MUTE part 7

Chapter 4

It had been all of six days since Ames died when I first went to Dr. Martin. That was what I kept thinking about, as I sat in the waiting room with my mom. Wasn't it early? Didn't people usually wait a while before going to therapy? I'm not sure why that was, exactly. Maybe they weren't ready for therapy yet. Maybe they couldn't find a good therapist right away. I'm not sure if I was ready yet, but my mom insisted, and of course finding a trauma therapist who was available, and even spoke sign language, took no time at all for her. As I sat there, my palms sweat, which was something that I had heard of happening to other people but had never really happened to me before. It was bizarre, to me, and annoying, and I kept wiping my hands on my jeans. I looked like a wreck- I hadn't brushed my hair in a week, my eyes were red and puffy, my cheeks were pale and splotchy. But I wasn't really all that considered about my appearance, considering I was in a trauma therapy building. Eventually we were called in, and I asked my mom to let me go alone. She stared at me for a moment but then just nodded. I was uncomfortable enough, I didn't want her with me, watching me. I felt sick, being there, like because I hadn't been actually related to Ames, I had no right to be getting therapy. I kept worrying that Ames's parents would walk through the door and see me. I knew they wouldn't actually be upset at me- who could be upset at someone for being depressed about their child's death?- but the notion still worried me. I was glad when the door closed behind me, making me sure the Tylers couldn't see me here. Dr. Martin welcomed me and asked me to sit down. There was a chair in front of his desk, where I sat- just a chair, not a long, red leather love seat for me to stretch out on, as I had imagined a therapist's office in my mind until that moment. I sat there and stared at Dr. Martin as he straightened a couple piles of I don't know what on his desk before finally also sitting down. The office smelled like sweat, and I could tell why by the way my forehead was already perspiring after only having been in the room twenty seconds- the stuffiness did nothing to help my nervousness. There was a fan in a far corner of the room, next to a couch covered in stacks of papers. It didn't really help, instead just mixing the hot air around the room. Dr. Martin was a man in his mid-fifties, slightly overweight, with very little hair to speak of. He had glasses around a chain on his neck but as he took a moment to read some paper on his desk he made no move to pull them onto his face. His nose was slightly crooked, and I wondered if he had broken it or if he was simply born that way. Then I started wondering, if he had broken it, how he had. Maybe he got in a fist-fight in grade school. Maybe he got hit by a stray baseball. Maybe he tripped when getting on a boat and hit his nose on one of the safety poles. Maybe he was performing as Romeo in a play and Juliet made a violent gesture to animate her despair, smacking his face with force. Or maybe he walked into a wall. Dr. Martin cleared his throat and I looked away from his nose, settling on his eyes. They were icy blue, the kind that might have made girls go crazy when he was younger. Maybe he was kissing a girl and another girl, jealous, aimed a punch at her face but missed, permanently scarring his once-perfect features. "You are...Melissa Blanchard." Don't wear it out, I motioned. Dr. Martin's face remained expressionless, and I looked awkwardly down at my hands. Dr. Martin's breath smelled like salami. His office was filled with posters, bright photographs and cartoons with happy subjects and terrible catchphrases. The only one I liked at all was a photograph of a kid sitting on a bench, staring at the camera with a relatively blank face, a speech bubble above him bluntly declaring, "At least you're alive." It seemed sort of out of place with the rest of the cheesy posters. "So," Dr. Martin said, clasping his hands together, "I know that today is our first day together, and that it will feel hard for you to open up to me at first. But over time, I want to let you know that it will get easier, and eventually you'll feel comfortable telling me anything." I stared at him and wondered how he could sound so sure of that. Maybe I would never feel comfortable telling him things. "So let's jump right into it," he said, sitting up and clapping his hands together. That phrase seemed ironic to me, as if he was a tutor and now we were going to start my math homework, when really he was talking about trying to get over my dead boyfriend. "Would you like to tell me who it is that you lost?" I stared at him and then motioned, Not particularly. Dr. Martin smiled, which annoyed me, and said, "Well, that's alright. You don't have to tell me everything right away. Why don't we just get to know each other a little bit, before we start any real work? Kind of like school." I stared at him and fought to not raise an eyebrow. "I'll start," he said, cracking his fingers. "I'm Conrad Martin. I enjoy talking to and helping people and cooking. I graduated from the University of Washington." He smiled at me, "Now why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself." I stared at him a moment longer before slowly motioning, I'm Lissa Blanchard. I enjoy, I paused, thought for a moment, and then motioned, being alone. I didn't graduate from anywhere. I paused another moment and Dr. Martin smiled and opened his mouth to say something before I quickly moved my hands, adding, I'm mute. Dr. Martin seemed surprised by my saying this, and I was satisfied. I told him nothing of any importance the rest of that day, and when I left, I went home and sprayed my mom's perfume on myself like nobody's business.

