1st shitty draft.
UPDATE (because you care): Just had a friend edit it (Thanks Chase!) and it was amazing. I thought it would be scary or it would hurt my feelings (even though I said it wouldn’t), but it was actually really exciting and I liked it. Yay! Now I have to get started on turning this into something worth reading…
She awoke with a gasp to the thundering sound of a knock at the front door. As she approached the door two things crossed her mind. First off, the person knocking was clearly an idiot, it was a hard door, that kind of banging was sure to leave a bruise, besides, there was a glowing door bell right there off to the side. The second thought was more profound; she knew deep inside, call it women’s intuition, if she opened the door, nothing would ever be the same again. She desperately didn’t want that door to open. Not now, not ever again.
She stood, knees weak, threatening to drop her to the floor like a teeter-totter with no one left to hold her up on the other side. She looked around the dimly lit front room. Her eyes fell on the couch she and Sam loved to cuddle on, even after all these years. The stairs that little feet were always running too fast on and the BMX bike parked in the front hall, tracking in mud even though she has warned about that time and time again.
In her bones she already knew what they were here to tell her. All she had to do was look at her watch. Until that moment she hadn’t noticed the flashing red and blue lights bouncing off the walls of her sitting room. That was a dead giveaway, that and the empty void where they used to lay deep inside of her. She felt the scream but denied with every fiber of her being, she’s often had nightmares like this, that is what this was, just a dream.
Once she approached the freshly painted yellow door, she turned the knob but didn’t pull it open right away. She took a deep breath, the door opened, almost of it’s own accord, she felt the whoosh of air from behind her as all she held dear flew out, up and away into the ether where she could not follow.
There were words coming towards her from a man in uniform, but they didn’t mean anything. All that mattered she watched swirl away. She stumbled, reached out, tried to call out to it, to beg it to stop, come back, please, just not yet, don’t go. But like trying to grasp a handful of water at the bottom of a pool it was everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. Then silence. Sweet, soothing, shrieking silence.
She was not aware of falling but she must have since she was no longer on her feet. The ground was soft under her head. Her body lay on the hard concrete of the walkway but her head was cushioned by the new lush sod that Sam had just put down last weekend. Just imagine, she thought, if she had fallen just a few inches shorter she could had hit her head and she would be gone too. Just imagine. She closed her eyes and tried to will it so.
The world looked different from this angle, would it ever look the same again? Would it always be off center like this? Did she even really care?
She had been staring through the gap between the policeman’s legs, past where his heavy boots dug into the soft fresh grass that grew so strong and emerald green. She wanted to scream at him to get off of her Sam’s lovely lawn. Instead she simply blinked.
Through this triangular space in time she saw Rade come running across the street through the cold, pelting rain. She saw the water bouncing off of his skin and soaking into his clothing. When did it start to rain? She felt it now, her own tank top clinging to her, but she didn’t feel the cold.
He hadn’t taken the time to put a jacket on, all he wore was a thin undershirt and some ratty old jeans, the ones he had found at that charity thrift store he liked so much. She remembered being with him when he bought them, she liked to tease him for buying jeans that already had holes in them. Told him that was how lazy he was, he couldn’t even be bothered to make his own holes.
***
Looking out his front window, he pulled back the yellow curtains Dani had helped him pick out at another of the many thrift stores he was always forcing her into. Since the window was small, she said, the bright, sunny color would help to brighten up the room even on a cloudy day. That was her in a nutshell, always looking for the happy in each day. Maybe that was why he loved her so much, why she and hers had so quickly became family to him.
Through these same thin sheets of fabric he had noticed the same flashing lights she had only moments before. He expected the neighborhood hooligans had knocked over some mailboxes again, but when he looked out he saw her in a wet crumpled heap on the ground with two uniforms, one man and one woman, looking at each other at a loss for what to do next.
Flying out the door he ran to her, faster than any of the horses his family used to raise back home. Maybe he had missed his calling, at this speed all those Nigerians had nothing on him. As he reached her it was her lack of expression that scared him the most.
She watched him as he sped towards her. It occurred to her that he was so graceful, why hadn’t she noticed that before, he was like a gazelle being chased by a hungry lion. On any other day the comparison would have made her giggle. She knew he was moving fast and the distance wasn’t a long one but it was as if everything was moving through deep, sucking quicksand. There was no solid ground left for her to stand on. Everything was forever shifting, in and out of focus, colors were marbling and changing like a cheap kaleidoscope from a county fair.
She felt scattered as if she was here laying on the soft, wet green grass and yet she wasn’t. She thought maybe it was what an old love letter, worn and frayed from so many stolen peeks being shredded into a million pieces and thrown into the midst of a deep, dark, wet storm. That is what her body felt like at that very moment. She was gone, torn asunder, spread throughout a world she no longer recognized, one that no longer held them. She might never find herself there, wherever it was they were, she thought, and that thought was what scared her the most, the one that finally brought one angry, hot tear to the surface.
She felt it slide down her cheek like a red hot poker being dragged across her delicate skin. She felt as it went from sizzling to icy as it began it’s final ascent from the curves of her cheek to the soft, prickly grass that Sam has so lovingly, and painstakingly, planted for no reason other than he knew how much she loved to look out the window and see bright green grass. So alive. So gone. Forever.
