Renting IdentityA Story by TraceyPotgieter
“Can you tell me who you are?”
A voice cut into his hazy world. He blinked a few times, trying to focus on the person standing over him. His fuzzy vision cleared and he found himself lying on the floor in a corridor, staring up at a woman’s face hovering over him.
“Can you remember anything that happened before you blacked out, Sir?”
“Who are you?” he asked, rather abruptly.
“I am a nurse. You don’t know where you are?” she asked, straightening up.
“All I remember is that I was treating one of my patients and then…” he stopped, his voice trailing off. He struggled to remember. What did happen then?
“And then?” she pressed.
“Well, you tell me. Clearly what happened next is the reason for me being…wherever I am now.” He pushed himself up onto his elbows to see her better.
“Mill Gate. Block A.”
“The hospital wing?” now he was thoroughly confused, Block A was miles away…
“What actually happened?” he asked.
“I’m surprised you don’t remember, you came charging down the corridor screaming like a maniac at someone. We tried to restrain you but you just passed out right here.”
“And you say this is Block A?”
“Correct,” she said.
“I don’t understand how that happened. I work in Block D,” he said.
“The psych ward?” she said hesitantly. She paused before continuing in a rather jerky fashion, “We have quite a few that like to…liberate themselves…from their…sectors…in that block.”
“Well, I can assure you I am not one of those. I work there. And I have a new patient coming today so I’d appreciate it if you would kindly discharge me or whatever it is that you need to do, so I may be on my way.”
She stared at him for a few seconds. Turning on her heel she walked towards her station, her shoes squeaking on the linoleum floors. She picked up a phone and hastily pressed a few numbers. He sat up warily, in case he might fall over. There was a little more silence and a quiet murmur as she spoke to a person on the other end of the line. She nodded a few times with mutters of agreement and put the phone down. She walked back to him her shoes making that same annoying squeaking sound. She reached out a hand to help him up. He took it grudgingly and stood up.
“I phoned someone from Block D. They’ll escort you back.”
“I know my way back, thank you very much,” he scoffed indignantly.
“It’s just a precaution, in case you acquired some kind of injury that you can’t remember and may require assistance along the way,” she said with an odd gentleness to her voice.
Since he could find no argument against this, he chose to remain in sulky silence as he waited, watching the clock, aggravated by the amount of time he was losing with his patients. His foot twitched in agitation every few seconds. He was becoming irritated by the way the nurse kept looking at him as if he was off his rocker and may flip at any moment. He was slowly sliding down in his chair. He rested his head back against the windowsill. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, trying to dissolve his agitation with some relaxation. The nurse reminded him of a therapist many years ago. He remembered sitting across from that therapist, a long time back, shortly after his father’s death. His mother had been worried because he had shown no emotion, no inclination at being upset, or even happy, in any way. He remembered feeling absolutely nothing. Apparently this was a problem, so his mother had booked him into a therapist. He had found the process rather futile but he attended the meetings out of obligation towards his mother. He remembered fighting with his mother about it; she had been enraged at his blatant disregard for her feelings and his apparent attitude of taking it all for granted. She had hit him once. It was with an open palm but he could still feel the stinging on his cheek when he thought about it. He unconsciously reached up to touch the place where she’d struck him.
“Clayton?”
A voice made him jerk upright. He hadn’t been aware that he’d been dozing off. He wiped his eyes as the sharp daylight blinded him slightly. He saw Edward Brother, the Head of Mill Gate Hospital, standing in front of him.
“Clayton, are you alright? You seem to have wandered a bit far from home.” Brother accompanied this statement with an attempt at a smile. Clayton shook his head to clear away the last of the daze that had crept in.
“I’m fine,” he said, standing up. He warily eyed Brother. They had never really clicked. Brother took great pleasure in being Clayton’s boss. It was rather unfortunate that the therapist to whom Clayton had gone to as a child was the same one Edward Brother had been to. He had met Brother one day at the end of a session. He decided on that spot that he disliked him. It was a mutual feeling. Unfortunately they attended the same university and studied the same thing. Brother found immense pleasure in taunting Clayton every time he beat him in some test or exam – which was usually. He had always come second to Brother; in studies, in people’s lives. In life itself. He scowled at the thought of how he had been so influenced by Brother his whole life. The nurse was still eyeing him out with fearful interest.
“I am to take you back to Block D,” Brother said, interrupting Clayton’s thoughts.
“I can find my own way back, thank you very much.”
“It’s just a precaution, in case you acquired some kind of injury that you can’t remember and may require assistance along the way.”
Clayton was taken aback by the exact same wording as the nurse, with not even a fraction of the same gentleness. He now knew to whom she had been talking to. Brother had obviously picked up on the other end and decided to get his kick out of patronising Clayton for the day by babysitting him.
“Shall we be going?” Brother asked, accompanying his statement with a sardonic sneer.
“Hey where are you going?” the nurse called.
“Back,” Clayton said, “Just leave me alone.”
He let out an involuntary snort of indignation before setting off, trailing behind in Brother’s shadow.
Clayton could hear his hurried footsteps echoing along the corridors. He flung the door to his office open and hurried inside. He turned to close it. As he turned back, he was startled by a girl standing right behind him. He took a step back out of shock.
“Sorry I –” he began
“You’re late,” she said, cutting him off with such power of conviction, he was forced into momentary silence.
The words hung in the air. They stared at each other, her eyes boring straight through him.
“Yes. Yes I am. I apologise. I was held up,” he said, once he regained his voice, moving towards his chair and sitting down.
She said nothing more. She turned sharply and sat down in a chair opposite him.
He pulled out his trusty notepad and scrawled a date and time across the page, stopped and then asked, “What is your name?”
She smiled and said, “Tannin will do.”
Something about the name made him feel uneasy. The letters seemed to cling to the air, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Or was it the twisted smile that had that effect? She must have seen the look on his face because she seemed to answer the question before he could ask,
“My father,” she said, “He never said why, maybe he liked the strangeness of it? My mother wanted to name me Tanner and my father Shannon, so with some imagination and combination he came up with Tannin.”
Her voice, he thought as he scrawled details, her voice was what unsettled him.
“Do you mind?” she interrupted. He looked up,
“Yes?”
“Stop writing,” she said.
He set his pen and notepad down slowly, his eyes not leaving hers. There was something in them that he saw that made him nervous. He took a deep breath,
“So, Tannin, what made you decide to come here?”
“I didn’t. The court decided I needed to.”
“Where is your mother?”
“Dead.”
“And your father?”
“Dead,” she pronounced again, rather flatly, “And please don’t say you’re sorry or give your condolences, they’re not necessary. They’re right where they belong, in my opinion. Rotting six feet under.”
Clayton stared at her as he realised what he saw in her: himself.
