to observe? Or has the angel convinced you that you should?”
“The angel.” I speak, taking a seat in the chair Nurse Lily had pointed out to, and for once I use my legs to stumble as I sit in front of her. “I was told by them, I had no idea you had the truth or that you knew where it was.”
“I know all sorts of things Adene, and one thing I know for certain is preservation is the key to why you can hold the truth right in front of me.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Easier to observe than to hear.”
I nod slowly as I reach out for the small folder on the table. I have been wondering about it, or how it had shown up on the table. But as I reach for it, Nurse Lily gently flips it over in my hand. And what I read confuses me, the title on the folder only says, “Autopsy of Adene Hobbs.” I drop the folder as the chair is knocked to the floor from how quickly I stand up.
“What is this? How do you have that?!” I yell out at her as I back away from her, the more she tries to get closer to me.
“Do you not understand what you have done?”
“No, what could’ve I possibly done!?”
“Fail at your own forgery.”
“Forgery of what?!” I yell again as quickly as it dissolves when my shoulders slump.
“Your death.”
A needle could drop and be heard from how stunned I had become while Nurse Lily no longer smiled, her face only filled with remorse. Her arms opened to embrace me in a way my mother never could. So I collapsed in her arms, as she left the folder behind to embrace and wrap me in her protection.
“Do you understand preservation now?”
I nodded, too stunned to speak as a doorway had opened in my mind, letting me peer through the hollow room of my mind. The walls were so quiet now I wanted to beg them to scream, to let my mind cloud and lock away.
But they did not answer. No matter how much I pleaded, they would not open their mouths and drown me in their sound. It took me a while til I knew as I lay my head against Nurse Lily’s arms.
“Are you ready to see now?” she asked, as if I was a delicate piece of glass, something so valuable to her. But I was far too cracked to be considered a delicate piece, so I simply nodded, even if I could tell from the look alone in her eyes that she knew I was lying.
However, that did not stop her as she laid me gently across the floor, leaving me to grasp at the chair leg that had fallen and pull myself up to sit on my legs. As I let her do the rest of the work, of putting up the chair and picking me up to sit on it, I let her pull the folder into my lap even if I could see that there were slight burn marks etching itself onto the folder. Perhaps someone other than me knew, and maybe
attempted to burn it.
“Adene Hobbs, 27 years old, died at exactly 8:00 pm from a drug overdose injected into her veins.” I spoke as I saw the picture inside of a girl, a girl that was not me but was framed to be me. Slowly everything came back to me, how before we left class my friend Adeline spoke to me about how she was going to see Adam after school. And how I saw Adam, who wanted to break up with her earlier that day.
Then finally, more details came to view, how I had only told Adam that I was planning on killing myself after school. He probably alerted Nurse Lily. Both my friends were aware that she took care of me and had her number if anything were to occur to me during school hours. She was probably the nicest thing Josephine had given me, and she was the one who probably had burned the file; refusing to believe a girl she had taken care of for so long had died. And for that, I will always be forever grateful to her.