It Isn't Real
Cheryl. My Cherry, I let Cherry leave. I let the kids leave. Nothingness turns to fog, which turns to haze, and I’m suddenly aware of my existence. Warm and floating and painless in an unknown void. There is no shape, no time, no thought. Just existence: simple, infinite, and meaningless.
I am not myself; hell, I’m not even I. But I keep saying I. So, “I” exists. I keep saying words, so words and language exist. I’m speaking in English, so English exists. But before I have words to express it, the pain emerges from nothing. The slow, dull reintroduction of misery begins. My toes hurt, so I must have toes. I’m gradually becoming aware of my body. Pain sketches it out and brings it into focus. The universe does not hurt, so I am not the universe. This slow drum of torment carves me from the infinite void and shapes me into a small, bipedal ape.
I’m human. I’ve been human before. I am not the universe. Who am I?
I chuckle at a fake riddle. So, actual riddles must exist. As should real people and jokes and relationships and laughter. One by one, I remember what existence is, and each item, in turn, begins to exist. I see the shapes of people and animals and cars and trees form in front of me. They swirl in the shapeless void and bear no relation to each other. But that’s not how reality works, right? My eyes must be closed (oh right, I forgot about eyes), and I am imagining the shapes.
But the pain is real, so my body is not in my mind. Well, I suppose pain is entirely in the mind though. So, pain itself is no indicator that my body exists. Have to run some tests. I think of the pain. It has spread and diversified, carving me out of infinity into a fleshy sack of bones and organs. My head throbs, but I feel pressure at my back. In fact, I feel pressure all along the back of my body. The pressure begins to orient me in the void, and I discover gravity.
Suddenly, I’m lying down. Well, I suppose I was lying down the whole time, but now I can feel it and understand it. I am not in an infinite void, but this feels more like an overdose of oxy. I feel gravity, though it’s a little stronger than usual. I suddenly feel my fingers and strain to move them.
A light tap on my thigh. I should try again to make sure that was me. I wiggle again three times.
Tap, tap, tap.
So, I’ve found myself. I am a human, lying on the floor after taking too much oxy, maybe morphine or heroin, I suppose. What the hell is my name? I should have a name, right? It’ll have to wait right now. Best not to strain too much.
The haze is lifting, and I begin to feel temperatures. My legs are warm and numb, but my torso is cold. As I shift my body little by little, I begin to feel the friction of sand or dirt scraping my skin beneath my body. A dirt floor? Or at least a dirty floor. Certainly not the beach. Cold and rough and filthy, like the decaying concrete slab of Dad’s garage the night we left. He huddled over a small, nondescript piece of whatever poor motorized appliance or motorcycle or car couldn’t escape his prying hands. That one feeble light bulb is hanging from a rafter on a length of rusted picture wire, crudely bent into a hook, creating deep tunnels of contrasting light and shadows. There he is now! Leaning awkwardly to the side to get light into the deepest crevasses of the lawnmower motor. I’m seven, watching from the icy driveway in the dark Vermont night. Mom shoves me quietly into the car, and as she covers me with a blanket in the back seat, the dome light of the old Subaru illuminates her bruised face; the small cut on her lip is no longer bleeding, but the glistening lines of tears show just how swollen her eye had become.
I see dad in the mirror. He glances up only briefly at the car but says nothing. He turns his head back downward and searches for some tool to pry or twist, or likely break, the metal patient on his operating table. I smell the burning exhaust of the car as mom accelerates out of the driveway for the last time. I can smell it now. But it twists into something new, and I am back in the present. Carving myself out of this eternity.
My smell returns to the present with a sour and complex mixture of sewage, roadkill, and honey. The kind of toxic bubblegum sweetness of New York City, walking by roasted nuts and a subway exit. Wherever I am, it is not a warm bed in a safe home with a loving family.
I hear the distant drone of a fan. No, too loud; it echoes through far-off chambers. Its uniformity is a lie. Rushing water? A faint clang! Clang! Clang! Something metal, something hard. Something violent. And suddenly, I feel fear. A lingering sense of impending doom. Luckily, it’s far away for now. Within my small space, the deafening silence of a corridor as the echoes of every little breath scatter across the walls, filling the room with white noise. My ears are ringing loudly, but I can hear.
I’m suddenly aware of my breath, slow and steady, but being as fickle as breathing can be, it becomes faster and more painful as I become aware of it. Broken ribs maybe? Sharp pain at the peak of each inhale.
Slow down… stay calm.
As putrid air fills my lungs and my body yearns for more, my mouth opens, and I can taste. A faint, metallic taste of old blood maybe? My mouth seems misshapen. A lump has formed in the right cheek. Is it swollen? I tongue it.
