Live For Yourself

Warning- This story contains brief scenes of mental health, substance abuse, and violence.

The aroma of sweet pancakes fingers my nostrils as my sewn eyes burst open.

“Are you hungry, handsome?”

The voice sparks a sense of familiarity within me that I didn’t quite understand as my blurred vision decided to amalgamate an image before me.

“You talk a lot in your sleep, you know that?”

I wipe my eyes and see her.

“Are we not speaking this morning, Danny?” she says with a slight pout.

“No, I’m just really happy to see you.”

“Happy to see me?”

She smiles.

“Well aren’t you sweet.”

She prances out of the room and into the kitchen.

I struggle to rise from the made up bed as if I were a scared mummy trying to unravel from a tomb.

I move into the living room.

My vision is clearer than ever.

The living room is fixed up like a model home.

A wavy breeze of citrus hooks at the edge of my nose. 

“Have a seat, sleepy head,” her voice echos from the other room.

I do as asked of me and plant myself on the clean leather couch as it engulfs me with its embrace.

Out she comes. With a full course meal—no less.

She carries a tray filled with buttermilk pancakes, sausages, and scrambled eggs fluffed to perfection.

She sits the tray on the table in front of me and stares into my eyes. In that moment, I didn’t care about anything else.

I fall asleep on the couch with her in my arms.

“Morning, handsome. Are you hungry?”

The question is accompanied by a large smile and bear hung.

“You know it,” I say returning the smile.

She twirls into the kitchen like a ballerina preforming soley off commission.

“What are you thinking for this morning, my love?”

“Do I even have to say?”

She snickers and cuts on the stovetop.

The distant singing of a phone rings and rings.

“I’ll get it,” she says before I have any opportunity to speak.

“Uh huh. Yes.”

Her muscles tighten and the phone cord begins to dance about it. The hiss from the receiver reverberates in my ears like a predator tantalizing its prey.

After removing the cold-blooded phone from her ear, she began to slump in place.

I get up and dart to her.

“Hey, hey. What’s the matter?”

“They need you.”

“What? Who?”

Her crooked arm arches beside my head, angling somewhere behind me. As I turn around, I see a dog tag dangling from the ceiling fan in the living room. I slowly advance towards it and grasp it in my hands. By design, I slip it on and feel as though my neck might snap. I quickly receive heaviest punch to the brain.

I see crunched leaves and thick trees. Some painted with black powder. Others layered with blood. screams vibrate my skull like a macabre massage chair. The faces that flash in my eyes are so vivid. Somehow, I know their names and yet remember nothing about them. I fall to my knees and want to scream, but my lungs are filled with tears. 

I wake up to obnoxious beeps and bops screaming from a monitor. White lights sting as much as the needle in my left arm. There’s a voice speaking to me, but the words just won’t connect. A gush of relief washes through my insides.

There’s nothing better than this. There can’t be, right?

I feel the couch below my body. A brown bottle is glued to my hand. 

I reek of something sour. 

An orange, plastic bottle with its popped seal lie about the floor.

I see her in the corner looking at me like a stranger.

The lids above my eyes slide back down like loose curtains.

This time, the sounds of weeping drown me out of my sleep.

It’s coming from the bedroom.

I get up and head that way. I see her silently applying makeup in the mirror. 

“Morning, everything okay?” I ask with concern.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Her tone is rough as sand paper.

“I just don’t understand why you had to- you know, what? Never mind.”

My face contorts into a question mark.

“Talk to me.”

“Funny, we haven’t done that in months.”

“What’s your problem?”

The words fire from my mouth faster than I can reload my thoughts.

“You’re the problem.”

“Oh, here we go,” I say almost immediately.

She walks past me into the living room.

“All you ever care about is yourself, Danny. What about me?”

“What are you even talking about?”

“Playing dumb again.”

She shakes her head and walks towards the kitchen. 

“I cook. I clean. I make sure you’re in good health.” 

She pulls a piece of silver from her left hand and tosses it at me.

“Are you hungry?”

She throws some food at me.

“Are you hungry?” 

She begins throwing plates and utensils.

Something within me takes over and the look within her eyes displays the kind of fear I’ve never seen in anyone’s eyes before.

I wake up to a cold, empty house. Towers of mail stack atop the living room table. All marked with red stamps. I comb through each one like I’m turning the pages of a demented thriller. The cool breeze of the outside bites at my skin, leaving bumps named after some bird from long ago. 

Every opening leading into the home is boarded up with dying wood.

I jump to my feet and walk around the dilapidated abode, eyeing the dark scenery. I step into a room that I don’t recall and see a collapsed stroller. Inside the nest of twisted metal and pladtic is a bloodied bib. The flayed piece of fabric made it impossible to read the name that once belonged to its center.

I clinch it and drop it in my jean pocket.

I continue my journey through the mangled wood and find myself inside the kitchen. It’s all mostly the same, but it’s void of any delightful sensations that tickle my nose. I grasp at the old tiles that had now been washed with rain and leaves. 

The front door is bolted shut just as the rest of the house. I lie on the tattered couch and stare at the ceiling. My eyes nearly melt into yoke due to the force of closing them. But it’s no use. 

I can’t sleep.