Episode 4: Bargaining

Her mind was separating. Xs and Os. The X’s reminded her of skulls and crossbones. And the O’s were big screaming mouths. Jake always sent them in a text. Signed every card with them. She never told him to stop sending them though––it was his way of sending some love from a thousand miles away. So she took them and smiled even if they were ghastly little letters reserved for old women who still send birthday cards through the mail.
She knelt in the dirt with Jake’s body.
She opened his eyes. Xs and Os. Two cold and distant stars, stuck in his skull, looking back at her. His mouth wasn’t moving, but she knew what he’d say.
I love you. I love you even if you did this to me.
He’d say it as if he’d forgive her for taking his life. As if he knew she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t her, really… she was just a vessel driven by the worm––this wicked fucking disease.
You are defined by your trauma. You are nothing without your trauma.
She closed his eyes. His voice was coming from all around. It fell from the sky, it slipped up through the ground.
“I know,” she said and kissed his forehead. He was right, she thought. There was no existence outside of trauma. She couldn’t bring herself to even put images of the trauma into her mind.
Evil.
Childhood.
Helpless.
Isolation.
These were words she could use to build a kind of cage around the trauma… vague words. Words that meant something to her, but couldn’t define the trauma truly. The therapists said this was her way of manipulating language to preserve her mind. As fragile as it was…
“I’m sorry,” she kept whispering into Jake’s ear.
She wanted to crawl in there with him.
If this was real, she’d have to find a way to prove it to herself.
She could knock on Sally’s door and bring her to Jake. See her response.
Over the years, she’d seen her fair share of people in the street who, as far as she could tell, seemed completely detached from reality. But the more she learned about the astral plane, the more she started to empathize with their situation. Maybe they were the ones who knew the capital T Truth.
If this was real, she thought, how much time did she have? Should she just disappear? Pretend it never happened? Turn herself in? Manifest an escape. The dream offered no solution––but then again––neither did life.
There was something more 3-dimensional about the memories that took place in the real world as opposed to the dreamscape. Really, though, she often thought, a memory is a memory no matter where it originated. There were plenty of memories that she had carried with her all her life that took place in her nightmares exclusively. Fear. Trauma. Death. But they had a different quality to them. Like an echo of something real. Something that was always just out of reach, but distinct enough to have a sound, a color—something real enough to haunt you.
She pushed more dirt away from Jake’s body. As if she paid him enough attention, he’d just wake up. The two of them dreaming different dreams.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, hoping he’d have some advice.
As she stared at him, she could remember things from when he came home. Last night? Last dream? There were fragments of memories––faded––as if they were only questions.
Had he come home last night? Did she wake up at the door closing? Did she think he was an intruder? Did she grab the shotgun and sneak downstairs? She remembers the shadow of the banister against the wall… Her own shadow––the sound of Jake opening putting his keys on the table, and opening the fridge.
She remembers a figure. But her dream-brain was in control. Animal. Werewolf. Worm. Did her dream-brain think he was just another threat? She remembers the weight of the pulled-back trigger.
The grave was a black hole, eating all light. Nightmare dark. Black as a memory she couldn’t quite reach. The corners of her mind were opening––each corner opened into a new dark room.
“Ash, wake up. It’s me, Ash… It’s Jake!” Their voices threaded through one another’s. The dueling realities.
Her worlds were separating in and out of her mind.
Did it really matter anymore? How long is she expected to live with this disease?
She remembers waking up. Not awake, but her body moved. She remembers Jake’s voice. He reached out to touch her face, but she lunged. Clawed at him. Animal. Fought with everything. Swung fists. Claws. She could feel his skin under her fingernails. She remembered the pressure of his thumbs digging into her biceps––holding her back––keeping her safe… She wanted to remove the mask from the monster. The intruder. The trauma. The disease. It wasn’t Jake, it just sounded like Jake.
There was a struggle.
She’d made it to the 12-gauge.
He didn’t hit her.
He tried to hold her. Using his elbow to keep the shotgun from aiming at him or her…
She hugged the gun against her chest as if it were a rope she was climbing. The heavy trigger.
He tried to rip it from her. She lowered it away from his reach––tried to bite him.
She got the trigger. But Jake managed to pry her hand out.
She bit his hand so hard she took flesh.
He stumbled back.
She could remember Jake holding his palms out toward her, as if he was playing defense. Blood running down his arms.
He called her name. She wasn’t there though. It was the disease, and there was no negotiating with it.
Before he could intercept her, she raised the gun like an axe and swung down on the top of his head with every ounce of might she had.
He crumped to the floor.
And now here he was in the dirt. She felt the anvil in her throat now.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the body. “I thought you were someone else… I don’t know what I thought… I wasn’t thinking… I’m sorry. I thought you were someone trying to kill me. They’re always trying to kill me. They want me to suffer. It’s all I fucking do is suffer.”
She took off his ring and pushed it into her mouth––as if tasting the cold metal would wake her or prove to her she already was…
She saw, what looked like, a light emitting from the hole beneath him.
Voices calling from below.
Sleepwalker. Gravedigger. Murderer.
Ashley thought maybe this would be the thing that helped wake her up. Or maybe this was all really happening. She could recognize the fear, but didn’t feel the need to react. The apathy just kept her there with Jake––unafraid of whatever reality this happened to be. The apathy had broken her––she just wanted to escape it one way or another.
The nightmare is bound to become the reality. No escape from either. She’d learned over time that the things you fear most in this world will only become true if you obsess over them.
Look at your hands, she thought. Look at your hands. Trembling. Sick. These images are only assembled to scare me.
She was the anvil now. The ground opened, and she started to sink through the earth.
She raised her hands to the night sky up above and tried to grab a hold of the moon––one last anchor. But not even the moon could tether her.