Airplanes flew loudly overhead. She knew there was more to come. Why wasn't anyone listening to her. "We have to leave now, hide!" She yelled. A bush was nearby and she had a child that wasn't one of hers. Hers were safe, but she didn't know where or how. She put the small child under the bush and made it understand it wasn't to move or cry. If it were to cry they would hear it and take it. The child knew. It is a girl, she would be quiet. The mountains in the the distance erupted into a fiery red flame. They had bombed the mountains, but no one had disturbed the bush where the child lay. Suddenly soldiers were everywhere, they surrounded the place. She ran to the bush and shoved herself underneath it with the child. A boot entered her vision and a soldier grabbed her and shoved her toward the crowd they were rounding up. The child was undetected. They were herding everyone into a hospital. She couldn't walk as fast as the rest of them. Her cane was getting smaller and smaller and her legs felt like dead weight. She yelled to the others to run from the soldiers and somehow continued to pull herself along at a dead slow pace as others panicked around her. She fell. She was on the ground alone. Damn this stroke. She had to help. She reached the hospital and they put her in a stretcher and wheeled her to a crowded room. Only curtains divided these rooms. A woman was in labor next to her and was dying. She told the woman not to worry, the baby was outside under a bush. She was safe. The woman screamed and the doctors gave her medicine to make her quiet. She knew she was next. The doctors came over and she yelled for no more medicine and they came at her with needles and she needed the ghost. "Where are you?" she called. "STAY BACK" she screamed at the doctors. She could not breathe. And then the ghost was there and she rose high into the air and flew free. She flew outdoors. She flew past a vast ocean with enormous whales and dolphins and islands and sharks with teeth the size of harpoons. She saw creatures of unimaginable size and color and floated alongside a fifty foot Orca and swam with dolphins with speeds only imaginable on motorized watercraft. She rose up from the water and felt her power and magic and knew she would never be defeated. No longer would there be nothing inside. She had the ghost and he was all hers. Her lover and her power and her protector and her god. She woke up and stretched her body and unthinkingly opened her legs to her new lover who was not there for her tonight. Her breasts ached for his touch and all she had to touch was her husband who hadn't wanted to have sex more than a few times a year. Her body ached for pleasure and she touched herself to see if she could bring herself close to the heat she felt when she was with her ghost. She reached orgasm, but not in the all encompassing way she felt when she was with her ghost.
The next morning the ringing of the phone woke her around 11:30 and she got to it at the last ring. She checked the ID and called her friend back. She faked a smile so her voice would sound like she'd been awake for at least four hours and she was really happy to be on the phone, her friend answered and during the course of the conversation her friend asked if her kids would like to stay over, they were going to have a backyard camp out. She agreed to this readily and thanked her friend who must have the patience of a saint to deal with her own three kids plus Rowan, Ferris and Blythe. She hung up the phone and rolled over in her still half-awake state and stared out the window for a while. She knew that she should be up doing something, but of course not "over-doing it". She sighed and wiped her hand across her damp forehead. Instead of a simple wash cloth bath today, she decided to shower since she would probably see their friends today when they came to pick up the kids. She turned the shower to the highest temperature setting and waited for it to come to full heat before turning the knob halfway back to where she actually left it to bathe. The steam and hot water felt good to her sore body. She slumped her shoulders for a minute in the water to try and loosen them and let the water run down her lower back to no avail. This pain was unbearable. She had been diagnosed with "Fibromyalgia". Hell, half of her doctors couldn't even agree on whether this was a real disease or not and had been told several times that if she would see a shrink she would be just fine. Prozac would make her feel better. Well, she had been on Prozac for a while now and she still hurt so bad that suicide was always on the edge of her mind. Not that she would actually do it over something as silly as pain, but if something more came along, the pain would certainly weigh in. Her hips hurt, her ribs hurt, the area underneath her shoulder blades hurt. Her feet felt like she was walking on needles or rocks, depending on the day. Her arms were tired but she shampooed her hair twice and scrubbed well. She washed her face with soap as the second shampoo was settling into her hair. She washed her face then rinsed her hair. She conditioned her hair. She soaped her body. She shaved her underarms and legs. She rinsed her body. She rinsed her conditioner. She did one last rinse all over and got out. She saw her body in the steamy mirror and loathed her fatness. How did I get here? She asked