Drowning

by Margaret McHeyzer

The cut on my stomach is stinging. And the small slice has already bled through onto my t-shirt. “Damn it,” I grumble as I strip off my shirt and wipe at the droplets clinging around the cut. Heading into the bathroom, I grab a bottle of antiseptic and wipe it across the fresh wound on my stomach, cringing at the bite of discomfort. Initially it’s painful, but then the liquid cools, making me sigh.

  When the sting has finally subsided, I apply a fresh bandage and get changed for the day. I make my way out to the kitchen, and Dad’s nowhere to be seen. Picking up a note he’s left on the kitchen counter it reads;

  Gone to work, will be home late. Double shift at the factory

  “Great,” I mumble to myself.

  Releasing the paper, it floats gently to the counter, and lands on a bowl filled with apples and bananas. I grab the milk from the fridge and get the cereal from the cupboard. Pouring the cereal in a bowl, then the milk, I lean against the counter and quickly inhale my breakfast. I finish, rinse my bowl and spoon, and place them in the dishwasher.

  Taking my camera case, I head out the front door to catch the bus into the city. I didn’t end up asking Tobias to meet me, and I convinced Jared to hang with Zane. I need time to myself, to get lost in the world behind the lens. The make-believe world. The one where everything is beautiful and perfect.

  Where I’m beautiful and perfect. Where I’m in control.

  At the bus stop, I notice a lady who lives in my neighborhood. Her name’s Jessica and she’s really old. “Hello Miss Jessica,” I say politely as I approach and sit beside her.

  “Ivy.” She smiles up at me. “What are you doing out here?”

  I hold my camera case up and reply, “Going to take some photos.”

  “Oh? Where are you going?” she asks with genuine interest.

  “Um, I’m not sure. I was thinking about heading into the city, but I think I’d rather find somewhere peaceful.”

  “You know where I’m off to?” she asks; I shake my head in response. “I’m going to visit Albert. It’s our sixtieth wedding anniversary today.”

  “And you’re going to visit him?” I ask watching her features soften. Tears well in her eyes as she nods her head. “May I come with you?”

  Suddenly her tears disappear and her face brightens. “I would love the company. But don’t graveyards scare you?”

  “Not at all. Dad and I visit Mom there all the time, so they don’t frighten me. Actually, they fascinate me.”

  The bus arrives. Jessica stands and shuffles forward. When the door opens, it takes a good minute for her to step up, pay her fare, and find a seat near the front of the bus. Sitting beside her, I settle my camera bag on my lap and turn to look out the window.

  “Life is precious, Ivy,” Jessica announces unexpectedly.

  Turning, I stare at her, not really sure why she made such a bizarre statement. Maybe she’s sentimental because we’re going to see her husband who’s passed away. “I know,” I reply and offer her a genuine smile.

  “Do you?” she asks. Her words are innocent enough, but it’s like she’s staring into my soul and she can see the demon I fight. Nodding my head, I do my best to level my features so I don’t give anything away. She smiles at me, though the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

  Gulping, I inhale a deep breath and return to look out the window. Instead I close my eyes and count to ten in my head. I can see Azael. He’s smiling at me with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s nodding his head, taunting me with a cruel smile. He knows how much power he has over me, and he also knows how much I hate him for it.

  Ivy. He whispers in a gravelly voice.

  I have to avoid him and not listen.

  But he’s always there, watching and waiting. Waiting and watching. He’s always ready to pounce, no matter where I go.

  The bus jerks as it takes a corner, causing me to shift and roll into Jessica’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I say as I turn to look at her.

  She clutches her handbag to her chest and shakes her head. “Not at all, dear. It’s the way the bus is. Bumpy and unforgiving.” She smiles at me. The bus travels for a good twenty minutes, stopping to let passengers off and pick new ones up. A girl dressed in all black, goth-like, gets on the bus and sits behind Jessica and me. She has oversized blue Beats headphones covering her ears. Her music is so loud I can hear the words clearly.

