Her Hauntingly, Heavenly Heart

Memories exist in people’s heads like ghosts exist in graveyards. Faint, familiar reminiscence haunts the mind like poltergeist plague unsuspecting victims. However, just like ghosts, memories are only reminders of past failures and unfinished business. They can’t hurt you, not when they’ve already come to pass. That’s what I told myself anyway. I wouldn’t let my past preside over my mind anymore. So then why do I still see her face? I started going to therapy, since her accident. My therapist told me everyone grieves differently, that my apathy and indifference was just my mind's way of dealing with this “trauma”, if only he knew the reality. Would the harrowing, sinister truth turn this morally good man gray? How much could he stomach before he realizes there's nothing even god himself could do to save my damned soul? I don’t know if I feel penitence. I tell myself I did what had to be done, and it’s true what they say once you tell yourself something long enough, you start to believe it. My therapist told me I should start to journal, and I guess this is my way of keeping what restricted sanity I have left stuck in my mind. I’m not crazy. I’ve always been a little incongruous, but I'm not crazy. She understood that. I think she was the only one who ever has. She not only praised me for my eccentric and peculiar way of thinking but she idolized me for it as well. I was her god, and she my muse. Whilst my sanity has always been slowly slipping away, leaving me and returning like waking up from a bad dream you can’t quite remember but can still feel the fear from, she loved me anyways. I remember getting my diagnosis. I was around twenty-three at the time. They told me my brain was irreversibly mismanaged. I could take meds, I could do therapies but ultimately this “disease” would rot away my brain for the rest of my probable short life. They talked about it like it was a sickness, they talked about me like I was indisposed. The thing about diagnosis is that once you're diagnosed, to society, that’s all you are. A label, another crazy person waiting to blow the brains out of some unsuspecting, normal civilian. With a diagnosis like mine, I was ready for my life to officially end before it could even begin. Society doesn’t take kindly to schizoids. Shortly after though, I met her. She was enchanting. She walked into my trivial coffee shop and lit up my world. Her face was round and her nose was red. You could tell she didn’t like being cold from the millions of layers she had under her big puffy jacket. Her eyes, permissive and cerulean were unlike any other pretty pair of eyes I had ever seen. Her voice, bewitching and angelic, rang through my ears and it felt like hearing an aged familiar song playing quietly over an old intercom in a grocery store. I wanted more, no, no I needed more. I was infatuated. I was in love with this inexplicable, radiant woman. I needed to own her hauntingly, heavenly heart. She came up to the counter in a darling and lacy way. That was the start of me and Mrs Rosetta Coleman’s love story. We would be wed soon, although that perverse woman didn’t want to take my last name despite my tenacious behavior and my pleas. As she became a regular in the coffee shop, and a punctilious person in my heart, we soon exchanged numbers. I remember our first date, a brumal and chilly December day. I told her to give me six months. “Six months and I'll have you begging to marry me” she giggled and playfully pushed my shoulder with her hand. “Six months huh? Okay” she stuck out her pinkie finger and motioned for me to extend mine out. “I’ll stay with you for six months, I pinkie promise” the fatuous and childish action filled me with an even deeper devotion to Rosetta. Those six months were the most euphoric months of my entire life. I don’t know what went wrong. One moment I was down on one knee proposing to the love of my life and the next I was loathing even the most minor interactions with my wife. When did this distaste develop? When did these voices manifest into something more sinister? Was this me losing my stability? I read somewhere that at some point in your marriage you will inevitably get bored, was having lethall thoughts just a part of a standard marriage? As you might have surmised, Rosetta said yes to my proposal. “You are a matchless man Mr. Mack” she smiled and intertwined my hand with hers. “And you are a Marvelous woman Mrs. Coleman” The first five months of our marriage were glorious. She read my stories, looked at my art with such a fervid gleam in her eye you’d think I was Van Gogh reincarnate. I made her poems and described my worship for her in such an alluring way that I had her fully captivated and in the palm of my hand. Of course the voices knew I was beguiling. I had deluded her past the point of no control. I remember the next six months like each moment happened yesterday. June was parching and the heat made me exasperated. July is when the thoughts started to form. I knew I was experiencing hallucinations, and yet hesitancy plagued my mind. The man in the mirror was behind me, the carnivore in my backyard was truly out to get me, the strangers on the street ogled at me and I knew they wanted to follow me home. Of course my wife played it off as me having an animated imagination. I knew it was my lunacy but I didn’t want my