The Sky Grows Grey ~ Chapter 9

I could barely feel it at first. I hardly noticed that it was quickly closing in on me; and from it, there would be no escape. The apartment was suddenly smaller and darker. No light seemed to break through the darkness, and I found myself just going through the motions of the day. I was suddenly a zombie in my world. I wasn’t dead or even undead, but I wasn’t alive either. I may have called it an out of body experience because it was so similar. I watched myself do things, laugh, sing, work, and dance from a distance. I was playing the part of the good, sweet, and perfect stepford wife. I followed myself closely as I did my duties not complaining about my mundane existence, and most days I escaped without a mark or cruel words. Daniel was happy beyond belief because he finally had in his possession what he wanted all along, a subservient wife. If I still had a mind, I did not speak it; if I wanted freedom, I failed to show it; and if I was unhappy, I smiled through it.

The darkness enveloped me, and I felt that I was choking, gagging on my submissiveness. I could not think straight and felt myself dying slowly, but I was afraid because I had no idea how to live without him. I had not yet begun to live when my life was stifled by that sad little piece of paper hanging on our wall, which read, “I, Samuel F. White, hereby certify that on the 4th day of June, two thousand and five at Rankin in the County of Upton, State of Texas, Groom Daniel Henrik Quietus of …,” our marriage certificate. “What a farce,” I scoffed under my breath as I straightened the frame while dusting.

“What was that baby?” He asked. “I could not make out what you said.”

“Nothing,” I chimed. “I was just responding to the report they just did on the news. I think it’s all absurd.” I hadn’t been paying attention and hoped my words were a close enough reaction to the news story.

“I agree,” he replied, and I was relieved for just a second.

However, the darkness quickly sealed off the place where my emotions had escaped. Consumed with darkness, I was afraid I would never escape. The days were stretched, and it felt as if tomorrow would never come for me. I had only caught a glimpse of escape but now it was buried in my dreams, my endless nightmares that kept me up at night. The loss of sleep began to play on my nerves and the dreams were always the same.

...I was rappelling down the red and purple striated walls of the canyon I had traversed many times before. However, I could no longer see the bottom of the canyon. I could not see the narrow river snake its way through the canyon, and I could not see the vegetation or rocks that jutted out from the canyon wall. All that existed below was an empty black void. The ground below me gave way, and I was suddenly dangling from a rope on the edge of the cliff. I looked up and saw his arm outstretched as he pleaded for me to grab hold of his hand. My hands slipped down the rope, and the friction burned my skin. I released one hand, but instead of reaching up for him, I used my free hand to push me out from the wall. I smiled up at him as I released my grasp with the other hand, my safety harness failed, my pale blue shirt billowed out from my body, and I tumbled into the darkness….

I always awoke before I hit the bottom of the canyon, and I could feel my body alive with adrenaline. The dream was so real that my hands ached from tightly holding the rope. My skin ached from being pinched by the non-existent harness, and my mind felt free from finally letting go. However, I knew I couldn’t quite let go. I couldn’t do it yet, and I had to hold on tightly to the semblance of a life that I was living.

The snow piled up outside, and the city was eerily quiet. The wind whistled through the trees as the heavy flakes of snow clumped together before hitting the ground. The neighbors’ dogs weren’t barking, there were no birds singing, and the children were tucked safely away in their families’ homes. It was an official snow day, which we hadn’t seen since I was a child. Normally, I would be tickled to see the snow. This part of the country doesn’t see much in the way of snow, so a snow day is usually a day of celebration. However, there was a sadness that washed over the city with this snow. The clouds were a dark grey, and noon deceptively looked like evening. The roads were impassable, and the world around us was shut down, dead and calm. The limbs of the trees strained against the weight of the heavy wet snow, and they bent to touch the ground. A loud pop or moan could be heard in the distance as the limbs snapped once the weight had been too much to take, and I knew the feeling.

