Blue

Blue

Emy was lost, lost in water droplets of translucent crimson, which sparkled like rubies in the sunlight.  She watched them, drop after drop, as each one rolled down her skin, dawdled on her breasts, and then crashed onto her teddy bear Blue's drenched coat.  There was red everywhere -- streaked across the floor, on the walls, streaming down the shower drain.  Emy felt a hollow aching that left her trembling with despair as she looked into the wanting eyes of her Blue.  Oh Blue, poor Blue, all covered in blood, she thought.  She cradled his head in her lap and caressed his soiled face.  My Blue.  The red was everywhere -- in his hair, on his face, in his clothes. 

Sirens trilled in shrill alarm, the fervor of their panic ever intensifying as they came closer and closer. 

As Emy reached for the shampoo bottle, she heard muffled voices somewhere nearby, but she stayed focused on the task at hand.  She snapped the bottle open and filled her palm with its gooey contents.  She covered Blue's eyes with a washcloth and worked his hair into a pink lather.

A loud crash brought the voices closer.  They grew louder and more frantic, and suddenly, the bathroom door was bashed open.  

The officers just stood there with their jaws agape -- staring, just staring.

Emy darted her eyes from cop to cop and whispered, "I, I can't -- I can't get the blood out of his hair."

*   *   *

            Fading sunlight spilled through an open window.  The curtains, a colorful mosaic like a patchwork quilt, stirred in a chilling breeze.  Mischievous crickets delighted in the coming dusk.  Whippoorwills and ravens chirped and twittered their goodnights.  Emy lay withered across the width of her childhood bed with her tear stained face buried in Blue's belly. 

            She couldn't believe it happened two nights ago.  It felt like seconds ago.  Oh God, did she hurt, like he was still inside her, raping her, raping her, raping her.  His skin was white, never knowing the sun, and his eyes were pale like the milked over pupil of a dead fish.  He had painted his face, and his eyebrows were shaved.  He looked like some vulgar drag queen.  Straggled strands of grease black hair hung about his frightful mug, and he had slowly dragged them across her face, teasing her flesh.  She wanted to swat them away so badly, but he held her down.  He wore a leather coat.  He unzipped his jeans.  She noticed that the bottom of his T-shirt had come unhemmed.  Then he --

            Stop it!  Stop it!  Stop it!  Stop thinking about it.  Just push it away.  Push it away, she thought.  She stared at her distorted reflection in the blackness of Blue's eyes. 

She thought about when her mother had died.  It was a bad winter that year.  Her mother's car had hit a patch of ice and slid off the road into a pond.  They searched and searched for her, but a fresh snow had hidden all signs of the accident.  Three days later, her mommy's frozen cadaver was finally pulled from its watery grave.  Her father, destroyed with grief, gave no comfort, but Blue, Blue was there, ready to absorb her little girl tears.  And when her first love, Sean, dumped her at the prom, she went home to the loving arms of her Blue. Blue was always there.

             She hugged Blue tightly and wept into the belly of her only friend.

 

*   *   *

            Emy must have dozed off, for she awoke in darkness shivering with cold, yet she felt sick with heat -- sticky and sick to her stomach with a dull ache in her head.

            The clock displayed "1:24" in red.  She fumbled for the lamp.  As she sat up on her knees, the mattress springs pushed into her tender flesh.  Every muscle in her body resisted and begged her to lie back down.  She shut the window and locked it.  She pressed her forehead against the clear pane and watched the stars become hazy with her steaming breath.

           Time promised to heal all wounds, yet it slipped by so agonizingly slow.  She pulled the drapes together and fell back against the mattress.  She held her breath for a moment and then exhaled with a sigh.  She unbuttoned her jeans and worked them off.  She covered herself with the quilts.  She pressed her feet against the footboard -- first the right one, then the left one, right, left, right.  She felt so cold. 

            You like it.  Say it.  You like it.  The words echoed through her mind.  His voice was so harsh and deep.  He had dragged his hair across her face.  No!  her mind screamed. 

"My life is over," she whispered.  She snorted and swallowed snot.  Blue, where is Blue?