Clayton sat in the lunchroom later in the day eating roast chicken and potatoes. Peas riddled his plate, something inside him was angered, why did they always give him peas? They knew he hated peas. For a fleeting moment Clayton was disturbed at the feeling that arose within him. If he didn’t know better he would think he was falling victim to some hysterical paranoia. He chewed slowly on a tough piece of chicken, deep in thought. He could hear whispered rumours surrounding him. He knew people spoke about him behind his back. He tilted his head slightly; he remembered asking his new patient what she thought about rumours. She’d said that it didn’t matter what other people thought. She wisely advised him to forget what other people thought because it was...he frowned trying to remember her exact wording. Inconsequential, that was the word. He smiled slightly to himself. He pushed his uneaten food away from him and sat back in his chair. She was a tough one to crack that one. He was slowly running out of ways to try to get her to open up more about the things that had happened to her. He could sense that her father had been a disappointment just as his had been. They had that in common, at least. Perhaps he should bring it up, form some kind of link between them. Unfortunately he had lost so much time waiting to be escorted back that he hadn’t had much time to create some kind of profile on his new patient. The thought still infuriated him.
“You done?”
Clayton looked up. Someone had come to collect his plate. A woman, she obviously worked here but he had never seen her before. He was irritated at the disturbance; of course he was done, what was wrong with her. He wished he could scream that at her but he restrained himself, contenting himself with a strained smile instead. He felt a headache coming on, it had been a long day and he felt tired. Completely drained. He put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes.
“Yes,” he murmured, “I’m done.”
“So, Tannin, tell me...who are you?” Clayton asked, possibly the millionth question he had asked this session, which was met with silence. She was nowhere near as chatty as she had been the first time. He knew that she had had a visitor earlier in the day, but he did not know what they had spoken about. He was not in the mood for playing mind games with patients. He hadn’t slept well and he wasn’t feeling particularly sociable himself.
“How was your visit?” he asked, again met with silence. She seemed to have drifted off to some faraway place in her head that the normal world could not get through to her.
“Tannin –” he began, but her voice cut into the haze of quietness.
“I saw a girl who was not real, never real. I met a girl we made a deal, a real deal. I sold the girl my soul, my entity. Just for the devil to rent me my identity.”
The words seemed familiar. There was an uneasy silence in the atmosphere as Clayton thought of an appropriate answer. She had not even looked at him once in the passing time they’d been together. A tension started to develop around her, a tension so thick; a bread knife would bend trying to cut it. Clayton surveyed her with a steady gaze, pending a proper answer, yet not an iota came. From the moment he had met her he knew she was different. All psychologically unstable people were special, but this one, this girl; she knew things beyond human comprehension, Clayton was convinced. She was still fairly young but had wise words to answer with, when she chose to respond. She did not talk to others usually, so when she did he made a point to try find out why or what she said. She had apparently spoken to another of his patients. He had tried contacting that patient but they had apparently been discharged and disappeared. The offices had no records of the person. He continued his search for a few days more but eventually put it down to slack organisational skills in the admin department. Since she was so out of it, he opted for another approach.
“Do you know what day it is presently?” Clayton asked. He did not expect an answer, but this time there was one. It came with a disturbing casualty and uniformity. She pronounced her words with certainty of conviction, as if every word she spoke stood trial with her conscience. Instead of answering with a reply, she replied with a question.
“How do you discern there is a present, Doctor?” she asked, her eyes flicking to his face.
“What do you mean?” he was slightly perturbed by her response.
“Well, occasion passes by so swiftly, is the present conceivably so rapid that the amount of time it is undeniable for is so diminutive, so incomprehensible to the human acumen, that it would be acceptable for one to say that the present could, in fact, not exist?”
He was taken aback by her choice of words. He had not expected such a profound answer since he had not got any answer at all in this session. He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair awkwardly, he could feel her eyes boring through his skull, as if she were studying his mind. She followed his movements with her eyes. Her face denied any and every emotion to him. It was as if there was a shutter, no, more a steel barricade, blocking his forward progression. She continued in her own manner.
“May I ask, what makes you so compelled to study me?” she asked.
“It is my job.”
“Your job. You’re duty-bound then?” She blinked, a look of amusement flitted across her face. “Why, pray tell, did you choose such a substandard profession, Doctor. I thought you would have more substance that this.”
“What makes you consider it ‘substandard’, as you say?”
She seemed to consider her answer, “Your job does not answer your questions, Doctor.”
He was intrigued, “What questions are those?”
“The ones you ask yourself. They are unwavering; they haunt you every hour of darkness. You can’t eat; you can’t sleep. All you can think of is how futile and doomed to failure your life is. You slip deeper into trying to find the answer that you fail to remember the question.”
He sat, stunned for a moment, at her accuracy.
“You seem to be on familiar terms with this,” he remained silent for a short spell until curiosity bettered his logical conflict, “What questions to I ask?”
“The same all people do.”
“Which are?”
“Doctor, I thought your trade was to know these things. You know them; you just do not acknowledge that you do. Your subconscious seems to deny you the right to identify with them.” She had a strange smile that leant itself to neither extreme of pleasure nor derision. “Your matter remains unrequited.”
“Does it?” he raised his eyebrows.
“Yes.” For the first time her eyes moved off him to the board behind him.
“Thursday.” She said simply, shrugging.
“Sorry?” his eyebrows retraced their steps, into a frown.
“It is Thursday.”
It took him a few minutes to realise she was answering his question.
“Tannin, tell me about your father,” Clayton began, “What kind of person was he? Did he-”
“He was a disappointment,” she said sharply, cutting him short.
“And your mother?”
“She was caught in her own world of heroism and valour,” she snorted, “Nothing but romanticism.”
“You do not think much of love?”
She laughed out loud at this, “Love? Romance? Nothing but an idealistic delusion amongst the emotionally avaricious. Don’t fool yourself, Doctor.”
Clayton decided that he would tackle that comment at a later stage, right now however…
“Tell me about your father,” he asked again.
“Do I really have to?”
Clayton nodded.
“I don’t see the point. No use bringing back the ignominies of the departed.”
“No matter. Tell me anyway.”
She let out a rather dramatic sigh, “Oh alright. If I must, I must.”
She took a deep breath before speaking, “My father was a drunkard, he had trouble holding a job, and a wife. Sometimes he would disappear for days on one of his sprees which no doubt involved hookers and gambling. He was a huge fan of laying a bet.” She smiled, there seemed to be some play on words that only made sense in her mind, it faded away soon enough when she continued, “It showed, the fact that he loved to chance, he wagered away his life.” She spat out the last few words as if the mere passing thought contaminated her beliefs. She did not say much, but Clayton felt as if he were making progress. He waited for her to proceed, but she did not volunteer anything further. Instead she chose to look away from him. Her fingers tapping the chair handle in annoyance.
