Blank Pages

The world is shaking around me, screeching noise bringing me wakefulness. I open my eyes to stare into darkness. This lasts for 60 seconds and signifies the beginning of another day, but this day is different. Today is THE day. Today I go out of my apartment. I go away from the train outside my window rumbling my world, from the dark rooms, and from myself. The good doc said I have to, it is the only way to turn the page and find a new me.

I think back on how life was a few years ago, how happy and free I was. It all changed so quickly. We had a girls night out to celebrate graduating college, living life to the fullest. Amanda, Jo, and I bouncing through a poetry bar and the pubs downtown. We all wore our mortarboards, we simply couldn’t call them graduation caps after discovering that lovely name, which became more tilted throughout the evening. This matched us as we became a bit tilted throughout the evening as well. Everywhere we went there were drinks offered, congratulations given, cheers and clinks of glasses. It was an amazing and joyous night full of relief that college was done and the next chapter of our lives was about to open full of blank pages.

At the end of the night we took a cab back to the sorority house and went our separate ways. Back then we only lived a few blocks away from each other. Amanda and Jo lived at the sorority house and I had a place two blocks over that I rented from an old widow, Mrs. Winfred. It was a nice garage apartment that had everything I needed, including the quiet for studying that I never found at the sorority house. It was a nice area, well lit, patrolled regularly by police, so walking home from the merriment of the sisterhood was never a worry. This night was the same. A quiet walk home, up the dark stairs outside of the garage. I hate going up the stairs when my door light goes out, especially after a night of celebrating. I unlocked the door, turned as I heard an odd noise, tried to scream through a cloth being shoved over my nose and mouth, and fought as best I could while being pinned in a cage like vice grip until everything went dark.

When I awoke I was confused, in massive pain, and surrounded by bright lights. I heard distant words through the fog of my mind, police, rape, assault, murder, probation, lucky…lucky? I remember the police talking to me once I was physically recovered, telling me what they had pieced together. Mrs. Winfred had a grandson, one she turned in after he started down a bad path. He was released early from jail on parole. No one knew until it was too late that he wanted retribution instead of a new start. He went straight to dear old Grandma’s house, arriving while she was out grocery shopping. He used the spare key that had been under the third flowerpot for who knows how many decades. He entered her home, searched through her house, found out what she cared about, and that was me. I had been there two years and she had photos of me on the fridge and wrote about me in her journal. Mrs. Winfred unknowingly altered my fate through love, feeling like I was a granddaughter she never had. He latched onto those unspoken emotions and took her spare key to my apartment. He had the cloth, he was the vice like grip, he took my life away.

The officers found him and received a full confession. I was told that he attacked me to strike at her. After he left my bloody, beaten, violated body on the floor of my apartment he went to the main house. He informed Mrs. Winfred of his deeds, then beat her to death. The only reason anyone knew was because that dear woman had an alert necklace for if she needed help, one of those things they show on television for the older folks in case they fall. She managed to press the emergency alarm on it. The police and medics arrived as he was headed back up above the garage to fulfill whatever other sick violent dreams he may have had. I don’t know if I should thank whatever supernatural presence is out there for that or not. Sometimes I think meeting Death would have been better. It certainly had to be better than the dreams.

That was a little over two years ago. I went back home to try and pull myself together but was a wreck emotionally. The dreams wouldn’t stop. They were every night. Dreams of him, his anger, hatred, and cruelty. I didn’t and still don’t have clear memories because of the drugs he used on me. I get glimpses in the dreams like small clips of a movie that changes some each time you see it. Sometimes it is a full show instead of clips, but still ever changing. Not having a defined memory of what happened to deal with left me in a state of anxiety and confusion that began to affect all aspects of my life. Frequent emotional breakdowns and memory flashes that started during the day made my prim and proper family push me to the background. A college graduate with honors they were happy to have and show off, an emotional disaster in need of help was to be locked away so no one would see. I became the skeleton in their closet.

I was quickly shipped off to a private mental hospital to recover. It soon became apparent that there was no easy fix to make me into that socially acceptable girl in that upper class pristine family again. My family drifted away, happy to pay my medical bills to keep me out of sight, out of mind. I spent most of my time alone. Being around others made me jumpy and my emotional state would erode. The dreams and flashbacks had become more confused leaving me waiting for an attack from anyone. Anxiety and depression skyrocketed while progress creeped slowly by. Eventually those who had been my family erased me from their lives. No calls, no visits, I was alone. After a time the doctors told me they thought I needed to be out of the hospital, back into a real life. They helped me gain disability due to such a high level of PTSD and anxiety that having a regular job was not a realizable dream for some time if ever.

Now I am here, where I count the hours of the day by the trains that shake my life like a clock. I have been here for six months now. A small apartment and a small life that is paid for through my disability. I never told the family who disowned me that I was leaving the hospital. I have to assume they noticed the bills stopped and sighed a sigh of relief that I didn’t return to them.

I still talk to the doctors, but now it is through the computer on video. That is good, I don’t have to be near them. My groceries and other needs I order online and have delivered to my door. They knock and leave my packages and bags then I scurry to carry them inside before anyone else may see me. It is easier not to meet anyone face to face. Lock the door, always lock the door. Wipe the sweat from my face, the sweat that comes every time my heart fearfully pounds at the thought of being near another soul. The are near though, and that gives me some comfort, helps hold back the black hole of loneliness that is overshadowed by fear. I know they are on the trains that constantly rumble my life. I hear some of them in the building, through the walls, calling out from their windows to each other. I hear the children in the park across the street, the old drunk vagrant who sings himself to sleep in the ally behind my window every night. These souls are everywhere around me and give me comfort of a sort, but the thought of meeting any of them is terrifying. So I stay in my dark little life. I keep my curtains closed and door locked. Until today, because today is THE day. He changed my life years ago, today I start to take it back.

