by Tobias Wade
After the son had gone, I took another walk through the garden out of a morbid curiosity to try and shed some light on this horrendous business.
All seventy-five white roses are as brilliant as ever, but the son must have still made some alterations in the garden. Instead of the myriad of sacrificial animals once depicted on the signs, there is now only a single word blazoned across every board that stands as stoically as headstones.
Human.
I am a Human Voodoo Doll
Have you ever fallen in love so bad that it hurts? Where you have to force yourself to not even think about the person, because otherwise your mind will run rampantly down a spiral of uncontrollable obsession? I can’t taste food without remembering her laughing at my cooking which she affectionately named “bachelor chow”. Music is damp and muted without her singing along to the lyrics, and my morning alarm torments me with the prospect of another day where she isn’t mine.
Maybe I held on too tightly, maybe not tight enough. Maybe it wasn’t something I did but something I am. It just seemed like the harder I tried, the further away Elis drew, until one day she said she needed space. It was nauseating how polite and apologetic she was about it. She kept calling every other day to see if I was okay, and at first those gestures were my lifeline. I spent the whole day looking forward to the few minutes I would hear her voice again. I thought it was proof that she regretted her decision, and that it was only a matter of time before she came back to me.
Now I know it was only pity. Apparently the “space” Elis needed was already filled by someone else. I thought Nick-the-flabby-faced-man child was just a harmless friend. They were together almost immediately after she left me though, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it hadn’t started even before. All those days when she just felt like “doing her own thing”? I guess that makes Nick her thing.
You’d think that knowing she betrayed me would make it easier to stop loving her, but somehow it only made the obsession stronger. I can’t move on with my life, and I’m running out of strength to keep pretending it will be okay.
It’s been two months since the breakup, and she still keeps trying to call and check in on me. I’ve stopped answering her. Text messages and voicemails are deleted before they’re opened. I’m not writing this as an excuse or justification for what I was about to do. I was past the point of having to prove anything to anyone. And yeah, maybe it makes me a coward, but I didn’t care about that either. I was done being treated like this – done feeling like this. I was just done.
Amitriptyline is an anti-depressant which failed to alter the world from shades of grey. Oxazepam is a sleeping pill which was inept against my thoughts of her. But half a bottle of each, and I wouldn’t wake up again. It was supposed to be a very peaceful way to go.
The taste was so bitter I could barely keep it down, but after that my mind just wiped clean. My last thoughts were that if I could do it all again, I would have still gone down the same road. The time I shared with her was still worth the place where it must end.
But it didn’t end. I opened my eyes and squinted against the afternoon sun. I was lying in my bed, covers pulled up to my chin. Both the bottles of pills were gone. How did I wake up from that? I didn’t even feel nauseous anymore. Was I supposed to just go find another method and try again? Or maybe this was God’s way of giving me another chance.
Did I even still care about her? I crawled over to my laptop and immediately checked Elis’s Facebook page. I could use her photos as a test. If I could look at them without being overwhelmed with pain then maybe –
She’d changed her profile picture. Flabby face was kissing her cheek. A feeling like acid worked its way down my chest. Nothing had changed. Nothing was ever going to change the way I felt –
No. Something had changed. Her page was full of sympathetic prayers and comments.
You were an Angel. God must have needed you back.
I’m so sorry to hear what happened.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
I skimmed up to the top of the page. This was posted last night:
This is Nick. I thought I should let you all know that Elis died from a lethal dose of sleeping pills last night. I found her unconscious when I visited this morning and rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late. Message me for details.
I was completely dumbfounded. I had taken the pills, but somehow she had died instead. I had been thinking about her right before I went, so is there some way it had been transferred to her? It seemed impossible, but the coincidence of her going the same way on the same night seemed ludicrous. Besides, hadn’t she been happy with Nick?
My racing thoughts were shattered by a sudden fierce knocking on my door. Was it Elis? Of course not, don’t be stupid. I was about to open it when they knocked again.
“Police. We have a few questions to ask you.”
I froze, my hand still on the handle. It really was my fault she was dead! But how?
I hadn’t even seen her in weeks. Somehow what I did to myself happened to her, and the police being here proved it. Even if it was something else, my mind was too overwrought to begin to deal with them. I live on the ground floor, so it wasn’t hard to just grab my keys and duck out my bedroom window.
I didn’t know where to go, but I just needed to drive around for a while and clear my head. I unlocked my car and was about to climb in when –
“Police! Stop right there!”
Two officers were emerging from my building. As soon as they caught sight of me, they began jogging. I should have just talked to them, but I felt compelled to run from the nameless clenching guilt and terror which possessed me. I jumped in the car and floored the pedal, tearing out of my apartment parking lot like I was running for my life. Last night I had been ready to die, but now I knew there was some greater power working through me. This was supposed to be my fresh start! I couldn’t stop yet.
