burning

When his prodigal daughter returned, after seven years of absence, my father barely recognized me, so disfigured had I become. When my feeble voice beseeched him, through the car-window-"Daddy," I called, his eyes sprang open, heavy with the sight of his daughter's ghost. "Emily?" he pondered in horror, "is that you?". "Daddy," I cried, "I fucked up." He glared at me and his metal grey Porsche came alive, "I don't have time now," he said, as my guilt flashed through his eyes, "I'm late for work."

"Oh, Emily," she used to say, my darling dead mother, wiping my pain off her furrowed brow, "of course he cares, he's your father." My wounded heart was late to admit, despite the burning evidence, the independence of feelings from genetics. It was Louise, our faithful maid, who let me in. "Oh, darling," she called, "we thought you were dead." "My child," she said wrapping her arms around me, "we were worried sick, where have you been?" "Oh, yeah, I bet" I let out, gasping and sobbing. She sat me down by the fireplace, "now, just sit here," she said, "and I'll go make you a cup of tea." When she returned, with the steaming mug between her callous hands, I could not bring my gaze to meet her. "Louise," I said, "I don't deserve this." She took my cheeks into her palms and kissed my forehead, "everybody makes mistakes," she whispered, and for the next few days, she became my guardian, my guarding angel, stitching together the lost threads of my loose lifeline. She spent her nights beside me, nursing my sickness, bathing my chills, forcing spoonfuls of hot broth into my decaying mouth. She condoned my tricks and put my cravings to sleep. "I don't deserve you," I pleaded on the days in which I reasoned, and to my self-accusations, kindly, softly she would merely say: no one knows you as I do." "Oh, Louise," cried the ghost in my throat, "if only you knew what I've done."

It was late in the evening, in the rising darkness, our cravings awoke. Pale-faced, Amelia was staring out the misty window when her limbs began to tremble, a microscopic earthquake raising hell in her organs. "I need it," she growled, like a caged bird, gasping for air. "Call Kenny," I said, coarse-voiced, emerging from my obscure corner. "I can't," she gnawed, through her clenched jaw, her teeth ground to white dust. "Still owe him, can't go back." She spoke like a machine, dividing things into zeros and ones, into piles of worthless deeds and things worth dying for.

We took to the streets like famished phantoms, desperately looking for vengeance. Had the bolts and panels of my brain retained their function, I might have noticed the familiarity of that certain garden lawn. The old owner had been a friend of my mum's. My eyes registered the hollow hallway, the steepness of the stairs lamenting my murderous footsteps, the innocence of the insulated green entrance. Our visit came as a shock to Mrs. Aaronson. "Our car just broke down," was Amelia's opening line, "could we please borrow your phone to call a tow-truck?". Upon seeing her, Mrs. Aaronson regretted not having left the chain on. Had it not been for a memory once stapled to my washed-out features, the poor woman might have buried the whole thing behind a slammed door. Instead, she asked, "Emily, is that you?". My blood turned cold, the hanging lightbulb was burning against my skin, in the buzzing brightness I turned blind for a moment, in my blackout-state, dream-like I witnessed the scene:

Standing there, in her dotted black dress, she ran her index and thumb along the round edges of her pearl necklace. From the purple plastic of her orthopedic slippers to the tip of her greying hair, her whole presence reeked of order and old age. I tried to ignore her, not to let her words affect me until she said: " if your mother could see you now."

Contrary to the design of our natural dispositions, it was not Amelia who's bony pale hand sent the old widow trampling down the stairs, It was I, with my own two hands, trembling and undernourished, bloodstained in accusation.

The spectacle of her downfall was to my spectatorship what a modern housewife, having lost grip of a soapy glass, faced with the shimmers of its broken pieces, might define "a fatal fault of clumsiness". Louder than her hopeless cries, louder than the screech of her crushed body's crash, louder than her neck, cracking and crackling with a final gasp, was the sound of her dismembered necklace. I heard the thread break open, the elastic stretch and contract and then the impact-of each white pearl: banging, echoing, bouncing away.

I daren't touch her, I daren't cross the threshold. I remained, by the dead widow's side, kneeling on the ground, chasing a day's dosage worth in pearls.

When Amelia reemerged we left, stepping over her stiffened corpse.

Along the way, we agreed that we should stop by Kenny's to get a refill. Once there, as I sat barefoot on the leather sofa, while the thrill of anticipation silenced my growing guilt, I thought of nothing but one thing: the spoon bubbling above the flame. My eyes traced the lines of my purple veins. Right then and there, once we'd exchanged our blood, once the fire had spread through the needle to our limbs, I felt at peace again. Paralyzed and weightless, lying on the cold leather surface, breathing faintly, almost breathless, all my problems vanished for a second.

The first day is always the hardest. That's why having Louise by my side was such a blessing. On my fourth day of sobriety, I was overpowered by that sense of confidence and self-control which so often paves the way from rehab to relapse.

