Blood it's everywhere, warm and wet on my hands my clothes, the floor, and this overwhelming feeling of loss and helplessness envelope me making me scream out.
John was shaking me to wake up as I emerged from the nightmare the emotions coming right with me. Tears flooded my face and I cried in agony clutching him tightly. He sat there holding me close telling me 'it's okay, I'm here' and rubbed my back trying to soothe me.
I had been having this nightmare a lot lately but that's all I see blood before the rising tide of anguish hits me.
It takes a while before I'm able to calm my thoughts and emotions as I desperately cling to the only thing that is keeping me sane. I can't rid myself of this anxiety built up in me because of this damn dream.
I finally calm down and get up and wash my face and go back to bed. John cradles me in his embrace and whispers, "I love you, Mary."
I pull him closer and hold him tightly against me, my knight who rescues me from the nightmares.
I can't sleep though and eventually climb out of bed and go into my office across the hall. I sit back in my padded, red velvet and dark cherry wood chair my hands caressing the intricate Art Nouveau style carved into the wood. I'm mindlessly staring around at the wall bookshelf that's filled with books and the art hanging in the walls. Most of the art is new, except one, I painted it a long time ago to remember what I could of the old fairy that gifted me.
Her frizzy, silver in the moonlight hair coming out to frame her thin face. She was past her youth but didn't look like she was all wrinkles and age spots. Her eyes and the corners of her mouth had the most aged look about them. Her skin on her cheeks still rather smooth. In the painting her hands had an older look then anything else as she cups her chin and looks at me. I did her black eyes so well, it was almost like I was back in the hole again with her looking at me, crooning.
I opened up yesterdays paper that I had yet to read and looked over the news. It seemed that more pixies were caught stealing things from peoples yards around town, typical, they were always doing mischievous things. The normal about work on the 15 freeway so expect heavier traffic during rush hours. Weather was supposed to be it's normal beautiful Goldilocks temperature. Some trolls had started a business with local stone workers, that was interesting.
My search for my fairy 'godmother' as the office started to call it, was still on going. Fairies tended to stay within the realm of the fairy courts, except for rogues and ambassadors for the Erl king. The rogues were of no help they'd just laugh and tell you to go to hell. No matter what you said, offered, or threatened rogues were assholes. They cared for no one, nothing, not even themselves. It was like they were chaotic neutral characters and nothing meant everything and everything meant nothing to them. After trying for weeks of interrogating a rogue fairy, I had to go see a psychiatrist the damn thing was so screwy. We had a team of different people try and they all after a few sessions agreed they could not and would not talk to it anymore.
The order from the Erlking on the fairy caught was to dip it into acid or toss the thing in a volcano for, 'sanity will never be able to reason with insanity, they will never see the error of their ways nor feel remorse. Total obliteration is all that can be offered.' When we had told it what the king had said it was happy. The thing practically asked for a bathtub of acid to lounge in. Crazy enough one was provided for it.
We watched as it jumped in and laid back like it was the most comfortable thing it had ever felt. A smile spread across its face as its hair and skin began to thin and then blood started mixing with the acid. The thing continued to lay there it's black eyes staring peacefully up at the camera in the ceiling. A muscle was twitching in its cheek, until the cheek just slid off exposing its muscular structure and exposed bone beneath it. It sank into the tub a dissolving concoction of gore and was no more.
Strangely enough that scene doesn't haunt my dreams, it seemed as if the mind of that fairy really did need release from itself.
I shake my head from my train of thought and put the paper down. Opening up my laptop, I pull up my calendar and see whats scheduled to be done before the wedding that I could tackle at 4 am.
'Ah, finish the playlists for reception.' I could do that. .... 5 am, it's done and sent to the venue for the DJ.
'Let's see what else..... Try on wedding day undergarments with dress over to make sure nothing can be seen.....
'hmmm...' I get up lock the door to the office and shut the blinds before pulling my dress and undergarments out of the closet. 20 minutes later I'm dressed and looking in the mirror and I can't believe I'm getting married....again..... I've met two men now throughout my life that I felt were worth marrying. Looking in the mirror at myself, it made me think of my wedding day to Nathaniel.
It was a lot of fun, learning about each other and how a marriage worked.
It also was really hard some days, especially when he started not feeling well.
Then the day he told me that he had cancer, that was one of the rougher days. Then going through the surgeries and radiation, nursing him as he continued to get weaker and thinner, until he had to go to the hospital. When it came to saying goodbye as he just faded away from the cancer eating away at him that the doctors couldn't help, that was a different kind of agony.
What if something like that happened to John? Could I really do it again?
Could I sit there and watch as he got older, his friends having kids or more kids, while he had none. Yeah we could adopt, but having to explain to a child that mommy doesn't die? Or grow old?
'That'll be great with the school board trying to give them my "beauty secret".'
Then growing attached to the child I made mine and watching as they grew old and died?
Tears rolled down my cheeks at the thought.
My anxiety building up at the unknown future possibilities, some little things, most of it big things to me.
There's a possibility that I could have this gift undone, but the greater chance is being stuck like this until the end of time.
I realized after 5 years, my hope was starting to fade, the more I realized the fairy court wished to remain separated from us humans. Only the lesser Fae, according to the Erl king, wished to come back among the earth and sky, even if it meant mingling with us humans.
I took off the dress and undergarments and put them away carefully.
Despair, anxieties twin, was setting in as I realized the past five years I was holding on blindly to false hope.
I was foolish to let a dream give me ignorant bliss, for now that dream was the reason for my suffering.
....I need a drink....
I don't even bother with a glass.
I grab the bottle and close the door to the bathroom and fill up the bath. I down half the bottle waiting on the water to fill. I don't even care I'm still clothed in my pajamas and climb in the water. I take some more drinks and realized my bottles empty.
Damn. when did that happen? So I lay there and start dunking my head under the water and popping back up.
I gasp for some air and I'm suddenly gasping over a barrel of water, coughing up water, gagging trying to catch a breath.
Water drips down my face and hair that's twisted up in a gloved fist with a Nazi knee in my back.
Before I can catch a single clear breath, he's shoving me back under the water, despite my desperate struggle to fight back.
My sight is going black and fuzzy around the edges.
I'm getting weaker, my limbs are heavy, my thoughts are slowing, and I just give up.
I don't fight it anymore and just lay there not caring as my eyes black over.
"SIN! WHAT THE FUCK!" John is yelling at me holding me slightly over his knee and smacking the shit out of my back in the tub that is now draining. Water comes gurgling out of my lungs and I bend over farther puking and coughing the water out through my mouth and nose.
When it's all out and I'm gasping air into my lungs, I shoot sitting up looking around for the Nazi soldier.
"Where is he?" I ask looking all around.
"Sin, where is who?" He asks cautiously but still looking agitated as I start to calm down.
"The Nazi....." I stop. It's not 1945 and I'm no where near Germany. "I am in San Diego, It is the year 2025. I am not being tortured." I repeat the mantra to keep my mind focused on the real things going on now.
Once I feel semi- functional, I sit up and look into Johns very upset face.
His look is something I have never seen before on him. Rage, disappointment, fear, love, despair, and disbelief filled his eyes, face, and body language. Disgust started coming through when I suddenly started to gag and vomited straight whiskey and bile all over the bottom of the tub.
He got up and out of the tub taking his sleep shorts off that had vomit on them and tossed them in the hamper. I turned the water on in the tub to start cleaning the vomit down the drain.
He came back in and handed me a glass of water and a towel with a slightly calmer demeanor.
"Here, drink this. Don't worry about the tub for now. Let's get you out of those wet clothes and dried off." He helped me out and undressed me to dry me off.
My body was shaking from the traumatic shock of the flashback and most likely alcohol poisoning. With my pale skin and vomiting, I'm almost positive I had alcohol poisoning.
He rubbed me down a little aggressively, blow dried my hair, and got me onto the bed with another glass of water and put some dry clothes on me. He kept looking at me like he wanted to say something but kept closing his mouth instead and looking away.
Finally he spoke.
"Why , when I wake up, did I come in to see you were having a seizure, face down in the water with an empty, gallon of whiskey next to the bath?
"Why does it look like to me that you tried to poison yourself and drown yourself at the same time?"
"If you really were trying to do that, WHY?"
I'm silent, my anxiety has frozen my words form coming out as he stares at me, waiting for a response.
"SIN, MARY, WHAT HAPPENED?!" He stares intensely at me, frustrated over the range of emotions he's battling at the moment.
I look down ashamed and embarrassed.
"I wasn't trying to drown myself." I start to cry silently. "I was upset from the dream still and decided to have a drink and thought a bath would be a good way to relax."
"I was drinking while it was filling up and next thing I knew the bottle was empty and I was in Germany, the Nazi's were drowning me in the water barrel again." I cover my face with my hands as I start to rock, remembering the first time I was ever caught and tortured to death, with no training in the matter.
The emotions are too raw in me to handle his anger.
"Why didn't you wake me up if you were that upset?" his tone still firm and upset.
"Because, I DIDN'T WANT TO UPSET YOU OK!" I yelled my defenses up.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK I WAS FEELING WALKING IN AND SEEING YOU LIKE THAT!? HOW CAN I FEEL LIKE I'M YOUR PARTNER WHEN YOU TRY TO PUSH ME AWAY OR LEAVE ME IN THE DARK ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS OR FEELINGS!"
"I'VE DEALT WITH THIS BEFORE ALONE, I CAN DO IT WITHOUT YOUR ATTITUDE MAKING ME FEEL WORSE!" I scream getting off the bed and walking out of the room.
He doesn't follow me. He knows better, right now, we both need space. I go down to the guest room and cry it out in there.
'What an asshole. Just because he doesn't know what it's like for me, to have the flashbacks.'
"HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO DIE A HUNDRED TIMES AND REMEMBER EVERYTHING!" I scream at the ceiling venting my frustration.
"YOU ACT LIKE I DO THIS ON PURPOSE!" I start punching the bed and throwing the pillows. I start ripping the bed sheets apart trying to vent my frustration.
'fuck he thinks I TRIED TO KILL MYSELF, who the hell is he kidding? I KNOW that wouldn't work, so why would I TRY IT!'
'MEN' I shake my head and fall on the floor trembling and exhausted, looking at the destroyed bed sheets.
'Damn I know how to throw a damn tantrum. He was just worried and scared. How would I have felt if I had walked in on something similar, even if I knew he couldn't die, how would it still make me feel?'
I wait a little longer to finish cooling down and wash my face. I make us both some coffee and take it upstairs.
He's sitting on the bed fully dressed, casually, in deep thought.
"I brought you some coffee." I say timidly and he takes it not really saying anything.
"I'm sorry, John. I don't try to involve you in my fucked up feelings and head when I'm like that because I see how powerless you feel and I hate making you feel that way. I really didn't mean to do that earlier in the tub." I say reserved but calm enough to not get defensive if he lashes out at me. Which I still deserve. I'm not the only one with emotions in this relationship.
He's sits there drinking the coffee down and sets it on the stand. "Sin, it doesn't matter if you didn't mean to or not. What if we are able to lift this gift? Are you going to continue to be so careless about your life? You won't be coming back if we are able to get rid of it. That scene in there this morning would have been a lot worse if you...." His voice broke and he took a deep breath. "You may come back but every time you die, but it rips me apart still. Not knowing if it's the last time."
He stops himself and stares at the ceiling trying to keep his own emotions in check.
I set my coffee down and climb up behind him and carefully hug him, not knowing if he's ready for my touch. Tears are running down our faces but he shrugs my arms off anyways. My heart pauses not knowing what he's going to do. It's bracing for the pain that might be coming.
'Is he going to leave me now?'
'Am I just too messed up for him to love and he's finally realizing there really is no future with me?'
My heart starts to crack as he stands from the bed, 'I knew it.'
He turns and looks me his face changes from hurt to surprise.
"Babe, Mary?" He sits down with me and holds my face looking into my eyes. "What did you think I was going to leave you?" Questioning me as the tears flow and I nod.
"Oh Mary Douglas, I will never leave you. I promise you, my love, we have a lot of years left together." He pulls me close and holds me reassuring my anxious heart and mind.