Behavior Report 31

Dawn. Day. Night.
Birth. Life. Fright from the ethereal.
Over and over
Light blurs. Shades. Shapes.
Fractions of moments pass in my view.
Flaxen brass leads to pumpkin and then gold.
Sapphire follows. Bold, long, practically interminable.
An amber line crawls across my conscience, warm and sublime.
Minutes feel like hours. Hours like days.
Crimson scarlet bleeds into black.
Shadows stand overhead.
Shapes and shades.
Sleep

Golden flecks steal through moving white veils.
I am more aware than before.
Like a wasp waking to a crisp fall morning, I am lethargic and yearn for the past.
Chills crawl down my arm.
A sting pricks my shoulder.
Washes of color overtake me.
I see a window with clouds and blue sky, but for only a fraction of a moment.
One cloud or maybe many block the sun.
Total darkness engulfs me, constricting.
Shadows stand overhead.
Shapes reach out.
Sleep

An angel speaks. Her words unintelligible.
Rivers of notes from saxophones pour over and flow steadily.
Trumpets ride the current, navigating through quiet lapping and rapid junctures.   
Drums crash occasionally like rocks falling from a cliff and splashing.
Eventually, the river curves to a whole new setting.
Calm and quiet, allowing the angel to speak.
Home.
Girl.
Forgetting.
Surrender.
Saxophones play. Trumpets squeal.
I am surrounded by walls, merlot colored.
One window with blue sky and sunlight.
Singing adorns my surroundings. Soft. Lovely words. I’ll be Seeing you.
Shadows now stand overhead.
Chills crawl down my arm.
A sting pricks my shoulder.
Sleep

I awake to my room plated in brass.
Morning light forges against a black sky in the window,
Shunning shadows, invigorating spirits.
Shards of sunlight reveal dust and dirt,
Clinging to the melting glass.
Dirty secrets hide in plain sight,
Only to be revealed at the right time.
Wet diamonds and crystals are faceted to a silver web,
Spun into delicate pendants draped along the window frame.  Focus returns.
I turn.
Stare at the ceiling.
Realization.

I am awake.

… I’ve never felt so out of sorts.

Tired …

Weak …  

Shooting pains wrap around from the back of my head to my forehead. I sit up from a soft mattress with white sheets pulled up tightly around my neck and shoulders.

… comfortable.

I haven’t felt this comfortable since … well … I don’t recall.

Blood rushes from my head, sending immediate regret. The aches wrap around like steamrollers painfully attempting to flatten out my skull.

My right shoulder feels as if it has been beaten by a sledgehammer.

Bruises …

Black and blue stains, just under my skin, wrap around numerous red pinpricks.

Pinpricks?

I don’t recall having them before. They bring back a memory of when I’d crawled through the woods as a child and come out with scratches and poke marks from the needles of the white pines and blue spruce. Their sap always irritated my skin, puffy and red, with little red dots where the needles poked. But I didn’t crawl through any spruce when I last–

Where was I last?

I think and force myself to remember, but the pain, throbbing, makes it difficult. Rich merlot-colored walls surround me with oak picture rails near the white ceiling and oak wainscoting accenting the lower halves of the wall. The floor is a marvelously glossy golden oak parquet, formed in a herringbone pattern that, depending on how you look at it, either points to leave or welcomes someone through the only door in the room.

Where am I?

To my left is a window, comprised of two rectangles that slide left and right over one another to let in fresh air. A lackadaisical summer breeze brushes against richly red floor to ceiling length curtains. They gently dance like women spinning to show off their Victorian dresses. Floral scents accent the experience when the breeze finally reaches me.

Dancing. Music. My attention pulls to sounds of saxophones and trumpets playing a familiar tune near the foot of my bed. I cannot place the song.

Too foggy.

I see an oak chest and suit valet stand near the door covered in clothes. There is a helmet, uniform, pack, rifle, and … a sword. A memory returns with the vision of the sword cutting through some sort of stone creature.

These are my things. My shirt is hung on the suit valet hanger and pants draped over the bar. Everything is clean or cleaner than I remember. Everything seems almost new. The rips and tears and holes found in my memory are mended. The wool is free of bloody stains.

If my uniform is there …

I lift the bed sheets. I am wearing cottony white pajamas with blue vertical lines.

Where am I?

I toss the sheets to the foot of the bed and try to get up, but as I attempt to pull my legs, they are caught in something. I try again. My feet can only move so far. I push myself onto my elbows and find that both ankles are shackled independently to each side of the footboard.

Prison?

The shackles are from an era long ago. Thick bands of steel, thick enough to bounce off an ordinance from a tank, wrap around my ankles. Both are connected to fat chain links that could hold off a monster, much larger than me.

A monster …

Darkness …

A cave with a massive monster.

Earl!

No signs of my friend are in the room.

Flashes cross my vision. Memories. Recent memories.

Rosalie …

Her uncle …

The in between world …  

Then everything comes crashing down like a torrential downpour.

The Unforgiveable Savage.