© 2011

MUTE part 6

It was pretty quiet, given the time, and Janice had the only other table that was currently occupied, so I was forced to wait on Ames. "Hello again," he said to me with a grin. I gave him dagger eyes and motioned drinking again, and he smiled and said, "I'll have some coffee, please." He said "coffee" with a New York accent and then smiled hugely at me like he'd just cracked the world's greatest joke, and I rose an eyebrow sarcastically and turned away from him. I poured the coffee and brought it back to him, and then I scrunched up my face. "What?" he asked, glancing down at his shirt. I ripped a sheet off my pad and wrote, You have paint in your hair. He laughed, "Oh, yea. So I do." And smiled at me. I bit my lip, placed his coffee down, and hurried away to get the newlyweds' food order. When I came back, Ames was sipping his coffee calmly, giving me a poker face. I crossed my arms at him and just stared straight into his eyes until he broke and that same little grin came back to his mouth. I sighed dramatically and turned, though I had nothing else to do. “Looks like you don’t have much to do,” Ames said playfully, “Why don’t you come sit by me?” I glared at him and shook my head. He stuck out his bottom lip, pleading, and said, “Come on,” drawing out ‘on’. Janice, who was clueless to the fact that I didn’t want to sit next to Ames, walked up then and said, “Go ahead, Melissa. No one’s coming in here for a while anyway.” Put into an awkward spot, I made my way around the counter and sat awkwardly next to Ames, examining my nails and avoiding eye contact. Ames leaned over toward me and said, “You look awful cute in that uniform, you know.” I blushed, but then cleared my face and wrote on my order pad, I look awfully cute in everything. Ames laughed out loud and slapped my back, with force that surprised me and almost threw me off my stool. He picked up his coffee and said, pointing to it, “This is good.” I smiled and nodded in agreement. “I wanted to tell you,” Ames said, “I really liked your drawing today.” I blushed again and looked back down at my nails. Thanks, I wrote, and he nodded, taking another sip of his coffee. A woman in a large coat walked in, and I stood up and gave Ames and awkward little wave, going to take her order, and he left money on the counter and picked up his backpack, the door chiming behind him.

When I got home, the house was dark. My shift had ended at 8, and Val had driven me home. My dad was probably still at work, but my mom should have been home. When I walked in, I flipped on the kitchen light and found a note on the table that said, Baby- Gone to Bryce's. Be back in time for dinner. Bryce was a woman in her late forties with brilliant, frizzy red hair that she styled elaborately and piled on top of her head. Her skin was fair and her cheekbones high, making her skin appear tight, as if it had been placed delicately onto her skull and then pulled back at the edges to get out all the air bubbles. She wore parkas and long skirts, and went everywhere barefoot. She got second glances from men because of her Snow-White-esque ruby-red lips and dazzling blue eyes, but she rarely dated because even her perfect features couldn't hide her personality, which was often too much for mens' tastes. My mom loved spending time with her, and it seemed she was always either at her house or having her over to ours. But I think she liked her more because she was fascinated and amused by her than because she actually wanted to share a friendship of mutual respect with her. I, on the other hand, really did love Bryce, and went to her for advice far more often than my mother. And I could go to her for advice, because, of course, as is to be expected from a woman like Bryce, she spoke sign language. That was how my mother and her met. Bryce frequently took in misfits- her house became like a boarding house, only minus the rent. One boy, about my age, stayed in her home for about eight months when I fifteen, and Bryce learned sign language because he was deaf. My mother saw Bryce motioning to him- Lamont, was his name- and introduced herself, and, indirectly, me, though I was not with her at the time. The whole time Lamont was staying with Bryce, my mother and her tried to set us up, but he was about as interested in me as I was in professional croquet, and, honestly, even though he couldn't talk, he had quite a mouth on him. I was glad when he left.