“Do you know why you are here? In this hospital?” he asked.
“Does anyone?” she asked, staring vacantly into the distance.
He smiled a wry smile and gave a chuckle, “True.”
“Do you?” she retorted. Her head snapped back in his direction and her eyes cut through him.
Her accusatory tone seemed to clout the smile from his face, “Of course I do. I work here.”
She cackled with laughter, “You work here? Work? Is that what they call what you do?”
“What I do here does not concern you,” he said defensively.
A mocking smile spread across her face. Her patronizing ways irritated him.
“Alright. But tell me this, Doctor. How do you know that, after all these years of treating deranged people that you yourself have not become one of us? You know, like how the hunter becomes the hunted.”
“I don’t. But I suppose other people would be able to see it. After all, our job is to find and mould the misguided souls into something fit for society.”
Her expression changed to something a bit more serious,
“Fit for society? Have you looked at it lately? Society is fit for nothing. Don’t fool yourself Doctor, we’re all broken. We are all cast in the same broken mould.”
“I suppose we all have our problems.” Clayton had to agree.
“So you’re unsure of your own stability yet you feel free to prescribe to others?” she said giving him another maddeningly condescending smile and leaned forward in her chair and said in a whisper as if sharing a secret, “Rather hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?” she winked.
He didn’t know what to say, but he was sure he wouldn’t call it hypocritical. That would make him sound like…well…a deceitful charlatan. She gave a quiet giggle and looked away.
Clayton realised he had just lost this argument. He resigned himself to a few moments silence while she idly looked out the window. He rubbed his forehead; he felt the headache coming back. Perhaps he needed more sleep.
“You didn’t get enough sleep last night,” she stated, looking back at him, as if she’d read his mind, “It shows.”
He nodded, reaching into his pocket for some pills, “Questions harass me until the early hours these days.”
“Do they now?” she looked away, smiling to herself again. There was a fleeting pause.
“Does anything bother you?” he asked, deciding to get to the point. He swallowed his pills. He didn’t feel like a long drawn out conversation in case his headache worsened. She sighed before answering,
“My mother used to tell me a story about a man,” Clayton rolled his eyes and slumped back into his chair, once more she was strolling off the topic, “this man was pure evil, he wreaked havoc yet he always seemed to get away with it by telling the most incredible lies and charming his way into the hearts of the right people, then one day there was a woman whom he could not fool, could not lie to, and she knew his ways but when she tried to thwart him he had vanished without a trace. To this day he is said to be the devil. He had vanished to her but not to others because to each of us he looks different, he possesses the one thing we desire most, since the root of all evil is temptation. The only reason this woman was not fooled was because she was pure of heart and could not be claimed by the devil. She could not find him because he could possess nothing that she desired because she desired nothing except for him to not exist.” She blinked before continuing, “My mother believed he walks among us,” she said this with a tone that blatantly implied ‘my mother said it so it must be true’. She with all her wisdom and independence, yet she store so much faith by her mother’s opinion. Clayton snorted at the irony.
She noted this and promptly said, “You do not believe he exists?”
“I have my misgivings,” He replied, she was avoiding the topic.
She smirked, “A scientist’s retort, no doubt.”
She stood suddenly. Her movement was so unforeseen that Clayton jumped in surprise. He decided to repeat his question from earlier.
“Does anything bother you?”
She turned away from him to look out of the window. The sun was razor-sharp through the glass and it blinded him, if you gave him a pencil he would only have been able to draw her outline and that would have been challenging in itself.
“Some things,” she sighed, bowing her head, whispering more to herself; it seemed, than to anyone else. Clayton tipped his head to the side in interest of seeing her better, trying to get the sun out of his line of vision.
“Such as?” he asked.
She seemed unwilling to answer for a while. She spoke in quiet voice from where she was standing.
“When I was younger, we used to travel a lot. We would travel for long times on end. I’d lie on the back seat, staring out the window. If I lay there long enough just staring I used to enter this whole other world,” she sighed, “Things were better there.”
She turned from the window and returned to her seat.
“I used to imagine I was somewhere far away. I imagined it to be this beautiful place where no one knew my name. It was a magnificent place. Everyone there had hope and faith and they were never sad. They seemed to get their joy from some inner peace…it’s something…” A sigh.
“Something?” he prompted.
“…It’s something I’ll never understand,” she finished.
“In other words you imagined heaven, in some way?” Clayton asked, he remembered doing the same thing as a child too, some days he still felt like he was in another world.
“You could call it heaven if you wish. I don’t know what to call it. All I know is that I had to believe in it. I had to believe that there was something…” her voice trailed off.
“Something?”
“Something better than this.”
Clayton sat in his room, a pen tightly clasped in his left hand, tapping the book in front of him as he drifted in his own thoughts. Drowned in them would probably be more appropriate but drifted sounded more controlled. Ironic. Odd. He smiled slightly, and then a voice cut in,
“Clayton?”
He instantly recognised Maria’s voice, it had an odd Hispanic accent which she tried to hide but it always seemed to crop up if you listened hard enough. He always enjoyed talking to her. She reminded him of his sister, Emily. They had similar features. Maria always seemed to make him feel saner in this world than anyone else. She was discharged months ago but somehow seemed to like it more in here than out there. He always wondered if she was running from something but never seemed to find the appropriate moment to ask. He turned in his chair to face her,
“Maria.”
“I thought you were working today?”
“I am.”
“It does not seem like it.”
“I am a little lost in thought.”
“About what? Something important I hope?”
She moved to his bed to sit down. He marvelled at her beauty, she was beautiful in her simplicity. There was little he liked more than to just watch her speak. She was always so happy and yet her words never quite reached her eyes. Her eyes always had a sadness about them as if she had seen and experienced a pain no mortal should have to – just like Emily.
“My new patient, she’s…weird,” he finished lamely.
Maria’s quiet laughter permeated the air, “Weird? Of course she is. She’s in here isn’t she?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” he smiled, “Why are you here?”
Her smile faded, “I never know why I’m here. Just one day I wake up and here I am.”
His gaze flicked to her wrists. Thin lines of scar tissue from a crud blade hacking at her skin. Anger. Only there were some fresh ones, cleaner cuts. Despair?
“Maria…” he began.
“Don’t,” she turned her wrists to face down, “please.”
“I just want to help you.”
“Help me? When you can’t even help yourself, Clayton?”
The scorn in her voice was so unlike her and it stung him slightly.
“Why do you have to be so difficult?” he murmured pleadingly.
“You mean difficult because I’m honest?” She smiled once more, “Your work involves finding the truth, the answers. You make it seem like the truth is a bad thing.”
“Truth is enlightening when used correctly.”