herself as she looked at her stretched and dimpled obese body. Mildly obese. That was what was on one chart at one of her doctor offices. Mildly obese. Kind of fat. More lies to shield her world; a world that didn't exist. She was mildly obese, and had a mild stroke and had some minor lingering effects and was mildly depressed and if you took off the mask you would fall flat on your face because no one, not even a doctor would be truthful to a fat 30 year old who had a stroke and walked with a cane and was depressed and had panic attacks and insomnia and was so untrusted by family and friends not to fall over that she couldn't work and couldn't babysit and couldn't even make a big dinner anymore without "over-doing it". As she looked in the mirror she cried and desperately wiped at tears with her used towel. It was thick and plush and smells nice like soap. She cries for who she was. She cried for who she was. She cried because her husband used to find her smart. She cried because her husband didn't think she was sexy anymore. She cried because she was so tired after taking a shower she would have to take a nap. She dried off, wrapped her head, turban style, in the towel and went to her wardrobe. Today she picked the butterfly cotton pajama shorts and the pink spaghetti strap top. Bra-less. Who cared? She once heard her mother say if you could hold two pencils under your breasts, you needed to wear a bra. Hell, she could probably fit a whole 64-pack of crayola crayons under there but who gave a shit. Not her. Not anymore. Underneath her breasts had sweat and she hated the sweat stain on her shirt that made her look like she was lactating but she was too tired to care. She lay on the bed and thought about all the times her husband would discuss something interesting with her. Religion, politics, their personal views on the world, silly stuff, anything. Now he would call his sister or mother when he wanted to talk about some clever thing that happened on NPR or a world event. They had no cable television and didn't receive the newspaper, so her entire view of the world came from what little information she gleaned from the internet. Most sites were more worried about what celebrities were buying, eating, dating, fucking or wearing than what was happening during the BP oil spill or in Iraq. She wasn't smart enough to talk about these things anymore. Not since the stroke. She was stupid. She was a rotting carcass in a twelve hundred square foot tomb. She was caged in and she could not free herself without her ghost. He was her only reprieve. He was her savior. If only he would come every time she slept. Sometimes he didn't come at all and she would fall. She fell down and fell off and fell away. She needed him. She loved him. She would have loved to decide when she dreamt of him, but who can decide when and how they dream? If only she could she would stay there and never swallow reality again. He could take over her and her lust and passion and she would be as powerful as he was. Together they could love forever. He made her breathe, he made her feel, he made her respected and listened to and there was never any need to scream when she was him. He was her, and she wanted him to take over entirely.
He came to her now as she slept away the afternoon. She was scared and running from someone who should to love her but didn't. It was him. He had no single face. Sometimes he was an old classmate from high school. Sometimes he was the redneck cowboy she dreamt of when country love songs came on the radio. Sometimes he was big and mean and strong with no face she recognized. Sometimes he was faceless and he attacked her. He always attacked her. It started out as love. Today He was a brawny farm boy. Cowboy hat. Muscles. Beautiful. She went to him for comfort because she was lost and hurting inside. He would help her. He loved her. He loved her now and he wanted to hold her and something inside her screamed her panic as she realized, somehow, that his love had turned into possession. This embrace was not of love, but was holding her down, holding her back, suffocating and breaking her. He would kill her if she couldn't break free. She looked up and his once loving smile had become a smirk as she writhed in his grasp trying to be free. Where were her children? No, where was her ghost? She was frantic; she didn't feel the familiar aching sensation she felt when he was near her. She escaped her captor and ran. Ran like hell. But her legs were heavy from the stroke and her feet became numb as she tried to run. The cane she relied on was slipping over the muddy ground and she couldn't get a firm hold of anything that would propel her onward. He was catching up. Ghost, where are you, she thought, and desperately waited for his feeling to overwhelm her but it did not. She remembered this was only a dream and she could control this. She could call the ghost. She had to. She stopped and faced her attacker and drew her body full and tall and pushed her hands at him the way she had done at her mother. Nothing. There was no energy there to stop him or repel him from her. He advanced. She forced her mind to concentrate and told herself it was only a dream and she could do anything she pleased. Right now she wanted to fly away again. She couldn't move. She was rooted to the spot and He caught her as she screamed herself awake.