The police car was right behind me. Sirens blared in accusation. My mind was at war with itself with panic. I could barely breathe. My familiar neighborhood looked alien to me. I screeched around the corner and up the overpass leading onto the freeway at breakneck speed. I was just becoming aware of the implications of my escape when a horrendous impact sent me spinning out of control.
The police cruiser rammed me to prevent me getting on the freeway. The car spun two complete circles and smashed into a concrete barrier. The screech of metal was replaced with the roar of the airbags, and then everything went black.
I hadn’t been wearing my seat-belt, but that might have saved my life as I was thrown clear. I must have only been out for a few seconds though, because coming to I could still feel the warmth of my burning car behind me.
The officers hadn’t been so lucky. When they rammed my car, their car must have lost control in the opposite direction and fallen off the overpass. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t stop myself. The cruiser had flipped onto its roof, crushing the officers beneath it.
But me? Somehow I didn’t have a scratch. My crazy theory must not have been so far off. I take the pills, but I was thinking about Elis and so she died instead. My car was hit, but I was thinking about the police and they suffered from the crash. Both times I walked away clean. I couldn’t stay to ponder my discovery though, because I already heard more sirens approaching from the distance. I took off by foot and began running through the streets.
I had to test my theory. Just one more time. If it was true, then some divine agent had resurrected me and I really did have something to live for. If it wasn’t, then I was a suicidally depressed loner who was wanted by the police. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, so it was time to put it all on the line.
But with who? I couldn’t just endanger an innocent stranger. I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt except – well, except Nick of course. If it’s anyone’s fault Elis died, it must have been his. It was his job to make her happy, w
asn’t it? His job to notice if something wasn’t right. Hell, the scumbag went behind my back and stole her from me. If anyone deserved to suffer, it was him.
I didn’t want it to be clean either. Both other times I walked away unharmed, so I wanted him to suffer the way he made me suffer. I wanted to bring him to that point of hopeless isolation and rejection and leave him stranded beyond the hope of return. And more than anything, I wanted to be there to watch it happen.
I found him at Elis’s apartment. Her old apartment, I guess, since she didn’t live there anymore. I watched him carrying a box of her things to put into his car. She’d just died that morning, and he was already looting her stuff like a grave robber? There’s no denying that I was going to enjoy watching him burn.
Because I was going to burn with him. I continued watching him from behind the hedge which surrounded the parking lot. I watched his face while I poured gasoline over my head, imagining what it would look like after it lit up. Unspeakably grotesque. Either he would die, or the burns would disfigure him for life. He would be alone, just like I was after he stole her from me. It still wasn’t good enough though. I wanted him to see me when it happened so he’d understand why.
I waited by his car until he came back out with another box. The gasoline was cool against me, clinging comfortingly like a second skin. It burned like Hell where it ran into my eyes, but I forced them to stay open. It was worth it to see the look on his face.
“Oh shit man, didn’t see you there,” he said. “I guess you heard about Elis.”
I grinned. He still didn’t know why I was here. I hadn’t looked forward to anything so much since Elis left me.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked. “How come you’re all wet –”
I twirled the lighter in my fingers. His eyes fell on it for the first time. Then he looked at my face – then back at the lighter. Then at the rainbow reflections in the pooling liquid around my feet. His eyes bulged, and I smiled wider. Now he gets it.
“This is for Elis,” I said.
Flick. Flick. WOOSH. The fire started at my face and then swiftly engulfed my entire body. Nothing in my life prepared me for that pain. I stood there watching him for as long as I could – waiting for the spark to ignite in his skin. Waiting for the flesh to melt from his face and his bones to crack and splinter.
“Someone call the ambulance! Or the fire department! Or shit I don’t know – get someone!”
I heard him shouting, but I couldn’t see him anymore. My eyes must have boiled out of my skull. He said something else, but I couldn’t hear him over the sound of my own scream which tore out of my body like my soul seeking release. For the third time I blacked out, but I was still grinning the whole way. Soon I would wake up, and he would be the one who burned.
—
Elis had stopped by my apartment the night I took the pills. She was worried about me after I didn’t reply to any of her calls or messages. Shit, she might have even still cared for me, but I guess I’ll never know now. She must have been overwhelmed with guilt and grief at seeing me like that and taken the rest of the pills herself after she got back home.
I was later informed of the pool of vomit in the corner of my bathroom where I had regurgitated my own lethal dose.
The police hadn’t died when their cruiser turned over. They’d just been pinned inside and unable to pursue me. They had only come by my apartment because their investigation had revealed Elis visiting me on the night of her death.
But Nick did burn. He had forced himself through the flame to get my burning clothes off and smother the fire with his body. If it wasn’t for him, I never would have survived until the ambulance came. His face isn’t scarred like mine, but he’ll have the marks on his arms and chest for the rest of his life. He’s a good man. Elis would have been very happy with him if it wasn’t for me.
So I was wrong. I was too maddened by grief and self-loathing to understand until it was too late.