I folded the note and put it in the trash, and then parked myself on the couch, trying to think of excuses to not start my homework.

© 2011

No Sense (anything can happen) part 13

When he was finished he blew flecks of wood off the mantle and leaned away from it, crossing his arms across his chest. "That's beautiful," I said, imagining the tiny carved eyelashes blinking. Noah grinned at me, "Maybe compared to the blank wood walls in here." I grinned, "Well, yea, I guess there's not a whole lot for me to go off of here." Noah smiled and turned his whole body toward me suddenly. "So, you're a glitch." I squinted at him, "Yup. I think we covered that." His eyes gleamed with excitement. "So you know what it's like then. On The Outside." I thought of Jen's face, her eyes focused on mine, filled with determination as she tried not to scream, her face covered in sweat. "Sure do." He smiled like a child in front of a candy store, "Can you tell me about it?" I rose an eyebrow at him, "Why? It's not like you never lived there." He shrugged, looking away from me, "I probably didn't experience it quite the same quite the same way that you did." I looked straight into his eyes, "What do you mean?" Noah shrugged again, the sparkle back in his eyes, "Doesn't matter. Tell me about The Outside." It was strange, hearing the rest of the world- my life, before the disease spread- spoken about like that, like it was a place bizarre and far off. "There are a lot more surprises there. Like the weather, for instance. You could never be sure if it would rain or be sunny." Noah shook his head, "No, I know about that. Tell me about the other things. The...man-made things. What did people do to entertain themselves?" I thought about this. "A lot of things," I said eventually. "It really depended on the person. There were a lot of options." I sighed, "Unlike the Entertainment Center." Noah's expression was excited and impatient, "Well, what did you do?" What did I do, indeed? "I lived in a relatively small town. I liked to go to the shopping district- that was a long street with a lot of small stores on each side of the road-and just walk there, watching people shop and talk and laugh. There was also a small beach that wasn't too far from my house, and I used to take me daughter there and watch her swim and build sand castles, despite the fact that the water was colder than ice." I smiled at the memory of Jen at that beach, calling out to me as she splashed in the waves and explaining to me the backstories of the imaginary inhabitants of her sand castles. Noah sounded surprised when he asked, "You had a daughter?" Startled, I blinked, "What?" He rose an eyebrow, and I rambled, "Oh. No. I mean, yes, but no, she was actually my sister, but..." I trailed off, then shook my head, "Anyway. It was really wonderful. I miss it a lot." Noah stared at me a moment longer before looking back into the fire. "I wonder if I would," he said, and I asked, "Would what?" He smiled slightly, sort of sadly, "Miss it. I wonder if I would miss your Outside if I had...if it had been the same for me." I still didn't know exactly what he meant, but I said, "You would." He glanced at me and I nodded before looking again into the flames, "Trust me. You would."

© 2011

No Sense (anything can happen) part 12

When I woke up, Noah was gone. What dim light had poured in from the couple tiny windows was gone now, and the little house would be pitch black, if Noah hadn't left a few candles flickering; two on the hearth and two on the table. He probably hadn't been thinking of me when he left out the candles, as I had been sleeping, but I supposed he wanted to keep up appearances, make sure it looked like someone was still living here. I stretched and walked back over to the hearth. I sat on the stool and stared at the flickering flame, wondering. Wondering how I had gone from a single "mom" working in a small town coffee shop to an immuno to a disease that had killed- and was killing- most of the Earth's population, now incognito inside a tiny house that looked like something a family of slaves on a plantation might have lived in. Wondering why in the world there was a monarchy going on here, why the government officials, as I supposed was the best thing I could call them, called themselves "Great Ones" and dressed in medieval costumes. Wondering how humanity had come to a point where it thought its only means of survival were to tweak people's brains, turn them into happy little robots who could never be greedy, angry, selfish, or human. And wondering why...why my sister was gone. Why she couldn't be a survivor while my flesh rotted in the ground, dreaming of a world where she lived, and the quarantine bubble created for immunos was not full of robots, but instead rules. And my little sister. Before very long, my body felt exhausted, and I crossed the room back and fell asleep again.

