It's a
beautiful Spring afternoon and I am driving back home, singing along to a
familiar tune on the radio.
The warm
wind is blowing gently through my hair, carrying with it the scent of opening
blossoms. A scarlet petal falls onto my sleeve, I brush it tenderly away.
I am picturing Hannah in my mind as I
drive. She is wearing white like she
did on our wedding day and is smiling that special Hannah smile. She rang me at the office, excited with
news, said come home soon. But teasing
Hannah would not tell me what it was, "wait till you get home," she whispered
in her sweet voice. I won't ruin her good news, I won't tell her what I saw in
my briefcase, what lurks in the trunk and the strange man who haunts me. I won't tell her about my sore throat and
the fact that sometimes I feel like I
can't breathe properly, the air just won't fill my lungs. I won't tell her about the noises I hear,
the beeping, mechanical sounds that remind me of my mother's death. She doesn't need to know about the voices I
hear or the feeling that I have that I am living another life somewhere else. The dreams I have, the waking dreams of a
woman with long red hair and a man with a sword and numbers that mean
nothing. Of a great conspiracy I have
to stop, of the knowledge that there is
something I must do. Something really
urgent that I have to do. Hannah must
not know any of this because it would make her sad, she would know for sure
then that I am crazy.
Like Eddie.
I won't
tell her about the flashbacks.
Look I'm having one right now.
I see a
door. It has a number on it-19. I slowly push it open. I am in a hospital room where the smells are
clean and fresh, lots and lots of flowers everywhere. And there as I cautiously approach her, my white clothed mother
hooked up to tubes that make no sense to a twelve year old. She isn't dead, just sleeping, her red
eyelids shuttering eyes that went dull a while ago.
Soon I will be an orphan.
There's a
squealing sound, a loud screech, the monitors are flashing, I am pushed out of
the room by someone, I can't tell who, nurse, doctor. I am too dazed to register what is happening. The screeching gets louder and louder.
I look
up. There is a tree in front of
me. Why is there a tree in my Mom's
hospital room? I hear a voice shout,
the words are indistinct, I can't hear properly above the pounding of my heart.
There is a man screaming in anguish somewhere and a pressure in my arms. My
throat hurts, it is raw with screaming. My arms are heavy and sore. My chest is cold. I slept too long. I dreamt too much in pain.
There is
something I have to do. There is
someone who needs me. I have a mission.
I struggle to open my eyes again and see a
body, I am clasping a woman, a dead woman with curly brown hair. Pulling her against my nakedness, I close my
eyes, let the tears fall. Open them again.
The tree is
much larger now. There is a thud.
I
close my eyes again.