“Fuck, that hurt.” It’s definitely swollen. I press harder and feel a pop. “Fuck, abscess” The infection bursts into my mouth. Filling it with the rotten, diseased puss from, I assume, a now-burst sore. The taste of death, and I begin to choke.
I’m wrenched back into existence. Heaving my body to the side, I roll all my weight onto my shoulder and wretch, vomiting on the floor in front of me. My body seizes and heaves, and I feel it coming. Tunneling from my gut to my mouth with each spasm. God, I miss that infinite void. As vomit sprays out in front of me and clogs my nose, I notice the terrible pain in my now flattened arm. It’s broken.
I can open my eyes and witness the carnage of my wretched existence. It’s dark. The faint gray of dawn fills a small, dust-caked concrete chamber, but I can’t locate the source.
There is more rattling and clanging in the distance. It’s closer now.
Squinting so hard my eyes start to shake, but I can’t see. The grey light cannot distinguish other forms from the void. But it glows enough to show me it’s there. Useless. It binds me to this reality and reminds me that I’m in pain. But only the pain itself etches out the forms around me. I look at a hand; that hand does not hurt me; that hand is not mine. I look down at a lumpy, heaving ribcage. It cauterizes my synapses with every halted and slow inhale. That torso is mine. I am breathing.
The grey stays the same, but my eyes begin to hurt and, thus, reaccustom themselves to the darkness. The empty shadows lurk on the edge, but colors glow faintly against the abyssal darkness. Maybe the room isn’t that small. I roll off my injured arm and stair at the ceiling, swallowing the last chunks of dark vomit that clear my nostrils and fall to the back of my throat. I’m calm enough to feel the relief. The immense pressure gone from my face. Small blessings, I guess. God, I miss the void. Close my eyes and try to sleep. The weight of my chest suffocates me, and I try to die. If that was death, so be it.
But the void stays beyond my grasp and fades ever further away. I am stuck here, in this putrid and rotten body, aching in pain and prostrate, ready for oblivion.
But, like the void, oblivion doesn’t come; it hovers and threatens and teases closure. It makes my suffering sharp and salient. So, sooner or later, I’ll have to do something. What’s that? The noises have drawn closer. The heavy, clanging thud of metal and the scrape of something pick on gravel and concrete. Wet, popping creaks of something from deep below the surface, under the water and filth that coats the skin of this horrible world. God, I miss the void! I’ll have to just wait for death.
But Cheryl. OH, Cheryl! My eyes close, and I feel the expansion of fire in my heart. Pouring over the edges and bursting through my arteries. The grey is not so dim; I close my eyes and think of Cherry, desperately trying to hold onto my one happy thought. I close my eyes, and her dazzling image appears before me. Suddenly, I am clear. I know who I am. Reggie is my name. Her name is Cheryl, and she’s the most beautiful girl in school. I loved her since the moment I laid eyes on her at Sadie Hawkins. I went with my older sister’s friend whatshername. I didn’t want to go, but I think she felt bad for me at the time. I was new and quiet and awkward, and Sadie Hawkins was less about getting a date and more about helping the new and quiet and awkward kids get out of their shells. God, it was uncomfortable; I came out of oppressive politeness (I had never told a girl no before), and she invited me out of aggressive politeness. But that didn’t matter when I saw Cherry as I perched up on the bleachers and stared across the gymnasium. She wore the same shimmery dress that she wore on our first date two years later. She laughed with friends and grabbed a handful of cheesy crackers off the snack table.
I sat and watched and waited, and we became friends over the years. I somehow convinced her I was worth taking out on a date. Sometime later, I convinced her to marry me. And then there were drinks and celebrations. There were kids and drinks and more celebrations and arguments and love and drinks. Then darkness. More drinks, more parties, less kids, less family, less Cherry. More arguments, more drugs. God, it was all with me again. I exist, and I am worthless. My chest heaves and gets heavier. I try to die, to will myself to die. To tell my heart to stop. But it slows and calms me and keeps beating. God, I miss the void!
I let Cherry leave. I let the kids leave. I hated myself, and I watched that hated-me shoot himself up with anything within arm’s reach. God, I should be dead. What God would bring me back?
The dragging, scraping, and clanging draw near. Please be death.
I drank until I had nothing left. My sister took Cherry in, and they abandoned me to the streets. It was more than I deserved. At least the kids are safe; I hope they have a better shot with a dead dad than with me. I am a testament to the failings of humanity.
But Cherry, she said something the last day. God, what did she say? She said, “I hope that someday you’re human again.”
