and shoved me along the packed dirt floor, toward the shelf.
“Can’t you get it yourself?” I asked. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, threatening to crush me and squeeze the air from my lungs.
“No, I asked you,” she said, pushing me forward again.
I closed my eyes, took a breath, and lunged forward. Through the darkness, my fingers found the slickness of the glass jar and closed around it. I yanked the jar toward me and rushed past her, back to the stairs, back into the safety of the light, leaving my grandmother alone, shaking her head back and forth like a pendulum.
I never went back down there. Being down there was like being buried alive.
◊
The air is heavy from last night’s storm and the sun has already begun to bake the earth, sending wisps of steam swirling up from the grass.
I’m nervous as I sit on the front steps waiting for Clara. It has been fifteen minutes since she called saying she was on her way over, saying it was urgent. I told her I’d be waiting. I hope she shows up on time for once. I can’t wait all day.
When she pulls up in her Cabriolet, the top is down and country music blares from it so loudly that I can hear every twangy word. She waves and I mask my smile. Better to look pissed, I think. It’ll give me the upper hand. She makes her way up the sidewalk and stops halfway, staring at me with wide eyes. Her lips tremble, but only the slightest bit. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey yourself.”
“You got a minute?”
I nod but say nothing.
“I’ve been thinking, like a lot, and I’m worried. I’m worried about you.”
“Nothing to be worried about.”
She chews on her bottom lip and pushes a clump of hair behind her ear. “No, I think there is, the way you’ve been acting lately, it’s not—“ She stops and takes a breath. “It’s not right.”
“The way I’ve been acting?”
“You’re paranoid, you’re scared of everything. You’ve been short with me. You never used to be short with me. And the dreams you’ve been having, the ones you were telling me about the other day, they’re not normal.”
“What are you saying?”
“I think you’re sick, Kurt.”
The words sound ridiculous. I feel fine, most of the time at least. The simple fact that she would even bring this up makes me furious. Who is she to talk to me this way? And Christ, since when is she a doctor? “Clara, please. I’m not—”
“Look.” She drops the stack of papers into my lap. The pages are filled with diagrams and words in italics that I don’t recognize, bulleted lists of symptoms and charts. I don’t know what to make of it.
“What’s all this?”
“I spent the whole day at the library yesterday. I hadn’t really meant to but I sort of got trapped there by the storm. Mom said you called. Sorry.”
“No big deal.” Guilt comes at me full force but I shrug it off.
“This is sort of important okay, Kurt? I’ve just been worried lately is all, about you, and I just don’t know what to do anymore. We need to talk about this.”
I riffle the pages with my thumb. “Look, Clara, I’m telling you I feel fine. I don’t get where all this is coming from.”
Her eyes seem to glisten as she looks at me. “Please? Why don’t we go inside, sit down for a while? I’ll tell you all about what I found. It’s nothing to be ashamed of–”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“Look, why don’t you just get out of here. I’m not really in the mood to…this is just a lot to handle right now. Just get back in your little car and leave me alone. I’ll read this stuff later. By myself.”
“So, what, you don’t want me here?”
“That’s what I said.” I can’t help but think how she left me at the zoo. It feels good being able to turn the tables on her, to hurt her the way she hurt me.
“Alright, well, just promise you’ll read it alright? It really is important.”
“Clara, I said I would.”
“Can I call you tomorrow at least?”
“Please don’t.”
She turns and heads back to her car. I stay on the porch until she has driven out of sight, then head back inside. I flip through the pages but the words mean nothing to me, no more than ink and paper. I take a moment to marvel at her bravado, the sheer nerve it took to show up here, to say what she said, and then leave like that. Then I toss the papers into the trash.
It’s where they belong.
◊
That night I have a dream. I am running along the highway, fast enough to keep up with traffic, running faster and faster and not getting tired. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m running from but I don’t care. My legs stretch with each stride. My lungs pull in the cool air.
I don’t know when I stop, I only realize that I have. I turn and realize that I’m home now, seated at the dinner table at the house where I grew up. There is a roasted chicken in the center of the table and the place smells of fresh vegetables. I look around and see my mother seated to my right. Her eyes look distant and her skin drawn, as if she if very tired or has been crying for a long time. To my left sits Clara, all smiles and blonde hair, the Clara I remember, the Clara I realize then that I still love. I smile back at her and begin to eat.
Then in a flash, I’m pulled away from them, dragged by someone I cannot see. I watch, helpless as Clara and my mother fade into the distance, becoming smaller and smaller. I try to cry out to them but my mouth does not work, my tongue won’t form the words, my throat won’t make a sound. I struggle but it’s no use. I’m helpless.
There’s another flash and I’m sitting on my bed, staring across the hallway at the door of my guest bedroom. It’s hot, my God, so hot, like an attic that’s been closed all summer. As I sit there sweating, I watch as the door across the hall drifts open, then stops halfway. Beyond it is the blackest darkness I’ve ever seen. Like ink, like nothingness.
“This isn’t happening,” I whisper.
But it is. I begin to shake as the darkness seems to come toward me, holding me immobile now, wrapping itself around me, tearing through me. I try to run but it has me trapped. The darkness drapes itself over me. It swallows me.
◊
I wake up screaming. The room is dark and again I feel as though I’m drowning in my own sweat. My pulse hammers in my head. My throat feels as if it’s full of sand.
I sit up and swing my legs to the edge of the bed to stand. I’m shaky, like my body is being wracked by chills or nervous tremors, but my legs manage to hold me. I push forward and stumble down the hallway toward the kitchen.
I make it three or four steps before a voice cuts through the darkness. “You should be in bed. You’re sick, remember?” it says.
The words seem to float in the air, to hang there. My shivers worsen, as if the sweat that saturates me dries in an instant with those words. As my eyes adjust, I begin to see the outline of my grandmother standing just to my right, dressed in the long green gown we buried her in. Her gray hair sits in perfect curls atop her head. In her hands she holds a Mason jar full beets. I take a breath. What I’m seeing cannot be real. Impossible. I turn away from her and continue on toward the kitchen, my legs threatening to spill me to the floor at any second.
I find the papers Clara gave me still sitting on the top of the trash. Aside from a strawberry stem glued to the first page with a sticky pink halo, they are in perfect shape. I take them over to the table and begin to read.
As the night stretches on toward morning, I flip through those printed pages, reading every word, soaking them in. With each sheet I finish I feel a boost of optimism. I am so engrossed that I do not see my grandmother seated at the table beside me.
“How about some soup? Will that make you feel better, dear?” she says. “I can make some, won’t take but an hour or so.”
“No,” I whisper, my eyes still glued to the papers, my head swirling. When I look up I am alon
e in the kitchen once more.
As the sun crests the horizon, spilling orange and yellow light across the world, I sit at my kitchen table and rifle through those pages, faster and faster, poring over the words. It’s as if the world makes sense for the first time in months.
I check my watch and pick up the phone.
THE END
© Josh Covington 2009
www.JoshCovington.com
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