“Truth is truth, there is no right time for it, but let me tell you something: I’ve been to a lot of people like you in my time and you all have one thing in common. You all look for the wrong thing; you all look in the wrong places. You all try explaining why we’re broken. Maybe it’s not us who are broken, but you. Some things cannot be fixed.”
“Everything can be fixed,” He burst out fiercely, “Nothing is too broken to fix. I am not broken!”
She stood. Before turning to leave she said, quietly, “If you are not broken, then why are you so angry about it?”
Clayton was always unsure about how to approach Tannin when she went silent like this. He could see her lips moving but no sound came out. She seemed to be praying, but he knew she was not Christian. Or even, as far as he knew, anything. He had never bothered to ask. On second thought it actually seemed as if she was talking quietly to herself, debating with some inner voices.
“Enough!” she cried, grabbing at her head.
Clayton almost fell off his seat in fright. Her voice echoed through the room. He felt glad that he had taken pills for his head this morning or that echo would definitely have hurt. Clayton hesitated,
“Are you-?”
She cut him short as she turned to face him again, “I have something to tell you.”
Clayton moved to the edge of his seat again, but this time more cautiously in case she had another outburst, thinking what she was about to say was of utmost importance and possibly a huge breakthrough. She rearranged herself in the chair and pulled her knees up to her chest. Oddly, she started to rock back and forth, much like a frightened child, with a glazed expression in her eyes, her face set into a detached state, her eyes fixed on a point beyond where he was sitting, anguish seemed to crowd the room. Clayton was about to ask her if she was all right but she spoke before he could get the sentence out.
“She’s doing it again.”
“Who?” Clayton interrupted, looking behind him, but she carried on as if she neither heard nor cared about what he’d said.
“That guy in the corner of the classroom. Every lesson he sits turning pages back and forth in some book or other. Everyone’s of the opinion that he’s slightly touched in the head-”
Clayton was certainly beginning to think this girl was irreversibly touched in the head, he didn’t know who she was talking about and why she was speaking in present terms seeing as she was long out of school. He snapped out of his reverie to hear the rest of what she was saying.
“-didn’t think it very conducive to anyone’s good health to judge people, but I was beginning to think the same. Since we have no teacher, I stand up and walk over. A silence descends over the class, which pushes in from all sides. I stop and gaze at him a while before speaking, he seems unperturbed by my presence.
I ask him what he’s looking for and he replies by saying the truth. He doesn’t stop to look at me. This irritates me. A ripple of laughter filters through the class.
When I don’t reply he returns to his ceaseless page turning. I allow my eyes to follow what he is doing, examining the pages that are going to whisper the secrets of truth to him. It’s the Bible. I tell him that he will not find it there, smiling despite myself. It is then that he stops suddenly and looks at me through his unfathomable eyes, his face indecipherable. Oddly enough he lets a strange smile spread across her lips. He replies softly with a question…won’t I? Frowning I say, before I can stop myself, that I didn’t know that he was Christian. That sounded better in my head, I think. He replies that he isn’t, so I ask why he has a Bible. I’m surprised at the haughtiness in my voice.
He examines my face once more before he asks who said he had to be a Christian to have a Bible. Well, he has me there. I change tack at the speed of light, and ask how he can search for truth in something that he doesn’t believe in. It is then that he replies with the most insightful sentence I’d heard in a long time:
“Just because I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.”
I resign myself to the fact that I have lost and return to my corner at the sound of the bell. I try not to think about it, but it plagues the back of my mind and haunts my thoughts...”
The irrepressible silence returned once more as her voice trailed off. Clayton waited, expecting something more, but once again he was disappointed to hear nothing else. The story bore a familiar resemblance to an episode he’d had with another student in his university class. Religion was always a contentious issue amongst Psychology students.
“Well…” he began, “that was, to say the least, interesting.”
She looked at him sceptically then, staring confused at her knees, dropped her feet to the floor, “What was?”
“That…that little,” he stopped to find the right word, “recital.”
She frowned, “Doctor? Are you feeling alright?”
“Of course,” he said jovially, smiling, as he spoke, “why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well you just said you found my recital most interesting, but I didn’t say anything. I’ve been looking at you for the past five minutes waiting for you to say something.”
Clayton’s smile vanished. If he didn’t know better he would think she was playing a joke on him, but she wasn’t that kind of person.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Well, I do have a bit of a head ache.”
Actually it had gotten progressively worse as the pills wore off. He rested his head in his hands for a moment. Maybe he was just trying to do too much at once. Perhaps he could drop a few patients. Yes, he’d go speak to Brother later on about it. He crunched some more pills for his head and suddenly remembered she was still there but when he looked up she was gone. He found it rather odd and started to think about it but it hurt his head too much so he decided to just go to bed and remember to think about it in the morning.
Clayton lay in bed a few nights later, thinking back to before his father died, before his mother had left. Images flooded his mind. Ones he tried so hard not to remember. It seemed to be happening a lot lately. Ever since she had come into his life his mind recalled the painful memories he worked so hard at protecting himself from.
“You think you’re a big boy now don’t you?” his father sneered at him.
“Do what you want to me but leave mother and Emily out of this.” Clayton’s hand tightened around the gun, his finger was sweaty on the trigger but he refused to relinquish his grip.
“Clayton, Clayton please just give me the gun, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Nobody needs to get hurt. Clayton please,” his mother pleaded with him, begged him. That was his mother, ever the diplomat. It made him physically ill to think how she still defended him. How could she? How dare she? After all he’d done to them. All those nights, wondering, waiting. The worry. The fear. Clayton chanced a glance at Emily. She was sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth. She wasn’t crying, Emily refused to cry but Clayton could tell she was wearing thin. Clayton’s grip on the gun weakened, he just wanted this to be over. He released the gun and it fell to the floor with a dull thud. His father leered at him,
“Finally cracked did you?” his hand lashed out at Clayton’s face, striking him so hard his neck clicked and he fell to the floor. Clayton didn’t scream, he didn’t yelp or even utter a sound. He stood up again, wiping the blood form his lip.
“Next time,” he said to his father, “Next time I won’t.”
“Please, Clayton. You naïve child, you will always crack. You’re weak. You’re pitiful. You’re nothing. You’ll always be nothing. I know you won’t dare harm me. I can read you like a book.”
Clayton’s fists tightened beside him. Something deep inside him switched on the red light in his head. He could feel his self-restraint snap and before he could stop himself he pulled his fist back and hit his father. He could feel his fathers nose break under his hand. Probably more shock than actual power floored his father. Clayton shook his hand, blood flicking off his fingers,
“Guess you missed that page,” he said.
His father lay on the floor, holding his nose. A seething rage pulsed through Clayton’s veins; he bent down and picked up the gun. He knelt next to his father,
“Now you listen to me,” he said, “don’t you ever, ever come back in this house again. If you do,” he pushed the gun onto his father’s forehead.
