Emil…Chapter 1

Welcome to Chapter 1 of my first novel titled Emily. First published in 2018.

Chapter 1

My Mind and I

            I’m sitting in a darkened room. Just me…and my mind. My mind and I, we sit in a darkened room.

Thought. Thought. Thought.

It’s dark out. Maybe midnight, maybe early morning. I've lost track of time, sitting here. I came into this room early this morning, or maybe yesterday morning. Nevertheless, I came in here with a cup of vodka-spiked coffee and a gusto of bravado. I’d walked into this room, thrown the curtains wide open to the already-blazing September sun and sat at my illuminated desk. Had that been yesterday? 

I look out at the few visible stars in the muggy black night. I can feel it, this muggy, thick, airless night. It suffocates me, even though I sit safely ensconced in my air-conditioned room. Sweat drops trickle down from the crevices beneath my breasts, rolling slowly down my stomach. It tickles. I smile. The sweat pools at my waistband. My dampening pajama pants begin to feel cold. I need a hot shower, but I won’t, not yet, not until I’ve done what I came in here to do.

 The night looks dense, quiet, welcoming. I wish I could drown in it, in its depths, in its blanket of calm. I wish I could drown and not have to do what I promised to do, what I’d been stupid enough to sign a contract for.

“What have I done?” I say to the night. “Save me.”

It doesn’t save me. It instead erupts with a blinding white light. It growls at me. I feel the butterflies of nausea, the cold sweat of an impending faint.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I swallow down the bile. It passes. For now.

“Courage, where are you?” I ask the night. The raindrops hit the pane, tap, tap, tap, tap… I close my eyes and wallow in the sad sound.

“God is crying,” my grandmother used to say. “When the rain is heavy, the angels are crying with Him.” My world blurs, the stream of my flowing tears matching that of the raindrops sliding down the glass.

“Help me. Please,” I whisper to my grandmother’s soul.

I touch my fingertips to the brand-new silver fountain pen that lays boding on my desk. I use just the very tips of my fingers where the crevices inside my fingerprints are filling with sweat. My fingertips are hot against the cold of the sterling silver, creating a fog around where my fingers make contact with the metal. I roll it back and forth, just slightly, gently, so as not scratch the sterling surface of the beautiful hand-crafted pen. It makes a dull clacking sound as it hits the hardwood.

“You’re ready. You’re ready. You’re ready,” it seems to say. 

“No, I’m not,” I respond.

I wrap my slender fingers around it, lift it from the desk and hold it tentatively in a loose grip. It’s heavy, more than just the weight of the silver. It’s heavy with expectation, with anticipation, with dread. I position it, hold it poised above an overwhelmingly empty sheet of red-lined, ivory-colored paper.

It’s the first page in the brand-new, leather-bound notebook, methodically chosen for this specific task. As a writer, I obsessively search for the perfect tools for my craft. I can’t just pick up a pen and write. It has to feel right — the tools, the time, my insides. There’s that moment when everything clicks, when the story flows like molten lava, beautiful and life-altering.

I’d searched for over a week before I saw this beauty of a journal pop up on my screen. The instant I saw it, I knew it was the journal I needed for this project. I rush-ordered it, overnight express. The charges were excessive, but I needed it and so I paid the price. It arrived the very next morning. The unopened box sat on my desk for nine days, until today… or yesterday... whenever it was, when I finally convinced myself I had the courage to open it.

I touch pen to paper and wait… and wait…  and wait… for the pain to subside just enough to allow thought to seep through. Memories jolt through me, shockwave after shockwave. I lift the leaden pen and glare at the tear-streaked page.

Tears. Where did they come from? I didn’t feel them fall. Through my blurred vision, I see a single black dot at the top of the now-ruined page. It taunts me, reaches out from the page to wrap its tendril around my wrist.  

            I push away from the desk, as far back as my chair will move. I can’t be near it. I can’t even stand to look in its direction.

