new here. thought I'd try it out
title: Lights
auther: maeve
disclaimer: I don't anything, I don't think
rating: pg I guess, who knows in this day in age
The lights in my rear view mirror startled me. Flashing red and blue, I had not heard the siren.
The cop is a stocky man with strong hands. I wonder if he has ever had to use those hands to hurt anyone. I wonder if he knows what pain those hands can cause him. I see the wrinkles in his mouth and I think he knows, I think he’s seen what hands and minds can do. All that pain. All the horror.
“Do you realize you were doing 15 in a 35 mile per hour zone, Ma’am?”
No, I hadn’t. I don’t even remember getting into the car.
“Are you ok, Ma’am?”
Am I ok?
And then I’m laughing and I’m laughing and I can’t stop and it hurts. The cop has green eyes and the green surrounds me, like water. I remember green eyes on someone. Once. Long ago. I think they were important. No….I know they were important.
I see a flash of red hair and I feel a twinge of pain. A soft voice and a fleeting caress and I’m lost…so very lost. The cop is staring at me. With those green eyes of his that I want to tear out and I don’t’ know why but I do, so very badly. Green eyes I think I used to love once….no, not once, I love them now, here and now, and I fear forever. I fear they will eat me up inside until I burst or die.
I’ve stopped laughing and I feel the tears run down my cheeks. Haven’t I cried enough? Haven’t I gone to bed with visions of red hair, and a small room, and a kitten with sharp claws. Don’t I wake up screaming, crying, so upset that the people next door called the police once. They thought I was killing myself……maybe I was.
I don’t remember how I got here or why. I remember a house with a stern man and a boy older then me with calloused hands and the sting of a belt. I remember a young girl with dark hair and her sister (I think?) with the light blonde hair and the caring, tight smile. There’s an older man with them, not stern but gentle, with a soft smile and a violent, hard, bleached guy who always seems to look so sad. I remember them so vividly, not their names (Anya?....Donnie?) so much as their faces. There is one I only get glimpses of: red hair, a soft smile, a touch on my cheek. She is the one that is most important but the pain keeps me from remembering.
The cop has taken my driver’s license, he had to extract it from my purse. He pauses at my age, I don’t think he came even close to guessing right. I smile and it is bitter, tight, knowing. I think I used to be happy once, but now I am forever frowning and I don’t know why. I don’t know anything anymore. Why my eyes look like they have seen death and the haunted shadows linger underneath. Why I can’t seem to remember where I used to live or the names of the people I used to hang out (did I?) with. I guess something terrible happened but I don’t know what it was….or is. Sometimes I wake up and there’s an image of some terrible monster in my head and the girl with the light blonde hair has a stake but then it fades away before I can hold onto it.
The cop pulls me out of the car. His hands this time are gentle and caring. I can feel the roughness in him. He knows about the pain hands can bring. He has seen the death it can accomplish and his grip is tender, light. I sit in the police car while the cop locks my car and gets my purse. I don’t know where he is going to take me but I hope it is somewhere safe. The car pulls away and I look out the window.
Where am I?
Who am I?
Why did this happen to me?
Part 2
Sometimes, when I open my eyes, the world seems so clear and clean, it takes my breath away. Then there’s this quiet moment, and everything comes flashing back to me in a hot rush of pain. The flashes I don’t understand, the scent (of her!) that fills my head and never wants to go away.
The cop brought me here this morning; I saw the light hit the line of his back and it was curved, his life too much to bear. His eyes were haunted, sunken. I know he is like me, watching, waiting for the pain, for the memories you can’t quite grasp but they’re still there, lingering in the back of your mind forever.
The hospital room is the same one I was brought to after the accident. I remember the sting of antiseptic and the burn as the bandages rubbed against my raw skin. Funny how the only things I can remember cause me pain.
Who am I?
Where am I?