I knew what it was like to have the weight of my world bearing down on me. I knew what it felt like to have part of me ripped away as it died. I knew what it meant to be present in the world and barely noticed, unseen by curious eyes, forgotten and alone with all of its beauty stripped away by the harsh world. I was being crushed, and I knew I needed to hold on. I needed to remember and to never forget that I was something, I was someone, and I was a person who deserved to live. But, it was hard to breathe, to really breathe, as my world closed in and suffocated me. Swallowed by the darkness, I began to shut off my senses. One by one, I lost my ability to smell, hear, taste, see, and feel. My world had gone grey, and no color in the world could touch me. I could no longer smell the liquor on his breath as he lingered above me, and his body pressed into mine. I heard only what he wanted me to hear, and I knew deep down they were all lies. My food had no flavor, and I didn’t want to eat. I saw what he wanted me to see, but in my mind, I knew it was just a picture he had painted for the rest of the world to see. Worst of all, I could not feel anything. Other than the pressure of his body, a razor, or a knife, I felt no pain. I felt no tingling sensations pulse through my body. I felt no hunger pangs or the heat from the scalding shower. I knew I was slipping, and it was detrimental that I hold on, but the only time I could feel was in my dreams, and I knew I could no longer escape there.

I pulled food from the freezer and sat the frozen slab of bacon on the counter. He wanted a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich for lunch. I grabbed one of the sharp Cutco knives from the drawer and gently laid it on the counter. I grabbed the glass cutting board from where it hung on the wall and set it next to the knife. I opened the package of bacon, dropped it on the cutting board, and began to recklessly slide the knife across the meat. I was amazed that I couldn’t feel usual pain in my fingertips that grasped hold of the rock hard, frozen bacon. I continued to glance out the window as I sawed across the meat over and over again.

In one quick slice, the knife slipped across the frozen meat and slid across my index finger and my thumb. I could only feel the pressure of the serrations of the knife biting through my skin, and I was shocked to notice that no pain was registering in my brain. I looked at my finger with a solemn expression as the blood dripped from my damaged digits. I took a kitchen towel and wiped the blood from my index finger, and that is when I saw it. My white bone gleamed for an instant before the blood pooled in the gash once again and hid the chalk white surface. Again, I wiped and notice the fingernail had been cut through. I gasped at the thought of the pain I should be feeling, but didn’t. I decided to assess the damage to my thumb and wiped it with the towel. As I pulled the towel away, a flap of skin pulled away from the fleshy part of the thumb, and again, I saw bone. The flesh dangled loosely in the air as blood dripped to the floor. I stood in the kitchen dumbfounded as the pain failed to register. Am I dead? Is this my personal hell?

“How’s those san’wiches comin’?” He asked without looking up.

Perplexed, I didn’t answer, and blood dripped on the floor.

“I said, are the sandwiches ready yet?” He asked again with irritation in his voice.
I didn’t answer, and he raised his head, “Hey! I’m talking….” He trailed off when he saw the bloody mess at my feet. “What in the hell have you done to yourself, baby?”

I looked down at my blood-covered hand, but I still didn’t answer.

“Are you okay?” The worry was evident in his voice. “My god, baby! What have you done? How bad is it? Do you need to see a doctor?”

I shook my head, but still could not find the words. I could not understand why this didn’t hurt when I knew this should hurt. I remembered cutting my thumb on the meat slicer at work once before, and it hurt. It hurt awfully, and that cut was nowhere close to these. That cut only sliced off a layer of skin and fat exposing the muscle beneath. Why doesn’t this hurt? I silently asked myself and looked at him with a shocked look on my face. Is that it? Am I in shock?

“Hey! Snap out of it! I’m talking to you. Do you need to see a doctor?” I could hear the agitation in his voice.

I forced out a weak, “No. I think I’ll be fine. I have some butterfly closures in the bathroom. If you can help, it should be fine.” I wrapped the blood-soaked kitchen towel around my hand. Oddly, I thought to myself at least the stain wouldn’t show. I had bought burgundy kitchen towels when I received my black kitchenware for my birthday. I had liked the way the two colors looked together. I continued, “There’s no point in trying to go anywhere today anyway. If we do, we may end up with injuries far worse than these.” One corner of my mouth turned upward, as I smirked faintly, automatically, eerily, to distract him from noticing I wasn’t crying or whining as I had normally done when I cut myself. He was right about me being a little clumsy, but my clumsiness only ever came from not really paying attention to what I was doing. Sometimes I think that’s why his excuses for my bruises fooled so many of my acquaintances.

