Book One:
Merrily in Tragedy
By
Emalea Dickerson
As when a gryphon through the wilderness
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold; so eagerly the fiend
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
-Milton, Paradise Lost
*
I looked up into the storm as she hung over my bed. Droplets of rain kissed my face… thunder groaned piercing my bones…and the storm cloud looked back at me. With gray eyes she lingered upon the broken bits…And she spoke with a breath of ozone and the echo of great bells.
“You are going to survive this” The storm said rising heavy and thick to press against the ceiling with a beating flash of golden wings “I will it so”. She faded as if blown out by a great gale her voice ringing again… as gentle as lightening and it stripped me of my pain. “We owe you this much and more”.
*
The alarm blares long enough to ensure that getting out of bed is as irritating as possible. The thrust of the noise intrudes cutting into my haze. Reaching for the phone I try to hit the dismiss button as quickly as humanly possible. It’s not even 5am yet…I feel like I had just fallen asleep. It isn’t if I ever sleep soundly anyways. I often startle myself awake several times a night. The dreams of the guilty are not restful. I worked hard to be exhausted... otherwise…I would probably never sleep at all.
Keeping up with a steady stream of work has helped reduce my panic attacks. I’ve been functioning like a person since I started my go-no-where job. The long hours give me something to fill out my day. I need something to get out of bed for. Every day I get just a little bit farther from my pain.
Clocking out at midnight last night left me brain dead. A double shift yesterday insured that today is going to be exhausting. I could appreciate exhaustion. The dish pit wasn’t a bad place to be on a Tuesday evening at the Diner.
I generally enjoy doing dishes. There something that appeals to that anti-social repetitive part of me. It is soothing being drenched in warm water, in my own little world, simply focused on what is in front of me
Washing dishes certainly beats running the line when every other cook is a guy. There wasn’t another woman working in the back of the restaurant. It is a situation I would have avoided at all cost when I first started at the Diner…but I needed luxury items…like food and a place to live that wasn’t in my car.
I don’t have the temperament to pick up tables with the other girls; nor any desire too. I would rather wash dishes than suck up for tips. At least I know I can bring home a paycheck…no matter how small that check may be.
Tired has been a constant companion of mine for a very long time. I thought I was going to run off the road on my way home last night. I spent a second or two trying not to think that the only people who would miss me were some of my coworkers…and that was entirely too depressing. I could feel the tightness in my throat.
*
I could not get out of the restraints. They made a soft “swift, swift” sound as twirled my wrists loosely in them. Back and forth I twitched my cuffs…again… and again… and again. I kept trying to get out… and I didn’t know exactly why I bothered.
The restraints upset me when I knew…I knew… I needed to be calm. I just wanted to check myself out and I got aggressive with the nurse at the checkout desk. I wouldn’t have hurt her…I didn’t even touch her. She was afraid of me. I’d just had enough ‘help’ to last me my entire life. I was ready to go.
When I ignored the nurse who had been trying to stall me I brushed past her and tried to get through the steel doors. She called security. I am very sure she was being reasonable but she had this look on her face. Like she knew what was under my clothing…what I carried around with me. The scars would always be there.
She had seen me raw and open sweating out my pain to the world. I scared her… at least what had happened to me did. It didn’t hurt me to have someone afraid of me. It made me….so very angry. She couldn’t handle that I was alive.
That was the prevalent problem with this place. The not quite whispers behind my closed doors… the blatant stares when they came in to check on me. There was a constant steady stream of strangers who kept touching me, because they wanted to help my recovery.
Pity leaked out of their pores, some carried hope in their faces, others were laced with awe, and even more with superstitions fear. The accusations they held that wouldn’t just jump out of their mouths demanding to know why... WHY did you survive? I wouldn’t rise up to their unspoken bait instead drawing on reserves of strength focused on a single goal. I was ready to go.
I resisted when the security guards took hold of me….I even told myself it was stupid…I was so weak. I was loud with my regard for these weak willed soft men who thought to keep me caged in this place of ‘help’.
I knew….I knew I was acting…crazy… not until I was tied down did I stop fighting them…not until there was a quick sharp stab in my arm. I welcomed the sting. I had tried to walk out of a hospital in nothing but a gown and little blue booties…what was wrong with me?
“We cannot release you until you undergo a psychological evaluation. Until such guarantees are made that you are not a threat to yourself or the general public. You survived what happened.” It sounded rehearsed…so impersonal and clinical.
Then the resignation sunk into her voice “You need to survive the surviving” and the doctor placed her hand on my shoulder.
Her gray eyes held nothing but concern. I flinched away from her touch…looking down at my stomach that was so small and covered with white itchy gauze…I knew what was under there…what wasn’t there anymore.
I hadn’t told anyone about the talons that had taken everything. The beating of dark feathers brushed my mind and I felt my grief so sharp, it closed me down. I didn’t survive, playing along was the only way I was going to finish what Gideon had started. I was ready to go.