It was only one-thirty in the afternoon. She stared at the digital green numbers of the clock and thought about her dream. Where was he? Where was her savior? Somehow she knew she had taken him for granted. He had taught her a lesson. What lesson? She had thought she knew how to summon him, in the state of her conscious sleep. She had been able to reach him and bring him into her. Couldn't she? He wasn't real; this she knew. How could she believe HE was teaching HER anything? She just didn't dream it right. She had just forgotten something she must have known before. She was glad it all was just a dream and she shuddered at the memory of the all too loving embrace that crushed her fragile body and made her cry out in pain until her breath was gone.
She sighed and remembered the messy state of her house and that people were coming over tonight. Who? Friends. Kids. Oh, their friends were going to pick up the kids for a sleepover. She rolled to the edge of the bed and sat still a moment regaining her equilibrium, kept her blood pressure levels in check and got out of bed. She stood for a moment in case her body decided to sit down again without her prior knowledge. Her head cleared and she traveled to the living room, shoulder to the hallway wall and assessed the mess. Not too bad. The kids had gotten better lately she supposed. Misplaced sofa pillows, wrestling dolls; wrestling action figures, not dolls littered the floor. Scattered DVD cases and DVD's (probably getting scratched) were strewn around. Dusty. She wouldn't dust today. She would save that for a "big cleaning day", but that day certainly wasn't today. After straightening up the living room she started towards the kitchen which reminded her to take something out of the freezer for dinner. A flutter in her stomach reminded her that she didn't have to make dinner for the kids and that she and her husband would be alone tonight. Maybe they could go out. She smiled to herself, which felt good. She would call him and he could take her out. Oh, they could talk and even if they didn't make love tonight, she would enjoy his company and could hold him and they could even lie in bed together, silently reading their respective books, but it was still closeness. It would still be time together. She went back to the living room for the cordless phone and of course it wasn't there. She went to her own room, the kid's rooms, the office, the bathroom and back to her own room and to the kitchen to find the cordless phone. She finally found it on the kitchen counter top on the base. She dialed his work number and got a busy signal. She dialed his cell phone and he didn't answer. He was on the phone at work. He owned a small rental company that rented things like construction equipment and tools and sewer snakes and commercial vacuum cleaners. She had no idea what most of the stuff in the store was or what it did, but she was proud of him and the hard work he put into keeping the store running. It had been in his family for about 30 years, started of course, by his parents. His devotion to keeping the family business alive was a source of pride and also of deep resentment to her. She was proud of his decision making skills, his work ethic and his business sense. She resented his devotion to the store because she came second to it. He had never taken her on vacation because there was no one to run the store while he was gone. If she had to go to the hospital for an emergency, he would never shut the store up for thirty minutes to take her there, she would just have to find another way to get there. If she wanted him to bring home dinner, it might not get there until after 10 pm. because he had to work late on a faulty computer. Sometimes she hated that store and wished it would burn to the ground. Nevertheless, she always introduced him to her friends and managed to mention that he owned his own business. She set the phone aside and cleaned up the dishes from the kids usual morning mess. She felt sore and stiff, but figured that with a little work around the house she could walk it off and would feel good for tonight. She walked to her room without her shoulder falling against the cream colored hallway wall. She rummaged through her a wardrobe she had painted with bright colors one summer, that sat in a corner of her room and found a pair of khaki Capri pants that fit her well and a sleeveless shirt that was pretty enough to keep her feeling good, though she would change before she went out tonight. She put on her favorite chocolate colored bra. She needed new bras. She needed something sexy. No wonder her husband wasn't turned on by her. She was always wearing the same color underwear. Black, brown or nude. She would try to remember to pick out something sexy for herself next time she went shopping. She never had a lot of money, but perhaps if she bought just the right underwear or negligee or bra, her husband would see how hard she tried to please him and he would make love to her like they used to. At least he might make love to her. He might at least give her a few minutes of pleasure before he became too tired and rolled off of her to go to sleep. That would be something. At least