I moved slowly to the bathroom and turned on the water faucet. The chill in the air caused the water to take a while to warm, if it did warm. The only way I could tell was by the steam swirling lazily in the air above the sink. I pumped the antibacterial soap onto my palm and began to work it into the wounds. I winced as I half-expected it to sting, but I still felt nothing but pressure. I rinsed the soap from my hands and shut the water off. My hands were bright red, but not from blood, well, not from the oozing wounds. The water must have been hot because it brought the blood closer to my skin, perhaps due to warming my supposed ice-cold fingertips. I couldn’t really tell though because I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. I twisted a clean washcloth around my thumb and made my way to the edge of the bed where he was waiting with triple antibiotic ointment, butterfly closures, gauze, tape, and bandages.

He began to dress the wound on my index finger first. He was careful to not pull the wound apart but he did have to dig slivers of fingernail out of the wound. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to hurt you.”

I didn’t respond. It didn’t bother me no emotion showed on my face, and I was just as calm and lucid as death. The ointment slowed the oozing; and once the butterflies were in place, he wrapped the cut under two of the larger bandages in the box. He slowly unwrapped my thumb and gagged as the skin pulled away and dangled in the air. I gently pushed the loose skin back over the wound.

Daniel tried to hold back the bubbling vomit, which was creeping up his esophagus, but I could tell by the pallid color of his skin that he would loose the battle. I sat firm as he stumbled his way to the toilet, and unusually, the sound did not make me want to retch. Instead, I chewed on my right thumbnail, the one without the cut, as I tried to make out words from the faint buzzing of the television. So shut off was I that the words did not come to me, and I hardly heard the toilet flush or felt the slight bounce of the spring mattress as he plopped down in front of me.

“Are you sure you don’t need to see a doctor for this?”


Again, I gave no answer.

He shook me gently, and I cut my eyes to peer into his. “Are you sure this does not need a doctor’s attention?”

“I’m fine,” I sighed. “Don’t worry about it. Here, I got it closed for you. Just doctor it and wrap it.”

“Okay,” he replied reluctantly. He taped the flap of skin against the wound with the butterflies, wrapped my thumb with the gauze, and taped the gauze to my exposed skin. “I’ll get things cleaned up for you,” he said with a troubled look in his eyes. “Why don’t you lay back and get some rest. You don’t look well.” He shut off the television and pushed the play button on the stereo.

I laid back and closed my eyes as I listened to the Gregory and the Hawk CD play. Yes, it must be coming back. I thought to myself because I listened and heard every single word of the song playing, “I’m Your Puppet.” I was amused at the lyrics of the song, and each word rang true. I was his puppet, and for our entire relationship up to this very day, I had learn to love being his puppet because it made me feel needed, and it gave me a false sense of love. I had done everything that he needed from me, but now it was just another motion, another movement that he controlled, and deep inside, I had been screaming out at the top of my lungs for the longest time, but now I sat quiet, shut off from everything. I had even lost touch with myself because of our secrets that I kept hidden for him; and these secrets were my shame; and through that shame, I grew weaker and weaker. The worst part of it all is that I knew deep down inside that he would not do the same for me. He would not protect me the way I protected him, and I wasn’t worth much to him. I was expendable, easily replaceable.

I knew I was weak, and I knew this shell I had built to protect me was not a sign of strength. It was a sign of weakness, a sign of numbness and darkness, and as the dark crept forward and enveloped my mind, I fell into a fog. I was now a puppet, his little marionette. I was finally his to control. I wish I could say I felt the darkness pulsate through my body, but that would be a lie. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. Without trepidations, I moved forward through the days, and the days passed me by, one after another until they turned into weeks.

I had a plan, and I had to see it through, but the darkness held me in his trap, his prison. He whisked me from one D.E.P. (delayed entry program) function to another. Daniel had asked his best friend to join the military with him. Ricky was quick to accept, for he was an outcast and would be all alone had it not been for his relationship with my husband. The two friends were going into the buddy system together ensuring they would have some moral support no matter where they were stationed. Sometimes, I swore Ricky must have been blind or ignorant to not see the lie we sat before him on a daily basis, but I knew better. I had a feeling that Ricky knew, for I had often caught him examining my bruises. However, he remained Daniel’s loyal friend regardless. In the past, I was bothered by his indifference, and I loathed Ricky for not standing up to Daniel or standing up for me. Anyone could have seen that I was too fragile to stand up for myself. Everyone knew that I would be unable to stand up for myself, or at least I knew that anyway. But now, I didn’t care anything about Ricky. I could no longer be angry with him because I lacked the strength for any real human emotion.