The third time I woke up in the little house, the smell of warm bread reached me at the same moment my eyes registered the room around me. I blinked, adjusting to the dim light, and sat up. The smell reminded me of the bakery at the grocery store by my house, how Jen would get so excited when they announced over the intercom that fresh bread had just been taken out of the oven. I remembered buying baguettes for her and how only half of the baguette would be left by the time we got home. Sighing, I stood up and walked over to the swinging doors, pushing them open to find Noah standing behind the metal island, picking chunks of bread off of one of the two loaves in front of him. He grinned, widely, strikingly, at me, and said, "Morning, sleeping beauty." I blushed, despite my best efforts, and said, idiotically, "Is that bread?" Noah nodded, "That it is. Would you care for some?" I hadn't realized that I was starving until I saw the bread, but by this point I was fully aware, so I skirted quickly around the island and ripped a large piece of the bread off, eating it like a ravenous dog and then immediately reaching for more. Noah laughed and said, with an eyebrow raised, "Hungry?" I blushed again but stuffed more bread into my mouth anyway. The last meal I had was the feast with Delatrix, which now felt both as if it had occurred five minutes ago and five days ago. With all the sleeping I had been doing, and the lack of a clock or actually substantial windows, I wasn't sure which estimated amount of time was closer to the truth. Noah pushed the loaf I had been eating off of closer to me and I obediently finished it off as he stored the other loaf in one of the enormous fridges. "Sorry I wasn't able to get more," he said, moving back toward me, "Sneaking food is harder than you'd imagine." He stood in front of me with his body angled in toward mine, leaning on the island, and my pulse raced like a marathon runner. After a moment of silence, he squinted at me as if I was blurry and informed me, "You look very tired." I blushed bright yet again and looked at my feet, and then he added, "And yet very beautiful." He grinned at me as red overcame my cheeks a fourth time, and then asked, "How do you manage that?" I ignored the question and asked, "How did you smuggle that bread?" He smiled and turned away from me, walking toward the kitchen doors, "Just call me Clyde." I bit my lip and stared at the counter. It was so bizarre, that counter. The whole kitchen was bizarre, really. Something so elaborate in a house that was so simple. I looked up after a moment and followed Noah into the main part of the house. He was sitting in front of the furnace on one of the stools, staring at the tiny porcelain doll on the mantle. It was a little maid with an apron and braids piled on her head. I walked over to my cot- which seemed to be where I would be spending most of my time in here- and lay down, staring at the ceiling. A moment later, I heard a sort of scratching noise coming from Noah's direction and turned onto my side to find him chipping away at the wood with a pocket knife. I propped myself up on my elbow and asked, "Where'd you get that?" He glanced back at me, his light eyes illuminated by the fire behind him, and asked, "This?" I nodded, almost dropping my head with the motion. "I had it in my pocket when we left the Great House." I stood up and walked towards Noah as he turned away from me again. "What are you doing?" This time he didn't turn as he replied, "I'm carving our little mantle maid." I smiled and looked at the outline of a face on the mantle. I pulled up the other stool and watched as he etched more details onto the tiny maid's face than there actually were on the porcelain figure.

© 2011

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself and example of those who believe. 1 Timothy 4:12

Nibble part 31

We ordered a dessert and Nick shoveled the fudge brownie into his mouth like he was on a schedule. I laughed at him, and he promptly started licking his fingers. "Oh, gross," I laughed blocking the view with my hands. He grinned at me and stuck his thumb in his mouth and I groaned, though I was smiling. He pulled his thumb out and then stared at me thoughtfully for a moment before saying, "I'm gonna take you bowling." My eyebrows shot up, "Bowling?"

"Mhm," he said, nodding as he slipped cash into the bill. "Is there even a bowling alley around here?" Nick smiled at me and said, "I know of two."