There’s no such thing as a human voodoo doll. There is no God working through me, or spirit of universal justice that makes everyone get what they deserve, but if my experience has one redeeming quality, then let it be a warning.
No-one should make life-altering decisions as a result of an emotional state. No matter how convinced your heart is that something is true, wait to act until your mind has caught up.
If I had stopped for a moment to talk to Elis, I would have seen how much she still cared, and I never would have done this to myself.
If I hadn’t run from the police, there never would have been this accident. And if I’d only thought my theory through…
Well one day we will all wake up as a different person than who we are now, and we will learn to forgive those who hurt us, and forgive ourselves for hurting others. Elis is gone though, and the scars I’ll have to remember her by will never heal.
The Monster Inside Us
Do you want a job with no prerequisite qualifications?
I guess?
$15 an hour, with a flexible schedule and free food?
Okay.
Plus it’s so easy that you can even do your homework or watch TV while you’re getting paid.
Sign me up.
Let me get this straight right off the bat. I’m not working as a babysitter because I like kids. The noise, the mess, the attention-deficit whining about inane nonsense – I’d probably be happier cleaning gutters. At least there isn’t any shit in the gutters. I’m taking 18 credits this semester though, and there’s no arguing that it’s a pretty convenient way for a girl to make a few extra bucks. Maybe I’d even make enough to move out of the house I shared with my Mom. It wasn’t so bad really – I just give the parents my sweetest smile, and somehow they’re duped into thinking I have a maternal instinct which magically makes me adore their precious bundle of spastic chaos.
The trick is forcing that smile to last all the way until the door closes. Kids may be practically retarded by adult standards, but I’ve found even the slowest sperm can understand negotiations when it means giving them something they want.
“Okay little twerp,” I’d say. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me.” Okay I don’t really say that, but it’s definitely what I’m thinking. “Here’s the deal. You get to eat all the sugar blasted crap you can stomach and watch cartoons until you get a seizure for all I care. But you don’t bug me, and you tell your parents we ate veggies and watched the Disney channel. Got it?”
Usually that’s enough, but last night was a special case where everything went wrong. I could tell it wouldn’t be easy the second I walked in the door, but I had faith in my martial-law parenting style and thought I could handle anything.
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” I said, eyeing the teeth-marks on the chair legs. “How many pets do you have?”
“No pets,” the mother said. “Just my little David. I’m only going to be gone for a couple of hours though, and I’m only a call away if you need anything.”
“I don’t anticipate any problems.” I smiled, trying not to wince at the sound of pounding drums upstairs.
“David get your ass down here and meet the sitter!” I’m not sure where the mother was going, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had a part-time gig as a harpy. The drums grew louder. I just kept smiling.
“David I swear to God –” she shrieked.
“It’s okay, I’ll handle things from here,” I told her. “You go have fun, and I’ll give you a call if anything comes up.”
The drums paused after the door closed. It was time to make a deal. David was a sweet looking boy of 11, with tousled blonde hair and bright blue eyes that would make all the girls weak in a couple of years. His gaze fixed on me with curiosity and more than enough intelligence to be reasoned with. This was going to be easy.
“Alright listen up,” I told him. “What do you want to do this evening?”
“I want to burn something,” he
replied as matter-of-factly as someone ordering a hamburger. “Two somethings, if the first one goes out.”
“You can’t do that. Is there anything you’d like to watch on TV?”
David shook his head. “I can do that anytime. But Mom’s not home, so I’m going to do all the things she doesn’t let me do.”
The first alarm started ringing in my head. It was the first of many. Being an adult was ordinarily enough to earn at least a little respect, but David completely ignored everything I said. Markers on the walls, microwaving forks, putting his shoes in the dishwasher – I couldn’t turn around for a second without him doing something completely absurd. I tried locking him in his room for a bit, but when it was too quiet I opened it to find him building a slingshot with a dozen pair of underwear that would have launched his lamp out the window. He didn’t even have the decency to seem embarrassed when I caught him.
“You’re going to break it!” I pulled the lamp away and put it back on his nightstand.
“I know. I was trying to,” he said.
“Well stop it.”
His blue eyes furrowed in deep concentration before he shook his head. “No, I think I’ll just wait until you’re not looking.”
“I’m going to tie you up. Is that what you want?”
“No you won’t,” he said. “Or I’ll tell Mom.”
It was an absolute stand-off. I was bigger and stronger than him, but I was getting worn down fast and it was only a matter of time before I collapsed on the sofa and all Hell broke loose. It was time to try drastic measures. My family had a time-honored tradition of scaring kids straight, so if he couldn’t be reasoned with, I was going to have to do to him what my mother did to me.
“Well if you don’t stop, I’ll tell on you too.”
“I’m always good around her,” David said. “She won’t believe you.”
“Not your mother. If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to tell the monster. And he’s going to eat you up.”
He thought very seriously about this again. “Then I’ll just wait until the monster isn’t looking.”