*
Feeling more defeated than usual, I stretched my long frame out, burying my face in my pillows trying to snatch a little more bedtime. I was already dismissing my brief contemplations by shoving them into the back of my head. I focused on the moment as much as I was capable…as often as possible.
Both of my feet dangle off the end of the twin bed. The covers had long since been kicked off onto the floor. I often fought with my bedding in my sleep. In my little garage apartment which was lovingly referred to as efficient… I can’t help but feel like a giant.
I should think about investing a little cash in myself. Spending money on me always seemed wrong as if I was saving it for something. I didn’t know what I was saving for. Last time I bought something for myself was a pair of work boots and that was at least five years ago. It just about killed me to drop almost a hundred dollars on some shoes. Steel toed black leather slip-proof boots that were designed for kitchen work…I did love those boots.
Maybe it was a good sign? That I could find some shred of pleasure in a past mundane boot purchase. At least my feet stopped hurting… not much I can do about my back. Every counter in the Diner is about two inches to low and I have to stoop no matter what station I work. I knew my back could take the annoyance of short counters.
It was the old damage that really hurt… but can’t be helped… I am pretty lucky to even have a job in this town
. I roll out of bed and feel the creaky cracks of my spine protesting at the movement.
Old scars stretched out across most of my torso and back as I limbered up a bit. They have a tendency to burn and pull when I push my body to hard. Occasionally I have to slap a Band-Aid on an old wound because I stretched the scar tissue too tight in my labor intensive job.
I hadn’t known that skin tears were a thing until I started dealing with them myself. Not that anyone would ever know about them. I tend to wear clothing that covers everything. No questions that way…or worse…pity.
I haven’t had a date in almost a decade. I tended to discourage interested men with marked looks of annoyance if not fear. The choices of available men around this area were almost nonexistent. If my personality didn’t drive them off… my apartment guaranteed that I was never bringing anyone home. I know finding someone who wasn’t repulsed at the sight of me naked was slim to none. Even if I had the slightest interest in romance…which I don’t.
There isn’t much to my apartment. The kitchen is two feet from my bedroom on the right side of the room. If I stretch my legs from my bed I can prop them up on the countertop. The foot of my bed held a crooked bookshelf packed with paperbacks.
Autobiographies and histories were what I tended to look for now. There were a few mythologies tucked in no particular order...I had spent years trying to make sense of the things I had seen…what I could see in snippets even now. I thought that some book of old stories would give me answers if I could just figure it out. Now I knew I was just crazy.
The kitchen mostly consists of a fridge, a sink, and two upper and lower cabinets. The best thing about the cabinets is that they are high enough I don’t bang my head into them every day. There is a hot plate I use for cooking when the mood hits me which isn’t often. Most of my meals consist of leftovers from the Diner.
The bathroom was described as ‘compact’ and consists of a shower and a toilet. There is barely enough room to fit in there and it shares a sink with the kitchen. I had put a mirror up above the kitchen sink. I look directly into it every morning. I have never liked what I saw looking back at me.
My hair is a tangled knot of lank mousy brown. I wouldn’t even pretend to know what to do with it besides pin it back every day. It spends most of its time under a hair net anyway. Deep brown eyes look back at me. The best feature I have in my opinion. I am pale enough that the lack of sleep left bruises under all that brown.
It isn’t that I am not a fan of the sun…it is more that the sun isn’t a fan of mine. I try to wear as much clothing as possible which makes the heat unbearable. I am thirty four years old and I work in a kitchen. I have been in this town for almost ten years and I don’t remember what I was looking for when I got here. I had just figured that here was as good as anywhere. It wasn’t as if I had any other place to run to at the time.
*
Welcome to Noel, Missouri population… 1,870 the sign read as I drove past more…nothing. I feel as if every small town for the past thousand miles has been miniature copies of each other. I slammed on the breaks when the highway suddenly hit town limits. It came up upon me fast without any warning. I had been driving for days it seems like…days and nights of nothing. There only appeared to be one main road in this town and I sat with the car idling momentarily wondering if I go right or left. One direction was the same as any other.
I spotted a gas station, a mom and pop place to eat, several antique ‘malls’ and a lot of what appeared to be empty buildings. I pulled into the gas station, it was still early in the day but the place was deserted. There were only two pumps in front of the building which appeared to be a tin shed. I was the only customer here and it was a good sign for me. I didn’t want to talk to people. I knew I needed to fill up tank and grab something to eat. I didn’t know when I would hit another place.
The only goal I had for the last few weeks were to get as completely lost as I could. I hadn’t even looked at a phone in months. It wasn’t as if I had anyone to call. I didn’t have a family anymore…the potential for my own was gone now… not that I had a family to begin with. Any friends I had cut ties with me when I had been hospitalized. Those friends were worthless… sticking around for the tragedy… not for any real feelings or concern for me. I couldn’t take the whispers of pity and sympathy anymore…I just got in my car and drove east. I didn’t even think to pack…as far as I was concerned everything I had before now… was stained.
Inside the store was an old man sitting at a booth with more old men. I had stepped into another time…into what I imagined a Piggly Wiggly would be. Inside the gas station didn’t feel like a real place…the grit beneath my feet slid like sand on pavement.
