Trev woke. He showered. Shaved. Ate breakfast. Returning to the restroom, he spend the rest of the morning puking his guts out. When there was nothing left to vomit, he worked his abs until they ached with dry heaves. His throat burned with his own acid. He tried to blow his nose. The smell refused eviction.
“You okay in there,” asked Mairi as she banged on the door in her silk robe and bare feet. She wore nothing underneath. Her red hair, like the rest of her, looked pert.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” His response seemed oddly strained.
“Trev? Open the door.”
“I said I’m fine. Please leave me alone.”
Mairi quietly leaned forward. Putting her ear to the door she heard nothing but her own breathing. “Trev? Oh my Janus!” She felt it first. Something warm, slippery yet sticky, not water, thicker yet thinner it felt at the same time. There was a moment, a gap, between the scarlet ribbon slipping under the door and between her toes and the recognition of something terribly wrong. The gap was less than a second but seemed long enough for a thousand thoughts to race through her mind.
Trev coughed, a cough deep, a cough sounding more like gurgling than the dry heaves of a moment before. The sound of Mairi’s voice seemed distant, reminding him of his mother calling his name at the pool as he swam underwater. He didn’t want to come up. He was in another world now. Land and sea. How could one understand the other? And so he floated on waves of consciousness untouched, feeling a gentle pulling as if the hands of Janussaries (Hynerian angels) were carrying him away.
Mairi pounded on the door. “Open the door. Now!”
She couldn’t touch him now. He was in the water. She wouldn’t follow him into the deep. He felt warm. Hues faded to pastels and sound lost all range of high and low. He was in the flow now and the flow would take him wherever the flow went.
Mairi’s heart raced. Taking a step back, she hurled herself against the door, her feet bloody with the life of Trev, cells dying in step with hope. Images of stains filled her mind. Stains of the body, stains of the mind, stains of the soul. Janus she hated stains. Her small lithe body was as feather pounding rock against the door. Falling to her knees in step with tears down her cheeks she began to sob as mothers sob for children, her head heavy in her hands as if guilt were lead. In anguish she cocked her head to bang the object of resistance and fell forward as the door swished open and where there was one bloody body upon the cold stone floor, now there were two.
16 comments:
Oh gosh. I just simply must tell you once again how deeply you hold the reader with your words. I rush to read as soon as I know there is a new chapter, anticipation is high each time based on the very many that went before and yet still, each and everytime, I come out the other side thinking that it was so much better than I guessed it would be beforehand. And each time it amazes me how you do that. But do it, you do. :-)
Fraught throughout, Mairi's panic and fear is shared and yet and at the same time one cannot begrudge Trev the relief, release even, just not this way. The nuances of red that carry through and that short span of time so very well described between seeing something is dreadfully wrong and recognizing, understanding what it means, taking action.
The part about stains also, stains of the past, stains of hurt, stains of guilt,and how damaging they can be. His stains, hers. We've already heard of how guilty Mairi feels for what happened to Trev, rightly or wrongly, accentuated here also by the image of mothers, calling back also to the scenes of her cradling him, washing him.
So well you put across the feeling of slipping into unconsciousness, those feelings of being safe, free, away from whatever is going on in reality.
I loved this chapter, and I'll have to come back to it a little later tonight, but the ending, that last image of her falling in upon the scene that meets her, to join it, stained in his blood..you are a truly amazingly evocative writer, that scene will become a memory that will find it's way to the forefront every once in a while, I've no doubt. On the absolute edge of my seat, fearful for Trev, for what lays ahead of him, for whether Mairi will ever find peace with what she believes is her part in the trauma that befell him. It's a storyline that on one hand makes me want to cover my eyes and on the other has me longing for more, deeply touching in other words. Loved it.
Sunshine, I've been trying to write this chapter all week but those damn antibiotics just mess with my mind and the words don't flow. So, this morning, I thought I would write before I took the first pill of the day. Don't be surprised if you see a chapter soon concerning one of the characters and the drugs they are taking. Perhaps Yul, being in hospital and taking alien drugs. Maybe. ;-)
Go have fun tonight and hurry home. I'm going to savor your comment like the last piece of dessert on my plate. You know, after I write a chapter, I am seldom pleased and then I come and read your comment and I wonder what chapter you are talking about. :-D
Thank you Sweetest for all your wonderfully kind words. They never get old. :-)
Sweetest, a lot of interesting elements in this chapter. As I have mentioned before, Trev's journey back to wholeness, to healing is going to be a long affair. There will be no quick fix. The damage he suffered at the hands of Sal will take a very long time to heal and we will see some bad times on the journey back as we are seeing here. His emotions and how he views them will be confusing and complex and frustrating. We will want to push him alone, but only because we don't fully comprehend what he has experienced and what he is experiencing.