My father had been keen on supporting my recovery in the form of long-distance cheques, addressed to myself and not Louise, which I collected as further evidence of his spontaneous parental investment. He explained, in a typewritten letter which came with the cheques, that he thought it imprudent on his behalf to be personally present, lest, and I quote, " the underlying frailties of our turbulent relationship may come in conflict with your already difficult recovery."

Two years, two months, or even two weeks earlier, I would have pocketed the money with the intention of disappearing, and woken up, instead, a few days later in a hospital bed, counting the drops in my drip, measuring the minutes until my next fix.

As I walked down the road, past the gossip and the stares, I knew something inside me had changed. I could see a church at the end of the road, the wall was a crowd of dead voices, flashing through the pictures on the yellowing eulogies. I never wanted to be old, there was nothing worse to me than spending your final decades in fatal contemplation, day after day, inching your way to the grave. When I broke into tears, as a funeral mass was taking place down the road, it was not for Old Mr. Peters and his mourning widow that I wept. It was for Arlene Davies' rosy cheeks and soft brown hair, for her spoiled youth, for the memory of her chalk-white lips. I cried for my sins, once I was beyond emending them.

When we got home that day-home being someone else's unclaimed property, Amelia seemed unusually grateful. "Oh don't pull that face," she said, "We both know you did the old hag a favor, sparing her the terminal bother, it's natural selection after all". My eyes rested for some time on her face, measuring her soft outlines against the sound of her gritty voice. She didn't look half as bad as me. Despite her lessening figure, she could have passed for one of those unfed top models parading anguish on the runway, the natural stability of her inherited symmetry had grown immune to the general wear and tear. " You know what?" she carried on cheerleader-like, "I know just the remedy to your scruples of conscience, we're gonna have a party." "A party?" I asked, soon warming up to the idea. "A party," she said puffing her purple lips, "it's all set, they're all bringing something, Kenny and the boys." "We can hardly do it here, this place is a dump," I said, following an unusually orthodox train of thought. "Do you really think I would have a squat party?" she asked, rising above the surrounding squalor. "So, where then?" I inquired, with an excitement that caught Amelia off guard. "At Arlene's," she whispered pushing a cigarette between her lips, flicking back a lock of hair. "Who's Arlene?" I asked. "Oh, right, you don't know her," she sentenced as if pointing out some fundamental character flaw, "she's a girl I was at school with, you know? One of the people from before, not that you have any, I don't suppose." I let out a pained laugh, "she's in for a treat." "Arlene's rich," Amelia warned me, "that's why we became friends, my mum always insisted I made some rich friends, just in case, she used to say." "In case of what?" I asked, failing to grasp her learned logic. "You know, in case you ever need a place to stay, rich people are very hospitable. Stingy, though," she said with a sigh, "I guess we just need to find out the code to the safe, right?" she asked with a complicit smile. I shrugged my shoulders.

Arlene was a perfectly well-mannered, welcoming, young girl, the university type with an appetite for experimentation. "Hey," she said air-kissing Amelia, "I'm glad you made it." "And who's this?" She asked, half-joking, half uneasy, inspecting my features with a displeased look. Amelia produced "Friend," and Arlene dropped the observation and followed her to the living room. "I've invited a few others to crash, I hope that's cool with you." "Oh, yes, so cool," she replied. "So?" Asked Amelia, with the teasing tone she saved for planting seeds of discord, "what do you do for fun around here?". " Well," Arlene began, in her shopping list voice, "Clubs," she said, almost guessing, "there are some cool clubs around here." "Well, this is a perfectly good house," she said resting her feet on the coffee table, guiding a tour of the antique furniture with a wave of her palm, "I wouldn't be much of a guest if I chose some lame club over the warmth of your hearty hospitality, would I ?" "No, I guess not," said Arlene wrestling with one of her wrists. "Would you like some food?" She asked, trying to fathom the meaning of our twitching nerves. "Do you mind if I take a shower?" asked Amelia, "we're having piping problems at home." "Sure, no problem," she replied. When she left, Arlene and I spent a few moments staring at each other in awkward silence. "So, how did the two of you meet?" She asked. "Oh," I said, surprised "it was in a bar, one night, a long time ago." "I'd just come out of a bad relationship, I was drunk, and I didn't want to go home." "And?" She asked. "All my friends had already left, I was chatting with the bartender when Amelia arrived." "And?" "She was with this guy she was trying to ditch. She dragged me to the bathroom, can you believe it? A total stranger." "And?" I bit my tongue, "and that's all I can remember." "Right," she said disappointed, "I'll go find some food." She announced, rising from the sofa, brushing some dust off her trousers. "Do you have any cigarettes?" I asked as she was about to leave. "Sure," she said, giving her impression of a jovial laugh. She threw the entire packet at me, almost hitting me in the eye, and then vanished to the kitchen.