  I listen to the lyrics.

  They’re haunting and beautiful, yet overwhelmingly sad. Strange. Closing my eyes, I let the rhythm of the song take over. It doesn’t take long to imagine myself living the life of the song. Isolation and loneliness, a life I’m already living. Harboring secrets I can never spill. My hand discretely moves beneath my shirt. I feel for a scar, one of the bigger ones. My fingers find the soft, bumpy line. Instantly I breathe out, knowing I’ll never be able to tell anyone about my secret.

  No one will ever understand.

  They’ll never comprehend the pull I feel toward the blade when Azael calls to me. They’ll never grasp it. How can I share something so private with anyone, and expect them to understand, when I struggle with it?

  Is it a relationship?

  Some kind of sick relationship?

  I don’t know what there is between Azael and me. He showed up years ago, and soon after, I found the calm he gives me when I cut.

  “We’re here,” Jessica announces as she stands.

  Leaving my world of solitude, I quickly return to the present.

  “Oh, we are,” I say in a surprised voice. Was I really imagining him for most of the bus ride?

  Standing, I follow Jessica as she shuffles toward the door and stand behind her while she maneuvers off the bus.

  I sling my camera bag over my shoulder. We wait for the pedestrian lights to change, and cross the road. “There’s a flower store up on the corner,” she says taking some money out of her purse. “You’re so much younger than me, Ivy, could you go buy the best flowers you can for this?” She holds out a five dollar bill. Her cheeks pink with color. “It’s the most I can afford,” she adds in a small voice.

  “Of course.” I smile at her, take her five dollars, and start walking toward the florist. I walk up the hill in no time, and find the store. They have a huge selection, and I quickly find the cheap ones. The five-dollar bunches are skimpy and look like they’re nearly dead.

  I find a bunch of bright pink and yellow tulips. They’re much more expensive than the five dollars Jessica has given me, but I think these will make her happy. Taking out my card, I charge the flowers and pocket the five dollars. When I head back down the hill, Jessica is sitting on a small stone bench, just inside the cementery gates waiting for me.

  She offers me a huge smile and struggles to her feet. “They’re so beautiful,” she says as I hand her the flowers. “Are you sure these were only five dollars?” There’s a sadness in her eyes. “I can give you the rest of the money next week,” she adds, but her features flinch with distress.

  “They were on sale because they’re flowers from two days ago,” I quickly lie.

  “Oh.” Jessica’s entire face lifts with joy. “They look so fresh.”

  I half-shrug as if to say, ‘Yeah, I know.’

  “Albert used to hate going to the hospital when someone was sick.” She clutches the flowers in her left hand, and hooks her right arm through mine so we’re walking arm-in-arm.

  “Why?” I ask her.

  “He used to say he could feel death, and death was always near.”

  A cold shiver runs up my spine. It takes everything inside of me to hold back the obvious effect of Jessica’s words. I sometimes think I can see death, especially when I succumb to the darkness and press the blade against my skin.

  But that’s not the demon who taunts me. Death is different.

  Death is accepting… peaceful… loving.

  “Albert used to say he could smell when death was near.”

  I tremble again, but do my best to hold the quivering back. “He did?” I ask, my voice c
racking.

  Jessica either doesn’t notice the crackly pitch in my tone, or she ignores it.

  “He said it smelled like burnt cotton candy.” I wrinkle my nose and make a mental note to pay attention to the smell the next time I see Azael. “He hated the smell of cotton candy.”

  “I wonder why he hated it so much?” I ask trying to understand why he saw death and why he had such an aversion toward it.

  “He had a near-death experience when he was younger. He contracted TB.” She turns to look at me as we stride toward where her husband is. Drawing my brows together, I shrug my lack of knowledge to what TB is. “Tuberculosis.”

  “Oh,” I say, now knowing what she meant when she said ‘TB.’ “I’ve heard of it, but all I know is they used to cough blood.”