We don't create our own emotions. At best we ride them or at worse they ride us. Right now, Trev is being rode in the worst of ways such that if he could slip into the quiet hands of death, he would. We all have our limits on pain. Trev is approaching his limit. He is close to seeking a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If he does, Mairi will have a world of guilt on her shoulders she may never find release from.
One of the most inspiring/astounding things is watching people come out the other side. To have experienced something as horrific as what Trev has been through, for many the journey back is too hard, and no questions arise fron those surrounding as to why that is. Unimaginable events in people's pasts sometimes, things one could never imagine by looking at them, seeing the zest they have for life, their caring, positive attitude and the happiness they feel. Unimaginable, unless one has been there oneself, how it is possible to come through. Stronger and more resiliant that we imagine is what we are, and I think, this will be so in Trev's case also, but in the mean time, he has a very long and arduous journey in front of him. My heart aches for him, for all that he will have to face, and most of all for the time when it will be too horrific yet. For the place he is in now, the one you describe so movingly in your comment when you write Right now, Trev is being rode in the worst of ways such that if he could slip into the quiet hands of death, he would.
This storyline has been and is going to be as amazing as it will be painful. Through them both, my most reoccuring thought; I love DT.
Sweetest, I believe there are events, not many, that can bring to bear so much pressure, so much pain that by their very existence, can change a person or they can destroy a person. I've seen both. The one is a miracle the other a tragedy. Which we see for Trev, I don't know. I do know what happened at the hands of Sal is one of those events that has the power to create or destroy.
Time will tell, if you have the patience this story demands. ;-)
This chapter grabbed a hold of me and wouldn't let go until I finished reading it but it still has a hold on me; bringing emotions from me and images of what horror Mairi feels and the pain Trev feels.
Karen, this one was inspired by true events. I'll say no more on the subject. ;-)
Thanks for your very kind words. I can't write when taking these meds, so the only writing that gets done is first thing in the morning. After the first little red pill, my mind is mush. :-)
Some side effects aren't worth the benefits of the meds. I really hope you feel better and am glad you only have a couple more days. Lots of HUGGLES!!!
Karen, me too. Two more days to go. Fingers crossed. Still waiting on the pathology report. I expect good news. In fact, I demand the gods of good news to give it up. :-D
Trée???? did you post your pathology report somewhere..I'm can't find it... xoxo
Grace, just posted a reply on the post above. Thanks again for caring. In light of other events, my little situation is but a pebble, but still, to know someone cares means more than I know how to say. Thank you my dear friend. Hugs to you. :-)
I am reading today while listening to opera. Ave Maria is the one that just happened to be playing when I read this one.
Very surreal with this chapter, can you imagine? I chose this CD to help me dissociate from my physical pain, to float that part of me away in the music so the rest of me could read your story.
And here is Trev, in his own very different way, floating away. Yet there is blood and trauma and fear that Mairi is forced to experience, maybe worse even is the guilt.
I can relate so well to the feelings he has of slipping into unconciousness and what a relief it is to escape the pain, to escape his reality...unconciousness--to know nothing of his agonies. I find myself feeling such empathy for him, wishing he could have this just for a little while, yet at the same time feeling feeling horror at what Mairi is experiencing and her terror and helplessness.
All the while, I still float on this music and feel like even these thoughts that I am thinking are merely a dream. I am grateful that I learned to dissociate because my pain is far greater than my pain medication is able to relieve.
I feel guilty because my suffering causes other people to suffer.
Your story touches all of us in so many different ways, doesn't it?
Oliviah, your comment honors me more than you know. I remember writing this chapter and I remember not having to work real hard to put myself in Trev's shoes. Wanting to go into the pain as seemingly the only way out of the pain, and if that didn't work, out of this life, to escape the place where pain had a monopoly, to stop resisting, stop fighting and just let go. Pain could keep this earth and all that was in it. Let pain declare themselves the winner. One can reach a point where winning and losing no longer matter, where it looks so foolish to have ever put so much stock in vanity.
I can't tell you how excited I am to have you reading the story again. Love and hugs and kisses to you my dear beautiful soul. :-)
I love this about you: no condemnation.
O, one way to look at your suffering is this: what opportunity does it give others?
A good friend of mine recently survived cancer. When he was first diagnosed he told his father that God must be trying to teach him something. His dad responded this way. He said, David, what makes you think this is all about you? Perhaps you have cancer in order to help others along the path. Not everything is always about you.
He told me this was one of the best slaps in the face he had every received.
Put your guilt away. If you can't, give it to me and I will carry it for you. There is too much love in your heart. Water and nourish and feed that love and it will come back to you ten fold.
By the way, I would kiss you if I could for your last comment. :-)
Then kisses for you!
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