The sun was setting behind the hills, and the glare revealed the oily residues of passengers past on tinted panes of plexiglass. The intermittent ka-thump of the train cars and the passing of telephone poles through my field of vision were a reminder that I was moving toward something I didn't want to face.
The funeral was set for tomorrow morning. I had no idea how I was supposed to give a proper eulogy for a man with so much ugliness. I wondered if anyone would be there and if I should even bother showing up.
I grabbed my duffel bag and suitcase just as a shrill voice came over the P.A.: “Stony Creek station.”
Despite the baggage, I didn’t mind the long walk through town. The sodium street lights flickered on to a dim glow as I came toward my old house. After about a minute, they gained full intensity, bathing the street in peachy light.
At the porch steps, I pulled a hidden key from under a fake rock, made my way inside, and turned on the hallway light.
Walking into the living room, I glanced over at the rocker. I imagined Ma there getting lost in her sitcoms and variety shows, because real life didn't come with laugh tracks and prompted applause. Pale blue light flashed across her expressionless face.
The stairs groaned with the pressure and release of each step as I slowly plodded upward. My room was pretty much as I'd left it. A simple, scratched-up desk and wooden chair sat by the window, and the twin bed mattress without a frame was tucked by the wall under the slanted ceiling, which had taped to it a faded Led Zeppelin poster.
I remembered Dad bursting through the door with unmitigated fury over something I had (or hadn't) done. He threw me against the wall, and with his hands encircling my neck, I started to black out. I could still hear Ma wailing through sobs, "Stop it, Hank! You're going to kill him!" But he couldn't hear her. His eyes revealed a kind of crazed, adrenaline-fueled trance. The smell of whiskey hit me just as I lost consciousness.
The next day, Ma seemed oblivious. I didn't understand how she could just go about pretending that nothing had happened--like we lived in some kind of "Leave It to Beaver" fantasy world. "Let me fix you some eggs, Honey," she said. Yet, I suppose it was more than eggs she was trying to fix. It was our lives as well, as if food would fill these widening emotional chasms.
I grabbed a flashlight from off the desk and climbed out of the window and onto the porch roof as I had on so many nights previous--those nights when Dad was shouting or Ma was crying and I just needed to escape.
Across the street was Caroline Connors’ house. She was the only good thing in this beater town, and the only reason I could have had for staying. She had a way of ensnaring herself in relationships with older guys who treated her badly. Maybe they were stand-ins for her absent father, giving her just enough validation but no more than she thought she deserved. One night while sitting on the roof, I took a flashlight and pointed it at her window, waving my hand in front of the beam as if to signal. She came over and climbed up to my perch where we talked for hours, both sharing our need to get away from our lives in this town.
I wondered where she was and what she was up to this evening--thinking she was probably away somewhere married to some guy she couldn't stand. I hated that I had these thoughts--resurging crests of jealousy--but my mind just couldn't help but go there. Just then it caught my eye. From across the street a light was flashing from a bedroom window: Our secret signal. My heart leapt into my throat.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Noćnik
Great War Island, at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, was so named because of its strategic importance in both the defense and siege of Belgrade. Officially, it was uninhabited, but there were a few of us who summered there in shanties--tending our gardens in solitude just a few hundred meters outside of the old city. Hidden behind a dense woodland, it might as well have been miles away. It had been a mistake to come here in early spring when the night air was still bitterly cold and there would be no one near to hear my screams.
My heart was racing and sweat beaded up across my brow. It was time, and I was frantic. I knew that, at any moment, it would come for me--just like it had late at night when I was a child.
Belgrade itself was no stranger to recurring nightmares. Countless times, the city had been raided and leveled by marauders, violated and passed about from Celts to Romans to Byzantines and Franks, juggled between Austrians and Turks. For ravenous, warmongering men, she was an object to be conquered and ravaged.
Over the centuries, the walls were fortified and held for a time. But while they were keeping out Ottoman invaders, they also kept in pestilence and famine.
In the cabin, the curtains, like swollen bubos, inflated into the candle-lit room with the brisk outdoor breeze. I pushed them aside and rushed to close the shutters, which I slammed and bolted in place. I ran to the door and, after fumbling for several seconds with my skeleton key, managed to lock it. I slid a chair toward it, screeching across the bare wooden floor, and propped it under the knob.
At my bed I made the sign of the cross on my pillow before turning it over. This was the Serbian ritual for keeping the demon or mora away passed down over generations. I remembered how my mother taught it to me one sleepless night when I was a small child. The thought gave me some momentary comfort. But then the candle suddenly went out.