Those who saw her laying there may have mistaken her condition as some kind of catatonia, they would be wrong. She didn’t move a muscle, it didn’t even seem as thought she was blinking and her breathing was slow and shallow. Her mind though was alive. More than ever and she wished it would just fucking stop. It had moved through a million different phases before Rade even got to her.
Dani felt as though she had been lying there for at least a year but in reality it was only for a few moments. How can so many things flitter their way through a mind in so little a time? How can life change so quickly? In just one simple second, one choice, stop, turn, don’t turn, keep going, stop go back. Come back. Come back. Please come back.
Then there was Rade. She supposed it would be his turn to be the rock. That is what friends were for right? “What is it? What’s happened? Dani, baby, are you okay?” She wasn’t able to find her voice. It had run and hid in some small dark corner of her body at just the thought of ever having to say what had happened out loud. But she didn’t need to speak for Rade to get it. He could read it in her eyes. He had always been able to tell what she was thinking, even before she knew it sometimes. Or at least that’s how it felt to her. It was a little creepy sometimes, but she loved it anyway.
As he looked past the fractured figure that was his best friend he caught the eye of the policeman closest to them and nodded his head to a indicate they speak a few feet away, he didn’t want to go far from her. They spoke in low voices and even while she tried her best not to hear what they were saying she could feel it. Again. And again.
She knew that she would have only a brief few seconds each morning before she opened her eyes, while she still had time to try and convince herself it was all just a bad dream before this feeling would settle into her consciousness again. She would feel it every time she lay down with her head to the pillow at night. The first thought and the last, for all time. Dani had a feeling once all the whispering and pointing was done with, months from now it would only be worse. The silence would be that much louder, that much emptier.
As he listened to the news the man in uniform was telling him, it was almost impossible to accept. He could never have imagined something like this. It just wasn’t the kind of thing that happened to real people, it was what you expect to read in a heart wringing book or in a shattering TV movie. The type that would leave you with sad thoughts following you like a dark puppy cloud for days before they would fade away, dissipated by the chore of everyday life. But this. This was real. This would stay real.
He wished he could simply lay by her on the ground and stay there forever, had just lost a family too, but he knew that it was his turn to be there for her. To be her rock as she had for him so many times in the past.
As he scooped a limp and dripping Dani up into his arms he noticed the policeman seemed to be enjoying the view of her wet blouse clinging to her curves and if he hadn’t had his arms full that man’s face would have been leaving the property in a much different state that it showed up in. As it was he carried her into the house, closing the door firmly on the police with a kick of his foot.
The pair of cops stood there for a moment on the porch in the glow of the streetlights, their hats dripping in front of their faces. The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a card with her name and number on it. She left it wedged in the crack of the door. When they were ready to ask the questions she would be there to answer them the best she could. Thank goodness that poor woman had someone to be there for her, she thought again later that night as she went off shift, rushing home to her own family. She wanted to be able to tuck them into bed that night. Safe and warm, tummies full of whatever it was the babysitter had made them for dinner that night.
Rade took her upstairs to her bedroom and laid her down carefully on the comforter. She looked up at him as her head touched down. Her hazel eyes huge and glistening with hot tears she was scared to shed in case they never ceased. Gone. That word. Gone.
There was nothing to say to her, he knew words at this point meant nothing to anyone. He slowly lifted her wet and clinging shirt off her body with little cooperation from her. He peeled off her damp jeans, it wasn’t as if he’d never seen her naked before. Life changes so fast, he remembered the shopping trip they took up the coast just a couple of weekends ago, the trip where she bought the jeans. They had so much fun. That life was gone. God, that word, gone.
He was her shopping buddy, she preferred to call it her stylist and she always swore that one day she’d have enough money to be able to pay him for all his clothing advice. It was a running joke, she even had a tally of money owing on the fridge downstairs. It lived nestled in between pictures of the family playing soccer in the park and at school plays.
Rade threw her soaking wet clothes in the direction of the white porcelain bathtub but didn’t take the time to make sure they all hit the mark. If they stained the floor it wasn’t the worst thing to happen that day. She needed him here with her, every second and no matter how long she wanted him there, that was where he would be.
Reaching down he picked up the chenille throw folded neatly at the bottom of the bed and spread it over her, tucking it in all around her the way he knew she liked it.
Then Rade lay down behind her and put his arm around her and held her as she finally let the fear and the tears come and wash over her like a tsunami of salt water. Maybe she would drown and it would all be over she thought, wished really. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, it felt as if all the oxygen on earth had been sucked away in a firestorm of such malevolence that all she could do was close her eyes to it.
Maybe if she looked away things would be different on that side. Emptiness surrounds her. The feel of Rade has a measure of safety but, while she can feel him touching her body, his chest pressed against her back, his breath on her neck, his knees bent just right to curve with her own, she feels utterly detached. As if the body he is laying with isn’t really hers, as though she is simply a visitor to this new world. This world of emptiness and grass that will never grow green again.
Maybe he shouldn’t be lying on this side of the bed, Rade thought, it was Sam’s side. He just didn’t know what was the right thing to do and what was the wrong. But when he went to shift she grabbed onto the arm laid over her and held tight. He settled back down and just stroked her face as she cried out the names of those who could no longer respond. His heart breaking, he too quietly wept hot tears of despair into her honey blonde hair.
