Entangled

There is a desk in front of me.  It is a heavy slice of nat­ur­al tim­ber stained dark and set on cylin­dri­cal pewter legs with details of what look like com­pres­sion springs spi­ral­ing up their shafts.  The fac­ing side of the desk bears a pewter relief out­line of a crest, which con­sists of a mare’s head encir­cled by the let­ters ICKO crown­ing the ring. An ornate sculp­ture of a mare rear­ing fierce­ly on her hind legs prac­ti­cal­ly glows in white maple atop the cof­fee-dark fin­ish of the desk. 

The desk sits in the cen­ter of a deep plush area rug the col­or of a desert at sun­set.  Flooring of white­washed drift­wood makes the earth-toned office fur­ni­ture look like stone mon­u­ments arranged in a geo­met­ric pat­tern across a glow­ing beach­front. Behind the desk is a hori­zon of onyx where the floor­ing sim­ply ends, and the space con­tin­ues with a shim­mer of night­fall that gives the col­or­less back­ground a strange sense of trans­paren­cy, of depth. 

From some­where, up and to my right, beyond the lim­its of my vision, an ethe­re­al light source projects a fuzzy-edged cone of illu­mi­na­tion across the empti­ness and onto the desk and its sur­round­ing lounge.  Leaning on the cor­ner of the desk is the sil­hou­ette of a tall woman.  The light that streams from behind her leaves her image fea­ture­less to me, col­or­ful around the edges, but like look­ing through show­er glass in can­dle­light.  The shad­ow of her that faces me is long and lean, and at its edges, I can see that her hair hangs below her shoul­ders; she’s wear­ing a knee-length skirt and stand­ing on heels.  The black and white water­col­or shad­ow of fem­i­nin­i­ty steps rip­pling­ly around the cor­ner of the mas­sive desk, leav­ing dark misty stream­ers while seat­ing her­self on the creamy Swedish lounge made of calf­skin and black chrome.  The spot­light over her shoul­der makes her just a waver­ing shad­ow whose seat­ed poise com­mands my atten­tion when she says:

Is this more com­fort­able for you, Jack? A famil­iar voice that sounds like the soft tolling of a far­away bell tower.

 It is at this moment that I real­ize that I can see.  I have legs, and I can see them.  I wave my hand slow­ly before my face and pause there long enough to con­firm that I am not translu­cent.  According to my eyes(?), my hand is sol­id.  According to my com­bined sens­es, my hand seems to move at my com­mand.  It rests now on my leg, which also seems firm, tan­gi­ble, real.  I sit in a deep arm­chair made of the same calf­skin, large but­tons in a geo­met­ric pat­tern mak­ing puffed dia­monds of the taupe leather against the grey brushed alu­minum frame.

“Is that you, Grace?” I ask, blink­ing against the backlight.

Hello Jack.  Yes, I am Grace. Are you more com­fort­able in a body, in a chair, in a room?

“You’re not a ther­a­pist, are you, Grace?”  My voice is strange­ly flat.  There are no walls, no reflec­tive sur­faces.  There is no sec­ond arrival noise, so my voice is just the vibra­tion from my own jaws to my ears; an emp­ty sound, like talk­ing with your fin­gers in your ears.

I am, of sorts.  All process­es have a begin­ning, Jack, and this is yours.  It is my inten­tion that you find this process very ther­a­peu­tic.  You will not be repaired in this process, Jack, you will be pre­pared.  Please con­tin­ue from our dis­cus­sion of your nightmare. 

Her voice sounds very far away, but with no echo, just the qui­et of dis­tance.

“Hang on, Grace.  I have a whole lot of questions.”

Jack, do you remem­ber how your ques­tions about your phys­i­cal and tem­po­ral loca­tions went?  Sometimes you have to know the right ques­tions before you can get the right answers.  I will make you this promise.  If you will answer my ques­tions, you will answer your own. 

It seems like there’s a gap between when her shad­ow stops mov­ing and the words reach my ears.

 “You were gonna tell me about Ashli,” I insist.

You will get to Ashli’s sto­ry when you do.  We must start at the begin­ning.  Tell me what you do remem­ber.  Do not attempt to recall any­thing spe­cif­ic.  Just close your eyes and tell me what you see.

