Dearest Julia,
I am writing this under considerable mental strain since by tonight I shall be no more. At the end of my ability to think clearly, I can bear the fear and anxiety no longer and intend to throw myself from this filthy apartment building into the streets below. Please do not think it was anything you did that caused me to make this decision. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may realize though never fully understand, that for the safety of my family I must have the certainty of death.
#
“Dad, I can do it, let go,”
“That’s the last thing I remember Dr. Gollum. Julia’s told me about my accident, and I think I remember what happened, but then again I can’t be sure that I’m not just imagining the story Julia told me. I remember that I was moving very slowly; just cresting a hill when I fell off my bike and smashed my head on the curb. I’m still horrified when I think of my son Evan, seeing me loaded onto an ambulance with the paramedics and police. But mostly I feel guilty over little Evan having to watch me in the hospital while I was in a coma. Not knowing if his daddy is ever going to wake up; he’s only five for God sakes and Julia she acts like she’s just glad I’m still alive when I know the accident was incredibly hard on her,” said Brent.
I’m sure Evan has questions, but I find kids are a lot stronger and more resilient than we think. We’re going to keep an eye on you, but I think you’re going to be fine. Still, you’ve had a traumatic brain injury, and it can take up a year to fully heal, but there’s no slurring of speech, no loss of smell really no red flags at all. If you want to talk to a therapist, I can recommend one. You may be tired for a while, that’s to be expected. We’ll see how you are in three months. Is there anything you want to add Julia?” said Dr. Gollum
“I just want to thank you again Dr. when we were in the hospital I thought I was going to lose Brent and now here he is good as new, what more could I ask for! I just can’t believe the accident was only a week ago it seems like a lifetime.”
I shook Dr. Gollum’s hand. When we were in the hospital hallway outside the waiting room, Julia hugged me and said she loved me and I said, “I love you too.” She started to tear up and said, “I knew you would come back to me.”
How long I’d be able to fool her, I didn’t know. I know I did love her. I know I did love Evan and my dog and I know I should feel guilty about not loving them now. It’s not that my feelings have changed, it’s just that I don’t have any feelings anymore. Except for the feelings I have about The City. Not that I’ve told anyone about that, but my feelings about The City grow stronger every day.
#
I must have been unconscious because at some point as I lay comatose in the hospital bed I gradually became aware. At first, it was just velvety black shapes then rough silhouettes, massive objects like oil tankers looming over me. Gradually and imperceptibly the huge objects became The City; still gray and out of focus but The City nevertheless. The vantage point I saw The City from was peculiar. I wasn’t above The City, but neither was I on the ground I seemed to be flying somewhere in between the earth and the sky. I say fly but there was no flying, there was not even any sense of me physically being there. It was more like I was watching a movie of moving through The City. The overall impact of The City was the sheer magnitude of it. Even though I soared through The City, experiencing never-ending vistas of fantastic architecture, I never saw the same thing twice just gargantuan towers piercing the heavens above and colossal piazzas of intricate stonework beneath me. There were Endless walls and huge flames spewing from giant chimneys as far as the eye could see and always the bells and the wind. The bells always sounded as if they were in the distance. No matter how much I moved around The City, I never got close to them and always the wind, a constant, cold, whistling wind. The City seemed ancient; there was nothing remotely contemporary about it, no steel and glass just colossal, ornate, archaic stonework. The closest thing I can say that it reminded me of was the Great Wall of China, and like the Great Wall, The City gave me the sense of being built by an incalculable multitude of slaves all dedicated to the whims of an insane Emperor. The architecture of The City was a strange mixture of excessiveness without the lavish ornamental quality we usually associate with such excess. I don’t know how long I had these visions as time didn’t seem to exist during my comatose slumber. When I awoke, and in the days that followed, I remembered more particulars, colors, designs, and materials, in fact, it became more distinct and real than the every- day world I could see and touch. I observed no people, no animals, no life of any kind in The City although from the lights, smoke, and fires, The City was occupied by untold millions and millions of souls.
#
I work in a bank it’s one of the few places where looking old-fashioned is an advantage. Not that I’m going for an eccentric look it’s just that I dress like my father who also worked in banking, in fact, every day I wear his watch. It’s the kind you have to wind, and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to explain to my younger coworkers why I wear such an object. I find a watch gives you a more intimate sense of time. My cell phone tells me what time it is now, but a watch gives me the sense of time passing.
What I’m having trouble saying directly is that I noticed time seems to be missing. I’ve never been a heavy drinker but have known people who struggled with alcoholism and what I seem to be describing could be thought of as a blackout. In the beginning, I would be walking across the bank or sitting at my desk doing some work, and it would be 5 or 10 minutes later. Like, everyone, I have daydreamed before but it wasn’t like that, there was no dream it was just later. More alarmingly I would be sitting at my desk, and then I would be outside as if I was sleepwalking. These incidents seem to be increasing in duration and mostly happened when I was alone so that at work no one was aware of my lapses and it wasn’t something I was exactly eager to bring to the attention of my fellow employees at the bank.
I described my sense of losing time in an email to Dr. Gollum, and he said perceptual anomalies are to be expected and nothing to be worried about as long as they’re not accompanied by headaches. Dr. Gollum said I could expect such peculiar perceptions to last for up to a year. He was hesitant to take any action since I seemed to be doing quite well, and he was quite impressed that I was already back to work, still, if I wanted a brain MRI just to be sure, he would authorize it. I thought of mentioning The City to him but what would I say? At that time, I believed my visions of The City were only an incredibly vivid dream that I had had while unconscious. While it might have been interesting, I didn’t see how it fit into the category of things you talk to a doctor about.
