100 Unfortunate Days
Penelope Crowe
Copyright © 2012 by Penelope Crowe
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Illustrations and artwork by Penelope Crowe
Thanks to Dafeenah Jameel at indiedesignz.net for help with the cover
www.penelopecrowe.blogspot.com
100 Unfortunate Days
The Day Before
My best friend went to Portugal for a month during the summer we were in tenth grade. Her health had been slightly off and I was surprised her family was taking her on such a long trip. When she came home she had on a new gold necklace with a locket and a bracelet with some charms on it. I asked her if anything was in the locket and she told me she would rather not talk about it.
Eventually she talked.
She told me a priest in Portugal gave them to her after her exorcism to keep away the devils. He told her she had been possessed by several demons, and she should wear the charms at all times, and never open the locket. She told me her relatives kept her in her room for several days and nights, and through the walls she could hear chanting in a language she could not understand.
She said the night before the exorcism she could understand.
The next day her family brought her to a cave, and the priest began a prayer. That was the last thing she remembered.
They told her she fell as if she fainted with her head bent so far back they thought her neck would break. Her stomach began to rise and fall, and when her eyes fluttered like she might be waking, all four people tried but could not lift her. They told her the priest said one of the spirits haunting her was someone her own father had harmed in a business transaction, and this was its way of doing him harm.
On a rainy, boring Saturday we sat in her room and she decided to open the locket. Inside was a tiny ladder, a lightning bolt, some white cloth, dust or dirt, a cross, and several other items I cannot remember. She poured them out in her palm, and as she was examining them she shook her hand and remarked they had burned her. She told me they left red marks on her hand but would not show me. I was scared and went home.
I remember her thinking the devil was after her, and her boyfriend and I would tease her and try and scare her. She got sicker and sicker from an ailment that was never quite figured out, and eventually passed away from what the doctors said was Wilson’s disease.
A few years after that her boyfriend fell off of a second story balcony and broke his neck. He has been in a wheelchair ever since. I called her in the hospital in NYC a few days before she died and her mother would not let me speak to her on the phone, but I heard her voice in the background. Her once friendly, happy voice sounded like knives being dragged down a chalkboard, and I will never forget it.
Part of me feels I should not be writing this, that I should leave it alone. I don’t want to believe in the devil, but I may have to say that I do… Protection from St. Michael—you may need it: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.
Amen.
Day 1
The pain behind my eye reminds me I have worms in my brain. Not a few, but millions. They have no room to multiply and are either dying or boring their way through to another part of my head. If a doctor asked me what my symptoms were I could say that there is pressure in my skull from an overpopulation of spirochetes. Sometimes I can’t think straight—and I get nervous.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night because my dreams go wrong. Like last night’s dream. I was having a delightful breakfast…steaming hot tea poured from an English service, light muffins with sweet butter, thin Swedish pancakes dusted with sugar and currants all situated on perfectly ironed linen on a balcony overlooking a garden. And then my teacup cracked. The linen looked worn and greasy. Small crawling insects found my food and fell onto my lap. The pancakes turned black and curled in at the edges yet I still wanted to eat them—but if I ate them the man at the train station would stop waiting and turn and start to walk to find me. Even if it was late at night, way past my bedtime, he would suddenly know where I was and need to get me—and that would not be a good thing. He would make his way closer, his face getting redder and redder, and I would hide behind whatever door I could find because I could hear him breathing. He doesn’t need a knife but sometimes he carries one.
There are three times in twenty-four hours when you have to be nervous. Some people know about these times, and some don’t. Some get a feeling, but they don’t know what’s wrong. The first time is when you wake up in the morning. The mornings are bad, but I can’t tell you the reason. The second time is right before you fall asleep. Anything that wants to get you has a pretty good chance of doing it at this time. These things wait and have far more patience than you or I. You are completely vulnerable at this time. Sometimes you think you’re awake when you’re already sleeping. You have no ability to discern what you’re allowing in or keeping out. And an invitation is an invitation after all. Once they are in, they don’t necessarily make themselves known right away. They can wait for hours, or days. They can even wait for years.
This brings us to the third time, which is in the middle of the night, usually right smack in the middle of your sleep cycle, when you are dead asleep. And something is going on. Something is infiltrating your mind and your soul and your psyche, but you’re unaware of it. So you wake up. You are scared and your heart is pounding and you are covered in sweat. But you tell yourself it’s just a dream. But why does the TV decided at that very moment to reset itself? Why does it shut off now…or turn on? Why does the dog wake up and start pacing around the house? Why does your son wake up and call you? You didn’t make any noise—none. You just opened your eyes and looked around because you were scared. Something is there with you, and you know it, but you talk yourself out of it. And what’s worse is you try and go back to sleep. A little crack is formed for the worms to get in—and they do. And after this, you never feel the same ever again.