something. She made the bed and smoothed out the wrinkles in the quilt. She neatly arranged the matching pillow shams and the one throw pillow, which didn't really match the bed, but still looked OK on it, and she liked it. She didn't make the bed everyday. Usually she was in the bed more than she was out of it and throw pillows and pillow shams irritated her because she had to find a place to keep them, and keep them clean, while they were not on use on the bed. That place was usually the little corner next to her painted wardrobe that wasn't really used for much, but in a room that small, every inch had to have a purpose. What was the point in putting on extra pillows just to take them back off again and lay them in the corner of her already too crowded, small bedroom? They would lay there for a week usually until she changed the sheets again; then she would once again put the throw pillows on and look at her pretty bed knowing that that night they would be taken off and put in the corner of the room again until she changed the sheets again or at least until she made the bed for some reason. She had never had a bed without pillow shams and throw pillows though, and never would. They made a bed seem complete and pretty. She would always put them on her beds, no matter how ridiculous she thought they really were. She put a CD in her computer and set the computer on her bed so she could listen while she worked. She was 30 years old but still loved her angry-girl, angst ridden music. Her favorites were Pink, Evanescence, Kelly Clarkson (the new stuff), Alanis Morrisette and Terri Clark who was a country singer, who still had the grace of a lady and the attitude to kick a man's ass if it needed kicking. She put in Funhouse by Pink and sang along as she gathered the dirty clothes; picked up odd bits of trash that always seemed to find their way into the floor, like clothing tags. She sorted the mail on her cherry, Japanese-stylenightstand and put away everything on it until only the lamp, a red, cinnamon scented candle, her cell phone holder with the cute little eenamelfrog on it, the silver and black house-phone base and her gray, faux crocodile organizer box remained. The organizer box was overflowing and she had no idea what was in it and had no interest in going through it because for now it looked neat. She had the pencils standing in the pencil holder part and lotion standing in another part and bookmarks hanging out of another pocket, so all the papers crammed into the back of it could stay there forever and rot as far as she was concerned. She took her black trash can to the kitchen to empty it into the bigger garbage bin there and saw milk splashes on the counter. She set down the bedroom trash bin and took yesterday's dish cloth from the sink and wiped up the milk. The cloth was dirty from prior use, so before wiping anything else down, she took the cloth to the dirty laundry and came back and got a new one to clean with. She walked down the L shaped hallway, the soft green carpet padding her toes, and went all the way to the end where the bathroom was and put the cloth in the laundry pile piled up under the small bathroom window. As she turned to leave she noticed the kids had each left a hairbrush or comb out on the counter and not bothered to put them away in the hairbrush basket that sat right on the same counter. She rolled her dark brown eyes and walked to the counter and put them all away. She stopped to look in the medicine cabinet mirror. Large brown eyes, arched eyebrows too thinly plucked near the ends. Upturned nose. Frizzy, dyed red hair. Her hair used to be sleek and healthy, even when it would do nothing but curl, but once she bought some $3.00 hair dye and it burnt her hair so badly that it had never recovered. She pulled her frizzy hair back into a pony tail. It would leave a bump when she took it out, but if her husband took her out tonight, she could straighten it with the curling iron and the bump would vanish. She would try to look really good tonight. She enjoyed having some place to go and looked forward to wearing some make-up and putting on something pretty tonight. Maybe a dress. She had a new one she had never worn. It was cream colored with big red roses on it and a red ribbon belt. It reminded her of something a 1960's pin-up model would have worn. Her mind flashed a picture of herself wearing the dress with a flat, but soft, stomach, lusty thighs and large, high breasts. Red lipstick. Red high heels. No, she couldn't wear even the smallest heels anymore, but she could wear cute flats with it. She sighed. Wearing high heels wasn't the only blasphemy to her image. She had a large stomach (she was apple shaped, a dressing room attendant once told her), small flat breasts with no cleavage. If she lay down, she could place her open hand in between her breasts and not touch either one. Her "apple figure" also didn't include lusty thighs. Her thighs and legs remained skinny. Her legs had a beautiful shape though, even she knew this, so wearing dresses would show off her one asset. She put her face close to the mirror and checked her cheeks, nose, chin and forehead for any signs of blemishes or large