This is most certainly a prison. I am a prisoner. Ambushed and taken here. The shackles are half an inch thick and welded shut. There is no lock to pick. My personal effects, most importantly, my sword is out of reach. My captures are smart. Maniacal. Tools to freedom are in view but untouchable.

I lay down.

Defeated.

Distraught.

Every vision and scent from the room bears down upon me with the weight of a thousand pounds. I sink into the mattress to where it feels like I’m drowning.

The radio’s song reaches a crescendo right as I’m about to go under and drown within the bedsheets, but a voice appears.

“Hello boys.”

Angelic. Smooth. Female.

“I recently met a boy from California.”

Her voice pulls me to safety, as if she’s thrown a lifebuoy. I slap the sheets urgently to bring my head up, breathe, and look at the radio.

“He started crying when he met me.”

My entire being is drawn to the radio. It’s a small wooden square, a box really, stained dark, with a circular speaker that takes up most of the face above the dial. Such a small contraption but powerful enough to hold my attention.  

“He said he missed his girl and that I reminded him of her.”

I have a girl back home …

I need to cut through the fog in my mind, like an adventurer swinging a machete through the undergrowth in a forest, searching for a lost name.

God, I know it, but something is blocking it. I’ve never felt this way before. Hazy. Dense.

“I told him that I was honored to have him think of me that way. Most of you boys have a girl back home and I want you to think about her. Think of her beautiful face and the last time you saw her.”

I squeeze my eyes shut to remember my girl but there’s too much clouding, too much fog, to remember. Why can’t I remember? I remembered Earl, but that came after something sparked his memory.

“Think of the time you last saw her. Was it at home? Was it at a train station right before you shipped off? Maybe she saw you off at the harbor? Think of her waving goodbye, tears in her eyes.”

Like the rising sunlight in my room, a memory slowly appears and shines a light on an experience that I will never forget. It is only covered in darkness, shaded from recognition. One element is all I need to bring it back, but what is it? What is the memory?

“She was probably sad to see you leave. All girls are sad when their man leaves for war.”

Tears. I remember the tears. Dropping on …

… cement … a cement step …

… where you sat, crying because I was leaving. There was a sidewalk leading to the stairs to a house. My house. My wife. MY LOVE!

LUCY!

The moment is immediately illuminated. You, My Love, sat on the front steps to our house, knees together and turned to the side. You held my handkerchief to wipe away the tears. Junior, my boy, my precious little boy, sat between us on the ground, playing.

“She’s probably scared for your safety knowing that you are fighting against—”

The door opens and my attention is drawn to the creak emanating from the brass hinges. From the depths of a hallway outside, a large well-fed woman, wearing a white skirt fitted tightly around her large waist, white shoes, and white nurse’s cap, steps into the room with a syringe in hand. We mutually surprise one another, she by opening the door and me by sitting up in bed. Her mouth forms a circle, as if to say, “Oh,” but nothing comes out. Instead, the needle drops to the floor and shatters with the smallest little crash. In that same instant, blood rushes from my head and I drop back to my pillow before passing out. I see her quickly turn and leave, locking the door.

Whatever liquid was in the needle begins to spread and move toward the window as if the room leans in that direction. I think about the interaction, her face, her quick exit, and wonder what happened. Shortly, I hear padding footsteps come back to the door, and again, the lock clicks and the door opens. The Well-Fed Nurse carries in a small broom and dustpan.

“Bonjour,” she says through a thick, misplaced accent. The word was French, but her accent sounded more like an engine attempting to turn over. She begins to sweep up the mess.

I try to respond. My throat feels like it’s full of rocks and sand. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I’ve never felt so thirsty in my life.

The moment plays out with her sweeping and my study of her presence. I look for clues with the hope that I might understand who she is or where I am. All she offers, though, is a ghostliness. The Well-Fed Nurse’s skin tone matches the white of her gown. She has light blonde hair, almost white, that she pins tightly to her temples. Without the hair pins and moles and blemishes on her skin, one would think she were an apparition.

Her weight is such that it rolls freely and liberally around her body, except at her joints that appear like dimples at her elbows and wrists. Every movement she makes is supported by a grunt or a sigh. When she finishes, she stands and looks at me. Wrinkles surround her eyes like rings expanding in a still pond. They suggest that she could be in her forties or fifties, but her bulbous cheeks soften the lines and make her look younger.

The look in her eyes gives away her true feelings about me.

Disgust.

She wears the uniform of a caretaker but deep down inside, I know that she doesn’t care.

She leaves my room with the broom and dustpan and returns with a glass of water that she sets on a small table next to my bed. Before I can turn or react, her other hand appears from behind her back, and she plunges a new syringe into my arm.

I feel fluids creep into my muscle.

Numbness follows like an ice crystal growing and spreading across my body. Even if I had any energy, I don’t know what I could have done to fight whatever was injected into me.

The Well-Fed Nurse leaves me …

… I feel … as if I’m a cloud.

Weightless …

Open to wherever the winds blow …

Memories … Earl … fade …  

… my … love …