I wish they hadn’t told me.
1
“June,” they said, “We have some news for you.”
Well, yes. I figured as much. But I just watched them.
“You may have been wondering,” said Tall Doctor, “about some of the things going on lately, why everyone has been so worried for you.” Fat Doctor looked at him encouragingly. I remember being annoyed that someone so out of tune with his own health was making my diagnosis. But the two of them were experts, according to everyone I asked. At least, I thought so.
“Please skip the speech,” I said.
And so they told me.
2
I’m afraid.
It sounds ridiculous, being afraid of something you can’t die from. You really can’t. It’s not cancer or HIV, or something else gnawing away at your insides.
It’s in your head, they explained. As if that means it doesn’t matter, as if I’m imagining it.
Well, I am, though, aren’t I? And that’s just the thing.
It’s the doubt that I can’t handle.
The seed that they buried inside of me.
Sometimes I tell myself, What if I just dreamed them up, too? I remember that we never shook hands or touched, and I wonder if Tall and Fat are just some neurons firing, tiny sparks of electricity that shouldn’t matter, but they make all the difference. I tell myself, Yes, they’re just phantoms, and what phantoms say can’t be true.
But then, if they are phantoms –
That doesn’t change a thing.
3
schizo•phre•nia 4
Pronunciation: \ˌskit-sə-ˈfrē-nē-ə\ 5
1 : a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality expressed as disorder of feeling, thought (as delusions), perception (as hallucinations), and behavior — called also dementia praecox.
6
Mike’s gone and I’ve been down to the courthouse for the marriage records. I’ve been walking around the house for three days, carrying a shirt that used to smell like him, picking up his dog-eared copies of Steinbeck from the stand beside our bed. The paper says November 12th, 2008, Mr. & Mrs. Mike and June Halden. It’s the date I remember. It’s the date on the back of the Polaroids. And it’s him in all of them, too, in the handful of shots that we snapped, with his smiling grey eyes, holding me so close that I can feel his arm around my waist even now. I look down at the ring on my hand, gleaming silver in the noon light through the shades.
I remember.
I remember.
And I tell myself, You can only imagine so much.
But I can’t forget that we had a private wedding, with just the judge (who died two months later) and the witness (a work friend whose number I lost, somehow, somewhere). My family hadn’t met him yet. I think of Petrarch, who I only read thanks to Mike, think of the vastness of the human soul. The uncharted waters of the mind.
Just how much can you create?
Can you imagine love?
7
I was still wearing the ring when I came back the next week, though the thought never left, like a splinter trapped beneath the skin. They told me about the medication, of course, but they also had to tell me about the side effects. (Clozapine…”five black box warnings” ….Haloperidol… ”Depression, severe enough to result in suicide, is quite often seen during long-term treatment.”) I told them No, thank you, but my hands were shaking. Yes, it scared me. I feel like I’m walking out into the middle of a war, weaponless. I stand out in the open, frozen by the sky above and watching shadows mill along the ridges. Waiting to be shattered, to be swallowed up by…by what? By my own reality, by this thing lodged inside of me that I never asked for, like a bullet. Like a bottle of pills.
They assured me that I could trust almost everything. Normal, everyday things, like going to the grocery store, seeing other cars on the road, my own house – “All of those are real, Ma’am, we promise.”
And Mike?
Well, they didn’t know, because they’d never met him. If I brought in a picture, though, they would look at it, prove to me that it was solid…
Only now I can’t find the pictures. They were here yesterday, right where I had set them, on the desk in what used to be his study. A cherry wood desk – he always loved the color of it. But now they’re gone.
Please, God, anyone, let me find them. Let me find them.
How could I have lost the pictures?
8
“Two main figures, apparently – a fictional younger brother, who ‘died’ five years ago in the car crash she was in at the time, and a close friend from college. Not a roommate, just a friend who she met in classes and always kept in touch with.”
“How on earth could this have gone undetected for so long?”
“Well, she’s lived on her own since her early teens. Little contact with the family except by phone, unless you count the imaginary brother who she thought they had sent to stay with her. She only came to the hospital after her husband apparently had a fit when he saw her talking to herself. She thought she was ‘visiting’ with her college friend.”
“What about the husband? Where’s he at?”
“He left, apparently.”
“Is he real?”
“Don’t know. I looked at a phone book – there are a lot of Mike Haldens out there. Maybe he’s one of them. Or maybe he’s not. If what she says about the house is true, that all of his things are still there, perhaps he exists after all.”
“Unless she bought all those herself. An extreme fantasy-”
“Exactly. It’s hard to tell. No one else has met the guy – she always kept to herself.”
“Poor woman. You sure you couldn’t get her to try the prescription?”
“She won’t be talked into it. And we can’t make her, you know that.”
“I know. But it’s just such a shame.”
“A crying shame.”
9
No matter how many times they say it, I can’t let go of the doubt. No matter how many times they repeat, calmly, in that tone that all doctors must practice, that I can trust them when they say that the hallucinations are limited, I can’t help it. I want my husband back. I want my life back. I don’t know if I ever had either.
I was waiting to cross the street on my way home from the store (I still need things to eat, and the food is real to taste and touch, though a part of me wonders, hissing, whether I can imagine that, too, and if maybe somewhere, outside of my head, I am starving in a padded room, eating air, drinking nothing).
A boy ran out into the crosswalk before the light turned. He couldn’t have been more than six years old, and small even for his age, so small that driver at the wheel of the oncoming truck would never have been able to see him even if he knew to look. Part of my mind was reeling in horror, while another part tried to think of what to do. But I’m afraid of dying. Always have been.
Only then the thought came back, as it does every few moments now:
How do I know that any of this is real?
I told myself that there wasn’t a car, there wasn’t a car, and if there wasn’t a car then there was nothing to be afraid of. The danger was gone. Just running, running, with nothing to stop me-
I reached him in a moment, pushed him out of the way towards the sidewalk, and then everything went flying.
I could feel the impact and the landing, but only distantly, as if there was a veil drawn over them. Warmth was flowing across the asphalt, and my legs refused to move. I tried to lift my head, but couldn’t move that either.
The world went dim for a while.
I opened my eyes again at the sound of sirens. Red noise split the air, and all I could see, looking up, was the sky, perfect and cloudless. Something inside of me shivered weakly. I rolled my eyes towards the sidewalk, and there was the boy, crying but safe, standing beside the curb as if rooted to the spot. I should have felt relieved, or glad, but I only felt cold. Inside, part of me was screaming It’s not real, it’s not real, but then, impossibly, I saw Mike. Only for a moment, standing just beside me, and suddenly he vanished. Blinked out. And then I knew.
I wanted it to be real. Maybe that was why I had dashed out in the first place. Even if it wasn’t, though, it made no difference. In my mind, I could see him reading Steinbeck on the couch, smiling to himself, and then he was gone. Just an empty couch, with only sunlight resting on it, in a silent, waiting house. Somewhere, perhaps, I was fine, dreaming a madwoman’s dreams and nothing more, but here I could feel ice creeping in, and through it, just barely, a faint pressure. A silver ring on my left hand.
I closed my eyes and waited for everything to fade.10
11
Silver trophy winner
Bronze trophy winner
Adding your comment:
i loved how the story centered on the main character questioning the whole world around her, wondering if any of it was real. very interesting! good luck in my contest! 
Anyways, Thanks for entering and good luck in the contest.
Thanks for entering and good luck 