pores. There were none. She knew there wouldn't be. She rolled her eyes at herself and left the mirror. Her left shoulder guided her back down the hallway to her bedroom which entered at the corner of the L shaped hallway. She sat down on the edge of the made bed. She turned her head to look at her full closet. She was so ugly. Why did she even own all of those clothes. Retail therapy, that's why. She bought things when she was depressed or happy or had extra money or was worried about her lack of money or when she was out with friends or when she saw the words "sale" in a store front. She pulled the new dress out of the closet and examined it. She would never be a pin-up model, but it was a pretty dress. She took off the tag and hung it back in the closet. She went to throw the tag away and remembered her trash can was still in the kitchen. She let her right shoulder guide her down the rest of the hallway as her mind played all of her flaws in detail and what she would really look like in that dress. She chose not to think about it and stumbled into the living room on her way to the kitchen. The cat had knocked the apple spice scented candle off the coffee table for the hundredth time. She walked over to the coffee table, picked up the candle and set it back where it went. What was in her hand? Oh, the tag. She walked to the kitchen and threw the tag away in the kitchen garbage and got a new bag out for her small bedroom trash basket. Instead of putting it into the wastebasket she took it back to the bathroom to scoop the cat-box into. She meant to do that earlier in the day but had somehow become distracted. She had to pee first. She set the litter scooper on top of the bag next to the litter box. The toilet paper spool was empty so she reached under the sink, got a new one, took off the old one, turned the new one facing outward and put it back on the holder. After her bladder was emptied she went back out of the bathroom to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed again. Damn, she meant to get the garbage can. She stood up again and then sat down again. She needed a pain pill first. She gulped one down with the water that always stayed on her nightstand on a coaster that always had standing water in it. The cups would sweat and leak all over the coaster, so when she took a drink, water dripped and dribbled all over her. She set the cup back onto the coaster and laid down on the made bed. She felt sleepy. She might doze for a while, just until the kids got home from school.
The little door was bigger. She knew this door. It was secret. Only she knew this door and it would take her to her grandmother's special upstairs room, up the spiraling staircase. Who was that? What was that noise? She couldn't go in now, what if they found the secret room. Panicking, she looked around her and realized there was a small space she could fit into and slide under the floor to an enclosed area behind a stairwell. She quickly slid down into it and hid in the furthest corner in the darkest shadows. Someone was looking for her. It was the soldiers. They would kill her if they found her. Her fear frustrated her and paralyzed her. Running. Someone was running down the stairs in boots. They would find her, there was no where to hide, no where to turn. She couldn't close her eyes. The soldier turned the corner and peered into the darkness. She tried not to breath but couldn't hold her breath long enough. He heard. Flashlight beam! He found her. Her arm seared as he grabbed her and yanked her from her refuge. She fought and he held her harder. Pain shot through her arm as he dragged her outside. She tried to turn and look at him, but he wouldn't allow it. All she could tell about him was his hard, huge hands. He shoved her into a crowd and left her. An old lady looked to her and begged for help. What was she supposed to do for this lady? She was no leader, she couldn't even save herself. Someone grabbed her from behind. It was her husband. She shoved him away, he couldn't help her. He betrayed her. "I know who you are, GET AWAY", she screamed at him. He held her tighter. "I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE" she yelled as loud as she could. Her voice could barely be heard over the bombs going off in the background. Someone was bombing the hell out of this place and she needed to hide and needed to get away from her husband. Couldn't he hear her? She was screaming at him and he wouldn't hear her. He stayed there with her as she pushed and fought him. He didn't understand, he couldn't understand her or wouldn't. He had betrayed her. She was in this mess because of him, somehow he had brought her to this. His eyes were hollow as she feared him and fought his grip. Her heart pounded and she needed her ghost. Someone had a gun to her chest. She knew this would hurt, she knew this would kill her and she knew if she could wake up she could escape. She screamed the silent screams of the dreamers and the gun fired. Once. Twice. ThreeFour. God it hurt and crimson blood poured from her wounds. He failed her. Her ghost, her lover and savior was gone. She would die and he would forget her. Her son told her goodbye, they were leaving.