Day 2
If you wear an apron while you’re cooking, the food will almost surely turn out better than if you didn’t wear one. And if the apron has happy faces on it or pretty flowers with uplifting sayings like ‘God Loves You’, whatever you cook will be delicious. You can set out a beautiful tablecloth, use your best china and light some candles and everyone will be enchanted by the glowing light and the special feelings, and your husband will make lots of money and your children will go to Harvard.
On the other hand—if you hate to cook but you still have to do it because your family is waiting for their meals, and you get ridiculed for your mediocre cooking skills, bad things start to happen. Like the activation of the soft, wispy poison found in all of us from being told how terrible we are. And then we become even more terrible. If you look at your face in the mirror when there is just the tiniest bit of light, sometime in the middle of the night when something you can’t figure out wakes you up, you can see what you really look like.
We look in the mirror and can’t tell the reflection we are seeing is still us and we have to put our hands over our mouths because if we scream everyone in the house will wake up and remind us how terrible and mediocre we are. So we stir the soup and carve the meat and give the miasma the chance to leave us and spread around. We think we would never do this on purpose—but if we think really hard about our true
selves—the self that no one could ever know about without needing very strong medication for the rest of our lives, we all know what we would do.
Day 3
Everything happens for a reason. When we get old we can’t see as well as the day before. Our hearing goes bad. We lament and whine that we need our glasses for everything. We can’t read the directions on the shampoo bottle. But we don’t want to see what’s actually happening.
The mole on your face, the beauty mark which had been in a perfect spot your whole life making you look a bit glamorous, is now sprouting hair. And you look a bit more like a witch than you would care to admit. You’re not beautiful anymore. Your husband says he can’t see the hair though. Your wrinkles look softer through his old eyes.
We use reading glasses when we have to, but we cannot use them all the time because they don’t help with seeing the world from far away. But they have an operation now that can fix all that. In and out and you have perfect vision. It’s like antibiotics. A magic bullet. Because antibiotics can cure everything—so they use it in everything. Even soap.
And now we have diseases that can’t be cured with antibiotics—super-bugs that are going to kill us like before we had antibiotics. It’s just a matter of time. Soon the drive-thru eye operations will enable us to see better than before—maybe better than anyone has ever seen. We will have x-ray vision that allows us to see into the souls of others. We will be able to know who is filled with poison and who is not. Then we can get rid of all the people that are toxic and we won’t ever have to worry about them again.
Day 4
Did you know that all the best people belong to country clubs? If you can afford the $75,000 fee to get in and if you don’t mind people coming to check out your house and if you think it’s okay to post your name in the clubhouse for approval from all the other members and you feel it is obscene to show your shoulders, you will definitely get in and be surrounded by the best people in town. Of course you want your children to rub elbows with other children of wealthy parents, because it is a sign that you are a much better person than all the other people in town who are not in the club.
At the club they have a pool and a golf course that you have to pay extra for every time you want to play. All members are expected to eat there at least four times a month—and they must pay for that too, because having lots and lots of money is a sign that God loves you. He wants you to live well and be happy and make lots of money. But don’t act like a big shot—and don’t do too well for yourself because then you will be considered conceited and no one will like you.
And why, for God’s sake, if you have so much money, would you live in that tiny house? It doesn’t even have the nicest decorations or a dark red dining room! By the way, your taste is not at all classic, is it? You have a tendency toward the eclectic, don’t you? And you really are such a handful, you know.
What do you mean you are going to a Junior League function? That does not seem like something you would do at all. It sounds like something I would do. See? You’re confusing and hard to handle. Wait—you could have gotten married at the country club and you chose not to? Hmm. Really—who was going to sponsor you? And you don’t like to cook? Oh, that is too bad. I went through nine rugs before I finally settled on this one. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we are redoing the kitchen—again! I’m so excited! Do you want to come with me and pick out custom-made tile?
Day 5
Dream analysis: If you dream there is a lion at one door of your Jeep, and a poisonous snake at the other, maybe you feel trapped. If you dream of blood—someone will die. If you dream you are driving and your baby is in the back seat and you are throwing French fries back there, you will fall out of love with your spouse. If you dream your friend is lying on the floor asleep and when she opens her eyes you see nothing there but the burning fire of a furnace—something terrible is going to happen.
Day 6
Sunny days are the worst. If you don’t put on your shorts and lip gloss and make plans to eat at the bistro at noon, you will seem so dull. But you are so dull. Someone has taken sandpaper and dulled your shine to powder. Smiling is now an obscene thing. The corners of your mouth stretch and stretch, and if you growl just a little bit they will have to put you in the zoo. Or call a priest. So now you have to fight with yourself because if you let yourself fall completely into the rainy days you may never get out.