Its atmosphere was a local hangout for retirees not a place of business. The selection of drinks and food were so minimal and standard I had to wonder how the place stayed open. I used the bathroom which was shockingly clean a welcome surprise after washing up in public toilets. I hadn’t spent any money on motels… my dwindling supply of cash was almost gone. I didn’t know what I would do when it ran out and I stopped…at the end.
The old guys were talking loudly and seemingly important things only known to them. It was as if they were speaking a different language. I listened intently to their words and I knew it was English…but it was so quick and garbled that my tired state couldn’t sort it out.
With several of them speaking at once it sounded as if I was listening to the low mummer of goose calls. There wasn’t any logic to their discussion. I could not tell that a discussion was taking place if it wasn’t for some energetic hand gestures.
They had squished themselves into the ancient red booth near the register…I almost expected milkshakes and poodle skirts. Like a local congress in heated debate with the tendency to sit or stand at random intermissions.
Cigar smoke curled up from the center of their table. It was almost refreshing to see the smoke as if I stepped out of a world where people complained about old men and their cigars. It was relaxing to be in a place that was removed from the normal daily gripes.
I watched those chatty old men from the corner of my eye while I browsed the limits of the selection. They would cast quick curious glances in my direction without the malice usually attached to an unkempt woman traveling alone. I didn’t get the feeling they were watching for me to steal something. That had been happening the longer this trip went. I had never stolen anything in my life but understood I looked…homeless. And I was now.
I settled on a Coke and what looked like an okay sandwich from the coolers. I stood at the register and a brochure caught my eye… Bluff Dwellers Cave. I flipped thru the little booklet letting my eyes take in the lovely color photos. It was the first thing I was interested in so long…that I spaced out for a little while. I didn’t notice one of the old guy get up and come behind the counter. He would have had to come up right behind me and it worried me that I hadn’t noticed.
“Tha all for ya dar’ing?” an old man asked. He rang up my coke and sandwich. Punching the items into a register that was so ancient it didn’t even require electricity.
“I need gas too” I said handing him a twenty. “What is that place?”
My voice croaked out the words, it had been a long time since I had spoken to a person… I have been…as quiet as I could be. Most gas stations had Pay-At-The-Pump…that ended once my account was drained. I held up the pamphlet. The old man made a huffing noise and I was suddenly aware that I couldn’t remember the last time I had showered...or changed my clothing. The old man gave me a small gentle smile.
“Tha be summing ya otta see” he said.
*
I am working a morning prep shift then doing the line for lunch. I tend to go where I am needed at work without complaint. I’ve been at the restaurant more than nine years. I started just after I had rolled into this nowhere town. I hadn’t planned on staying here…I had been on my way to… nowhere… when I got here. Noel was the first time after I had gotten o
ut of the hospital that I hadn’t been ready to… go.
Today is a short day otherwise with the overtime or not I wouldn’t have put in almost eighteen hours yesterday. It was part of the deal to stay and wait with the manager last night after working a straight double shift. I have a short day and I want to get it over with as quickly as possible.
Maybe today I would see if I could find a new book to read after work. Instead of coming straight home like I usually did. I desperately needed something to look forward to that wasn’t work. I was trying. The thought of a new-to-me used book lightened my mood somewhat.
With a short shift in the foremost of mind I filled up my kettle at the kitchen counter to get it heated up. I don’t own a coffee pot. I just drink the stuff because people look at you sideways when you ask for hot tea around here. In Mid-Western America hot tea sets you apart from the normal.
I striped my nightclothes off quickly tossing them and my under things in the basket in the corner. I can smell last night’s work clothing once I start moving around and waking up. I know I stink. I was flat out as soon as I walked in the door. I don’t own a television for several reasons, mainly I wouldn’t know where to keep it, and I lived far enough away from town that I couldn’t afford service.
It isn’t as if there was Cable to be found anywhere near here. I haven’t been to a movie in so long that I couldn’t begin to guess what was playing. There wasn’t a theater in town and I always stuck to town for my needs. Part of me was afraid if I drove to far from town I would keep driving. I knew that would be a bad thing but I wasn’t ready to admit it…not even to myself.
I take quick showers. There is barely enough room to turn around and when I sit on the toilet my feet are in the shower. The showerhead is set at a standard height which means I have to do aerobics to wash my hair. It would be easier if I picked up one of those old people shower chairs but I was afraid it wouldn’t fit in the space and generally you couldn’t return medical equipment.
I hadn’t seriously looked into more ways to make myself comfortable. I fantasize about a bathtub big enough to hold my oversized frame. When I am standing straight I check in at slightly over six feet… it would have to be a big...big tub. Staring at my feet planted in the shower… I add endless hot water to that little daydream. Calling my hot water tank a “hot water tank” is an insult to hot water tanks everywhere. When it isn’t frozen later in the year it’s broken.
Merrily In Tragedy: Book One (Merrily We Live 1) Page 1