sweet Rosetta to be alarmed by me. I would not let my derangement control me, I would not let this illness scare off the best thing to ever happen to me. I could control it. I would control it. August was when the urges got worse. My wife took notice of my aberrant behavior. All she did was nag, nag, nag. The voices abominated her. I think I started to abominate her as well. I won’t go into detail, it’s trivial to describe my daft but essential behavior. I did it for Rosetta. I did it to protect my wife. It was only supposed to be one girl. That’s what they told me. They wouldn’t stop. Every disembodied voice was unremitting in my head. Just one valueless girl whom no one would miss. Then it turned into two. Then three. Then four. I didn’t mean for it to turn to five. Six wasn’t supposed to happen either. None of this was supposed to happen. Each vain comment, each expression of worry my wife made only fueled my ruinous passion even more. This was love though. This was the veracious and despondent feeling of love. Marriage isn’t easy, but then again neither is murder. The voices never stopped. I truly just wanted to protect my wife. Is this condemnation? What is this feeling of contrition burning inside my heart? I don’t like this journal. I don’t want to journal. I miss Rosetta. I want my wife. I didn’t mean to maltreat her. She’s here again. I see her face in every window, every mirror. These white walls can’t keep her out. She’s always here. I can’t breathe. I don’t like this journal. I don’t want to journal. I hear her voice. Her pedantic, grating voice. Oh god my beloved Rosetta. Who could do such a thing to my darling wife. The strange men are coming back. They wear all white and have unbending frowns glued to their face. They told me I have a visitor. I don’t know who it will be this time. Maybe more therapists, maybe more police. I think I'm done writing now. My malefactions won’t go away with the swish of a pen. All these notations are pointless. I am not crazy. My wife is here to visit me. Is this real? Is her face but a nightmare, a mirage to remind me of my failures? My sweet, sweet Rosetta. My haunting wife, my envisaging lover.

When I went to visit my husband, ex husband, they told me he had gotten worse. He started journaling again, this was the second journal he had written since he wrote the first one. However this journal was different. It wasn’t talking about his murders in meticulous detail like the first one, it also wasn’t talking about his disease in detail and didn’t have his deranged thoughts and drawings in it either. This one was supposedly a  “love” story. Our love story. It talked about my husband's infatuation with me, and how my face presumably “haunts” him. He’s seeing hallucinations again. Not only that but his psychiatrists told me he’s talking about me like I'm a ghost. Like I'm dead. His therapist told me he’s talking about my “accident” again. What this accident is remains indefinite. He won’t talk about it. His psychiatrist told me the most likely exposition was that he was entering a state of misconception. His infirmity had progressed and now he was facing delusions causing him to believe I was one of his victims. He’s falling down a rabbit hole of his own culpability thinking he killed his own wife. His journal starts off talking about how he’s apathetic towards my “accident” and yet ends off with him losing his wits. I read this to you all today because I want to bring about an acknowledgement to people who have never had to face the psychosis and mania my husband faced. I’m not asking everyone to try and understand him, nor am I in any way attempting to make poignant excuses for his gruesome actions, I simply want to bring awareness and inform you all today about the sickening truth that is derangement.  Applause filled the air as the tall, brown haired woman speaking stood up to take a bow. “Alright! Thank You so much for coming. Does anyone have any questions?” Voices rang through her ears as hands shot up left and right. After about 20 minutes or so she fixed her blouse and cleared her throat. “Alrighty we have time for one more question.” her blue eyes scanned the crowd until she saw a man in a gray suit raise his hand. “Yes you in the gray,” The man she pointed to stood up and fixed his tie with his old, calloused hand. “Most people are shocked when families of a serial killer don’t know that their spouse, or loved one is a killer. So my question for you is, how did you not know? Were there no signs? Did you simply only see what you wanted to see?” The woman frowned. “Of course I didn't know that my husband, ex-husband, was a killer. When I married him I didn’t know a lot of things. I would never have even said yes to his proposal had I known our kismet meeting was in fact not some beautiful fate predetermined by the stars but instead the workings of a crazy man slowly losing his grip on reality,” She looked down at the yellow cards in her hand before tucking them away into her pocket. “I knew this question would inevitably be asked. I know the thought of living with someone so merciless and not knowing how truly vile said person really is seems impossible, but you have to understand that although his actions were, he was not inhuman.” The man let out a scornful laugh. “He was as inhuman as a human could possibly get!” He spat. “This man killed my daughter in cold blood. Took a knife to her throat and slit it with no compunction and you mean to tell me that you didn’t know? I’m sorry Ms. Coleman but I find that to be a deplorable thing.” Coleman met the desolate eyes of the rancorous man.  “His heart was the most comely heart I have ever gotten to meet.” Her gaze filled with a mournful remembrance. “I mean he drew, and wrote, and journaled. He wrote me poems and I praised him for his inventive mind. Before he was a murderer, he was a petrified man who had gotten a formidable diagnosis and didn’t know how to go on living a life he soon knew he would lose. How would you feel if someone told you, you were going to die without ever tasting death? Death is inevitable, but a deathless death is something no one should have to face.” She realized it started to sound like she was defending the man who so coldly stole the lives of countless women. “I’m not trying to defend him. Forgive me, I know how my words were starting to sound. He deserves to be in this confound labyrinth that is his own mind. This purgatory he’s in, I hope he’s haunted by the faces of those beautiful girls forever.” She stopped and took a deep breath before speaking again. “I read his journal to you all so you can try and understand the mind of a man losing his lucidity. I want to spread awareness and bring about understanding to men like my ex-husband. I know it’s hard trying to understand the un-understandable, but if we can bring sensitivity to men like my ex-husband then maybe we can prevent situations like this from happening again.” She let out a small cough and cleared her throat. “I’m not asking you to be sensitive to serial killers, I’m asking you to be sensitive to the signs. Because you’re right Mr?” She nodded towards the man, waiting for a response. “It’s Mr. Rowe.” She smiled at him with such a sweet sorrow it was hard for him to hate her. “Mr Rowe. I should have seen the signs, and any sign I didn’t see was because I was blissfully ignorant. I didn’t want to believe the man I married was capable of such horrendous crimes. So I didn’t.” she looked out at the crowd, her lips trembled and her eyes burned as she tried to keep her tears at bay. “I’m sorry I’m usually so well composed.” She looked deeply miserable. “I know that my ex-husband's actions will forever continue to haunt and harrow the victims family and loved ones,” she conceded. “I know his actions and my nescience will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life.” The silence in the room after she finished her confessions was confining. After what felt like an eternity of silence a man walked up onto the stage and awkwardly laughed. “Alrighty well let’s hear another round of applause for Ms. Coleman” everyone in the audience started to clap and Ms. Coleman once again took a bow, only she didn’t feel like bowing. The feelings she felt were similar to the ones on the day the police came knocking on her door. The gaping feeling of repentance and shame she felt was almost as profound as it was the day they took the supposed love of her life away in handcuffs. “Ms. Coleman your cab is here” a voice pulled her out of her trance and she got into the cab. The drive to her hotel wasn’t a long one and yet it felt like it was an incessant journey. As she walked into her dimly lit hotel room, she looked out the window at the leaden sky. The rain began to fall and for no other reason other than fortuity as the rain hit the window tears began to fall from her face. She grabbed her notepad and crossed out the last name. “MR ROWE” was written in black and above it were ten other names. Each name had been crossed out by Ms. Coleman after she talked at a convection where a member of the victims family attended. She felt compelled to talk to each family, even if it was indirectly. She wanted to give them closure, but the truth was she wanted that closure for herself. She needed to try and amend something, she needed to rectify her husband's transgressions in some way. She couldn’t go on knowing she left them with such encumbrances. She tidied up her room and walked into the bathroom and turned on the bathtub faucet. As she waited for the water to warm up she thought back to times of contentment. She remembered kissing her husband for the first time, and laughing at dumb movies she forced him to watch. Although she hated him, hated him for what he did, hated him for not trying to seek help and change the outcome of his disease, some part of her missed him. Not even him, some part of her missed the future she was going to have. That little white picket fence she was going to paint, those little shutters she would open in the morning to let the fresh air in, waving her kids off goodbye to school for the first time and choking back tears thinking about how old they’re getting. She had so many plans for her minuscule little life. The water filled up to the edge of the tub snapping her out of thought. She sank into the bath and let the water devour her skin. She let the warmth wrap up her body and embrace her in a clutch. She took her hand to her wrist, in her grasp was a broken piece of glass. She let the vermilion tears fall down her body. As she laid there and watched the once clear water turn claret she thought about that little white picket fence and let her mind be capitulated by stupor, and her body be kissed by expiry.