I look at the door, it’s partially open and the light streaming inside is so tangible I want to reach out and grab it. Room 51. That made me laugh, 51, the most unimportant number out of them all. I read somewhere, once, that if 51 is your favorite number, you’re the kind of person who likes the dog that no body else likes for no other reason then that no one else likes him. I think the nurse put me in here on purpose. 51 is my number after all, the most unimportant number of them all.
The walk to the nurse’s station from my room is exactly 47 steps. Then from there to the cab stand it’s 165 steps. I like it when everything is simple and calm like that. 47 steps and I’m there, nothing hard about that, nothing tough I have to remember, nothing that makes me scream in the middle of the night.
The hospital has memories for me here. Sometimes I see a flash of color to my side and I know I’ve been in that exact spot before. It hurts to know things are so close and yet so far away.
I want to sit down and sleep, my head hurts again, the nurse told me not to go out with the concussion. I like the pain, it stops me from thinking and remembering things. I read in the magazine in the waiting room that remembering is innocent and pure, that it heals the soul and that when you are hurt or sick, you should remember all the happy times you had, and not focus on the bad things.
That made me laugh.
That made me want to cry, but all I could do was laugh and laugh. It wasn’t even funny.
The nurse saw and when my laugh started to crack and break I think she wanted to say something comforting but couldn’t find the words. It made me feel a little slow and lost.
The nurse pities me, I can see it in her gaze, bitter and sad. But when the light hits her just right she looks like she’s covered in a layer of dust, like she’s slowly fading away. I think she knows that too, the soft pale colour of her loose skin and the sharp folds and wrinkles make her look like she’s about to disappear. Her eyes are hard and dark most of the time and I think she wants to disappear, I don’t think there is anything for her here, or anywhere. I think she thinks me and her are a lot alike, I think she sees herself in me. I think I am as empty as the walls, as unimportant as number 51. I hope she doesn’t see herself in me.
Believe it or not, memories are something important, a roadmap or a piece of your history. But when you forget, it just leaves vague and blank spaces. I have a lot of spaces in my head. I have a lot of pieces missing, I am not whole. I think I was, once, but I forgot, I don’t remember. And that’s the worst part of forgetting, you lose those pieces of yourself.
Tomorrow I will walk 47 steps to the nurse’s station and sign out, then I will walk 165 steps to a cap. Tomorrow I will no longer be number 51, tomorrow I will be somebody, I will be important. I just have to pick up the pieces.
Part 3
The nurse gave me a key to her apartment. It’s flat and fits nicely into my hand. At night, there’s a little light to help you find the key jack. I like the light especially, very practical, nice and bright. It reflects off the cars when I walk down the street. I wonder if the nurse has one on hers. I wonder if other people stay in her apartment. I think she thinks I’m worth something to her. I think she thinks I bring out something in her.
I think I used to bring something out of people.
I think I used to do a lot of things.
I think I used to be able to walk around and smile for no reason, because I knew who I was, and where I was going, and I was happy about it. I think I used to have a great life.
What happened?
Who am I now? Have I even changed?
Maybe I was a rocket scientist, maybe I had a high office in a major company. Maybe I slept in the street and had no friends, no life, no red-haired girl that invades my life, invades my sleep.
I think a lot of things.
The knocker on her door is cold and steel, unforgiving. What’s so unforgiving about steel? I guess it might be the way the metal seems to shine, lonely and still. I don’t think it forgives me. But what did I do that needs forgiving? Tell me, please!
The hallway is small, cramp, dingy. The wallpaper is cracking in the corner and it makes me want to rip it all off, to free the wall it’s binding. The floor creaks and I remember another hallway, in another house (?) with someone I once….loved???
Who?
The red-haired girl?
The bed is soft and I collapse on it, I’m so tired I didn’t even count the number of steps to get here. I’ll do that tomorrow morning.
The sheets are so soft……they remind me of…….no they don’t. They’re just like other sheets, from the hospital, from hotels, from everywhere. Everything is so familiar and yet it’s not. I want to be home, I want to be me.
Who am I?