She had knocked the teddy bear into the floor.  She reached out and grabbed the stubby figure by its head.  Her fingers sank into his cotton form; his silky fur tickled and soothed her skin.  She curled up with Blue and buried her face in his belly.  She had dressed him in a dirty flannel shirt belonging to her husband, Lucas.  She inhaled deeply, breathing in her husband's sweat and cologne. 

You like it.  Say it.  You like it.  The words echoed through her mind.

Lucas had watched helplessly, desperately, as the man had raped her.  He had begged him to stop, to just please stop.  She rubbed the sickly white skin where her engagement ring and wedding band had been just two days ago.  Why did he have to take them?  Her mouth felt dry.  Her stomach cramped.  She leaned off the bed and hung her head over the trashcan.  She tried to hold it down, but she puked anyway, missing the trashcan and spewing bile down her chin and onto the floor.  She heaved again and again, even though she had nothing left in her stomach.  She wiped her face on a quilt.  She bit her lip, bringing blood; it stole the taste from her tongue and left emptiness.  How can I go on?  she thought.  She closed her eyes, buried her face in Blue, and flooded his belly with tears.

She wanted to die.

Emy picked up her wedding picture from the nightstand.  Why had her father put it there?  Its ornate silver frame reflected her stretched and misshapen visage.  Lucas smiled at her with his baby face all lit up with a child's delight.  She felt enraged and yelled, "Smile!  Smile, goddamnit!  Go ahead.  Laugh!  You think it's just so funny don't you?  How could you leave me at a time like this?  You fucking son of a bitch!  You goddamn bastard!  I hate you!  I hate you.  I'm glad you're gone!"  She hurled the photograph at the wall, shattering it. 

            "No!" she yelled.  She jumped from the bed and fell to her knees.  Shards of glass bit into her flesh.  "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry," she cried as she rescued the photo from the broken glass.  "I didn't mean it.  I just can't take it anymore.  I just want it all to go away."  She picked up a piece of the jagged glass.  I want to go away, she thought.  She looked down at her wrists, still black and blue from the rapist's grip.  She envisioned cutting away those bruises, washing them away with her own hot blood.  She could see it, and she wanted it.  It would all be over.  The nightmare would end.

Not like this, she thought.  Lucas couldn't stomach the sight of blood.  She couldn't slit her wrists, but the happy pills the hospital gave her would be perfect.  She pulled the bottle of pills from the nightstand drawer.  She took the bottle of water from the nightstand, gobbled up all of the pills, and curled up with her Blue. 

Her limbs tingled and went numb.  All the colors of heaven and earth swirled together, becoming thick and black like tar, and as the room faded to black, life gave way to something resembling a dream or a memory, but more like hell.

*   *   *

            Emy and Lucas took off their shoes and trotted hand in hand up and down the edge of the frigid water as the sun peaked over the horizon.  She saw a great big sand dollar being washed out to sea, and she wanted it.  Lucas took off after it, catching it about knee deep in the surf.  He looked up and smiled, holding up the treasure.  He tipped his head to one side, and the ocean wind tousled his hair.  She looked at him, soaking up his essence, because she couldn't remember a day he'd looked more beautiful.

            Lucas gave her the sand dollar, and they sat down in the sand.  "Emy, my princess," he said as he nuzzled her hair.  "I can't stand to see you like this anymore.  You've got to let this go."  He brushed her hair from her face and then kissed her deeply.  She had forgotten how sweet he tasted.  "This is wrong," he said.  "Don't do this." 

His form became transparent, and like a vapor in a gentle wind, he began to fade away.

"No!  Please don't leave.  Please!  Please!"  Emy yelled as the tears welled up in her eyes.  She could smell salt like the blood of innocence.  The sounds of the sea rushed up to devour the sand.  "Please?"

            Alone, Emy walked away from the sea, and she traversed the distance of myriad miles in the blink of an eye with dreamlike precision.

She walked down an alley.  Hidden in the shadows of two dumpsters, a shrunken old man sat scrunched up against the moist bricks of a Chinese restaurant.  The pungent smell of must and stale food crept from the bins and hung thick in the thin air. 