I dove under the covers, shaking violently. It was dark and silent except for the chattering of my teeth. Then I saw it. A green light came in through the keyhole. It flowed in like a vapor at first and then began to take the shape of a luminescent moth. It approached the bed slowly growing and transforming into a large hairy beast.
All the while, there was a weight building on my chest, and I began to struggle for each breath. Gnarly limbs grew up from the floor and tied my wrists back against the bedpost as I writhed with terror and began to sob.
Suddenly, I could hear a woman's voice. It seemed to be coming from inside of me, reverberating through me.
"You can change how it ends, Danijela," it said. "You MUST change how it ends."
The mora hovered over me, approaching my face with breath like burning sulfur. It hissed and snarled and bore stiletto-like teeth. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This isn't real, I thought to myself. I have the power to end this. No sooner had I thought it than a knife appeared in my hand, and with a single thrust, I broke my arm free and plunged the blade into the beast. It shrieked and shattered into gravel and dust. The viny limb binding my left arm loosened and fell as it turned to yarn.
The voice returned.
"Now, on the count of three you will awaken from your trance."
"1... 2... 3."
*****
The room was bright. It took some time to adjust my eyes and acclimate myself to my new surroundings. I was lying on a rust-colored teak sofa, and there was a table by my feet holding an antique stained-glass lamp and a box of tissues. From somewhere, on a clock radio perhaps, Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 was playing faintly.
"You were very brave today, Danijela."
Dr. Obrenovic's voice was soft and soothing, but as I looked down at my still trembling hands, I could not ignore the bruised and swollen wrists that met them. They were reminders that the horrors of the past could not easily be overcome.
My heart was racing and sweat beaded up across my brow. It was time, and I was frantic. I knew that, at any moment, it would come for me--just like it had late at night when I was a child.
Belgrade itself was no stranger to recurring nightmares. Countless times, the city had been raided and leveled by marauders, violated and passed about from Celts to Romans to Byzantines and Franks, juggled between Austrians and Turks. For ravenous, warmongering men, she was an object to be conquered and ravaged.
Over the centuries, the walls were fortified and held for a time. But while they were keeping out Ottoman invaders, they also kept in pestilence and famine.
In the cabin, the curtains, like swollen bubos, inflated into the candle-lit room with the brisk outdoor breeze. I pushed them aside and rushed to close the shutters, which I slammed and bolted in place. I ran to the door and, after fumbling for several seconds with my skeleton key, managed to lock it. I slid a chair toward it, screeching across the bare wooden floor, and propped it under the knob.
At my bed I made the sign of the cross on my pillow before turning it over. This was the Serbian ritual for keeping the demon or mora away passed down over generations. I remembered how my mother taught it to me one sleepless night when I was a small child. The thought gave me some momentary comfort. But then the candle suddenly went out.
I dove under the covers, shaking violently. It was dark and silent except for the chattering of my teeth. Then I saw it. A green light came in through the keyhole. It flowed in like a vapor at first and then began to take the shape of a luminescent moth. It approached the bed slowly growing and transforming into a large hairy beast.
All the while, there was a weight building on my chest, and I began to struggle for each breath. Gnarly limbs grew up from the floor and tied my wrists back against the bedpost as I writhed with terror and began to sob.
Suddenly, I could hear a woman's voice. It seemed to be coming from inside of me, reverberating through me.
"You can change how it ends, Danijela," it said. "You MUST change how it ends."
The mora hovered over me, approaching my face with breath like burning sulfur. It hissed and snarled and bore stiletto-like teeth. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This isn't real, I thought to myself. I have the power to end this. No sooner had I thought it than a knife appeared in my hand, and with a single thrust, I broke my arm free and plunged the blade into the beast. It shrieked and shattered into gravel and dust. The viny limb binding my left arm loosened and fell as it turned to yarn.
The voice returned.
"Now, on the count of three you will awaken from your trance."
"1... 2... 3."
*****
The room was bright. It took some time to adjust my eyes and acclimate myself to my new surroundings. I was lying on a rust-colored teak sofa, and there was a table by my feet holding an antique stained-glass lamp and a box of tissues. From somewhere, on a clock radio perhaps, Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 was playing faintly.
"You were very brave today, Danijela."
Dr. Obrenovic's voice was soft and soothing, but as I looked down at my still trembling hands, I could not ignore the bruised and swollen wrists that met them. They were reminders that the horrors of the past could not easily be overcome.
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