Hear No Evil

“I recorded a song called, I fall to Pieces, and I was in a car wrec.  Now I’m worried because I have a brand-new record, and it’s called Crazy!”
Patsy Cline

 

A few days after leaving Daddy, we moved into a large rental house in Kirkland, about 45 miles away. To my utter horror and despair, Mom and Daddy began an on-and-off relationship. He would move in for a few months until they had a fight, and then move out only to move back in again, a few months later. Despite my repeated warnings to keep him away from the girls, Mom insisted Daddy was no longer a danger. She was convinced getting caught taught him a lesson. We fought constantly. The insanity of it all was slowly choking the life out of me. I became a virtual recluse.

My role as guardian was no more than a symbolic gesture.  I stayed in my room all day and avoided my family as much as possible. I enrolled in a new school, but after a week, told Mom I wasn’t going back. To my surprise, she didn’t try to talk me into finishing the last three months of the school year.

 
* * *

 
Experiencing another migraine, I closed the curtains in my room, turned off the light, and climbed into bed. The excruciating pain throbbing in my head felt like a hundred sharp, red-hot spikes piercing my brain.

I immediately noticed the air in the room was strangely thick and very warm. My skin felt dry and tight. I tried to turn over, but I couldn’t move. I smelled smoke. The air was now very hot and burned my lungs as I tried to breathe. Huge yellow, orange, and red flames flapped at the foot of my bed.

The flames quickly moved up the end of the bed and across the bedspread toward me. Above me, a thick layer of black smoke hovered, eagerly waiting to choke the life out of me. Unable to move or breathe, absolute terror filled me.

I felt no pain as the flames engulfed my body. I smelled my flesh burning as the skin of my arms and face melted like hot butter.

I lay paralyzed with fear as my body quickly disintegrated into a pile of black ash.
All of a sudden I was wide-awake. My chest ached as I sucked air into my still burning lungs. The flames were gone. All that remained was the lingering smell of smoke and the terror I felt from yet another nightmare.

My head ached. I sat up and reached for the bottle of aspirin and glass of water sitting on the table beside the bed. I didn’t bother counting the pills. Holding the water in one hand, I tipped my head back, and poured a large amount of pills into my mouth.
I wasn’t concerned with taking an overdose.  All that mattered was stopping the pain.

 
* * *

 
When I opened my eyes, I saw Teresa standing beside the bed with both her hands covering her eyes. Mom stood next to her with her hands covering her ears. The door slowly opened, Daddy walked into the room and climbed into bed with me.

Despite my pleas for help, both Teresa and Mom ignored me, pretending not to see or hear anything. When it was over, everyone quietly left the room shutting the door behind them, leaving me alone in the dark, sobbing.

 
* * *

 
Every night I went to bed not knowing if I would get the sleep I desperately needed or have another nightmare, night terror, or hallucination. Occasionally, before going to bed, I would sneak two or three shots of vodka or whiskey from the kitchen cupboard in the hope that the sedative effect of the alcohol might promise a good night’s sleep.

However, the nightmares persisted and the very real fear that I was losing my mind pushed me into a deep depression. Life was unbearable.
 
One day, I passed out in the kitchen, hitting my head on the counter as I fell. When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a small pool of my blood. The cut on my head required six stitches. I told both Mom and the doctor I tripped over the cat.

The fainting spells occurred when I was very angry. It taught me to sit down or lean against the wall when I felt myself getting upset. This didn’t stop the spells, but lessened the possibility of serious injury.

The gaps in time returned. However, now I no longer worried about what I had done or where I may have gone during the missing time. I actually found comfort in not knowing. I began wishing the gaps would last longer than a few hours, or a single day. The gaps provided a temporary reprieve from the insanity I endured every minute of every day.

I hated to admit it, but sometimes I resented Colleen’s private world of fantasy. Tears welled up in my eyes thinking that maybe her life was just a single permanent gap in time.