"How do you even know about this place? I've never seen it before in my life." Nick shrugged, handing the tired-looking guy behind the shoe rental counter a couple of bills, and the guy yawned and asked our sizes before lazily sauntering off to find us the proper shoes. Nick shrugged, "I noticed when driving around one time. I think I was actually looking for a nail salon." I rose my eyebrows at this, and he laughed and added, "For my mom." I smiled, "You took your mom to get her nails done?" He blushed and shrugged sheepishly, "She doesn't get a lot of time to herself." The guy plopped our shoes down on the counter with a thump, and Nick grabbed them for us and walked over to a bench. I pulled mine on and he tied them for me before I could, and then went on to his own. We walked over to the lanes and Nick handed me a ball. "So, do you come here often?" I asked, holding the ball with both hands. Nick laughed, "Nope. Bowling's not really the most entertaining hobby in the world to do by yourself."

Nick drove me back to the alley after we finished bowling and made a quick stop at McDonald's for vanilla ice cream. I was still finishing my cone when Nick parked, and I took the final bite before Nick opened the passenger door and I got out. I grinned at him, and suddenly felt nervous, shy. "Thanks," I said, and then dropped into a deep, booming accent I had never heard before, "That was great fun." Nick laughed and I blushed, smiling, and looked down. I thought about kissing him. Going on my tip-toes and wrapping my arms around his neck. But instead I looked up, bit my lip, and said, "Good night," before running off, running home. I thought about kissing him, but then I thought that maybe, somehow, when I got home, my dad would be sitting in the living room, and he would be able to tell that I had just been kissing someone.
So I didn't kiss Nick that night.

It was 7 AM when I got home. The house was pitch black, except for those numbers, 7:03, on the microwave, their blue light illuminating the tiny screen. Both of my parents were already at work. I couldn't believe the time. It was Saturday now, so I went to my room and lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, a smile on my face. I felt something poking my bare foot and sat up. When I looked down at my feet, I found what looked like a nail clipping, and I stared at it for a moment before throwing it in the trash. It was as if things were going too well for me, and someone wanted to remind me that it had never stayed good for long before, and that this time wouldn't be any different. I lay back down and thought about my nails. They were long now, growing fast, and I had to file them all the time to keep them from breaking off, but I could remember clearly how they used to be. Beyond stubby, the low purpl-ish lines where my nails now turned from pink to white used to be the average end-point for my nails, except when things were really bad, in which case they only reached about halfway up the part of the fingertip where nails grow. I remembered wincing from the burning sting when a smooth peel back of the tip of my nail would end in a stubborn point that didn't want to leave- I would have to yank it out, and a tiny drop of blood would usually surface there, the mark at the end of a trail of red caused by my ripping my nails back relentlessly. If any of my nails started to grow a little bit, to the point where the tiniest little sliver at the top was white, like a detail brush had been used to give me a wiggly french tip, it was like that tiny bit of white would eat me alive, from the inside out, if I didn't immediately get rid of it, along with any nail beneath it that's coloring indicated in the least bit that the white tip had shown itself there. I remembered all this, and then rolled over on my side, and wished I had kissed Nick that night.


