The Seams Have Splintered, Too.

Episode 5.

[TW: allusions to SA, Domestic Violence; stream of consciousness depictions of MI]

There was nowhere I could go. I had no friends to call upon. No family around. No money to wear the rest of the night down elsewhere.

I didn’t even have my car for me this time – buried under mounds of glistening snow, it offered little sanctuary from the old house anymore. Even if I were to choose to drive it, paired with my infrequent outings, the cold had likely buckled any shot it had in starting.

But I couldn’t bear to sleep inside that room. Not after what I’d seen. Not after what I’d felt. Before I could truly think, desperate to outrun whatever dwindling reserves of life still lit that bulb, I rushed over to my drawers, pulled on the thickest, warmest clothing from what I owned, and made for the back door.

I hardly remember stopping for my boots along the way, my mind so pinpointed on only fleeing, legs charging through the snow like that could save me, like there was something of peace out there waiting if I just pushed my cruel heart harder to keep beating…

This time… for me…

A spool of rage gathering toward it as I swerved around tree after tree…

Will I never be the purpose that you need?

I must have run a mile into the deep of the backyard woods before I heard Kombucha’s frantic bark behind me. I slid to a halt, realizing as I did so that the aching stitches squeezing at my sides had now wrung slivers through my chest and throat, as well. I could barely see through my stinging eyes, my nose already dripping to my lips just from their smarting.

Blinking, blind, I held my hand out to her. Kombucha slid her snout under my palm.

I stooped beside her, creating makeshift tissue of my sleeve. Just like a child. “How did you get outside, my love?”

I could see her clearly now, or else I might have feared I had been tricked just like before. But it was truly her this time, the snow sticking like stars to her black coat, her dewey little eyes dribbling slightly as she whined for more of my attention.

An immediate, shadowy guilt consumed my mind. Had I really intended to leave her there… all alone in that horrible house… behind… with them?

I could feel that she was shivering. Though trained to be a companion, she was still so soft and fragile against the world.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” I cooed. “Come on, let’s get you warm.”

Though I was shivering, too, I scarcely felt it until we were huddled on the stiff couch back at home – Kombucha a warm, tired lump to my right, every light in the room powered on. I can’t say that I slept then. I can’t say that I didn’t either, though. Time spun out for me like it was missing all its beats, like I had nothing solid to measure it with, to know that it was passing on at all. One moment it was night, and then the next there was sunlight, and green – little blades of toughened weeds poking upward through the snow, only visible in the footprints leading to and from the backyard door. I watched them blearily when I grew courage enough to open the living room window, a hot cup of tea in my hand, pressed sullenly to my cheek.

It’s not so bad, I somehow managed to think. Perhaps it was the daylight, or the striking sight of weeds in all that white, but I got myself believing that I must have had a dream, and nothing more, the previous night.

Only a dream. That’s all.

I don’t recall the few days after this, only that they came and went. Just like a breath. And I wasn’t breathing deep.

My business, I knew, was failing. But the thought was distant from me. Tucked away in a dark and cob-webbed corner, along with any care I had in trying to stop the slipping of my living; that is, the one I earned in holy wages. So holy they only meant something in the light of society’s praises.

I didn’t care for it. Not anymore. Didn’t care to feign performance, procure effort… When the money ran out, they could carry me out the door. Put me on the street somewhere. Nothing seemed to matter anyway. Only Kombucha, who’d be better off without me, in an abler person’s home, maybe with several kind dogs of their own so she’d have company.

I think that I was waiting for my doom. It was easier than fighting, against the night, against the house, against that room with curses catered just for me.

And I heard voices now. Upstairs, inside that room above my head. So quiet, at first, they barely stirred my sleep. But every night the passion in them creeped toward something human, something mean…

“It’s just a dream,” I told Kombucha one dark night, their voices like a raging river’s rapids. Though they were no louder than before, I could hardly hear a thing aside from them.

I sighed and turned toward her, her little button eyes blinking out warnings as they darted to the closet, then back to mine.

“A dream, a dream, a dream, my love.”

Their voices became a lullaby over time. The same tune every night in different keys.

An endless dream…

“Get off of me!”

“But, babe, you like it rough.”

“That wasn’t what I said…”

“You selfish slut…”

“Get off! Get out! I’ll call the neighbors!”

“Yeah? What will you say?”

“I’ll say you’re hurting me!”

A laugh. “Really? Okay. Go call them up.”

“Where… where’s my phone…”

“You’re asking me now?”

“But it was…”

“Where? You lost it, kid. Same as your job. Same as your home. You realize you need me, right?”

“Get off of me…”

“Or you’ll do what?”

“I-I’ll say…”

“Yeah? I’m all ears now. You’ll say what?”

“I’ll say… something…”

“Oh is that right? So say something.”