“Clayton, no!” his mother screamed.
“I’ll kill you myself,” he finished.
His father picked himself up off the floor and stumbled around. Clayton reached out a hand and helped his mother up. He turned to his sister and held out his hand, it upset him to see how she shrank away from him.
“Emily?”
She said nothing; she did not even look at him.
“Emily, please,” he began. He reached out to touch her but she shrugged him off. He pulled his hand back and turned away to look at his father. A gunshot rang out and Clayton twisted around just in time to see his mother’s robe whip around the corner into the bedroom. Clayton jumped as Emily pushed past him.
“Emily!” he barked.
She flinched at the harshness in his voice. She stopped in the middle of the lounge floor. She didn’t turn to face him for a while.
“Clayton,” she whispered. He moved towards her but he stopped short at reaching out for her.
“Clayton,” she said again her shoulders were shaking, “Clayton, what have you done?”
Clayton sat bolt upright in bed. Emily’s voice echoing in his head. He blinked against the harsh sunlight filtering through his window he reached for his glass of water only to realise there was none. He looked over the edge and saw it on the floor. Cursing, he grabbed his duvet and draped a corner over the wet mess. He dabbed at it until it was dry. Slowly, he climbed off the bed his feet hitting the cold floor. He shuddered. He quietly padded to his dresser and grabbed some clothes out of a drawer.
“Have a good sleep?”
Clayton jumped at the sudden disturbance of the quiet in his room. He turned to see Maria leaning against the doorframe, surveying him carefully.
“You know I didn’t,” he replied, perhaps more scathingly than he had originally intended. Nonetheless, she seemed unperturbed. He watched her as her eyes swept the room. Seeing her behaviour he could tell she hadn’t taken her medication for a few days. She would now sweep in and out of personality changes. He stepped into her line of vision,
“Were you looking for something?” he asked.
She said nothing. He was partially glad for this because when she was like this her voice always seemed to hack through silence. It grated on his nerves like a pickaxe on ice. It seemed like her voice was trying to get a grip on him, pull him down. He shook his head, he was being neurotic again.
“You do know you’re not supposed to be here,” he said dismissively.
A smile played across her lips, “I can do as I wish. I was just retracing my steps.”
Now it was his turn to smile, “Well do it in your own time, I’m busy now.”
She said nothing. He walked passed her and she grabbed his arm; he was surprised at the pressure in her grip. He noticed a thin line of red blood running down her wrist from fresh cuts.
“Let go of my arm,” he said once he had recovered.
She released his arm, “Clayton, you are close to the answers.”
“Maria, you haven’t taken your medication.”
“Clayton, the closer you get the more cuts I get. The more I am exposed to you. The more I bleed out, the less use you will have for me”
“Maria, you’re not making sense.”
She gripped his arm again, some of her blood flicking on his arm, he tried to pry his arm free but her grip was strong.
“Clayton, you need to go home. Emily is waiting.”
“Maria, what are you – “
“Don’t be late.”
She released him and turned on her heel and left him standing alone on the cold floor.
“Clayton?”
Clayton looked to his right. It was still fairly dark in the hallway despite the sunlight from his room oozing out into the hall. He dropped his gaze, trying to give his eyes time to adjust to the light change. A silhouette was introduced into the bright rays of the doorway.
“Clayton? You’re up early. Going for a shower?”
It was more a statement than an actual question of interest. Clayton suddenly realised that he was still holding the few clothes he had taken out the draw before Maria had disturbed him. He looked to his left but Maria had disappeared already. He looked down at his arms and clothes, but saw no trace of Maria’s presence.
“Clayton?”
Clayton looked back to his right. The speaker was none other than Edward Brother. Something in the back of his mind reminded him that he had needed to talk to Brother about something.
“Yes? Yes I was planning to go for a shower. I just got…sidetracked.”
“I hope it wasn’t that girl again?”
Brother’s eyes bored into his skull,
“No! No, it wasn’t. Just my own thoughts.” He attempted a smile.
Brother lifted his gaze off Clayton’s face, “Alright, then. I’ll see you soon.”
With that Brother turned on his heel and walked back into the shadows. Clayton watched him stride away until the darkness had swallowed him once more.
Clayton walked down the hallway to Brother’s office shortly after breakfast. He knocked on the door and received no reply. He decided to go in and wait for him to come. He seated himself in a large leather chair in front of the desk. He allowed his eyes to wander around the room. Layers of dust coated walls lined with bookshelves. If anyone had bothered to pay attention to the books they would’ve found they were mainly about mythology with an odd sprinkling of the linguistic taste. Books upon shelves of books neat in contrast to the huge pine and oak desk littered with papers and memo’s, yellowing from the age and the weight of promises of being done many more times than the months they had been laying there. Voices drifted in, from some distance off into the hallway. He sighed.
“Clayton? When did you get here?” Brother asked from behind him.
“Only a few minutes ago,” he replied, surprised at his quiet emergence.
Brother’s eyes attempted to subtly glance around the room to see if anything had been disturbed or was missing. He seemed to decide it was all in place. He cleared his throat and sat down opposite Clayton.
“So…what can I do for you?”
Clayton seemed to have forgotten why he was here. Brother frowned,
“Clayton?”
Clayton’s head snapped up and he looked at Brother.
“Are you all right?” Brother asked.
“Yes,” Clayton cleared his throat, “Yes I’m fine.” His voice drifted off,
“I seem to have forgotten why I’m here though.”
Brother smiled sympathetically, “Yes, well we all have a lapse in memory occasionally. Perhaps you should retrace your steps?”
Retrace your steps. Something clicked inside Clayton’s head. Don’t be late. He jumped up. Brother started, “Clayton?”
“I…I’m sorry but I just remembered…mustn’t be late…”
And before Brother could ask for some form of an explanation, Clayton was out the door and hurrying down the passage. He wrenched open a door to his left and stopped short. He stood in the doorway; she had her back to him.
“You’re late.”
He started at the sound of her voice and pulled the door closed slightly harder than he intended behind him, which made him jump. She turned around slowly, her eyes narrowed.
“Where were you?” she asked in a tone that hinted at malice trying to disguise itself.
“Nowhere that concerns you.”
“Fair enough,” she shrugged.
“Well?” Clayton began, “What’s on today’s agenda?”
“How do you define identity?”
“Well, you would do me a favour and begin with an easy question,” he smiled.
“Yes well an easy question requires an easy problem. There is no such thing. Hence I ask, how you define identity.”
“Absolute sameness, individuality.” His response sounded too quick now.
She laughed, “That is an oxymoron. But it is also redundant. You know that it ought to be theoretically impossible, for something to be an oxymoron and redundant.”
“Yes,” he frowned. “How could you possibly see it as both?”
