Under my Skin

I was awake as I lay in my bed, enveloped in the darkness. I glanced around at the room for the hundredth time. I had long given up trying to remember when I had last actually slept. Time was a slippery thing to me and clocks only told me numbers, too many numbers. My eyes ran over the desk in the corner with its useless piles of papers that hadn’t been touched in a month. I saw the large dresser with its menagerie of trinkets and baubles that lay in a random pattern of chaos across the top. My eyes began to scale the walls. I found myself fixed upon the eyes of the miscellaneous people in the pictures that stared ahead with long-dead, leering eyes. Those pictures had meant something to someone who had once lived here. Had that someone been me before? I couldn’t remember. I had left them there simply because they held meaning. It was something real, to someone, somewhere, once upon a time. Then, I saw the large mirror where I was reflected, even in this dim light. My pale frail frame and my fair hair offered stark contrast to the dark camisole I wore but it was my eyes that caught me. Who was this staring back at me? A question that taunted me until I turned away; I couldn’t bear to hold the awful gaze.

I rolled out of bed and went to get a drink. The light in the hallway was such a stark contrast to the dimness of my room that for a moment I couldn’t see. I stood there blinded, feeling much like a deer, caught and frightened by the headlights of a car. Blinded. Trapped. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the light of the room, I began to see the details of the room: the open window allowing a cold breeze to stream in uninvited; the now dusty collage I had painted a year ago, a riot of color in a gloomy world; the golden pothos that sat on the table next to the window, wilting slowly from neglect, its beautiful vines still struggling to snake upwards. I knew how it felt as I tentatively began walking down the stairs. They were cold and smooth as glass against my bare feet. When I reached the bottom I stood there, holding to the banister as if I might fall when I let go. I focused only on breathing until finally I was able to release it. How pathetic I am I thought to myself, how frail. I moved my focus away from me and back to my surroundings.

The kitchen had faded ivy wallpaper that seemed as old as the house itself. The years had left their marks on the walls. A miscellaneous tale of scuffs, scratches and dust that I could not understand, but I liked it nonetheless. It wasn’t pretending to be something it wasn’t; it was honest. I scurried over to the fridge ignoring the fear creeping slowly across my bones as best I could. It had always been like this. A memory assaulted me unasked and unwanted. The hospital that day had been fairly empty. They had taken me to a room and set my wrist while I sat there silent and chilled. It must have been odd for the nurse that I remained so quiet as she cracked the bones back into place. Had she noticed the shadows in the room I think she would have been quiet too. The shadows swarmed and swirled in a slow macabre dance surrounding us, occasionally brushing past me. That day, when I heard the cries of what seemed thousands, I feared I was either dying or losing my mind entirely. I had only later learned that the hospital had been in use as a sanitarium when I was there. So then the nurses had at least heard the voices.

The coldness of the refrigerator brought me back into the present and eased the constant pounding in my head. I stood in the open door letting the chill wash over me for several minutes as more time slipped away; I longed to follow into that black oblivion. Where does time go when it passes us by? My heart clenched suddenly along with my lungs, and my stomach was troubled by a strange sensation of sliding... slipping. I ran to the sink emptying my stomach of the water I had just consumed. I wiped my mouth and shuddered, seeing a red light reflecting off the window over the sink. I turned.

He stood there, smiling, his sharp teeth a stark contrast to this house of darkness. I backed away only to bump into him behind me...no in front of me. Where are you? I tried to run but I was paralyzed, frozen like a stone to my spot. He lifted a pale hand adorned by long black claws and moved my hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear, a strange act of gentleness. I shivered as I felt the same weakness that I always had as his presence invaded me.
The memory came with the weakness, with the cold. It had been a winter night then, a dark winter night. I had snuck out of the house, I never did know why. He stood in the snow staring at me as I skulked around in the snow like some sort of small criminal. At first I took him to be a criminal. But then his pale blue eyes caught my dark ones, holding me prisoner with a petrifying gaze like the basilisks of old. I knew true fear for the first time in my life and understood that he was no criminal: he was far worse. I came out of the memory suddenly, instinctively shrinking back from his freezing touch and accidentally slamming my head into a hanging light. As the world tipped at an impossible angle he began to whisper something, almost inaudible. A song came to mind, “cause you know babe that I can't get you out from my in...you're under my skin, under my skin...” I screamed then, screamed and screamed until I lost consciousness.