  She nods her head. “It’s a disease that’s not around so much anymore. It mainly affects the lungs and if left untreated it can kill.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “When Albert was a young boy. It was the end of World War II. His family was poor and food and medicine was hard to come by. Albert got sicker and sicker, and his parents did what they could for him, but with little money, it was difficult to get him the proper care.”

  We stop under a huge elm tree shading another bench seat. Jessica sits, and pats the space beside her. “It must’ve been difficult for his parents. To watch their son become so sick and not be able to help him,” I say while trying to shade my eyes from the sun.

  “The moment his parents saw him coughing blood, they went to the local church and begged for help. The church managed to scrape together enough money together to buy him the medicine he needed. But it was a worrying few days for his parents.”

  “Why would it be worrying when they had the medicine?”

  “Because it took a full two days before they saw any improvement in him. And in those two day he got much worse. He’d lost so much weight his ribs were protruding, and his lips were turning blue. He told me it was then he first saw death. He always used to tell me Death was like a friend to him. Death didn’t try to scare him, but Albert was terrified of Death. He told me his nose was filled with a burned cotton candy smell as Death stood over his bed and begged him to let go so he could take him.

  “But Albert fought, and he fought so hard that he beat Death’s hand. He used to say anytime we had to go to the hospital for any reason, how he could sense Death looming in the hallways, waiting to take the souls of the dying ones.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a piece of paper being thrown around by a gust of wind. It commands my attention as it flips from one side to the next, stuck in a small vortex. I can’t help but think I’m stuck in the same kind of spinning cycle.

  The blade calls me often.

  It drags me away and gives me the illusion that I have control.

  When the demon calls, and I fall prey to his seductive words, in the seconds before the blade makes contact with my skin, I wonder if I’m the only one who feels the pull toward the knife.

  Am I alone?

  It doesn’t matter even if I’m not. I can’t tell anyone.

  No one would understand.

  Ivy. He calls for me, again.

  I hate him so much.

  I’m drowning. My arms flail as I kick my legs. Water is taking over, creeping up my body. Something sticking to my skin makes it hard for me to move my legs. Looking down, I see a white dress wrapped tightly around me, the edge of the tulle skirt fluttering in the water.

  I kick, and kick and try to rise to the surface. The dress drags me down further into the cold abyss of the water. Sharp rays of sunshine break through the water.

  “Help!” I yell, but my mouth fills with water. It’s impossible, no one can hear me.

  Thrashing around, I desperately try to emerge from the powerful current of the water.

  “Help!” I yell again.

  My lungs continue to fill with water.

  There’s no more fight in me.

  Tilting my head up, I can see the surface of the water, blue sky seemingly only inches away from my reach.

  My arms fall limply to my sides.

  This is the end.

  The end of me.

  The end of everything I know.

  I’m drowning, and no one even knows I’m here.

  “Help!” I scream in my last frivolous attempt.

  “Ivy!”

  The water begins to vanish.

  “Ivy!”

  The coldness enveloping me suddenly disappears.

  “Ivy!”

  Startling, I look around and to see I’m shrouded in darkness, with only the bathroom light illuminating my room. “What’s happening?” I ask as I try to blink awake. Reaching up I touch my throat, it’s rough and scratchy like I’ve spent the night screaming at a heavy metal concert.

  “You were having a nightmare. Are you okay?” Dad asks.

  Blinking, I try to focus on Dad’s words. But I can’t help looking around me, and noticing my t-shirt and shorts I’m wearing. “I had on a white dress.”

  “When? In your nightmare?”

  Nodding my head, I swallow back the dry lump in my throat. “Yeah, I was under water, and I was wearing this white dress. It looked like a prom dress. It was white and flowy and it was sticking to me, weighing me down.”

  “Oh,” Dad replies. Something flashes in his eyes. For a split-second I get a feeling this means something to him. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I weakly smile at Dad, and watch his face carefully. But he doesn’t give anything else away. I must have imagined it.

