Ego's Trap | ✔

54 | Channels

☆☆☆ Chapter 54 ☆☆☆

Channels

Last night, I had a nightmare.

Blood was on my hands, on my palms. Thick, vibrant, warm. Fresh. It creeped down my hands as I trembled and gave in to goosebumps, down to the place where wrist met hand, hand met wrist. Small buds of blood formed there, on that tiny spot of sensitive nothing. They shook along with me, but eventually, dropped to the floor and left me all alone and afraid.

Wait, no── no, it wasn't the floor. That's right──  and── and no, it wasn't smooth. It wasn't shiny. It wasn't rough, waxy, flat, dusty, cool... it was warm to the touch. And it was wet. Soft. I didn't have to feel it to know, because I just... I just knew.

The not-floor rose and fell whenever it could, in the most awkward of manners, and as it did so, thick liquid── thick, vibrant liquid, spewed out of holes and tears, and... and yellowish clumps of god knows what (lard?) clung onto their openings. Some were wrapped around the thinnest of tubes. Heat radiated from it all, licked my hands. Dried some of the red on them, glued it to my skin, made it a part of me. If I had looked hard enough, I'm sure I would've seen steam. Steam coming out of Jade's insides, searing, branding me with their color.

Last night, I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was the nightmare. I was the demon. I am the demon, soaked in red, one with red.

☆☆☆

The clunky feel of the TV remote in my childhood bedroom was so weird to me now. It made the palms of my hands more sweaty than usual, and some of its buttons barely worked; I had to press on them hard for it to do the same job it had once done seamlessly. The TV itself was smaller, and the colors weren't all that great either. Sometimes, it needed a slap on the top or back for anything to show up. The audio was a little fuzzy, too. But I had to make do. Even if none of it was good, it was definitely an upgrade to hugging my legs by the space where I nearly stabbed someone to death, or the space and people in general that I just couldn't handle or wrap around my head right now. There was a cloud in my mind, a cloud that was more dense, more gray, more... everything, than what I had been dealing with before. And yes, I've always had the worst of dreams; I always wake up drenched in sweat and fear and pure dread and hate for both myself and all who (I felt) wronged me in that moment, and I would latch onto my trusty knife from under my pillow in fight or flight mode── well, before Teresa took it away from me── but somehow, this last time felt different. I had to leave. It felt as if the worst in me was gonna jump right out of Hell and burn me alive. I needed some time to myself, time that would involve no one in the residence of the man I've been breaking emotionally since the day I became a maid. Time that might be taken by Dr. Connor later in the day, if I decide to call his emergency line and talk through whatever it is that I'm feeling in the pit of my stomach, in the heart of my brain and throat. The clouds.

I flipped through the channels, looked for nothing in particular. Since last night. Nothing caught my eye, and if it did, it would only remain as such for thirty minutes tops, and in those thirty minutes, I stared at the actors' lips, most of the time salmon-pink, other times blood-red── blood-red as if they were straight out of the horrifying dream that was once alive and thriving as my reality── unable to process what they were using them for.

There was a spark missing in me. It left me empty, in a trance I couldn't break out of. Stuck. On my worn out bed, in the same permanently-dented part where I'd once sit and stare at noses rather than lips. Back when I stared at the wall behind the TV more often than not, at its withering wallpaper, its bland design that I refused to have changed by Dad.

It was almost as if there was no difference between then and now, but I knew better. I'm aware now of how that can make my days all the more bitter, and easily change to me exploding on someone the moment I leave out of the trance. Or so I think.

I let myself take a deep breath, close my eyes. I let them rest for only a moment── or what felt like a moment. I was unsure. Unsure of whether I had opened my eyes immediately after I closed them and time passed, or if I had kept them closed and time passed. I knew for a fact that I didn't fall asleep, though. I would never, not in the position that I was in; butt on bed, hunched back, one hand tucked between my legs, the other with the remote, head straight, in the TV's direction. And apparently, I was eating. I don't eat in my sleep. My mouth had the pasty aftertaste of cheese puffs, cheese puffs whose two bags held nothing but air now. And I knew that time passed, too. The sun's rays clawed at my back from the window, unlike before, when the sun had just come back from its daily break. It didn't hurt or sting enough for me to close the curtains, though. Or so I think. Maybe I just didn't want to move. And maybe, just maybe, I want to stay stuck in the trance. Nothing will affect me if I do, for the better or worse.

I had just begun to consciously flip through the channels again when a knock on my window startled the living daylights out of me. I turned and saw no one. But I did notice a piece of paper beneath a small rock, on the windowpane. I sighed, reached for it, then threw it in my trash bin. As always. Wait, no. That was years ago. Now's now. My eyes peered at the trash bin for a good minute before I decided to pick up what I'd thrown away.

In my Campbell-cursed boyfriend's teensy cursive, the paper read:

I hope you're feeling better now, my love.

If you're up for it, meet me tonight at six o'clock, by the community park's water fountain. I have something up my sleeve that may help brighten your day.

hint: ice cream and puppies!

I had no time to think about it, had I wanted to. As soon as I finished reading, I heard the front door of the house open, along with Mom's classic off-tune hums of her favorite song. Something within me clicked at that── something I didn't have access to before then. My heart skipped a whole beat. And for reasons I couldn't bring words to, I dropped both the paper and the remote, bolted out of my bedroom in tears.

"Oh, you here. Teresa too? ...Imani? Hold on, why── " I jumped at her, wrapped my arms around her, squeezed her with everything I had. Dug my face on her neck, breathed in all the chemicals on her work uniform, and let it all out. All of it. All of the rain from the clouds over me. "Oh baby." Mom dropped her bags and hugged me back. Kissed the top of my head. Rubbed my arms. "What's wrong?"

"I... I don't know, but it hurts," I wheezed. "How do I make it stop?"

I called Dr. Connor an hour after Mom stuffed me with leftovers and freshly baked corn muffins, with my hand in hers. She never let go, not even as we slept in my room, with Dad huddled between us.

I dreamed of Dad playing the piano that night, of Mom sitting by his side, with her head on his shoulder.

☆☆☆

On my way to the grocery store with my parents, I caught a rare find. A certain blond man who just so happened to be my boyfriend, outside of his residence. At the community park, idle, sitting on a wooden bench by the water fountain. His head was resting on the very top of the bench, and he was looking up at the sky. Lost in his thoughts, holding onto a bouquet of flowers.

Mom and Dad, in a merry mood, nudged each other as we turned the other way, lost sight of him. "Watch dat pretty little white ding be Imani's boy."

"She would've said something," Dad giggled.

"But if he is── oh, Lord have mercy. He'd be eaten alive."

I shook my head, and pushed them to walk faster. I just wanted to get our errands over with and go home, where a filling warmth waited for me. And Teresa was waiting for us, too. We just had to hurry up and go, go, go. But their words were seared into my heart.