But then there is the question of wanting to get out. So you walk the fence. On one side there are flowers and spring and Easter eggs and white gloves that your mom won’t let you wear because you might get them dirty. On the other side of the fence is endless sitting and thinking and your thoughts are so black and thick they make you not want to get up anyway, but at least no one else is there. So you check your email twenty-seven times today because someone might tell you that you actually are important. Or there might be something interesting you can read that you don’t actually have to get involved in.
Maybe you get up and clean the house because if you leave the crumbs on the counter too long the mice come. From a distance they are cute, but never forget they are disgusting. They come out at night and take your stuff and shit in your kitchen because after all, it’s cold outside and it’s warm in there. But too bad. It’s your house and you have a family to take care of and the mice bring the Black Plague like the rats did—so put out the traps. Put them in the cabinet where they ate your Life Savers which is kind of funny because everyone said they like peanut butter. So set the traps with Life Savers, Gummy Bears and peanut butter and wait for the snap. It only takes fifteen minutes but you hear more than a snap, you hear a clatter-clatter-scrape-scrape-clatter-clatter, and it doesn’t stop.
For an hour it doesn’t stop and now you can’t do anything but listen to the noise and try and figure out what is happening. You don’t want to look but you have to because no one else is there to help you. Your husband is away on a business trip where someone cooks his meals and serves him breakfast and makes his bed and he calls home every day and you talk for forty-five seconds. So you have to look.
Behind the cabinet door the trap is sprung and has gripped the mouse by its now bloody toothpick-thin leg. It is trying its best to scamper away, but the trap gets stuck next to the Lazy Susan making the mouse struggle so much that it pulls the skin off its leg. And it has been doing this for an hour. If you pick it up it could bite you and give you the Black Plague. Even though you will probably hurt it more by picking it up, you grab a wash cloth and do it anyway. You take the mouse outside next to the garage and pick up the end of the trap that is holding its ruined leg. It knows it is free and runs right next to the house and disappears around the corner. Now it’s only a matter of time until the rest of the traps do their jobs.
Day 7
I see pictures of families with a mom and dad together, with several brothers and many sisters and everyone is smiling. I know they are never alone and I get jealous. I have a feeling of loss because I don’t have that. But the back of me doesn’t want that. The darker side of me doesn’t want what I have. I want to be my own person and not have ties to anyone. I want to be able to leave when I want…I don’t want to have to care for something—not something simple like a job or a garden—but something that needs to be cared for constantly. It is the most horrible thing I can think of.
I don’t want to care about anyone’s happiness. I don’t want to care if they are hurt. I don’t want to have to give a shit if they are hungry or tired or failing. I want to pop in the party and leave, in my own car, when the fun is over. And believe me it has been over for longer than I can remember. Jobs can be hard and they can require long hours and intense concentration. But nothing is more repulsive than a crying baby. “But it will be so much different taking care of it when it is yours.” Well, I’ve got news for you: it’s not different. Well—maybe it is. It’s 10,000 times worse because now you have to figure out what the fuck is wrong and you have to listen to it and you can’t sleep and it’s you who i
s never not tired again.
Even if you don’t figure out what’s wrong, it never ever, ever, ever stops. You wake up again and again and you wonder if the jail time for murder would be worth it. But oh, the baby is so adorable! The most beautiful thing anyone has ever seen—and it is. And your husband can’t figure why you are such an idiot. Why can’t you like this like everyone else? The baby is perfect and healthy and beautiful and you should be ashamed of yourself. And you are. You are. You are. And now every hour seems like five hours and you do anything to get through the day. You walk and walk around the neighborhood dozens of times and you get so skinny and now you look so good—you are a skinny-mini!
How do you do it? Everyone is impressed. The woman around the corner with the nasty dogs asks how you are when you are out walking one day, and she tells you that having a baby is very isolating. Now you can’t stop crying for days and days and every day turns into every other day. Your husband is going golfing for a week with his friends which doesn’t matter because you don’t remember who he is anyway. When the baby naps for a long time you wonder if he is dead. Part of you hopes that he is dead. And that makes you a monster, and why would anyone ever want to be near you or be your friend again? And it’s not the baby’s fault—he is so beautiful after all. Perfect, really. So you feel sorry that you are his mother and you are going to ruin him. And you do.
Day 8
Your favorite candy store is within walking distance of your house, but you are still too little to walk there all alone. On the beautiful Saturday mornings you get in the car with everyone and drive there. You have some money, and the man behind the counter gives you a bag so you have a place for all your goodies. Once you got a cherry Chapstick and half an English muffin at the fountain. There were about 7,000 different kinds of candy in every color of the rainbow. You learned the funniest joke in the world there about a guy with a wooden leg. Then you all got back in the car and as you were pulling out of the driveway you saw a little girl standing all alone and still on the corner. She had a Casper the Friendly Ghost mask on, and she may have been holding some money.
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