The White Sheet

I am in my garden sitting in my old spot. The spot that’s perfect when I need to take a breath. A real breath; one that’s free of all the anxiety and drama that comes with being in university. There’s always one person in the group assignment not pulling their weight and currently, I can’t guarantee a hold on my homicidal tendencies if I see this person. So, I left my dorm at the crack of down to drive down to my childhood home where I am greeted by silence and solitude. They are out of town and my sister less than half my age was in school.

Lying under the shade of an old tree I began to wonder how old it was and what it must have seen throughout its life. I can’t be the first person to find comfort in its huge warped branches. When we first moved in my parents thought of cutting it down as it spooked my little sister but I was adamant, I wanted the tree to stay. It did look gothic but it reminded me of my favourite Bronte novels and I knew then and there it would be a safe haven for me to be consumed into the various world I read about.  

Looking up at it, something caught the corner of my eye. A plain white sheet. It seemed to float down from the sky but as soon as it was there it was gone. Blinking, I walk up to where it landed and disbelief settles. It’s not there. I scoff and shook my head as though ridding it of cobwebs, turns out my father was right, the mind does play games.

*

“Trish you’re still on for tonight right,” Malcolm asks me as he leaned over the table to grab the hot sauce.

“Of course, she is.” My girlfriend Zoey answers giving me a kiss on the cheek. I smile along trying hard not to express my disinterest. I have not been here for long but I am already over crazy college parties. It’s just not me.

“I got you a bottle of McKellen Trish, just for you so you have to come.” He said decisively looking me in the eye with a big grin on his face.

“Well, you know me, I’ll do anything for good alcohol,” joking along with him. The key to keeping people from noticing something wrong is playful banter. It’s as simple as that.

I’ve been very jittery lately and rightly so; I’ve seen that dam plain white sheet falling gently through the breeze for two weeks straight now. Always, there are none in sight when I go looking. It’s a nagging sensation like a pull in my brain and I feel like I’m losing my mind. If this is a trick I can’t understand why, the randomness of it all is unsettling to say the least.

He and Zoey begin an intense conversation about making the best of the night, the most fun with the least effort and I can’t help the urge to roll my eyes. So, I turn to my right rolling my eyes at the window instead and that’s when I see it.

A plain white sheet floating to the ground. I want to run out to where it lands. To make sure it’s there but that would raise too many flags and I will be the one that looks crazy not the stupid sheet that insists on haunting me.

*

It’s not cotton or silk but bulky, falling oddly but light enough to have a subtle elegance to it. The white sheet has conquered my life. Creeping into the nooks and corners of my world slowing but surely crushing me in the process. This past month has me acting like a paranoid junkie, twitching and jerking my head at all angles trying to look out for it, if I could follow it while it falls maybe I’ll catch it.

I have been missing classes, walking around aimlessly at times and my friends didn’t care. I knew the whole college thing was a façade, a pretty one covered with lace and perfume but all rot inside. The smell was so strong it stung worse than a cut – a nasty one deep and long with jagged flesh around a gaping horror.

I know in my bones the white sheet meant something. I’ve never been one for cosmic signs but this is it. It’s the end of me, I’m sure. I can be seeing something completely unrelated to myself. It’s not possible, each individual is living in a bubble that revolves around them. These events can’t be a coincidence. It’s personal and I know it’s going to get messy – I can already feel the filth on me.

*

I’m looking out my room window in my dorm with a pair of binoculars and this is the moment I have an out-of-body experience. Looking down at myself I realise what a cooky scene it is.  I am hunched over by the window, looking out and slapping myself awake.

The phone rings and I pick up. The sound on the other end is retched with pain. It’s my mother screaming, no, crying or maybe a mix of the two. She keeps saying the same thing over and over again.

“There’s been an accident. Your sister fell from the roof of her school. She didn’t make it, oh honey I just keep remembering seeing her. There was a sheet covering her just plain white and it was like something you’d cover a mannequin with,” she said in all one breath finally calming down enough to make sense.

I hung up after assuring her I could drive home safely, all the while thinking of that white sheet and whether if it was a warning or a threat. I still can’t decide.  When you think of white you think of purity and innocence but after what I’ve been through, I perceive the noble colour to be deceitful just like life. Whitewashed to hide the ugly, eerie truth; innocents are killed too.