"Sunlight" Chapter 12: Truth (NANOWRIMO)

Chapter 12: Truth

Less than three years before…

                His mother was struggling. They were all struggling, really. Life was not what it was, nor would it ever be remotely similar.

                She wanted to paint. To take a photograph like she had before. It was no longer possible, at least not yet. There was a lot of “not yet” said. There were no promises of anything.

                Just that life would never be the same.

                He was tired of hearing their words, the ones in the white jackets and scrubs of all sorts of muted pastels. No one was ungrateful for the immense work they put into improving their lives, yet, there was something about them that simply wore them all out.

                They shared their frustration. They did have compassion. Patience. They were all cared for very well, inside and outside of their stays in the hospital. All sorts of treatment seemed to go well, at least for a while.

                But every movement, every drive, ever visit, was a reminder.

                And it was getting increasingly difficult to afford all that was necessary.

---

                Damir scarcely found the time to sleep again, let alone meet with a girl in the park, as he worked endlessly as the new provider of the Pax family.  He had enough to meagerly continue treatment, and perhaps for his parents to have a single meal at home daily. His own nutrition was of little concern to him now.

                He put off the nightmares with work, although they always came to him. Even at the worst of times…

                “Damir!” someone shouted, as he slipped to the floor. The pain returned him to the time before, and all those times of pain before this moment… Falling was unwise now. It was dangerous, he’d been told. He had been taught to panic, to question, will I get up? He pressed a hand to the floor, relieved, attempting to bring himself to sit.

                “Are you alright, do you need help?” the dishwashing girl said, swiftly offering her hand. He cringed as he sat up, disoriented in his perceptions. He heard the sirens and he saw that windows had turned into a mosaic of glassy spindles.

                He was sitting, still on the floor. One conscious breath… one, in and out… the next…

                “Damir?”

                “I… I’m fine,” he mumbled, watching himself from the ceiling. He didn’t even believe what he said.

                “Maybe you should go home today,” said one of the managers, as he stood before the others within the kitchen at this time. He found his gaze on the “wet floor” sign, which he himself had set up in the adjoining hallway, feeling strongly the effects of its tardiness. Damir had become the little black stick figure, with the lightning yellow warning sign in the background, and his detached head, his footless legs and handless arms flailing in the air, right before the fall… they never showed the fall. The little stick man never simply laid on the floor, helpless. 

                “No, no… it’s alright, I can…”

                “Come on, Damir. Take the afternoon off, get some rest. We can take care of everything for today. Don’t worry.”

                He accepted both the girl’s hands, with both of his own. Sharp electric spastic jolts ran from his feet, up his legs, spine, neck, head. He recalled the white ceilings. Someone else weeping in his the next room. He reached out to the nearest wall to steady himself.

                “Do you need someone to take you home, Damir? Do you want to call someone?”

                The voice was distant, paramedic on his transceiver, words that were not understood…

                A shake of the head was the lie the dizzied young man offered his current manager. He seemed to listen, as he punched out and slowly made his way to the exit.

                Perhaps he had needed to leave. He had few methods of making his way home, and he was hardly staggering down the sidewalk, regardless. His mind was fixed on parked cars, moving ones, on faces in his memory but nowhere to be found where he was. He needed to be elsewhere, but he was not sure how to arrive there. He hadn’t the slightest idea.

                He wandered, sharp pangs and bruiselike aches and all, waiting to find a place to just sit down or simply just a way to elsewhere. Anywhere else.

                The bench across the street brought the face of the girl to his mind, and he found himself there, some many minutes later. He wanted to leave, to go, to get anywhere else but wherever he was. Physical torment was enough, but the plague had manifested in all facets of himself, most notably within, and it grew out like a series of embarrassing moments, and of seconds in front of a mirror, like stained glass shards on the ground. Like the warning yellow on signs, like the striking crimson of a stop sign.

                He found himself trembling as he remained on the bench, found himself lying there, shutting his eyes, turning his back to the world. A public breakdown, some other part of him knew. He couldn’t get home; all who saw him made their assumptions, and this he did not protest, as he lie with his eyes closed, wishing for escape.

                He had to get home, Damir knew as he watched the young man breaking down on the bench. He needed to get home, he needed to prepare things for his parents, take them to appointments…

                They would, perhaps, always need him. There would always be things they had to do differently; that was something they could grow to accept. But at this time, there was struggle after struggle, frustration after frustration. And then all the sleep, all the lack of it. It was hard, and yes, they had each other… but how could any of them do what they were doing. How could he ever be a part of this world as he had ever again, with all this resting upon him? And did he even want it?