“Don’t you see?” she asked, walking back to her seat, “Identity is a sham. It’s a ploy to keep society in order.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shifted back in her chair. “You wouldn’t. You don’t see that logic is science. You don’t understand logic itself but you understand science. It’s the same, but different.”
She was walking circles around him and he knew it. Somehow it made sense, but he wasn’t sure how. He needed clarification.
“Try me,” he said.
“It may take more common sense than you have.”
“Don’t concern yourself,” he challenged.
“Absolute sameness and individuality is how it is defined in the dictionary. How can you be the same and individual?” The answer is that by trying not to be like everyone else, you’re being just like them. Individuals in a crowd. The crowd are all on common ground for a purpose but are all individuals. Do you see where this is going?”
“Vaguely.” He frowned, “So you’re saying that individualism is made by social order?”
“Yes and no. I’m saying that individualism is what you make of it. It is like asking it you plan to fail and succeed, which have you done? They are different but the answer is the same. It is all about your interpretation of the subject or question at hand. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail, is it not?”
The silence returned in full force. The doctor had a lot to reflect on. Instead of getting a clearer view, he became more perplexed. What was she trying to say?
Clayton was glad when the session was over, he needed some time out, he sighed gratefully as his head touched the pillow and he drifted off…
A hastily packed bag lay atop a neatly made bed. A light rain blew into the room through an open window where a sharp, slicing wind made the sheer curtains flutter nervously, randomly blocking the waning moonlight. A shattered mirror lay in pieces on a bloodstained patch of carpet. Clayton didn’t know what happened. Somewhere in the recesses of the flat a tap dripped sending chilling echoes of wasted money. His mother hastily paced the room; he doubted that she knew he was there. Ignoring the rain coming in through the window and the lightening flashing angrily outside, she grabbed up the bag and ripped the zip shut. Silently she descended the stairs to the block of flats’ back door. Her heels echoed as she tried to tip toe out the back. She opened the door as quietly as she could but the hinges squeaked. She paused; tense, waiting. She sighed with relief when she heard nothing come after her. She looked out, freedom awaited her in the form of busy night streets but she first had the darkness to get through. She took her first step out and froze as a voice broke through the silence.
“Mama?” he whispered.
He was angry to see her leaving. Again. He had had enough.
She stopped in her tracks in the doorway, she hadn’t planned on this and he enjoyed seeing her squirm. She turned and he could see her squinting into the dark to see who it was.
“Mama, where are you going? It’s late and the storm is scaring Emily.” he said.
“Go back to bed Clayton. Mama’s coming home soon,” She reassured him.
“But it’s late,” he began to plead.
“I said go back to bed, Clayton!” she said, her voice echoing out into the alleyway. Faltering, he eventually returned to the bowels of the darkness inside the building. The rain was coming down heavier now and his mother shivered in her thin clothing. Turning sharply on her heel she let the door slam shut and she marched towards the busy street. He slowly walked forward and pried the door open a fraction. The last he saw of her was the edge of her coat whipping around the corner. The stifling silence pushed in from all sides.
“Clayton? Where’s Mama?” inquired a small voice from the stairs behind him.
“It’s OK, Emily. I’m here for you.” he said calmly, letting the door click shut.
“She’s gone again hasn’t she? She’s left us alone?” Emily said.
He didn’t answer. He hadn’t thought about it until now, but he realized that even though she had always come back before, perhaps this was not just another time.
“I guess so Em, let’s just go back to bed and see what happens in the morning.”
He took her hand and led her back into the darkness. Her hand was just a small as it had been when their father died. She hadn’t seemed to have grown at all. He tucked her back into bed and waited for her to be asleep. She would be out for the night now. He closed the door behind him and walked down the long hallway to his room and climbed into bed and drifted into fitful sleep.
He woke later on in the night. His stomach twisted with anxiety. Where was their mother? Why had she left? What was he going to do about Emily and himself? The only answer was to wait until tomorrow. He knew this wasn’t entirely his mother’s fault, after all blame is never only on one side of the scale. Life had taught him from a young age that there is no black and white, only different shades of grey. He climbed out of bed to stretch his legs. Their mother was a firm believer in the best question being an unasked one and the best answer silence. After all it’s never what one says it’s always about what one means. He returned to bed, angry with their mother and the rest of the world. She had done this to them far too many times and it wasn’t so easy to forgive her anymore. There was a knock at the door. He thought about not answering it but then again, it could be important. He once again roused myself and went to the door. It was none other than their mother. She was wet and tired and she’d forgotten to take a key, how convenient. Her makeup was running down her face. Was she crying? He didn’t care, he was still angry.
“Go away, mother,” he said firmly.
“What?” she asked astonished.
“I don’t want to hear it. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that you’re sorry and you shouldn’t have left and you want to take care of us. Well you know what? I’m taking care of us now because I know you’re just going to leave again.”
“But this time I really am sorry,” she began.
“Don’t, mother, just don’t. You of all people should know that apologies are just words.” He took her hand one last time, with that he slammed the door shut and locked it. He could hear her banging, but he didn’t care. He could hear her screaming, but he didn’t care.
He could still hear the tap dripping. He followed the sound to the kitchen and closed the tap as tight as he could.
“But what will you do tomorrow?” she screamed. He didn’t answer. Honestly, he didn’t know. Truly honestly, he didn’t care. What about tomorrow? Well, tomorrow will just be like every other tomorrow. Tomorrow will just be the day after this one, he thought.
She was there, waiting for him. Seated in her chair opposite him. Her eyes did not shift from looking at the board.
“You were wide awake again last night,” she said. “Questions becoming a pestilence to you once more?”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath, “I don’t understand.”
“There are a lot of things that are absent of answers, perhaps they are better left so?”
”Perhaps, but, you confused me on the identity subject.” She looked at him brusquely.
“You mean the question’s answers are still evading your commonsensical grasp?”
“Yes,” he didn’t know if she was mocking him, therefore chose to ignore it.
“Doctor, you’re forgetting your question.” She said, getting up and walking towards the board. He did not bother to turn to observe her.
“What is my question?” He was becoming frustrated. But he may as well have spoken in to thin air. He was met with peace but it was only in the air. His mind was in turmoil. When he turned, she was gone. He had heard nothing. This all went against what he’d learnt. Once again she had answered in a way that left him more confused.
“Mr Clayton, how are we today?” Brother asked.
“Fine, thanks.” He said slowly, warily eyeing Brother.
“How is your new…” he searched for the word to describe her, “patient coming along?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Clayton denied, “I don’t have any new patients.” He didn’t know how Brother knew about it, he hadn’t uttered a word, Brother always tried to take his patients away from him. He knew talking about it would keep him in Brother’s presence longer than he wished to be in it. He turned to walk away, but Brother’s next comment stopped him in his tracks,
“Emily is coming to visit you today.”