© 2011

Have A Little Faith part 6

Keira’s parents owned a motel, the only place to stay overnight in town. It was one of those kind of gross looking ones with two floors, where someone’s always killed in movies. Her parents lived their, and Keira spent most of her night’s at either Queen’s house or mine, but one of the rooms at the motel was technically hers. Cyrus, for some reason, was really excited about this. “Do you guys not realize how cool that is? To have your own little hotel room, all to yourself, all the time?”
“Motel,” Keira corrected him. “Whatever,” he said. He looked around at all of us. We were sitting by the road again, but Queen was now laying North to South instead of West to East. “Do you at least use the pool?” Cyrus persisted, his hands linked behind his hands as he stood near Queen on the road, staring off into the distance as if waiting for his ride to come pick him up and take him away. Queen popped a bubble and Nate looked over at Cyrus with his eyes squinted against the sunlight, “Not really.” Cyrus threw his hands up in mock surrender and walked back to the edge of the road, falling down beside me in the dirt and weeds. “So instead of going to hang out at the motel you have full access to, where you can take as much advantage of the resources there as your hearts desire, you guys come here and sit on the side of the road.” Queen rose her hand in protest and said, “I lay in the road, actually.” Cyrus looked at me and shook his head, and I fought a grin. “You know what I’m talking about,” he said to me. He looked at Queen and then pointed to me as he said to her, “She knows what I’m talking about. She wants to go hang out at the motel.” Queen’s face was blank, and she said nothing in response, simply blowing another bubble.
Later that afternoon, Cyrus finally forced all of us to go to the motel. “First off,” he said as we all grumpily got out of Nate’s car, “Keira should show us her room.” Keira rolled her eyes, “Believe me, it’s nothing special.” But she led us to it anyway. It was room 146 on the second floor, and the door was pink. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out her skinny wallet. From the slot above her ID, she pulled out the key card and then unlocked the door, pushing it open slowly. Her bed was made, clearly the work of housekeeping by the way the sheets were folded, and the only thing that really differentiated it from any of the other rooms was the huge Guns ‘N Roses poster taped over the bed. Keira didn’t even like Guns ‘N Roses, but her brother, who had moved to Maine and now visited rarely and called never, had sent it to her in the mail one day, inexplicably, with no note-the only thing that identified it as coming from him was the return address on the envelope. She missed her brother like crazy, and adored anything he sent her, which was very little. She had taped the poster up on the wall without a word when it arrived one day in May the previous year, not saying anything about the lack of explanation her brother had given her, just beaming at the poster like he had sent her a long, heartfelt letter written by hand with a quill. The closet was stocked with her clothes and the bathroom had a make-up bag and a toiletry bag on the counter, along with the little plastic cups, complimentary soap, shampoo, and conditioner. There was a mini-fridge, of course, with a coffee maker on top of it, and in front of the bed and next to the closet was the TV, which Keira always turned on when we spent the night here, the volume low, background noise as we talked and painted our nails. Cyrus rose an eyebrow at the lack of personalization, and Keira noticed his expression and said, with a shrug, “Like I said. Nothing special.”
“It’s nice,” Cyrus protested, stepping in farther and glancing around. Keira rose an eyebrow in disagreement. “At least you have a TV in your room,” he said, gesturing to the TV with a smile. Keira looked over at the TV as if it was something rotten, scrunching her nose up before turning and saying, “Ok. We’re leaving.” Cyrus sighed but didn’t protest, and Keira locked the door behind us. “Let’s go down to the pool,” he said, bouncing on his feet with the energy he had from our constant lounging. “We don’t have bathing suits on,” Tim pointed out. “Who cares?” Cyrus said, “We can just stick our feet in. Come on. Please?” He held out the last word in such a childlike way, we couldn’t refuse him. So we piled into the elevator and walked over toward the pool.
It was a hot day, and the pool did look pretty appealing once we were actually inside the gate, so I took off my shoes and stepped calf-high into the water. "That's the spirit!" Cyrus said, walking up beside me and swinging his arm around my shoulder as he slipped his flip-flops off and joined me in the water. I jumped, surprised by the impact of his arm, and my heart continued to pound for the continuity of the time his arm stayed there. Keira noticed my wide eyes and smirked at me, and then came over and said to Cyrus, her arms crossed over her chest, "I dare you to go in." Cyrus rose and eyebrow, and then grinned, took his arm off my shoulder- I shot Keira a look of gratitude- and rubbed his hands together before stepping out of the pool and walking over to the side. He glanced at the water with narrow eyes and then timidly stuck a toe in- though he had just been standing in the pool and knew very well the temperature- before backing up toward the gate, taking his shirt off with on quick motion, and running toward the pool, doing a cannonball that splashed all of us. "Oh, man," Nate said, laughing and looking down at his shirt. "Great," Tim said, shaking his arms of the water. I laughed, pushing my now-wet hair out of my face- I had gotten splashed more than anyone, based on where I was standing, and said, "Thank you, for that, Trace." Cyrus was treading water and grinned widely at me, "Any time."

© 2011