                He loved them. He did. His sleeping thoughts revolved around them.

                He was responsible for all that had come upon them. For their pain and struggles and uncertainty.

                No one woke the young man as he lay on the park bench, his sleeping mind revolving nightmares.

                When Damir next woke, he found himself lying atop the covers in his bed, yellow light sifting through the blinds, repainting the walls. The dream had been vivid… he vaguely recalled its actual occurrence; his mind’s only alteration of the events was the breakdown on the park bench. He had simply taken the bus home, staring out the window the entire time, with broken headphones in his ears, which hardly muffled the already quiet words of his surroundings.

                He almost missed his stop, although he had been staring out the entire ride. Yet he did arrive at home. The rest was somewhat unclear; he figured it wasn’t very different from the rest of his life these days. He knew that he had gone alongside nurses and therapists in the house for that day, and he knew that his parents had slept later than they usually would, and he was not sure whether that was positive or negative.

                And now there was daylight smothering his walls. The time certainly signified his lateness to work. His light blue shirt and darker pant uniform was wrinkled, familiar; he had worn it the previous day. Hurriedly, he brushed his teeth and hair, slipped on shoes, and left his house. It was more than the usual struggle to leave the house.

                It was only at the bus stop that he finally checked the time.

                One in the afternoon. How had he slept so long?

                His phone suddenly began to vibrate.

                “Hello?”

                “Hi, Damir, this is Lara, I was just calling to confirm the four o’clock appointment for your mother today. I called the other day, and I left a message…”

                “Oh, oh, yes, right… um… yeah, she’s still coming. Sorry, I missed your message…”

                He slipped the phone into speaker to stare at the screen. There was the message, unheard, his phone an untouched specimen for some hours, or perhaps more than he knew…

                “That’s just fine. So we’ll see you all then?”

                “Yes. Yes, I… I… We’ll be there.”

                “Have a good day.”

                “You too.”

                It would be several hours before another bus would arrive. So he took to the park, like he had in his dreams, and tried to shield his eyes from the sun and his exhaustion to the rest of the world. Had he been sleeping the entire day?

                More?

                He dialed the restaurant, his answer coming quickly.

                It seemed he had not arrived to work in three days. He had not been doing well, even on the days he arrived. He knew he had taken time off before…

                “Next time, let me know if you need to take some time off. We’ve all been tolerant these past few days and weeks, but you need to call, Damir. You need to let us know ahead of time. Next time… I don’t know if we can let it slide. Alright?”

                “O-Okay. I… I understand. I’ll… call. Next time.”

                He knew that his heart was beating faster than it should, but no faster than normal; it was always only too fast or too slow. He was on the bench that he had been in his sleep.

                His head was in his hands as he sat there, but his eyes were wide beneath the shield of hair which needed washing, as his brain within struggled to retrieve him a proper explanation.

                Nothing but riding the bus.

                Eventually, he pulled out the phone again, noting yet another message upon it. He needed to get home.

                He listened to Lara’s message, a nurse’s message, a telemarketer of some sort whom had somehow received his cell phone number, next one from his father from a week ago, and then a message that was several weeks old.

                From Amira.

                “Damir… I… Do you still want to… do you still want to meet today? School’s over for the day. If you want to go to the park sometime soon. Or later. Um. I’ll talk to you later, then…” she near-whispered into the phone. That lovely mild voice of hers.

                Hardly a whisper.

                He hadn’t heard it in so long. How could he have not seen this message for weeks?

               

                Desperately, he called her, twenty minutes after he assumed her school would let out.

                “Hello?”

                Amazing.

                “Amira?”

                “Oh… Damir. Hi.”

                “Hi.”

                They both paused, as if weighing their thoughts before speaking.

                “I… I know it’s been a long… time, since we… last spoke. And I’m… I’m really, really sorry. I should have called you ba_”

                “No… no… it’s alright. I know you’re busy…”

                “It’s okay, really, I should have just call_”

                “No, it’s okay… I’ll… Um. I have homework. But I can call you back? Later?”

                “Yeah, sure. Sure, that’d be great.”

                “Okay… well… um… bye.”

                “Bye.”

                He loaded the car, with his mother, as she assumed her passenger’s side as she always had.

                Nearly always.

                Lara was a therapist. She seemed to employ many different therapeutic techniques; at the previous individual session with his mother, she attempted to have her practice a sort of “art therapy” and it was not nearly as effective as they thought it could have been.  Veda was always unsatisfied, no matter what she did now. Whatever she created was simply not good enough, not anymore. Nothing was really pleasurable, or even accurate, anymore. She was acutely aware of all the things they had to do differently now, and all that they could no longer accomplish. She wanted to believe things would improve, as the rest of her family, yet a part of her that had lived within for years and years, since her 12^th year alive, the part that had always inhibited creativity, once a low voice, now shouted loudly all her failures and all her losses and worthlessness over and over, occasionally whispering memories of such inability that she struggled to bring back to mind even now.