I close my eyes with a side­long thought of the fact that, moments ago, I had no sens­es.  I try not to spend any men­tal ener­gy won­der­ing if I even have eyes to close or lids to close over them.  Instead, I turn my focus on Grace’s task.  For a moment I become nau­seous.  I taste cop­per in my mouth.  My tin­ni­tus screams, and a pain like light­ning races from behind my eyes to the base of my brain.

“I’m an old man.  It’s cold here.  Winter.  It nev­er ends.  I’ve been here for­ev­er, in this lit­tle shack, on this stool, in front of this work­bench.  I need to go get branch­es for the fire.  I’d let myself freeze, but for the girl.  I build the fires for her.  I find the branch­es for her.  I have to pro­tect her.  She’s just a lit­tle girl.  I can’t remem­ber her name.  She has brown eyes.” 

I hear the words in the same flat, ear-plugged tone in which I spoke before, but this time my lips are not mov­ing.  I’m lean­ing back against my chair.  My breath is deep and even.  There is a rum­ble at the base of my throat that feels like a growl but makes no sound.

 My teeth clench.  I sling vio­lent­ly for­ward in my chair, crack­ing my fore­head on the cold met­al arm.

“They hurt my dad­dy.  Made my dad­dy cry.  Made my dad­dy cry just like mom­my did.  I’ll get them.  They’ll nev­er make my dad­dy cry again.  I’ll get them.  Just like mom­my.”  I’m reclined again.  I’m still, but cov­ered in a thin sheen of cold sweat.  One small trick­le of drool slips from the cor­ner of my mouth, slid­ing toward my chin when the next seizure grips me.  The elec­tric pen­ny buried in my soft pal­let is blind­ing me from inside my skull.  My head is pushed hard against my drool-sog­gy knee.  I’m fold­ed in half, cling­ing to myself.

“I’m walk­ing down a road.  Somewhere in rur­al U.S.  I know this place. I’m famil­iar here.  Here is famil­iar to me.  I have fam­i­ly here.  There’s a pond… shack on the water­front.  I’m walk­ing up the pier, toward the water.  It’s shaky.  Makes me uneasy.  There’s a wind­mill.  Something falls and the cat­fish in the pond eats it.  I’m talk­ing to some­one…. I’m talk­ing to a girl… I’m talk­ing to you… I’m talk­ing to you, Grace!  I was talk­ing to you in that one!”  I’m sit­ting up.  Panting now.  My face is wet, shirt is soaked.  I have deep grooves in the backs of my fin­gers from grip­ping the arms of the chair.

 Yes.  Jack was.  Those are all instances of Jack’s memories.

 “I am very cer­tain I was nev­er a malev­o­lent psychic…girl.”

You are cor­rect.  Jack was not all of those peo­ple.  He was just there.  These are peo­ple with whom Jack was entan­gled.

“I don’t under­stand.” A rough exhale.

It would be incred­i­bly unusu­al if you did.  Remember my promise, Jack.

“Who are you, Grace?” I croak, still recov­er­ing from the last reminiscence.

I am your ~eg~l g~ard~an…

The room shakes and crum­bles. Blood begins stream­ing down my nose.  A noise made of nee­dles and scream­ing over­takes my consciousness.

“Where is he?!…” A low, gruff, voice swirls in whis­pers off hatred.

“I don’t know… Ahhhh!!!!…. Nooooo!!!! Please!!!!!”  There are screams and beg­ging plus crash­es and crunch­es that I can hear but won’t escape my mouth in this audi­to­ry re-enact­ment that con­sumes my con­vuls­ing body.

“Where is that boy?…” A mur­der­ous tone slid­ing over a silken tongue.  There is silence.  Then a gur­gling gasp.

“He’s in the foam sir.  She has math­e­mat­i­cal­ly exclud­ed all oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties.” A new voice erupts from me.

Grace’s fin­gers are hot on my neck.  A scor­pi­on stings at the base of my skull… but no… it’s Grace. She sets the syringe down on the end table next to my chair.

Be still, Jack. Be still. You are hav­ing hal­lu­ci­na­tions. A breathy hush in my ear.

There is some­one else in here.  We can­not let them hear you.