While I was getting away with my lapses at work, my home life was falling apart. I couldn’t explain my lapses to Julia, and she encountered me a few times when I was having one. Apparently, I simply ignored her and acted as if she wasn’t even there. That behavior along with my lack of affection went beyond worrying her, and she began to take it personally. I simply forgot how to act as if I cared, I tried, but as I got more preoccupied with the lapses, I forgot even to make the effort toward that simulation of caring.
Evan was becoming frightened of me despite my best efforts. After seeing me laid out as if dead in the hospital and my out of character arguing with Julia he wasn’t sure what to believe. I think the straw that broke the camels back was when he asked Julia, “is daddy ever going to be like he used to be?” After I saw how much it meant to Julia, I reluctantly agreed to see a therapist that Dr. Gollum recommended. I was going to tell Julia and the therapist about my hallucinations while I was in the coma and how I didn’t feel like I was all there, but before I had the chance, the therapists reassured Julia and me how we just had to be patient and love each other. That things will be back to normal, we just had to give it time and that the message she wanted to deliver to us with was: everything we were feeling was normal and not to do anything we would regret. I didn’t really believe her, but when I looked over at Julia, I knew she wanted so badly to believe the therapist I didn’t have the courage to tell them what I was going through.
#
The blacking out has gotten worse. Now it happens mostly at night. Last night I awoke in bed fully dressed after I’m sure I had changed into my pajamas before getting into bed, I had my shoes on and a few odd bruises and cuts on my hands, luckily I got up before Julia or how could I have begun to explain my behavior? I started sleeping on the couch, not a good sign in any marriage but I didn’t want to drag my family into whatever was happening to me. Julia came out to the living room one night and noticed I was missing and the car was gone. When I woke up, I was there on the couch again, but this time Julia was accusing me of cheating or worse. I almost tried to explain to her what was happening to me but I think it was too late. How could I explain something I didn’t understand. It had only been two months since the accident, and I was struggling to keep it together.
After working in the bank for so many years I could do my job half asleep, and that was a very good thing because I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life. Dr. Gollum claimed that was normal with a serious brain injury and in fact, fatigue was a sign I was recovering. I didn’t think so, but I kept my mouth shut.
I’ve moved out of the house now. Things are spiraling out of control, and I don’t want my family involved. I had tried to steel myself for a moment like this, but it still came as a shock. Every morning on the way to work, I stop at a local bakery to get coffee and this morning my worst fears were confirmed. A woman I’ve known for years was on duty behind the counter. When I came into the bakery to get my morning coffee, she told me, hey you know you have a twin. I worked late last night, and this guy came in; he completely looked like you, but he was Russian or something. He didn’t speak any English and just pointed at what he wanted; I’m serious the guy looked exactly like you. I got out of there in a hurry.
I live in an apartment now it’s awful, dirty and has bugs and drunks. The drunks are afraid of me because apparently, the other me is pretty bad assed. At least I don’t have to hide what’s happening to me living here. I can’t bring Evan here even though I have visitation rights once a week and I can’t afford somewhere better to live because I’m determined to keep the mortgage up on the house. To me, it symbolizes caring for my family and the emotions I’m no longer able to feel.
I had my chance to explain everything to Julia, and I almost did, but I was just so tired, and they were safer without me. I don’t know if Evan had met the other me, but he seems truly terrified of me now and the dog, once my little buddy acts like he wants to kill me, maybe he has good reason to. I have no idea.
I met someone who knew the other me today. I was at the train station waiting for my ride to work when a man in an expensive suit addressed me in a foreign language. He was about my age and was some unidentifiable race perhaps Lebanese, but I’m just guessing. He was very deferential, and when I spoke to him in English he crumpled like he had made a mistake he was going to have to pay for and hurriedly walked away. I thought of chasing after him but I would’ve missed my train, and though it sounds strange to say, I think my job is my last hold on reality.
I think the end is near. Last night I woke up in a limo wearing my best suit. The window was up between the limo driver and me, and he wouldn’t acknowledge my knocking on the barrier. After a few minutes, he pulled up to my shabby apartment building. I just sat there and waited, but the driver’s orders seemed to be not to engage me. Eventually, I got out, and he pulled away. The entire limo was mirrored so that I couldn’t see his face.
I never missed enough time for my alter ego to justify having a separate living place. Perhaps he had a PO Box or storage locker, but I suspect that he liked to keep things closer to home. I tore up the apartment looking for clues. What was I looking for? Anything that wasn’t mine. I found what I was looking for and have decided to end my life. I don’t think my life would remain mine for very much longer anyway. The bottom drawer in my clothing dresser had a false bottom. It was nothing fancy just a board with a few magnets to hold it in place. Inside the opening, I found several letters in a language I didn’t recognize more alarmingly I found a log or journal in my handwriting in that same foreign language more alarmingly still I found several drawings of The City.
Forgive me, Julia. Evan, I hope one day you’ll be able to remember me as your father and read these words and try to understand. Remember how much I loved you both. I think that the ability to love you, that was stolen from me took away my will to live. I intend on ending my life tonight, but if I am not able to follow through with my intentions and you ever see me again do not come near me. Stay away from me and do not try to investigate, the answers would be too terrible to bear. Forgive me I should have trusted you; remember I once loved you both.
END
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #44 ‘I’m Losing Me’ by Scott Wheelock – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