                Every week she visited this woman, she was aware of this. Doctor Lindemann did not seem to do her job very well, as she attempted to recall, not usually, anyway. For the most part, Veda believed she left more frustrated and upset than she had been prior to visiting; it seemed futile. She had refused to see therapists of most sorts for the longest time. But now, there was no longer an opportunity for such strong avoidance; that was, unless they lost their means of attending their treatment.

                  Damir did all that was necessary to drive, hyper-aware of his own actions at the wheel, and all of his surroundings on this familiar road, the vehicles driving beside him, in front of him, in his rearview mirrors and out the back window.

                This had been her vehicle. She had once occupied the driver’s side, once taken the streets, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, never at the right speed limit.

                In his father’s vehicle, her husband’s vehicle, she had mostly occupied the passenger’s seat. Never the back. She was always beside one of them. In that passenger’s seat.

                That was where she had been that day.

                Where she would always remain.

                Fragile skulls and fragile brains and frail pale bones all within a thin shell… that is what they had been reduced to… shattered glass and blood like waterfalls…

                They were five minutes from the psychotherapist’s office, and Damir pulled over.

                He felt his heart racing, swift unsteady taps to breaking cymbals was each heartbeat, fast and out of rhythm. Here they were once more.

                “What is wrong, Damir? You need to drive,” his mother said.

                His eyes did not meet hers as they were fixed on the steering wheel, the dashboard, his fists gripping the grey-covered mechanism as tightly as steel doors slamming against one another. His only movement was that swiftly-beating heart, his arms trembling with his grip. He could not move; there was no way to move, no way to leave… they were trapped within, it was all contorted metal, and tiny little shards and webs of fragile thick glass.

                “Damir… you have to drive,” she whispered.

                He hardly recognized when a trembling hand reached out, weakly joining his upon the steering wheel. Careful upon his.

                “Please keep driving.”

                Her plea carried a gentle, yet stern, serious weight. She had never spoken in such a way before.

                They were not there, he told himself. It was nearly a year ago, nine or so months, ten maybe. They were here, they were on their way to the therapist’s office, the woman, the psychotherapist. For the mind, not anything else, not until later. Maybe tomorrow.

                He had expected a far stronger response from her. But that voice. He’d never heard her talk like that before.

                Gradually, he released his grip on the steering wheel, not expecting the sudden rush of weight upon him, like an immense storm’s wind, threatening to knock him to the floor, as he found the key in the ignition. His fast heartbeats were not only felt, but heard. The sights before him were all but the same as they once had been…

                I must drive… I have to get us to the office…

                “Drive, Damir. We need to get to Lara’s office, Damir. Hurry, we’re going to be late…”

                He turned the key, and swiftly merged, speeding and swerving, his head, heart, entire body pulsating with that storm-wind. In the parking lot, he strained to retrieve his breath. His mother unlocked her door, unbuckled her seatbelt.      

                Gradually, he arrived at the passenger’s side, helping her out of the vehicle. To the waiting room, down the hall to the office. He sat outside in the event that his immediate presence became necessary. These first few minutes of the session he spent attempting to catch his breath, straining, barely grasping for his breath. They were at the therapist’s building, they were here, they were fine, not there, not in that vehicle, not…

                “Damir! What did you do?!”

                There was red on the floor. It was her favorite color. He had just been dribbling around the soccer ball, and he’d finally managed to bounce it off his knee… and it hit the bottle of red paint. That was what she almost always used in the paintings. The ones that she called “abstract”.

                “That is NOT okay, Damir! It’s not okay, do you hear me? Are you listening to me?!”

                She was angry. It seemed that she was only capable of such strong fury when she was also happy. She spoke really fast when she was angry, or happy.

                “Are you listening?!”

                He nodded meekly. He was terrified of her when she got like this.

                “Now get out of here!” she shouted, dropping down to begin to lap up the red paint with a rag.

                When he was out of the room, he heard her sobbing. Concerned, yet still afraid, he inched his way to the little opening of her studio, a converted office in their most recent home. She sobbed, shaking, tears running down her cheeks. And then she lifted the rag, and slammed it against a near-finished canvas. She repeated this action several times upon that piece, and then another, next the walls, and threw it to the floor again.