Someone was knocking on the door. I lit my cigarette and went to open it. A six-pack of beers dangled from Kenny's drooping hand, two young lads were standing behind him. "Come in, come in," I announced. Soon seated and soon served, the lot soon got to work. Kenny had landed on the sofa, the closed beer in his hand, now opened, foamed like a rabid dog, he sipped and spilled it in equal parts. The boys-"are you sure they're eighteen?" I'd insisted with Kenny, "yes, I'm sure," he'd reassured me, were crushing and cutting, spreading and snorting a variety of different-colored powders. Following my modest partaking there's not much I still remember.

I stand here today, on the third floor of this hospital, tending to the needs of the sick, waiting on the dying's wait, searching for a shadow of forgiveness. Louise suggested I should volunteer my help in the terminal ward. "Caring for the sick might melt away your guilt," she said. Instead, I stuff my head with different voices, adding to my own, equally atrocious only less guilty. Today there's a young girl, they brought her here cause they thought she still had some pulse. It must have been a mistake because now they're taking her away. She looks just like Arlene must have looked when they found her, her carbon body blackened and burned, the mark of fear on her face erased with all the rest. This has become my prison, the haunted pit of regret, where I serve my sentence.

As experienced athletes have specific talents, so is tolerance a gift matured with age and effort. I must have been asleep when the music startled me. The sight of neon lights brought on a sense of nausea, Amelia was sitting beside me. “Good morning,” she said, harsh as an alarm clock, “slept much?”. I gave a look around, only to find myself surrounded by a crowd of foreign shadows, convulsing, and twirling in the darkness. A group of people had gathered around us to witness a party trick: Arlene's initiation. The two anonymous young lads-names still unknown had raked up a few lines on the coffee table. Amelia went first, composed as a countess, soundless as a secret agent. “Have you really never done this?” nostrils tense, one eye dropping followed by a flash of lightning. She giggled, “go on, then,” she said handing the note to her. To my surprise, she was fine, lively, and hyper, chatting away quicker than ever. In light of my status, I was the fifth companion to eat from that table-at each course, for these were dinners that went on for hours. As the sun disclosed its tired eyelids, Amelia decided it was time to bring out the good stuff. One of the guests, a close acquaintance, had an uncle who owned a chemist, he brought tourniquets and sterile syringes. There were seven of us left: Amelia, dark and pleased as a morningbird; Oscar, the pharmaceutical bearer; myself, lost in my decaying state; the two lads-were they twins or was I seeing things?; Oliver, who cringed at the sight of the retreating barrel and Arlene. I had wanted to say something, to point out to Amelia the stiffness of her joints or the look in her blackened eyes, instead, all I did was take my share. I had been granted priority due to my seniority in the field. Amelia, unlike me, had waited. When it kicked in I let the needle drop, following it onto the carpet. To some extent, my final days were the most pleasant, I guess that's why I never cared to object to anything. My body was a matterless mass for as long as it lasted. We were all lying down in a seven-point circle, like a group of children, like sedated angels. When gravity was restored the sun was flowing in in heaps of orange and yellow, we rose from our sleep like lost sheep, most of us at least. Amelia went upstairs while the others left. Arlene was still asleep, her face stuck to the sofa, her brown hair concealed the horror. When I turned her she was covered in sick, I tried shaking her but she wouldn't respond, I knew no CPR. I shouted for Amelia, she walked down with her usual calm, a bundle of banknotes flashed in her hand. “Quick,” I screamed, “she needs an ambulance.” “Nonsense,” she said, hiding the money, “it's happened to me plenty of times, just sit her up, she'll be alright.” I glared at her in disgust, “she'll die if we don't help her”. She walked by the body and reached over it to retrieve a cigarette that had fallen down the side. “Ok, listen,” she said lighting it, turning serious, “we can call an ambulance but we need to leave before they get here, do you understand?” I nodded, “phone them,” I said handing her Arlene's phone. “What? Yes, she ODd,” she said on the phone, smoking one cigarette after the other. “How long?” she asked, “Ok, great”. Was that fear I saw in her eyes? Her third cigarette was dangling from her lips, “we need to go,” she barked. A coughing fit caused her to lose her lit cigarette in the creases of the sofa. Her search came to a halt when we heard a whaling in the distance, “shit,” she said, “we need to leave.” “What?” I protested as the siren grew louder, she rushed out the back door and I followed her. Little did we know, blinded by our selfish intents, that the ambulance had stopped three blocks down to aid an elderly woman's fall. Amelia had failed to leave an address. When they finally found her it was because of the smoke. When the fire brigade arrived the house was collapsing on itself. When the flames died out, as Mr. and Mrs. Davies later found out, Arlene's carbonized corpse was retrieved in the living room. Apparently, she had, at least, died in her sleep.