Clayton slowly turned, “She is?”
Brother merely nodded. Claytons mind was racing; Emily had been the one thing he had had to leave behind when he had been accepted at Mill Gate.
“Did she say why?”
“No. She just said she really needed to see you.”
“Oh…oh, ok. Thank you.”
“Pleasure.”
Clayton excused himself and hurried back to his room. He closed the door quietly behind him. He was not sure if it was anxiety or excitement rising in his chest. Emily hadn’t been to see him in a long time. He had looked after her as a child, since their mother had left. Emily had still never quite forgiven him for their father’s death or their mother’s abandonment. She had been too young to understand the way things happened, or so he told himself. If she was coming to see him then it must be serious…or perhaps just due time for a visit? He wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. He sighed, glancing at his watch. He remembered now that he had taken it off. He crossed his room to the clock on his shelf. He did a double take when he realised the time. Hastily he turned and went out the door and hurried down the passage.
He smiled at the nurse he passed in the corridor. Marlene Smith, she was one of the few people he liked in this place.
“Clayton, in a hurry again I see?” she said.
“Late as always, Marlene,” he replied over his shoulder
“Are you alright Clayton?” she asked, concerned.
He stopped and turned, “Actually, I have a splitting headache. Could you bring me some coffee and pills? I haven’t had pills for a few days actually. I would get it myself but I’m late as it is.”
She smiled, “Not a problem, love.”
He smiled back gratefully, “Thank you.”
On he hurried down the passage to his patient. She was waiting for him; again, he had come to anticipate it now. She was doodling on the board. He noted that she had no watch on and she was close to the surface of the board, following her hand as she wrote, keeping it under constant surveillance, her left hand gripping the chalk tightly, close to it’s tip. A nurse brought him a cup of coffee, not too searing in case he spilt it, and two white pills. He was a bit disappointed that Marlene hadn’t brought it, but she was a busy woman too, he thought. He took the coffee offered and asked,
“Can my patient have a glass of water, please?” he asked.
The nurse frowned, shook her head and walked out without saying a word.
“You must excuse her, she can be very rude.” He said, swallowing the pills.
“She has unanswered questions too, you know.”
“Are hers the same as mine?”
“Everyone’s are. We’re all the same, but different. Remember? I told you that.” “So then, all our identities should be the same. Then we’re all just clones of each other?” he was already feeling his head clearing.
“In a sense of the word, I presume so, yes.”
Was that distraction in her voice? He thought.
“But if all our identities are the same, then why do we treat each other differently?”
“That, dear Doctor, is one of the unanswered questions you’ve stumbled upon,” she replied.
“Is there an answer? Does someone have the answer?”
“Perhaps someone does.” She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. Irritation?
“Do you have the answer?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“Perhaps, each person formulates their own conclusion to that question?”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps you have to figure out your own identity before you can answer the question?”
“But if it’s the same as everyone else, surely it shouldn’t be so complex?”
“It shouldn’t, but it is. People make it difficult. Identity makes the world go round. You can gain the upper hand by confusing someone as to who they are. As soon as you question someone’s ideas and morals they are thrown into confusion because they are caught between their identity and their world’s identity.” Challenging?
“But you said we’re all the same.”
“I did.”
“But then you said that we have our own identity, I don’t understand.” Clayton wanted to cry, he was meant to be in control.
“That’s just it. No one does. I also said earlier that identity is a ploy. Frustration?
“But there’s so many contradictions.”
“Welcome to the world, it’s full of them,” she stated grimly.
It was late afternoon when Clayton spoke to her again. She had come to say goodbye.
“But, you can’t go,” he pleaded, “We haven’t progressed far enough yet.”
“I cannot continue. It is time for us to part ways.” She seemed to hesitate slightly, “Perhaps…you will find someone else?”
He said nothing.
“I will visit. Sometimes. When I can,” she said disjointedly, “I promise.”
He nodded. She walked passed him, he didn’t bother to turn to see her out. He knew she was gone. Clayton sat on his own for the rest of the day, Emily never came. Instead he sat thinking about all their meetings. He went to bed late that night. He did not find sleep. Instead he found questions. He liked none of them; even less did he like the answers.
Sitting at his desk, writing out reports and thinking about taking more pills for his head, Clayton heard his name.
“Clayton?”
Clayton stopped what he was doing at the sound of the distantly familiar voice. He looked up. There was his sister, not one thing different from what he remembered. She was still small, still young, still the same voice.
“You’ve changed since I last saw you,” Emily said evenly.
He stood to greet her,
“Emily,” he said, opening his arms to hug her. He had to kneel for her and she hugged him tightly.
“It’s been so long,” he said, “Where have you been?”
“Well they wouldn’t let me in to see you, didn’t you know?” she asked.
“No, I never knew,” he replied. A movement out the corner of his eye caught his attention. Tannin was standing in the corner.
“Tannin!” he said, startled, “What are you doing here?”
Emily looked behind her and frowned, “Who is Tannin?”
“She was one of my patients, one of my latest ones.” He smiled at Emily.
He looked back but Tannin was gone, probably a good thing too, she had been impossible the passed few days. No wonder he needed so many pills for his head. As much as he treating her, the less he saw of her, amongst other people, the fewer headaches he had.
“It’s good to see you Emily. It’s been so long.”
“So you’ve said already,” she smiled broadly, “I have so much to tell you.”
Her voice started sounding distant, “Really?” he asked.
“Yes Clayton, I’ve come to bring you home,” she said from somewhere far away, her voice echoing. Clayton shook his head, unsure what was happening. Emily took his hand, and he held it tightly.
Meanwhile, Brother was walking passed the doorway to Clayton’s room on his daily rounds at Mill Gate Home for the Mentally Ill. So many patients everyday surrounded him; he always wondered how the doctor hasn’t become the patient as the hunter becomes the hunted? He was trying to seek out Clayton, but he was nowhere to be found. Brother walked into Clayton’s normally immaculate room. Today, however, the room seemed dislocated for some strange reason. It didn’t quite reflect his meticulous nature. The empty room had an unusually uneasy atmosphere with no one there. He walked over to an open drawer to push it closed. In it, he saw a leather-bound notebook. It was Clayton’s notebook. His curiosity flipped a coin with his morals. In the end, curiosity bettered his judgement and he picked the notebook up. Clayton’s handwriting was hastily thrown together in sentences and phrases. What she said at the top and his thoughts and analysis on the bottom. Doodles littered the page. Brother soon got the hang of how to decipher it. He eventually got to the end of the first page, and turned over the next few pages and found nothing else; it seemed all that was of importance to him was on that one page. The room seemed to whisper to him. For some reason he began to think back to his childhood. His father. Himself. Who was he? What was his role, his job in life? Brother looked out of the window, the sunlight was razor sharp through the glass and it blinded him. The room whispered nostalgia in his ear…retrace your steps. Shock gripped him as he realised the sun was beginning to set. He hurriedly looked at his watch arm and remembered he didn’t have one. Clayton had one on the shelf; he hurried to the mantelpiece, almost slipping on a puddle of water amongst crushed glass. He glanced at the clock and with an intense sinking feeling, he realised that he was late for his patient.