                She was mumbling something to herself, and though he couldn’t make out most of what she was saying, he could catch a few of the words…

                “…why… not worth… why do I… hate, me… why did you…”

                She picked up a brush and purposefully slashed the red on the first painting she’d slammed the rag against. And she continued to do this for hours, until she had finally finished the piece.

                It no longer looked like random strokes of blood red, or bruiselike purple and blue, no longer like an uncanny collision of ice and fire… the picture was almost that of a face.

                Some unrecognizable figure, a man’s face. And then she took more red and slashed through it again.

                They were not there. They were here. She was in a therapist’s office, having a talk session of some sort, and he was sitting just outside. Waiting.

                Damir no longer had time for luxury of worrying about himself. But he found it strange and disturbing that these such memories entered his mind, and the last three days were mostly blank. The worst, he recognized, was not that he could not recall these things, but what he may have done, or not done during that time, would have inevitably affected the ones that he resided with.

                The eternity of forty-five minutes concluded themselves with the door to the therapist’s office slightly cracking, allowing sound, if there had been, out into the silently populated hallway. Doctor Lara Lindemann peered out, finding Damir.

                “Your mother’s session is finished, but would it be alright if you came in for a moment or so?”

                When he entered, he noted his mother’s quietness, thoughtful perhaps, as she compulsively adjusted her glasses, her stare downcast.

                “Yes, doctor?”

                “Lara is fine. Take a seat, Mr. Pax.”

                He did.

                “Damir.”

                “Sure. Damir, I understand that you haven’t spoken to a counselor or any other mental health specialist since your most recent stay in the hospital.”

                “Um… yes, that… that is true, D_, Lara.”

                She nodded along, as though she was taken down notes within her mind. As if some assumption of hers had been confirmed.

                “This is a very difficult situation, Damir.”

                He swallowed, stealing a glance at his abnormally demure mother, as she now set her hands in her lap.

                “Yes. Yes it is.”

                “It might be beneficial for you to try and process things with someone,” she proceeded, as if testing the temperature of a lake.

                “No, that… that won’t be necessary, Doctor Lindemann, I… We… we don’t have time, and I’m not sure about well, if, financially, that would work out or…”

                “Well… if you can find the time, I have some time open. And… I wouldn’t charge you. If you needed to meet with me.”

                He took on the silence of the woman beside him. The one who was not in the chair across from them. A strange triangle.

                “I’ll be fine… that… won’t be necessary,” he finally murmured, standing slowly to come to his mother’s side.

                “Thank you for your services,” he added, as they approached the doorway out.

                “It’s really not a problem, Damir.”

                “It’s… it’s alright. I really don’t have any time, and I’m fine.”

                He noted the way the therapist’s face changed, the way her thin eyebrows knit in concern, as he closed the door behind him and his mother to leave.

---

                The ride home was very similar to the ride to the office. His mother reacted when they arrived at home. She became very much like she had that day in the old office-studio of their second home, but with so much less control. It took hours for her to calm, and even then, there were far too many tears, too many shouts from all three of those in the house.

                No one ate that night. They all retired to rooms which met specific needs at either time later or much earlier than usual.

                Amira called near ten that night. He was in his room, attempting to steal some moments of peace before the next storm hit.

                “Yes?” he answered.

                “I’m sorry, is it too late?”

                “No… no, it’s fine. Um… I…”

                “Do you still think we could meet? Maybe tomorrow?”

                “Um… how about tonight?”

                It seemed she nearly gasped. It was almost ten o’clock, it was fall. It was somewhat dark. It would only grow darker in the nearer minutes.

                “Um… is that… okay?”

                “Yeah. It’s fine. I probably won’t have time tomorrow anyway.”

                “Sure… that’s…. that’s alright. If it’s okay for you?”

                “It is.”

                “So… when? Where should we…”

                “Ten-thirty. Bus stop by… 23^rd? “

                “Where is that by? I’m sorry, I just don’_”

                “It’s fine. By that one bread and bagel place, uh, I don’t remember the name… um… can you make it?”

                “Yeah… I… I think I know where that is. I can get there.”

                “Okay. Well… I’ll… I’ll see you then…” he replied.

                “Yes. See you… soon.”

                He listened for the telltale “click” of her phone hanging up, following her actions a few minutes afterward. His mother and father were now fast asleep, totally and completely, the result of the effects of many various medications. This evening he’d found the typical results; his necessity to refill those they were running out of, as well as an abundance of some less significant others. He could scarcely comprehend their lives, though he received a tiny glimpse of it while he was in the hospital.

