**********
Fall
september
Ironic, that a motel parking lot would be the start of her new life. Seedy motels aren't so different, the world over. There's the curious stain on the ceiling, the yellow grunge lining the shower or tub, the strange line of black dusty something you have to swish away before you use the sink. And the water. The trick is to remember whether you can use the water.
In Taipei, it comes out orange. The faucet sputters and gurgles and spits out rust-colored water in sudden short bursts. She turns off the faucet. Perhaps not.
She sits on the edge of the low bed, the rough knit blanket scratching her bare legs. She forces herself to do this, to see herself, to monitor. She strips off all her clothes and tosses them in a heap in the corner. She stands before the mirror (when there is one) and looks, head to toe. She notes the leanness of her arms, the definition of her shins, the curve of her legs. She does not look, she studies -- the amount of muscle mass, the weight, the way her arms fall and her legs stride. She notes the marks that crisscross her arms, faded now, and the faint line tracing up her neck. She turns her head to catch sight of the uneven spot on her left temple, and she looks last at the scars on her torso. Always the scars. The long one traces between her breasts, stopping just below her ribs. The short one, thicker, crosses just below it and to one side. The color has faded a bit, she decides, but the tissue still puffs far above the even surface of her stomach.
She pulled out the stitches in Berlin, her only tools a pair of needle-nosed tweezers and a straightedge blade. She remembers the burning, the way the edges of the dark, rough thread stuck like barbed wire as she pulled them through the newly healed skin. She taped it up with black electrical tape -- all she could find -- and tore her cotton shirt into strips to soak up the excess blood.
She puts her clothes back on, the loose-fitting ones, and drags the scratchy blanket off the bed for use as a makeshift mat. Push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, scissors. She will push her body until it aches, then really begin. She moves slowly on the stomach exercises, the muscles still too atrophied for the real work. She works carefully, her heart pounding early on, reminding her how long it's been. She will push and move and sweat until exhaustion sets in, then lower her body back to the mat, to relax. She will push again, again -- until sleep threatens to overtake her and she catches herself dozing off, eyes sliding shut on the mat, not able to wait to make it to the bed.
Her release, her protection, her sanity: force herself into exhaustion, so she will not have to think after she lies down in bed. If it catches her, if it wins, this mysterious, dark force preying on her consciousness, it will because she gave in, because she let it have room to work. Insanity works like that, she decides. Like paper catching fire, the flames lick around the edges, curling them up and in, until the whole page turns to flame, blazes up, and is gone. It is like that, for her -- the images and flashes and impressions and sounds crowd just around the edges of reality, just around the edges of sleep. She doesn't dare chase after them, analyze them, try to remember and relive the white-hot flashes of pain and dim colors of memory at the edges of her mind. No, if she loses her sanity, it will go just that way. And she cannot let that happen.
******
october
Vaughn
He lives and breathes in abandoned warehouses and dark alleys. Scraps of intel, shadows around corners, hints of dreams.
She's running. She must be. She has every reason to run.
She's afraid to come back. Afraid he'll find her. Afraid he'll take whatever -- whoever -- she has left.
She doesn't want him to know where she is. That's it. It must be.
She's lost too much. She can't stand to lose any more.
She's planning something. She's planning.
That's it. It must be. Every day, every minute, he's reminding himself how much it makes sense.
He doesn't listen to the other arguments, the dread, the ideas that crowd at edge of his mind. They're strongest when he drops off to sleep at night, sometimes here at his desk, sometimes at home, slumped over a growing stack of manila files on the dining table. Occasionally, the couch. He avoids the bed. It's there, the other thoughts are strongest -- the hints, the suggestions, the fears, the barrage flooding into his head.
Sheisdeadsheisgonesheishurthekilledherkilledthatmustbeithekilledherkilledherkilledher
Another report comes in. A blue folder, this time. A crime scene, strange implements, a hunk of DNA. A heart, someone said. Or at least a large piece of one. He closes the file, and closes his eyes, the sharp cardboard edge denting his forehead.
Pleasepleasedon'tletitbeherDNAplease
The tests results come back, two interminable days later. He stares at the numbers, the strange geometric designs, the name. He flips the folder shut, and opens it again. He misread; he had to. When he opens it up again it will be different; he will be wrong. Nothing more than a nightmare, a hallucination born of too many dreams. He flips the folder open again.
BRISTOW, Sydney A.
NotadreamnotadreamnotanightmarepleaseyesanightmarepleaseGodnonoSydneyno
A person can't live without a heart. He would know.
*******
november
When was it that life fell apart? The day she discovered Francie? The day she learned the truth about her mother? The day Danny died? The day a strange man approached her, sophomore year?
She numbers them, counts her new life by the days. 347. 1286. 124. On one of them, everything fell apart, and this thing she calls reality slipped from her grasp, letting the nightmares take its place.
Yet some parts were not nightmares. She remembers soft touches on her skin, the feel of a blue oxford on her cheek; she thinks she could tell it was the blue one without ever opening her eyes. She walked through a fragrance counter one time, on a cold day in Boston. She needed a place to get out of the weather, needed a crowd to hide. She pushed through the doors with a throng of holiday shoppers, tired children and stuffed shopping bags bumping against her shins. She followed the pulsing crowd, letting them carry her along as they hurried in and fanned out and rushed to a hundred different locations. She realized they had carried her to men's fragrance and by that time it was too late. The smell caught her by surprise, and before she could stop herself, make herself think, she was standing over the glass counter staring down at rows of identical black boxes with embossed gold edges. She ran her fingers over the glass and told herself she would go away --
leavegoleavenowjustleave
-- and told herself she would stay. Her hand found its way down to her pocket and ran over the edges of the neatly-folded bills. She had just enough, she could afford a small bottle -- she wouldn't do anything rash, it wouldn't incriminate her, she would just drizzle a few drops over her pillow at night and perhaps as she was drifting off to sleep she could imagine he was there, that the soft form at her back was his arm and not the rigid motel-room pillow. She could drift off to sleep and perhaps, with it, she could dream, not the nightmares she tries to forget but the blurry, faded images she tries to remember.
"Ma'am, are you interested in anything?" The voice was hard, annoyed. Sydney looked up, realizing she had heard the question three times. She had to think, to decide. She ran her thumb over the bills and pulled her hand out of her pocket, empty.
"No, no."
"You sure?"
"No, I mean, yes." She shook her head and stepped away from the counter, bumping into a cardboard display. The saleswoman didn't notice, nobody noticed, no one cares about one cheap woman in the holiday throng. She caught sight of a black bowl on the end of the counter, full of narrow cream-colored cardstock sticks with gold edging. She walked away, her pace matching the rest of the hurried crowd, and without glancing over she reached out, grasped a handful of the samples, and shoved them into her coat pocket. She detected the scent minutes later, when she stepped out the overheated entryway back onto the salt-covered sidewalk. The faintest whiff met her, rising from her pockets, permeating the thick wool of her coat. She stopped on the sidewalk, waiting with a crowd for the blinking white "walk" sign. She stood still, felt the cold air passing through her skin, sinking into her bones, and she drew breath after deep breath, hoping to be rewarded with another whiff. She was. For the first time that month, she smiled.