What?
Leaving, they were leaving for the night, remember. She looked at him with her waking eyes and grabbed her chest sure of the pain she still felt and knew he would panic at seeing her riddled with bullets. "Mom?". Awake. God, she was awake. It wasn't real, and here she was hugging her son as he told her goodbye. She jumped out of the bed too quickly and her head swam from the sudden leap from horizontal to vertical. She held him to her and walked down the hallway leaning on him. Her kids were in the kitchen getting ready to leave. She hugged them all and told them to be good. They promised and she waved to the person she couldn't see in the waiting van outside.
She stumbled back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Where was her ghost? He had left her twice to die. She needed him and a lump caught in her throat at the thought of his blatant abandonment. She mourned her loss of him and his love. She hated him for leaving her. She had taken him for granted. That was it, she had taken him for granted and assumed he would come when she called. She had believed she was in control of him. He was inside her taking over, but he was fully in control. She had to be with him, but he would come only when she submitted to his power. His lust. His fill. He would dominate her and she would only be able to defeat her enemies when she had fully given herself over. She would give anything to feel him again. She knew this much.
Her husband came home late. "Hey babe", she smiled and kissed him. "Why don't you take a shower and we'll go on a date. We can go get something to eat and maybe -"; He interrupted her. He was tired. It was already 8:30 at night and he just wanted to eat something and go to sleep. To relax. She warmed them up some leftover vegetable lasagna and set the table. He sat down and ate his lasagna in five bites. Shovel fulls. She hated to see him eat. He made slurp noises whether there was anything to slurp or not. His jaw popped every time he opened his mouth wide enough to cram more food in. His cheeks bulged as he chewed and shoved in more food before he was done chewing the first mouthful. He was disgusting. His son did the same thing. How had this man been raised? His family prided themselves on their high educations but his parents ate like hyenas. She stopped eating, fork nearly to her mouth as she unconsciously stared at the way he pushed as much food as possible into his mouth. He didn't look up. Head down, fork held sideways, food shoved in as his jaw popped and "sluuurp" as he came up for air. She shivered and resumed eating, keeping her eyes on her own plate. Her husband finished, put his plate in the sink, kissed her on top of the head and went to his office for another evening of role-play computer games. She threw away half of her slice of lasagna and almost dumped it in the bedroom trash bin that was still bag less, still next to the kitchen garbage. She sighed and took her plate to the sink where she rinsed their dishes and put them into the dishwasher. It really was time to run the dishwasher, she thought. She opened up the cabinet under the sink for the dishwasher detergent. Instead she grabbed a small garbage bag, stuffed it into her bedroom trash can and brought the can back to her room. She looked in the bedroom mirror. She had hoped to look good enough for her husband. Obviously she had failed. She took off her clothes and put on a pair of cotton sleep shorts and took off her bra. She put on a sleeveless t-shirt and threw her days clothes into the laundry hamper. She wanted to cry. She grabbed her cigarettes instead and headed outside to smoke and call all of her friends so she could gripe to them about how her husband never took her out, even when they didn't have any kids for the night. She loved him, but she sure hated him sometimes.