I would sit back just indifferent as he and often ignoring any conversation between the two of them. As far as I was concerned they could have each other, I failed to care. The weeks passed, and I found myself in the midst of the worst winter in recorded history. My soul was dark, wary, and my mood matched. I soon noticed that Jessica didn’t come around anymore. I wish I could say I was grateful that I didn’t have to look at her anymore, but I couldn’t. I really didn’t care if he was running around with her anymore. It wasn’t long before I noticed that he began to watch me closer than ever, and the strings were pulled tighter, so tight that I couldn’t move. I was tangled in his grasp. I didn’t argue or assert my opinion, and my face showed no emotion. He would talk and ask questions only to get an emotionless answer. I knew he worried that I was lost, and I would have worried too had it not been for the grey fog. I had become stifled.

I was just a series of motions. One right after the other, motion after motion, I moved, robotically, empty, but I did not feel, at least not until I dreamt. My nightmares did not cease, there were two now, and they thrived with each sleeping moment and eventually grew cruel.

… I was in a house dressed in a flowing pale blue dress. I was happy and home with Daniel and my children. Children? I walked outside, and the sun was shining overhead. The songs of birds filled the air, and the sky was a brilliant blue. There was nothing in front of me, but fields of lush, green grass. Laughter filled the air as I twirled barefoot in the grass, and my blue dress flared out around me with each pirouette. Suddenly, everything turned black and grey. There were no colors left, and I was frightened. A storm rolled in, and I could hardly walk against the strong winds. Lightening struck, and my heart began to pound as the thunder quickly followed. It began to rain, and I grew cold, numb. The dark rain dampened my dress, and the light fabric clung to my body. The dress color shifted to a dark red as the rain saturated the cloth. I was still walking but faster. Soon, I was in a small town and almost home when some evil looking people, almost demon-like, almost zombie-like, were following me. The streets ran red with blood, and the blood stained every visible surface. Also, blood oozed from wounds on the zombies’ corpses. I began running, and I could see home, but I couldn’t seem to get there. I was completely and utterly horrified, and my predators followed closely behind me. The monsters slashed my body as I continued to run. Home was almost within my reach, and my body was covered with bloody wounds. When I finally arrived at my home, I quickly closed and locked the door behind me. To my surprise, the color was back in my life. The red stains flowed down the fabric and to the floor, and the blue that lay beneath was once again brilliant and gleaming. I grabbed my family and held them tight as I cried, but the man wasn’t Daniel. He was a man I have never seen, a man with the face of an angel, a man that I had yet to meet. Sounds of people pounding on our doors and windows could be heard, but I knew I was safe….

I often awoke in a cold sweat, alive more than in my dream. My heart pounded swiftly, and just for a moment, I could feel. The warmth pushed though my heart and washed over my body. My breath was steady, even, and free, but this is where the nightmare continued. As I focused on the dark room around me, I pushed the alive feeling deep within the recesses of my mind. My darkness once again drowned out the world around me. I let my heart draw in coldness, and I ceased to feel. Just one iota of warmth remained but could not break through the layers of cold in my heart. My breaths sucked back into my lungs and laid dormant waiting for what I did not know, and again, I suffocated from the pitch.

I peered further into the darkness as I tried to fall back to sleep; my eyes fixed on the aquarium across the room from where I lay. I watched the elegant sways of the black ghost knife in the water. She was no more aware of her world around her than I. Her body did not slow due to the frigid air outside my door. She was sealed off from the world in her beautifully decorated aquarium, and her movements were out of character for someone such as she. Her undulating long fin on the underside of her body propelled her through the water. She gracefully circled the miniature statue of Venus surrounded by long swaying live plants, and the electricity scarcely flowed out from her body. She was in her gilded cage, she was trapped, but this did not deter her, for she was playing her part. She continued to flow around the statue hunting for a meal, the live worms that would provide her sustenance. As I gazed, the rippling movements of her delicate fin pacified me. My heartbeat steadied, and I closed my eyes as the beautiful ghost lulled me into my slumber.

...to be continued...