Unfinished
Religious Fantasy-Horror
My back always hurt in the same two spots. Sometimes I’d hurt all over, you know — like after when I’d have one of my fukentantrums. I’d hurt from the way I banged my head against the wall. Or threw myself down the stairs to my room in the dark. Or the way they’d have to hit me, to make me stop from hurting myself. You know. On those days, I’d hurt all over.
But, every day, even on my good days, my shoulder blades still hurt.
“I know dear,” said Mom, glancing up from her phone on the kitchen counter, “it hurts. Same spots?” Before I answered, she went back to her phone. She used to offer to rub the spots when I was little.
Mom said it was because of the way I slept, wedged up against the sides of the tub. But that wasn’t right. They’d always hurt, long before I switched to the tub.
Why won’t she sleep in a bed? That was what everyone asked Mom when they’d drunkenly peek in on me at night. She would tell them I was artistic. I don’t know where she got that. I never went to any Art classes. Only doctors.
I felt sorry for them all: the doctors, Mom, even Dad. I couldn’t be controlled, or understood. I displayed my love differently than others. I knew that. But I did love them. Everyone. But that gets forgotten when you scream until your throat bleeds, or have to hurt yourself, or — worst of all — black out and somehow become dangerous to others.
I left her and headed for my room.
“Try the heating pad…” she said, her voice trailing me down the hall. Ignoring her, I went downstairs into the dank, cool basement — comforted by the smell of dirt and old boxes.
I closed the door behind me. At the bottom, I paused to listen for the latch. Sometimes they locked me in there. Keepyaouttatrouble, Dad would say. I was often glad for that. I felt guilty for ever leaving. I never wanted to hurt anyone.
It was left unlatched.
I pulled the chain and the bulb lit up, throwing the familiar shadows, silhouettes of shelf units filled with paint, as well as a washer and dryer, against the walls. Most importantly, in the middle of the floor were my three beeffeffs, surrounded by the toys we played with, and the empty toy box. And, off in the corner, was my bed — the abandoned hot tub. It was empty, of course. No water. Except my pillows and blankets were in there. And my radio.
My parents kept me down here to sleep ever since the knife incident two Christmases ago. I didn’t remember it. Mom still has the scar. It took everyone, a lot of doctors, a long time to help me stop feeling bad about that one.
It was the pillows and blankets that made it a bed. That’s what I wanted to tell my Mom’s friends. Like how a family makes a new house a home, after you move. That’s what my beeffeffs told me.
My beeffeffs were the best. I used to play with them all the time; but, back then, it was just me making with all the voices, including theirs, y’know? Like how little kids do?
But then one day I woke up and all three beeffeffs were sitting on Dad’s old radio, on a shelf. I eventually got it — what they were trying to tell me. So, I listened to the radio all day, every day, for weeks. Until one day I finally heard them. Their voices. That was months ago.
This day, I picked Sabrina, the tallest and the smartest, up from the floor where she sat and lay down next to the radio. I adjusted Sabrina’s legs so she was sitting on the floor next to me. The tiny brown boots that matched her hair were right up close to my nose. Over the tips of her toes, I could see her stiff, red scarf and her yellow jumpsuit. So pretty. I wanted to be pretty like her. Mom used to call me pretty — when I was little.
I turned the radio on and listened. My beeffeffs’ messages were in-between the words of the songs…no one else heard them. I don’t think the singers even did — I mean, or else they’d be quiet and not sing over them, right?
Anyway, this was what Sabrina told me, in her typical sing-song fashion.
No matter what hits you,
’cause we can’t show
How much we love you,
You always know;
You are not long alighted,
You’ll come home, from below.
You’re different and real,
but they won’t go
when we break the seal
His Salvation bestow;
You are not long alighted.
But you will come home.
Alighted meant descended from the air, I later discovered.
I rolled back over and I could tell the other two were in agreement. I mean, Kelly, the other brunette, always had a serious face; but Jill’s smile was especially wide, under her long, curvy blonde hair.
They were so strong. Purposeful. I wanted that, too.
Uggh, my back! I had to twist in discomfort.
I closed my arms around my knees, laying on my side. Sometimes that helped. And I whimpered in time with the throbbing pain in my back in my bed in my room in the basement of my parent’s house — all the while keeping the song in my head.
Not long alighted…You’re different and real.
###
I woke to fireworks. And laughter. Lost of people outside my window, way up on the basement wall where I couldn’t see. Another party.
I needed to go to the bathroom, anyway — and I was curious about the noises. So, I went up the stairs and, at the top, I banged into the door. The knob wouldn’t turn. Now, it wasn’t just latched — it was locked.
I tried to think. I glanced around the room crazily for ideas. My beeffeffs were nowhere to be seen. Probably still in bed, asleep. But, that was okay. I had it.
I recently broke the lock on this weird metal square door in the wall to discover our house had a dumbwaiter. It opened up near the floor, next to the washer and dryer. My parents never used it.
But maybe I could. I crouched down and lifted the heavy, iron door and peered inside, upwards. It looked to have wooden sides, as far upward as I could see. There was a small light, leaking from something way at the top.