Failure.

I look down at the traitorous trembling hand resting on my knee, it’s fingers still wrapped around the heaviest of pens. I throw it at the wall across the room. It bounces off and lands with a dull thud on the carpeted floor, rolling to a stop at my feet. I kick it under the desk.  

I shake my hand vigorously and inch my way back toward the devastation on the page. I can’t do it… I can’t wade through such dense emotion… I can’t… but I have too.

Why? Why did I agree to do this? How could I have been so arrogant, so stupid? The very thing that broke me… it broke me. And I agreed to write about it, to tell the entire story. Start to finish. All of it.  

I sit motionless for some time, my battered mind desperately searching for a solution, looking for a way out. I remember one of my eighth-grade teachers saying, “There is no way out of a situation but straight through it.” I also remember her saying she wanted to put us in a boat and sink it. I feel the urge to laugh out loud at the memory. She was a good human being, one of those rare adults who encouraged autonomy and assertiveness in children. I wonder if she’s still teaching. How old would she be now? Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? Could she be dead already? Oh goodness, I hope she’s not dead. That would just be depressing.

What if I use a computer? If I type it out instead, maybe I’ll feel disconnected enough to do this. I open my laptop, login, open a blank page… nothing. The intense white light vise grips my eyeballs. Fuck! I slam the device shut, give it a frustrated slap.

I rummage through the drawers of my desk for inspiration, maybe a simpler instrument, one with lower expectations. I find a black ballpoint pen. It’s missing its cap and has bite marks on the end. Perfect. I pull out a single sheet of notebook paper.

I take several calming breaths. Eyes closed, back straight. "One day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time," I chant. I'm told this will help keep me from feeling overwhelmed by life. I have absolutely no faith in its effectiveness. "One day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time," I chant anyway. My therapist would be so proud. I cling to these rituals of mine for dear life. They get me through, drag me through, each day.

It’s exhausting, though, reining it all in — the thoughts, the emotions. Some days, the thoughts are so intense I can’t function. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t leave the house. Some days I feel it’s impossible to exist as a person, and I shut down for as long as it takes for an episode to pass. Then it does pass, and I wake up and the day is clear. There is no hum, no vibrating inner turmoil. I can smile, laugh, hold conversations, think clear thoughts, think meaningful thoughts. On those clear days, I’m… normal. I live for those days. So, I live through the bad days, for the clear days. As hard as it gets, I do it, because it’s life. It’s my life, so I live it. I live in my landmine of self-control, balance, equilibrium, and turmoil.

This project, this burden, I’ve been dragging around, is destroying my balance. My equilibrium is off-kilter. With every memory I extract from the depths to which they’d been banished, the further askew I become. With every memory I allow to seep through the barricade of my self-control, I shift further and further away from the safe zone, away from my self-created balance.

As I sit here attempting to put letters together, to form words that tell a story I can’t even imagine recollecting those days, I am one-hundred-percent certain I can not do it. I thought I could when I agreed to it. But, as the memories begin to take shape, I feel an enveloping of my mind. I feel like I’m drowning.

My publishers had caught me on a good day. It had been a strong day. They’d proposed the terms of the job, and, feeling strong, I’d accepted.

“Your readers want to know,” they’d said. “Give them a glimpse into the mind that creates their favorite stories. They want it. We want it. An autobiography will give your fans the answers to the questions they hound us with, hound you with. Let them in, Emily. Let us in.”

“But I don’t write nonfiction. I write fantasy, vampires, and gore. I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I’d rambled.

“Start at the beginning. Tell us who you were and how you became who you are today. The words will come, the story will come. You’re a storyteller, Emily, through and through. Tell us your story,” they coerced.

“Okay,” was all I could say. What the hell was I thinking?

            I pick up the ratty pen. There is no point in stalling the inescapable; it is time to unravel the memories I’d promised to expose. I begin with the word that defines me.

Pain.

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