  “You okay to go back to sleep? I can stay in here with you if you like. Like Mom used to when you were a little girl and had bad dreams.” He tucks some hair behind my ear and waits for me to answer.

  “No, I’m alright. Sorry for waking you, Dad.” I lie down again and draw the covers up over my body.

  “Goodnight, sweetheart.” He leaves the room, closing my door.

  The branches on the tree outside my bedroom window move, casting dancing shadows on my wall.

  My eyes focus on the hypnotic movement. It’s cathartic, watching the shadows and knowing they’re watching over me. They know my truth, my secrets. They’re always near, watching me and never passing judgement.

  Turning, I search for the stars. My curtains are drawn, but there’s a small sliver through which I can see a few stars twinkling in the darkened sky.

  “Can I escape this life?” I ask the stars. They flicker with brightness.

  Ivy. Azael calls me. Reminding me of the hook he has in me, and how I belong to him.

  “Please,” I whisper to the stars while ignoring him. “When will this end?”

  Ivy.

  Closing my eyes tightly, I bring the blanket up over my head and count to ten in my head. He will not get the better of me tonight. I refuse to listen to him.

  When I open my eyes and peek from under my blanket, the stars continue to twinkle up in the sky.

  I concentrate on the show they’re presenting, watching the silver sparkles in the sky. The monster in my head quiets for a second. He doesn’t call me, or try to lure me into his nasty web of lies.

  I know he promises me happiness, but I also know he’ll say whatever he can to manipulate me.

  Maybe if I make friends with him, stop fighting and try to listen to him, then maybe he’ll stop trying to seduce me with the blade.

  My eyes become heavier as I watch the stars continue to glisten in the sky.

  Ivy. He calls once more.

  But I ignore him, and drift off to sleep.

  “Morning, Ivy,” Dad says as he stands from the dining table and heads into the kitchen.

  “Morning, Dad,” I reply following him.

  “I’ll make you breakfast. You can go and sit.” He smiles at me, then quickly gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, and I’ll take you to school once you’re ready, too. I’m working late to
night, and I won’t be home ’til after midnight,” he shouts from the kitchen. “Cereal?”

  “Cereal’s good, thanks.”

  Quickly I head back to my room and grab my phone off the charger. Turning it on, there’s a message from Jared telling me he can pick me up this morning. I text him back letting him know Dad’s dropping me off at school.

  When I get back to the dining table, Dad’s eating his cereal and has my bowl waiting for me. “Thank you,” I say as I sit and start to eat.

  “Have you got any money or do you need some for lunch and dinner?”

  “I think I have money.”

  Dad takes his wallet out of his back pocket and opens it. “Damn it, I haven’t got anything on me.”

  “It’s okay. I think I have a few dollars. It’ll do. I’ll make something here for dinner tonight.”

  Dad reluctantly puts his wallet away, looking worried. “How did you go with your camera?”

  “Good. I went to the cemetery with Jessica. She’s an interesting person. Do you know she’s lived in her house for over fifty years?”

  Dad nods his head. “Sometimes when I’m coming back from work in the mornings, I see her walking with a bag of groceries. I stop and give her a ride home.”

  “Do you?” I ask, not knowing my Dad did things like this.

  “She’s an old lady, Ivy. I’ve told her if she needs any help around the house, she can call me and I’ll come help her.”

  Aww, Dad has a heart of gold. Finishing my breakfast, I stand and head over to him. I wrap him in my arms and give him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a good man, Dad.”

  He pats my arm wrapped around him and smiles. “I try to be.”

  Grabbing our bowls, I take them into the kitchen, rinse and stack them in the dishwasher. “Dad, I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Shoot. But get ready, because I need to be at work in forty minutes.”

  Heading down the hall, I quickly get changed into a t-shirt and jeans and make my way back to the kitchen where Dad’s getting his food ready for work. “Do you think you’ll ever date again?”

  Dad’s hands still while he’s packing a banana into his lunch bag. He turns slowly, and narrows his eyes at me. “I have no intentions of dating anyone ever again,” he says with absolution.