I am dressed and ready. I have a comfy sweat suit, mace, a whistle, a personal alarm with GPS, and I am a complete and total wreck. Breakfast was a few sips of coffee, anything more and it would be an automatic ejection. Another train shoots by rumbling my life, but my own body trembles even more because of what I am about to do. The doc said go out, stand outside of my door for 2 minutes. I want to do more, but I am scared. I am scared of meeting the voices I hear through the walls, finding out what horrible people they may be. Fresh air in the park sounds like an amazing dream for an alternate reality.

Slowly I open the door and step out. No one is here, just empty hallway. Garbage bags outside of the doors waiting for maintenance pick-up. I slowly walk to the end of the hall while my limbs tremble like a mouse staring a hungry cat in the eye. Now I am at the stairs, still no one inside. I take the stairs one by one slowly coming down to the bottom floor. About half way down I stop. I can see the feet of people walking by outside on the sidewalk. Thousands must walk passed here everyday. The further down I go and I can start to hear car horns honking in dismay in packed traffic, musicians playing for change on the corner, and an ice cream cart rolling down the sidewalk with tinkling bells. I grip the banister like it is a lifeline.

The front door swings open and I bolt back upstairs gasping for breath as I hear a young girl speak to her mother. I stop on the second floor landing listening with a longing that I didn’t know I still had. The girl begs her mom to let them keep the cat she found. It followed her from the park after she gave it some of her lunch. The mom told her no, it was too ugly. It has to stay outside that front door of the building. If the girl wants a cat they will find a pretty one. I want to cry. The poor hungry cat looks in the door meowing, begging to come in while I am begging myself to go out. I lean against the wall almost hyperventilating. I know the longer I am out, the higher the chance of contact with one of the thousands of voices, walkers, or drivers around me constantly, but that cat is till there. I hear it.

I slowly slink down the stairs waiting for an ambush, mace at the ready. I see the cat, still waiting patiently at the door. It is only a few feet between the stairs and the door. I have come this far, I can make make it. Just as long as the cat gets in and not all the walkers passing by. Before I lose the last shred of bravery I possess I leap to the door and open it just wide enough and long enough for the cat to enter. I scream and jump around as I feel something tug on my sleeve. The little girl jumps back. She laughs a little and says, “I call her Grace, but if you want to keep her you can name her again.” and puts down a tiny piece of chicken for the cat. I thanked her as I backed towards the stairs and said I would like to keep the cat. I was unprepared for this tiny being to sneak attack me. I felt her arms around my legs as she squealed a thank you and ran back down the hall to her apartment. I quickly grab the cat and run upstairs, through the empty hallway and into my black hole of a life apartment. Lock the door, always lock the door. Let the cat go. Wipe the sweat off my face.

The cat starts to explore my dark hole as I limply slink down the wall to the floor. That girl. My first human contact in over two years that wasn’t a doctor or nurse. Her innocence and excitement for the cat and life was a rainbow of a promise leaving drops of light in me. I instantly decide that I will call the cat Grace as well. Many minutes pass by while I gather the bits of myself together again. As I look around for Grace I see light. She has found the bench in front of the window and inserted herself in perfect cat fashion between the curtains letting in a streak of sunlight. I move to her, not really even knowing her color as my emotions were and still are jumbled. She is a lovely soft white beneath the grungy dirt. A portion of her right ear is missing, healed long ago, leaving a jagged edge. There is a bald line from her shoulder down her side from a healed scar that won’t grow fur. She is perfect and beautiful. She is my Grace.

The world is shaking around me, screeching noise bringing me wakefulness. I open my eyes to stare into darkness. This lasts for 60 seconds and signifies the beginning of another day, but this day is different, because yesterday was THE day. I hear an extra rumbling very close to me. Grace is saying good morning and demanding breakfast. Soon the supplies should arrive that I ordered last night so that Grace will have the proper care here with me. As I rattle around in the kitchen finding meaty scraps to put in a bowl I hear Grace meowing. She is continuously batting and jumping at the curtains. I walk closer to open them a little for her and she jumps suddenly straight up clinging to them close to the ceiling. With a loud scrape the curtain rod releases from the wall and goes down, curtains, cat and all. I stand astonished as Grace curls up on the curtains laying in the sun. The sun beaming through my dark hole of a life. The sun lending light so that color shows around me. Carpet, couch, pillows, table are now shades of beige, blue, and purple instead of shades of gray. The black hole is going to recede. Yesterday, THE day, has brought me to another life changing moment. I won’t go back down the hallway today, but I know that I can now. A little at a time the doctor said. Today I will open my window. Let in more of the noise from honks, trains, and parks that the window and curtains help keep away. Grace will stay at my side.

Today the window is not letting noise in. It is letting music in. Each honk, rumble, children yelling at the park come together, even the drunk who sings at night are all music. The music of life is coming inside my window and bring more color with it. Colors in my mind that I had pushed away and forgotten. The music of life and Grace leave me thoroughly shaken but with one thought.

A new chapter is here. I control what these pages will hold. I want them full of life’s music, not darkness. There will always be darkness in the world, but the colors of life’s song and Grace are greater to me. I will persevere and write my own story until I run out of pages.