“Clayton?”
Brother whipped around, Clayton’s sister Emily stood in the doorway, tiny little thing, only a few years old. Strange age gap between them.
“Emily, Clayton is gone,” he said.
“Clayton, you’re right here,” she said, her voice far away.
Brother eyed her warily; she must be out of her mind too. He looked around for somewhere to escape.
“Clayton, look at me,” she said quietly.
Brother looked at her, she was holding out a mirror in her small hands for him to take. He held it up to his face and almost dropped it. That wasn’t his face,
“Clayton, can you see yourself?” she asked.
“This isn’t me,” Brother said.
“Clayton that is you, that is what you look like.”
“But…this is Clayton…I’m Edward Brother. This isn’t me. This isn’t me!” he screamed, throwing the mirror away.
“Clayton, please!” Emily cried. Brother looked at her. Emily took his hands, “Clayton, please.”
She picked up the mirror and held it up for him to see.
“Clayton this is you,” her voice said, fading away.
“I’m here to take you home, Clayton Edward. My brother, I’m here to take you home.”
Slowly he took in his appearance, “Emily, how…” his voice drifted off. It sounded different. Suddenly he wasn’t Edward Brother anymore; he was Clayton standing in a room he didn’t recognise with someone he didn’t know looking into a mirror which showed a face he hadn’t seen in years. He looked at the woman standing with him. She looked vaguely familiar.
“Emily?”
“No, Clayton. Emily is gone,” she said.
“Where? What happened, where am I?”
“Clayton, you’re in Mill Gate.”
“Then I am a doctor,” he said, relieved that something was the same, “Who are my patients?” he asked.
“No, Clayton. You are a patient.”
“But I’ve been treating them…all this time…and Brother – “
“Clayton, you are Brother – “
“And Tannin – “
“There is no Tannin.”
“But I – “
He fell silent and sat on the bed. He stared at the wall, vague memories drifting into his head.
His father lay on the floor, holding his nose. A seething rage pulsed through Clayton’s veins; he bent down and picked up the gun. He knelt next to his father,
“Now you listen to me,” he said, “don’t you ever, ever come back in this house again. If you do,” he pushed the gun onto his father’s forehead.
“Clayton, no!” his mother screamed.
“I’ll kill you myself,” he finished. His father picked himself up off the floor and stumbled around. Clayton reached out a hand and helped his mother up. She never gave his sister a second glance. He turned to his sister and held out his hand, it upset him to see how she shrank away from him.
“Emily?”
She said nothing; she did not even look at him.
“Emily, please,” he began. He reached out to touch her but she shrugged him off. He pulled his hand back and he turned away to look at his father. A gunshot rang out, and Clayton twisted around just in time to see his mother’s robe whip around the corner into the bedroom. Clayton jumped as Emily pushed past him.
“Emily!” he barked.
She flinched at the harshness in his voice. She stopped in the middle of the lounge floor. She didn’t turn to face him for a while.
“Clayton,” she whispered. He moved towards her but he stopped short at reaching out for her.
“Clayton,” she said again her shoulders were shaking, “Clayton, what have you done?”
“Clayton?” a distant voice called.
Clayton looked away from the wall at the woman,
“My father?”
“Yes?”
“I…I killed him?”
“Yes, Clayton. You remember?”
“Yes,” he began sobbing.
“Go away, mother,” he said firmly.
“What?” she asked astonished.
“I don’t want to hear it. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that you’re sorry and you shouldn’t have left and you want to take care of us. Well you know what? I’m taking care of us now because I know you’re just going to leave again.”
“But this time I really am sorry,” she began.
“Don’t, mother, just don’t. You of all people should know that apologies are just words.” He took her hand one last time, and yanked her inside. With that he slammed the door shut and locked it. He could hear her banging to get outside again, but he didn’t care. He could hear her screaming for help, but he didn’t care.
He could still hear the tap dripping. He followed the sound to the kitchen, dragging his mother behind him. He closed the tap as tight as he could.
“But what will you do tomorrow?” she screamed at him. Her screams fell on silence; no one would come to her rescue. He didn’t answer, he just plunged her head under the water.
“And your mother?”
Clayton sobbed harder, “I killed her too. Didn’t I?”
“Clayton, you were not mentally stable. You cannot be held fully accountable for your actions.”
He looked up at the woman and laughed, “That’s like blaming the bullet, when I’m the one that pulled the trigger.”
He sighed, “Why did I kill them?”
“Your father, we aren’t sure. Your mother had to turn to prostitution to survive after your father’s death. We can only assume that you knew what was really going on and because of your father’s womanising habits, you couldn’t bear the shame your mother brought home and felt that she was abandoning you and letting down the family as well.”
“Who was Tannin?”
“Tannin is what manifested when you were not medicated. You remember developing headaches around her? When you took pills Tannin went away or became less aggressive.”
“But what about Edward Brother? We went to university together, I remember.”
“Clayton, Edward Brother was part of you. He was the person you could have been – intelligent, successful, in control.”
“But, how…I’ve never known an Edward Brother before then.”
“His name was just derived from your surname, Edward, and Brother came from the one thing you held most dear – being a brother to Emily.”
“Emily! Where is she?”
“Clayton, Emily died many years ago, you were children when she died. Her death was the reason you became unstable, you couldn’t deal with it.”
“But she was right here…she was right there, where you are.”
“Clayton, I brought you back to sanity, Emily was the person you chose to represent your journey back. Emily is gone, Clayton.”
He began to sob again, “There is nothing for me here. Nothing.”
The woman took his hand, “I will be here Clayton.”
He held her hand tightly, hoping it was all just a nightmare,
“Who are you?”
“I have been with you your whole journey back here. It has been a long time. I got through in the beginning but I lost you often. Occasionally I would get through to you but not very well, I somehow got through to you the passed few days. I have seen some recognition from you, I don’t know what you experienced but some of what I said seemed to have gotten through.”
“Yes…your voice sounds familiar, you look so familiar too. But I just can’t put my finger on it…”
She smiled, a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. There was a sadness to them. And her arms…somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered.
“Yes Clayton, it’s me. Maria.”
© 2009 TraceyPotgieterAuthor's Note
Featured Review
Reviews
|
Stats
160 Views
2 Reviews  Last Updated on September 16, 2009 |
![[send message]](http://slow.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](http://slow.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing