Dr. No
I know terror. Terror is my roommate. He sits on my chest day and night. I walk for the narrow pathways of my home from one room to the next. My small apartment. My prison. And Terror is always there. He reminds me of my disintegration. He tells me daily that I am losing. Losing what? Losing everything. Every little thread of hope that I have is frayed and falling apart. Terror is there to remind me that hope is disappearing. It's hard to explain. But terror is my past. Terror is the mistakes I've made. Terror is the harm I've done to others and the selfish way I have lived my life up to this point. Terror is me and I am afraid. I am afraid for myself and I am afraid of myself. I'm afraid of the past me that made the decisions that left me weak and hopeless. There is no one else. It is only me. I keep myself alive and I keep the terror close. I have no choice. The terror is my twin. He is the weakness of me. He is the witness of my crimes. He is the willing participant who watched me slice myself up into pieces that no longer look like a woman. He is in my hands. He is my fingers. He fills my calves down to my toes. He is the weight I gain and the hair I lose. He is the disappointing shower. He is the disappearing sleep. He is my fellow. Where once I could calm him and soothe him and bring hope, I can no longer comfort him in any way. He is the rug worn bare and the bedsprings that are in deep decline. He is the sun that shines too brightly for me to find the words I need. I have no more words. The only words I had are gone. He is my only brother. He is my father and my mother. He is the loss of everything and the emptiness of nothing. Because I am nothing. I have nothing. And he reminds me that fear is the only thing that's keeping me here. He is fear. He is my captor and my saint and my holy relic. He is my son that I will betray. Although I am childless, he is my child. He is coming to the world hungry and crying and now waiting to be fed. And he cannot be denied. He will not be denied. He is ruthless and relentless. He regrets nothing. And yet here I am, regretting every minute that I let him grow inside of me. He is my fault. He is me.
Finally, I tried the blue sponge with its rough side. A lightweight eraser didn’t work and neither did a wet cloth. No. But the sponge (and some elbow grease) finally did the trick, and I wiped away all of my values. The ink had been there so long that it refused to go. It took effort to erase them all. The white board was just a bit banged up with a few dots where the magic surface had been nicked and damaged, but after a few minutes of scrubbing, the ink was gone. “Courage” and “Patience” and “Forgiveness” and “Loyalty” were all erased. There were a dozen words living on that board so long that somehow the ink had dug its claws into the surface and made quite a fight. I took a picture of my values before I started to clean them from the shiny surface. The board is about 10 inches x 20. Its magnet sticks to the refrigerator door so that the values were a reminder to me. They stared back at me as I stood in the kitchen with my phone blaring some YouTube channel of talkers, talking and talking. The board was unblinking and somewhat ruthless in its presentation of the truth. It never got old or tired, and I discovered just how resilient those values are.
I want a change. I want a daily reminder of promises I make to myself. “Write.” “The Bathroom” “Groceries.” “The cart.” I knew what each meant. They were tasks for me as a way to keep my summer organized and purposeful. Without the routine of school, I could easily slip into darkness, especially in this apartment. If I actually open my eyes, I see it all. Evidence of my disorder. There are so many corners of my home where I have swept away the rot. Things are no longer new or shiny, but I can’t seem to get this place back. It gave itself up to my anxiety last year, and now I am breathing in its destruction every second I spend here. I am trapped, but I need to escape. I can’t simply leave. I left for school each day to drive to my job, but even driving was once a prisoner here. It took six days in a hospital and a month of intensive outpatient therapy to loosen terror’s grip on me. I went back to work last May, and I just finished a full year. I snuck out of the hole into which I had fallen or been pushed. Who knows? But now my apartment reminds me almost hour by hour that I was once a prisoner here. Decay set in, and I barely escape it every day. Barely, but I did.
Now I am back in its talons. That’s an apt metaphor as I watch the small birds scurry about my patio, gobbling up the seeds I sprinkled there only an hour earlier. They are my only visitors. I wouldn’t know what to clean first even if I could invite someone into my home. I have a pool and a fitness center. These are good excuses for my friend to come visit, but I can’t have anyone in this apartment with it being such a tattered mess.
Anxiety is a terrorist. It came to me in the middle of a collapse and launched itself on me, without a care for my well-being. It was muddy and spackled with the filth of the world, and when it shook its heavy mane like a wet lion, it spread its grime everywhere, and I didn't have the strength to clean it. Every corner is dirty.
The Terrorist
All She’s Done
She has to turn her head sideways to read them. They run down the spine of the book that's sitting on the library shelf. She crouches and tilts the book, sliding it from its home. She holds it flat in her palm. The title is a memory. She is looking at me, like a portrait, holding that book. That’s how I see her. Her eyes never blink.
And the author of the five word title is dead.
I want her to read the book. I know the book. I know the title. I wish I could read it to her. It's a beautiful book. She’s a beautiful book. I can’t separate them. Her eyes are the title. I read her. She looks at me from a picture. Only, she's not looking at me. What is she looking at? What is she thinking? She leans her face on her hand and stares up at me. Her hair is perfect. She is perfect. She is the book. It's a little book, but it would take so long to read her aloud. It means seeing her. Sliding her off the shelf. Feeling her weight in my palm.
I'm the one at the library. She’s telling me to buy her perfume. I am tempted, but I am more comfortable with books and words. Where was she when they took that picture? Does she go to libraries? I'm sure she does. Why wouldn't she? She's beautiful. Five words. 12345. All total. How many of those words are in this little book? I'll never know unless I check it out. Two weeks. It’s due back in two weeks. That’s hardly enough time.
I read once that there have been about a million words in the English language.
How many words does she know? Does it matter? No one reads her the way this book gets read. No one takes the time to read her. She has such sad eyes. Look at them. And they never shut. I doubt she's dead. But I don't know. I don't know when the picture was taken. Maybe she and the author are both dead. Maybe they died together. I'm pretty sure the author died in his bed in his home with his family around him. I'm pretty sure the girl is drinking cold coffee through a straw in a giant bed in a hotel room that could take her all day to destroy if she tried.
There's a suitcase on the couch. Her makeup's on the counter just outside the bathroom. All the things that need to be charged are charging. And she's waiting. There's an Uber. She has a job. She'll wear layers and layers with a baseball hat and a giant scarf. And when she gets to the place where they have called to come, they will undo her and take her apart and turn her into something that can shine.
Who wants their face touched like that? Who wants to be painted or sprayed?
There's a photograph of the author on the back of the book. He doesn't look painted or sprayed, but it does look like someone ran a brush through his hair. He's dead. He died long ago. Maybe it wasn't in his bed with his family. Maybe he drank himself to death. Maybe he died in a war. Maybe he had a heart attack at the grocery store.
As a young man, he was crammed in a landing boat. His life wasn’t guaranteed at all, and boys he knew for weeks had their faces shot off or their shoulders pierced with shrapnel. He survived. This was before the five word title. He saw action. He saw the dead souls walking like children. Their skin was soft and translucent. Like paper. Typing paper. He thought of these dying witnesses whenever he pulled a sheet out of his typewriter. One page closer to the edge. The soldiers caught some from falling off of the edge of life, but so many others were gone. Murdered ashes. Murdered children, too. He couldn’t save them. They fell before he got there to liberate them. It was too late to free them all. He made a vow.
She made her own promises. She knew that one day her pretty face was going to die, too. Dead in the camps or dead in a hotel room. Death is death. One day that pretty face is going to be old. A type of death in her business. She never risked her life by running off of a landing craft, but she took risks. Maybe when she is older her face will still be beautiful. Maybe it won't. Maybe one day she'll have to show people her old pictures just to remind herself that she used to be pretty. Pretty or not, one day she will die. There is no catching her then. His character would be foolish to try to catch death. Sometimes, however, the brain snaps and heals crooked. It wasn’t the character catching death, it was the author catching those narrow skeletons. Futile, yes but he made Holden try.
Maybe she'll be glad that it's all over. Glad to lose her beauty.
Maybe she'll have her own bed. And a garden. And a place where she likes to sit and watch the ladybugs come and go. And next to her on the bench in the garden will be a copy of the book. Five words. And she'll read the book again. A book she's read before. Because she can read fast. Those eyes do more than just stare and wait for the cameras to catch her. They do more than just make strangers think they are loved. Those eyes can actually love. They can look and blink and read and love. She stole the book from the library. She figured the world owed her that much, considering all she's done.