I crawled inside and sat on the bottom. It was so small! But, so was I. I was eventually able to pull my knees up to my chest far enough that my feet were flat against one side, while my sore back was pressed up against the other.
Oww! Where my shoulder blades pressed, it felt like I was being stabbed!
Then I realized — I was stuck! I couldn’t get back out the way I came. There was nowhere to maneuver!
Aaaaaaagh! I gasped in panic, my fists pounding against the sides. Help! Help! Was I shouting? Could anyone hear me even if I were? I can’t breathe! Jill! Sabrina! My back was raging with pain. Kelly! Mom!
I thrashed in panic from side to side, just a few inches, until the pain in my back changed from a sharp stab to a warm bruise-like feeling. I reached back to feel and there was blood on my hands. I screamed again. I heard something pop.
I don’t remember if it was then or before when I soiled myself. But then was when I noticed. The smell of urine and poop was suddenly in the small chute with me.
At that, I looked up again. The light was still there. And that was where I was going anyway. A calm came over me and I pushed, equally with both my feet and my bloody back while I clawed at the sides. Fortunately, after just a few attempts, one of my hands bumped up against a rope that I guess was part of the original pulley system for the dumbwaiter.
This is it! I can do this!
I took a few more deep breaths and began figuring out how to coordinate the yanking on the rope with the pushing of my legs. My back burned, but the blood through my shirt actually made the sliding upwards a bit easier, although from time to time it felt like something was catching.
Slowly, too slowly, I managed to take several dozen steps, pulling myself upward. Our house was three stories and the light must’ve been on the top floor.
I can’t say how long it took, but eventually, I reached the light. It was from a walk-in closet off my parent’s bedroom. Since the knife incident, I wasn’t allowed on this floor, anymore. But, from just above my feet, I could see the floor peeking through this other iron door, like the one that was in the basement.
A moment of panic rushed through me again, as I considered how this door might be locked, too.
But it wasn’t. I kicked open the door. I thought I heard the old, rusty bell mechanism attach to the door try to ring, as if to announce a new delivery in the dumbwaiter.
I hung onto the rope for dear life (literally) as I spread my legs to suspend myself in the opening. I pushed against the opposite side behind me until I could reach the breach with my other hand. Once or twice I thought I would fall down the chute, backwards and head first. But I didn’t.
Pulling myself out of the chute onto the third floor, I collapsed, gasping for air, while the sounds of the party in our backyard wafted through all around me.
And something else, a man’s yelling. In the bedroom. Dad’s voice.
My arms ached and my back throbbed with pain, the two sharp spots on either shoulder blade that always hurt now felt like fire, piercing me.
But I fought through the pain and I stood up and walked into Mom and Dad’s bedroom.
He was in bed, roaring. I couldn’t see who was with him. There were covers in the way. And my tears. But the other voice wasn’t Mom’s. I watched as both his roaring and his movement stopped. He arched his back for a moment, and then collapsed to the side, off the bed onto the floor, clutching his chest. The woman in the bed yelled something.
As he lay there on the floor next to his bed, gasping and sweating, I seemed to catch his eye — and he just stared, a look of regret plain on his face.
Suddenly a whooshing noise and a firework was outside, in the sky. It hadn’t exploded yet, but it made a fiery trail. Standing there, I reached towards it. My bloody hand was a black shape against the night sky.
Then it did erupt, the shell exploding into shivering streaks of power and beauty.
Yes.
Just then, I doubled over in pain and dropped to the floor. MY BACK!
Ignoring my Dad and the shrill woman with him, I walked towards the door to the balcony outside. With each step, the pain in my back worsened, and I started to sob loudly. But I kept on, until I could look over the railing at the mostly drunken party-goers in our backyard, some three stories below.
More fireworks were going off in the sky above me, behind the house. Several people looked in my direction and pointed.
My mind split in half. I needed my family. Who were these people?
God, help me! The pain! I writhed and doubled over, again and again, on the balcony in full view of everyone.
My back felt like it was being crushed. Please! Somebody help me! Make it stop! I can’t take it! The memories flooded from a time before I could talk properly. Such pain in my back. And my whole body. Why wouldn’t it stop? Mommy! Make it stop!
My back gave one last shudder and suddenly I could feel the explosion behind me, the moving air. The beauty. I arched my head way back to see their outline for myself:
MY WINGS HAVE EMERGED! LOOK AT THEM! THEY’RE SO BEAUTIFUL!
Everyone below saw them, too. Now everyone was pointing. All of my pain was gone.
Dad emerged from the bedroom, somehow insubstantial from the waist down: “Thefukishappening? How did you get up here?”
He ran up to grab me, but I was too fast. I felt one wing knock him to the ground as I leaped up onto the railing of the balcony. It was so easy. Effortless.
Lots of the party guests were shouting. “Oh my God! Honey, stop! Get down from there! Nooooooo!” I pretended that was my Mom, shouting louder than all the others.
But I no longer needed her voice.
I needed no radio. I was no longer trapped. I could hear everything now.
I looked down and gave my Mom a smile.
Not long alighted. Tu quoque in morte invenies gratiam!
And then, leaping into the sky while everyone screamed, I went home.
