The Entry Point

I lie on the bed as if fastened by a psych ward’s canvas strap. Only—I am free to move, and the sheet I tucked into the crook of my neck for comfort has abandoned me.

It’s the hammering in my chest I recognize first. As strong as the final sprint to the marathon’s finish line, my heart fists against my ribs. I gulp for air, heaving, pleading for each breath to fill me, but everything pushed in is forced out just as quickly. I can’t get in enough.

My eyes open, and nothing changes. Open or closed, the darkness is complete, total, smothering.

My hand goes to my chest. My fingers rake over the two-inch scar where my skin was chewed into ground beef when the chainsaw kicked back and turned on me, damning me to months of beeping monitors.

Like a cat flipped onto its back—never expose the underbelly. Vulnerable doesn’t begin to cover it. I am as cold-blooded, as alert, as an ISIS terrorist with a serrated knife at a throat. However many times my therapist tells me I survived, that I’m safe now, there is a forever vigilance. Like soldiers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, I march back and forth along the boundary of the scar, always keeping it covered by thick, tight Velcro fabric.

But now—it’s gone.

Ever since I left the hospital, no longer among the dead but not quite among the living, that bandage gave me security like a decades-worn wedding ring on an old woman’s bony finger. In the shower, I’d slide it just far enough to wash. On hot days, I never removed my shirt.

And now—gone. I am a lamb to the slaughter. Helpless. Exposed. In the dark.

Acting on impulse, I go still. My hands, which had been digging into the fitted sheet, loosen and fold just above my navel.

A sound. The tick, tick, ticking of the baseboard heater coming on.

Only—it’s not the heater.

Through the dark, through my bedroom’s ajar door, a light begins to glow. A pale, bluish fire: the burner on my stove.

To turn it on, you have to push the knob in, twist counterclockwise to “light.” No one else has a key. And even if they did—I know I set the deadbolt. I remember talking to my ex-wife about the kids’ visitation and, when she heard a sound over the phone, she asked what I was doing. I said, locking the deadbolt.

As if static were injected into the room, every hair on my body stands on end.

The flame shrinks to darkness.

And in the breath between fear and disbelief, I feel the warmth and wetness of a tongue drag itself against my big toe.

With a sudden jerk, I yank my leg to my chest and roll off the bed onto the cold tile floor as something rustles in the dark behind me.

It could just be the wind, I tell myself.

But the wind doesn’t breathe.

There’s a sauna-like breath painting a feathery waterfall over my ear, and the hot air trickles into my ear canal. A rogue earwig is burrowing. My hand suctions and hammers at my ear. A dynamite implosion sends heated explosions down my neck as my flailing legs squeak against the floor. Colliding with the nightstand, the bedside lamp wobbles and falls. With only sound as sensation, the shattering glass is the least of my worries.

It’s back, I say to myself knowingly. Like a finger rushing along a maze, I read the signs to the finish. Broken glass, fire, her breath.

I gain consciousness in the sterile, fluorescent glow, the medicinal smell. The beeping, in time with my heart, quickens as if someone turned up a dial. I’m safe, I think, seeing myself in the blue-and-white patterned paper hospital gown, my bare, slightly-too-long toenails, the metal handles at my sides, the doctor’s notes on the whiteboard.

A long blink plays a shadowy image. Me on the floor in the dark, kicking into the wall, the tiny shards of glass piercing my side, the warm milk-drip sensation in my ear.

Rushing my eyes open, I reenter the room—to the beep, to the inch-long hair on my big toe. It’s all real. Eyes open or closed, it’s all now. The beeps increase, and hearing them increase makes them spike higher. It’s a spinning, frenzied feedback loop I react to. I can no longer lie in this bed—I must go. The desire to sit up, the urge, the first synaptic firing of intention is everything. The clicking of a starter—endless clicking without catching, stuck, suspended, not starting. This is what I am. Willpower without power. Stranded. Paralyzed.

I scream. I shove. I struggle into a vacuumed void. Voices surround me, white-coated, pale-faced, stone-eyed, stethoscopes dangling, gloves snapping. Stop! Please. I’m awake. The thoughts tear through my mind, shrieking like paper cuts ripping across my eyes. My eyes—they shouldn’t be open, can’t be open. This is a terrible mistake.

The voice is hot as iron in my ear, and it’s not the wind. Death’s relief will not be yours. In between this place and that, you will remain.

The sound that follows is a whirring—a blend of air and machine. It’s too familiar. Overhead, the doctor’s gloved hands hold the device. The smell of fumes: gasoline burning, exhaust smoking up the air. The small silver item he grips, no bigger than a tattoo artist’s gun, ends in a horizontal bar with a toothed edge that buzzes rapidly back and forth.

A gloved hand pulls the tie at my neck free, then the one at my side. My gown falls open, and where there was once a scar, now—tiny cuts, like bloody shooting stars, form a constellation across my front and sides.

Dark. It’s so dark. My legs—I can move them, and I do. I move my hands underneath me, the stinging glass digs in, and I’m up. I head in the direction of the door, feeling the textured wall for the switch. Then there’s reduced friction; it’s slippery and smooth, and I run my fingers over it. To my nose, I bring my hand, and the smell of gas.

My eyes are open. Flanking me on both sides are three white-clothed and masked bodies. Dark and light red spray drips from their masks, their elbows, and their chests. The voice, deep within me, is the conductor that taps their podium: Attention. Focus. Listen, and listen only to me.

This is my favorite part, it says—the entry point.

I wake up to the gas. I wake up to the bulging eyes and the ripping of my skin, bone, and insides. I find the switch, and it flicks up, like a tongue. The hope to wake only resumes the nightmare. The will to escape only awakens it—once again.

And again.

And again.