                The drugs only created a very small, vague fog, when the pain was agonizing. When it shut out his thoughts, or when his mind ran ahead of his body at impossible speed, or when it slowed in exhaustion from all that was attacking him from the outside in, the inside out. Only a single curiosity seemed to reveal itself tonight, in his survey of the medications. A certain medication, a particularly powerful anticonvulsant, actually, which hadn’t necessitated use in quite a while, seemed to be mildly depleted. The rest were at levels they should have been…

                He’d kept all the potential correlations far from his thoughts, pushing and pushing all disturbances from his mind, as he limped as quickly as possible from house to bus stop. He paid close attention to all the loud rare headlights as they made their ways down the nightly quiet of the residential streets accompanying the sidewalk.

                Desperately, he pushed all his thoughts away as he tried to reach Amira, this potential for a morning. All connection, all correlation, he used his fists to punch them down, far away from him.

                At the stop he stood, and his clock showed the time 10:31 PM. Amira arrived not long after, emerging from beneath the streetlights.

                “Hi,” she murmured. Her eyes were upon his. Her gaze did not wander as it usually had.

                “Hi. Do you… we can go to the… the park, if you want. There actually is… um… a bus that comes… at this time. Well, in a few minu_”

                “It doesn’t matter. It’s um… It’s kind of late, don’t you think?” she said. He could not recover from how she looked beneath a dying streetlight, literally glowing… like the sun, glowing streetlamp light bathing a darkened city street.

                “If it’s too late for you, I suppose you could… go… back…”

                “No. No, we can talk.”

                “We should… probably… talk,” he replied.

                She gradually stared at the ground. He wouldn’t prod her. He disliked prodding himself.

                “I… so… you… you heard… when… I was on the phone with you…”

                “Yeah.”

                “After… the pharmacy.”

                He nodded, wincing slightly at the movement. The long white vehicle, with its painted ads of the time, carrying but a few lone passengers, weary to arrive at home, or even asleep.

                “I have a pass,” Damir offered. Fare was certainly not awful; he could pay for both of them.

                “How far is the park?”

                “Not too far.”

                “Okay.”

                Fortunately, they each spoke fast enough in that moment to bring themselves upon the bus before it left. They took seats toward the back, each incredibly careful to avoid disturbing their fellow passengers. There seemed to be quite a few for the dark state of the night, yet more or less would arrive in the next few hours. Three stops later, they arrived at their destination; the park was right across the street.

                “You realize… we just took bus, from a bus stop with a bench… in order to get to another bench,” Amira noted.

                Damir found a flicker of a smile on both of their faces. There were more cars downtown than in his neighborhood, yet there were not so many that the two could not simply cross the street without notice. Regardless, Damir pressed the button for them to cross, and they waited until the “walk” sign lit up across from them before doing so.

                The sunflower was only now growing dry, but it was brightened by the two park streetlamps.

                “You don’t… have to talk. If you don’t want to.”

                “No, it’s alright… that’s… why we’re here. Right?”

                “Yeah… I suppose that’s why.”

                Amira looked away again, turning first her head, and then her entire self away from him. It was hard, immensely hard, for her to have even told him a single thing about herself that night on the phone. It was a hurricane flood through a house, tearing down all its once-sturdy walls. Once she had been protected, he supposed. Once she had never been alone…

               

“My brother…” she began, in voice softer than he’d ever heard, tears so clear within it.

                “…Liam… he… I… I was… I was… 10. And…”

                Her slender shoulders shook, as she gasped in a tearful breath.

                “I… I’m sorry, Damir, I should… I should just… I should go home…”

                “If… that’s what you want to do.”

                She nodded, sniffling.

                “I’m sorry…” she whispered again, still trembling with her tears. Gently, he placed his hand upon her shoulder.

                Amira glanced toward him once more. All that she’d ever seen was within those eyes. All she’d feared and wished for, all that she had regretted, all the pain she’d ever endured, and all the quiet fading joy, everything, was within those eyes. The gateway to the soul, as someone had said.

                She was still sitting on the bench. She wasn’t leaving, not quite yet. Nor was Damir.

                Tentatively, at first, she moved toward him, bringing her gaze to the ground, as she continued to cry. He wished, he willed, her tears away… he wanted, more than ever, to remove all of this girl’s pain. To renew whatever happiness she had ever experienced once more.

                Amira laid her head against his shoulder, her tears streaming as she strained to stop them. As tentative as she, he put his arm around her, and she leaned into his shirt; floodgates open.

                He had seen a great and miserable lot in his life; he had seen several at their most vulnerable, he had seen his parents there, seen himself in a mirror, heard the cries of the others who spent their time in hospitals and elsewhere.

                But he had never seen a single person so honest as Amira.

                This way they remained until the daylight woke them.