I just want to die.
But I can’t die.
No.
I have to live; I have to see them again. I have to be human. I am human.
I open my eyes. I see the concrete ceiling cracking and breaking apart to reveal the brick underneath. I smell sewage and roadkill. The roadkill could be any meat that has fallen into this hole with me. Hell, it could even be me if I’m septic. But sewage is sewage. There is no way around it. I’m in a sewer or storm drain. Or at least near one. I’m underground. There is no light, but somehow, I can see the ceiling. I crane my neck and look around to my left. The bricks disappear quickly into a tunnel, dark and abyssal. To the right, a faint glow ricochets through the halls, illuminating the grey walls. A dream or moonlight? Salvation or mirage?
I can feel my body now. It is rotten and swollen and a burden. But it’s what I have. I slide my good arm along the floor and find a place to push myself up into a hunched, lurching silhouette. The angle is too much, and I vomit again. The balance is too much. I am dying.
The wet, scraping, and banging noises have slowed, but I hear the echoes resounding through rock and bone, keeping the threat of danger ever present in the room. The air begins to hum and shake. There is something here... with me.
How long have you been watching?
No. It’s nothing. I have fallen and need to get moving... of course, I’m hallucinating. I’m a fucking junky. What is that shape? It’s just beyond darkness, just out of reach. It stares with fish-bowl eyes just beyond the darkness. Glinting, watching me. Does it breathe? Is it alive? I am still.
Don’t breathe…
Just… don’t.. breathe…
My head is clear. For the first time, I hear silence pounding at the gates. A silence that holds desperately against the fear. But there is nothing here. I try to stop the harsh shivers in my chest as I force in just enough oxygen to survive. I want to move, but I can’t. I wanted so badly to die, and now I am petrified.
There is… nothing… there. You’re fine. But then why can’t I – what was that? A faint chime? The micro-scratching of a scared insect. Like a lone cricket desperately searching for the comfort of a mate. The terror, it’s there. I feel its breath and smell its hunger. It shifts and scuttles from the darkness. But the darkness follows it like the clouds of death. So fast, but it’s silent? Is it drowned out by the rushing clamor that begins to echo through the chamber? Legs glint in the light, smeared with mud and filth like defensive wounds from a drowning victim. From the pointed feet, no, not feet. Claws? A scuttling demon from the deepest parts of the world. Its fangs and mandibles squittering in excitement as it scurries through the dark toward me. Maybe if I play dead?
I try not to breathe. I feel the warm tears stream down my face as I try to lower my torso as quietly as possible. The rib is surely broken. The terror moves and shifts and squeezes itself along the tunnel. The wet chirping echoes through the halls like hungry bats in the night. And it approaches. I’m lying still now. Praying and thinking of Cherry in her beautiful and shimmering dress. How did I let myself ruin her life? How many thousands of chances did I have to make things right? How could I ever see her again?
I feel my body now. When did my skin return? A cold, hard arm caresses my abdomen, pausing at my armpit and sliding along the length of my arm. That horrible chirp, I feel it in my bones. Don’t wince…
Don’t… fucking… move! Animals don’t eat dead things, right? It works for bears or something, right? I feel the swift and refined grip of the long claw on my wrist. God, just play dead. Animals don’t eat dead things. Please, god, let this thing leave me be. Let it think I’m rotten. I am rotten after all. I’m rotten and decaying in my shell. That’s it, this isn’t real. This is hell, and I’m already lost.
The demon claw held so lightly, the pressure built along the wrist, admiring God’s handiwork. Caressing gently as if not to damage my filthy arm. It paused…
This is hell; I’ve already lost. I’m suffering for the wrongs I’ve perpetrated in life. At least I know now. There is a just God. A just God would want me to suffer.
Still, it paused… for minutes or hours. I try not to breathe; I beg my heart to stop beating. This isn’t real. So why am I still afraid? I have nothing left to give. I open one eye, hoping to see the dejected monster turning away to something more alive.
Eyes. Eyes staring back at me. It sees me, and it sees my soul. It knows I’m alive, and it strikes. It feels like a baseball bat. My body begins to jerk, and I feel it now, the fiery burn of the flesh, shorn from the bone. But my body jerked; it couldn’t get through. I’m screaming now. It raises again, faster this time. The gut-wrenching crack, and my arm is numb. No, not numb; there it is above me. The thing reels backward with the sudden release of tension and chirps as it takes my arm in its mandibles, licking the blood as it sprays over its terrible head. I’m screaming and heaving, but wait. This is hell, and I’m already lost. This is hell. It isn’t real.