It was the knocking that woke me I think. I didn’t know what it was at first. I was too lost; my mind remained disconnected from life. I tried to focus on the noise, muddled as it was, tried to force myself to listen. There it was again. It was familiar somehow, like a melody on the radio, a song whose name you’ve forgotten. Then, as if I had suddenly awakened, I realized what the noise was. It must have been the neighbors who called them I thought—screams in the middle of the night do tend to alarm people I supposed.

She found me curled into a tiny ball in a corner in my closet. How had I gotten there? I didn’t remember moving from the kitchen. She asked me how I was, I looked at her...through her, don’t really see her do we my pet? his voice whispered to me. “No, she isn’t real enough” I answered. I felt him smile inside me, a slithering, sickening motion that nauseated me. My muscles spasmed, responding on their own to him. I tried to crawl away from him, from the sickness he caused. He grabbed me pulling me towards him. The woman stared at me as he dragged me across the floor, his crushing form enveloping me, or I was I enveloping him? I grabbed my head as the pressure on my lungs increased and screamed dragging my sharp fingernails down my face babbling “Death would be kinder, the mind slipping away into the void, the endless wheel spinning in the darkness. We’re all tied to it, bound by the hands and legs. Oh get it off, get it off, off!” I screamed as I clawed myself, collapsing in a fit but remaining conscious somehow.

The woman spoke and fire seemed to fall from her tongue upon me. I jerked away from her hard, slamming my body into the ironwork of the bed. I turned and clung to it, to the chill of it. Stop I tried to scream, but she had begun again. I was useless to prevent her when I could barely see her. I could only burrow deep into myself. Run, run, run...run, run, run...it played over and over in my head, a demented mantra consuming my thoughts. Suddenly I felt a hand that was like an inferno. I tried to wrench away from her as my mind was slammed back into my body. I opened my eyes and clawed at my face, rising.

“Get away!” I shrieked. She smiled at me, asked me if I wanted to be myself again, without him. I panicked, “YES! I said then yelped “NO!” She simply watched me as I struggled inside myself. I began to pace frantically. “Stop...don't...yes...please...No I....help me!” I cried in broken sentences as I felt him slam me to the ground and hold me there. Still she watched in silence. I was able to stand again after what must have been an eternity and tried to run only to sit back down and curl my body into a tight ball. I sang to her, or me, or even him, that song in my head...“He's under my skin...he’s under my skin...he’ll always be in...oh gods!” I cried becoming more and more frantic. Her eyes continued to watch me, their intelligent kindness suddenly infuriating me. I rose and stepped towards her, suddenly every inch the arrogant powerful villain instead of the writhing cowering victim. She narrowed her eyes at me and spoke with that tongue of flames. I fell again and lay flat staring at the world as if I was an observer and not part of it. He held me down (or was it that he had fallen on me?) his oppressive weight making it impossible to move. My breath came in quick gasps, my lungs fighting to do their job, fighting his interference. “Help...me...oh god...please...I...PLEASE!” I begged, screamed, and cried, not even sure what I was asking as the tears ran down my face, mixing with the blood in my cuts, scrapes and scratches. She came to me and laid her now cool hand on my head. Everything in me screamed, spit, howled, hissed and jumped while I lay as if dead. Her clear eyes were the last thing I saw before I blacked out.

When I awoke, I felt as if I run a marathon. I was sore and tired, my head was heavy and my body was bruised, but I could breathe. I tried to open my eyes but they refused to obey, as if they knew what was best. I gave up, too tired to resist, and let sleep capture me once more. It was the best sleep I had had in years. When I finally rose, I was able to eat without my body rejecting it. I went outside—she said it would be good for me. (She was right as usual.) The sun was shining, the birds singing, a warm breeze blowing softly. I stared at the world as if for the first time. Had the sun always been this bright? Had the flowers always smelled like this?? I suddenly realized as I bent to pick a lily that I felt no foreign presence in my mind, no force on my chest, no pain...anywhere. At first I felt fear at the absence, but as I stood there able to breathe freely I forgot to be afraid. I smiled then laughed for the first time in over a decade. A different song was playing now, I sang merging my music with the rest of the world “it's gonna be a bright...bright...sunshiny day. And everything's gonna be ok, yeah everything's gonna be ok...”

Dt + MS