Tuesday, March 13th 9:00 PM
I wake up to rain—heavy, cold, rain slamming against the roof harder than my heart against my ribcage. My breaths come slowly at first, shallow, ragged, raw ‘til my lungs draw in enough air to choke out broken screams.
My hands are still at my sides, lifeless, dead. My arms and legs lie limp.
I want them to move.
They don’t.
I try not to panic.
I do.
The room smells like must, like death, and she’s dressed me up like her ghost. My t-shirt and jeans are gone, folded on the dresser across the room where I can’t reach them.
The clothes stuck to my skin are covered in little boy’s pinstripes—pajamas—his pajamas. The smell seeping through the fabric sneaks into my nostrils and tightens its grip around my throat.
His clothes smell like blood-old blood—his blood.
I will myself to move again but my body stays numb, the rain stays loud, my screams stay quiet.
The terrible creak of the bedroom door shatters the silence.
I feel her standing there, her nervous breaths, her nervous smile, her trembling lips, her presence.
I want my past.
I wish for my yesterday—my uncertainty, my predictable future, my safety, my family, my freedom, my life.
She drowned my life in a cup of tea and served me her son’s. There was no India for him. No wife. No future. Just bloodied pieces of broken dreams. I wouldn’t give her mine.
“Good evening, Jon. I’ve brought you supper, a growing boy needs to eat.”
The plates clink and clatter as she brings her tray of poisons across the room. She sets it down on the night table and brushes the sweat-matted hair out of my eyes. Her nails feel like razors. Her touch hurts.
“Martha, please. Listen to me, I’m James, this is a mistake.”
She shushes me quiet and sends all the foul air in her wrinkled body rushing through her teeth.
“You’re home again, love. That’s all that matters. I’ll care for you properly this time, Jon. You’ll stay this time.”
Her eyes bore into mine so hard I feel the friction of her heartache. Tears burn their way down my cheeks at the realization that my family can’t save me from the shadows of her sickness. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want her sorrow anymore.
“You must eat, love. You’re unwell,” she says.
She brings a spoon of lukewarm gruel against my lips but I shut my mouth tightly enough to keep out her twisted intentions. She shakes her head and smiles, like a mother at a stubborn newborn, and tries again.
She fails again, and again, and again.
“Don’t touch me,” I say.
Her weathered hand flies across my face. I hardly feel it.
“You’ll eat your supper, or starve.”
“Then I’ll starve.”
She breathes out her frustration, reaches back to the tray, and muddles with the silverware long enough to fool me into believing she’s given up.
The cold steel of her kitchen knife bites into my thigh and sinks deep enough to grate against the bone. She buries her revenge six-inches into my body.
She twists the knife in her bare hands.
Once. Twice.
I feel it.
Everywhere.
The pain rips through my blood like an acid burn, but I can’t scream, only choke down the spoonful of gruel she forces down my throat.
“It won’t hurt for long now, Jon. Supper fixes everything.”
And it does.
Slowly.
Everything hurts, than everything hurts less, than nothing hurts.
Everything matters, than everything matters less, than nothing matters.
***
Friday, March 16th 8:00 AM
She brings the tea and cakes again.
I don’t eat them. I haven’t for three days.
The stink in the air makes me sick. It smells like pocket change. Like blood. My blood and his. The bed’s damp with it. Everything hurts. The pain’s worse when I don’t let her feed me.
She drugs the food. She says the drugs will make me better.
They make me worse, but they make me sleep.
I lose time. Days. I lose memories. So I don’t eat her food anymore. My body’s getting better at shutting down from the pain without her help.
She still calls me Jon. I still correct her.
I miss hearing my name. I miss hearing my family. I miss hearing any other voice in the world but hers.
She leaves the room with her tray again. She doesn’t hurt me this time. She hasn’t hurt me since Tuesday. She changes the sheets but she doesn’t stop the bleeding. I ruin the sheets again, and again. She enjoys doing my laundry like I’m her son.
I’m not her son. I’m someone else’s.
***
Sunday, March 18th 12:00 AM
My leg is burning. Pulsing. Bleeding.
I scream for anyone’s help but her’s. She’s the only one who comes. She’s the only one who hears me. The six-inch hole in my skin throbs like crazy. I beg for the hospital. She doesn’t take me. She won’t.
She brings the poisoned food instead. She spoons it into my mouth. I can’t swallow it. I can’t swallow anything.
Everything hurts. Nothing helps. Nothing heals.
***
Sunday, March 18th 8:00 AM
She’s crying this morning.
I can’t see her. I hardly hear her, but I feel her there. Her presence.
She begs me to look at her, to speak to her, to stay with her so she isn’t lonely anymore.
She’ll always be lonely. I can’t fix it.
I can’t fix anything. Everything hurts.
I wish for my uncertainty, my predictable future, my safety, my family, my freedom, my life.
No one hears my wishes—nobody but her.
I open my eyes. She’s staring at me.
She’s almost sorry. She’s almost not.
Everything slows. Everything hurts.
She calls me James. I barely hear her.
It's too hard to listen.
It's too hard to breathe.
So I stop.
YOU ARE READING
VACANCY (DIG USA NETWORK)
Mystery / ThrillerWhen nineteen-year-old American university student James Bradford finds himself abandoned abroad, broke, and within 12-hours of being homeless, a last minute email from a selfless stranger seems to be his saving grace. James leaves his hostel and h...
