I dreamed last night.
I have not dreamed in years, but I did last night. I dreamed of her, and what happened after that last memory, when she was gone.
I see her, and she's writhing on a bed in pain, twitching and sweating and watching her makes me feel sick. Her body shakes and her eyes flutter and she suddenly sits up, gasping. She moans and falls to the floor, crawls on all fours, and vomits. Leaning back against the bed, she breathes with temporary relief, holding her stomach (as if that will help).
Footsteps come from down the hall, faintly. She hears them, and her eyes alert and she tries to quiet her breathing. They slow down as they reach the door, and her eyes widen and she presses her back into the frame of the bed, scooting away from the door another half inch. Her nostrils flare and I can almost hear her heart beat, alternating with the steps. She's slowed it down, hoping not to be heard. Step. Beat. Step. Beat.
The feet stop, and she shakes silently, shivering, her eyes fixed on the doorknob. The moment lingers. Her eyes tear up. If the tears fell, they would be indistinguishable from the sweat.
The feet move on, calmly going away, and she breathes and collapses on the floor, in a pool of sweat and vomit. She twists and contorts and her face breaks with pain and the tears fall and she cries exhaustion and pain and loss and is suddenly seized by a fit of wracking coughs. She pulls herself along the floor, spewing mucus, thick with blood across the rough wood floors. It sounds like she's choking. No one comes to help her.
Her arms give way and she slams into the floor, bashing her head and crying out. Her hair is falling out of her usual buns, tangled and dirty and wet with sweat and other fluids. Crying and sweating and falling apart, she rolls over on her back to look at the heavens, but only sees the ceiling.
She tries to inhale enough to speak, but a stabbing pain shoots through her lungs so she can only gasp a word.
"Toby..."
---
She comes in and I stare at her. She does not look at me, but she notices. I can tell by the way her body stiffens.
I do not know if I dreamed the truth, but truth is subjective, anyway.
I should speak. I should say something to her. I want to say something to her, but I'm not a skilled conversationalist. I toy with the idea of saying, "Hello," or "Good morning," but after years of abandoning empty greetings, the idea seems laughable. Besides, I do not know the time of day.
If I can even get my lips to pronounce words.
She takes off the gag, and this is my opportunity. I lick my lips, and almost do not breathe. You're supposed to breathe before you speak, right? I don't remember.
"Who are you?"
That wasn't the right thing to say. Or maybe there is nothing right to say. The act of speech is forbidden.
She freezes and does not look at me. I can sense her stifling the automatic reaction to look over. She knows that I did not forget every day, did not forget her. She moves to take off the straightjacket.
She won't respond.
Unless I make her.
"What's your name?"
Silence.
"I have a name. You know it, you've said it. Toby."
I am hinting at the dream. I feel a hesitation on her part. Aha. I wait.
"Your name is Tobias Ragg," she says, "and mine is unimportant." I had forgotten what her voice sounded like. I still cannot wrap my mind around the sound, like a face you want to remember but always forget. Cold, hard-- no. Calculated. Hiding something.
Progress.
"Can you remember your name?"
She stops.
"You've been here longer than I have. This place does things. Makes you forget."
She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a medicine bottle. I have gone too far. That tells me something. She gives me a pill. Just one. It won't cause the blistering pain of last night's dream. I look up at her, and for a second, our eyes meet. I cannot read what hers say - it has been too long. I am the one to look away, almost shamefully.
I take the pill.