Emy didn't notice the man as she walked past him.  A bird flew towards her from the shadows where the man hid.  It squawked as it nearly crashed into her, causing her to turn about and face the direction of the fowl attack.  That's when she saw the old man. 

He had left the security of his shadows and now stood not six feet from her.  Six doves were perched on his head and shoulders.  His leathery visage was dark, the color of burnt sienna.  His forehead was exaggerated by receding gray hair that just touched his shoulders.  One eye was noticeably larger than the other and sat shallow in its socket, ready to slide from his face onto the pavement.  Quite the opposite, his other eye was burrowed deep into his skull and was sealed in with blood stained matter.  "Come here," he spoke in a raspy whisper, his voice reminiscent of her rapist's voice, for he was rape incarnate.  "I've got something for you."  He held out her engagement ring and wedding band. 

            Emy felt unusually calm as she walked towards the demon.  "Lucas," she whispered, as she reached for the rings.

The man closed his hand before she could snatch them.  "You miss him don't you?  You miss him so badly that it hurts every fiber of your being.  You just want the emptiness to stop.  That's why you took the pills, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I may have hurt you, but you still want your precious Lucas to fuck you again, don't you."

"Yes."

"Only a whore loves cock.  Are you a whore, Emy?"  The old man unzipped himself and pulled out his semi-stiff, wrinkled prick.  He grabbed her by the wrist and placed her hand on his dick, which radiated heat like the fires of hell.  She wanted to pull her hand away, but she froze like a deer in headlights.  "With this ring, I thee wed," he said and slid the band onto her finger. 

She had to wake up, had to get out, had to run from the hell this demon was taking her to. 

*   *   *

Emy awoke, disoriented, in the shower.  The water was scalding, but boiling wasn't hot enough to burn off the pain.  The steam was so thick that she couldn't breathe.  She was in the floor, with her back pressed against the wall.   There was a weight upon her lap, and when she looked down the air rushed from her lungs with a guttural moan. "Oh Lucas, poor Lucas!" she cried. 

"Emy!  Don't do this to yourself.  Not again."  It was the disembodied voice of Lucas, calling to her through the either, if only she would listen.

She was lost, lost in water droplets of translucent crimson, which sparkled like rubies in the sunlight.  She watched them, drop after drop, as each one rolled down her skin, dawdled on her breasts, and then crashed onto her –

It's not my Lucas, she thought.

Lucas receded.  His sleek, muscular form turned plush, as his long extremities became stubbed.  His skin sprouted soft blue fur.  His head took on the soggy shape of a pillow.  His ears became flat and floppy.  His nose took on a cartoonish quality.  Finally, his dead eyes became black plastic buttons and she didn't see Lucas anymore.

 Lost in water droplets, Emy watched drop after drop, as each one rolled down her skin, dawdled on her breasts, and then crashed onto her teddy bear Blue's drenched coat.  There was red everywhere -- streaked across the floor, on the walls, streaming down the shower drain.  Emy felt a hollow aching that left her trembling with despair as she looked into the wanting eyes of her Blue.  Oh Blue, poor Blue, all covered in blood, she thought.  She cradled his head in her lap and caressed his soiled face.  My Blue.  The red was everywhere -- in his hair, on his face, in his clothes. 

Sirens trilled in shrill alarm, the fervor of their panic ever intensifying as they came closer and closer. 

As Emy reached for the shampoo bottle, she heard muffled voices somewhere nearby, but she stayed focused on the task at hand.  She snapped the bottle open and filled her palm with its gooey contents.  She covered Blue's eyes with a washcloth and worked his hair into a pink lather.

A loud crash brought the voices closer.  They grew louder and more frantic, and suddenly, the bathroom door was bashed open.  

The officers just stood there with their jaws agape -- staring, just staring.

Emy darted her eyes from cop to cop and whispered, "I, I can't -- I can't get the blood out of his hair."

"My God, half his gut is missing!" one of the cops said.

This tragedy was inscribed in the very brick and mortar, and it was here Emy was doomed to dwell, a damned soul on repeat for infinity, unable to let go and pass on, caught in an unending loop.  Lucas was tucked away, eternally hidden by Blue's obscuring devotion, faithful and unending.  They were best friends forever.