*A little background information, this piece was an indirect assignment from one of my favortie authors, Stephen King. He outlines all the information in his book
On Writing. If you are interested in it, I'm sure the challenge is somewhere on Google. Just look up "stephen king dick and jane challenge."
Rain is one of nature’s great mysteries. How can something as simple as falling water be able to invoke memories of situations long forgotten? How can dihydrogen monoxide affected by gravity send someone not just into their past, but into a world of their own creation? A world where one cannot be harmed. A world where it is just a single person, their thoughts, and the rain. A world where one escapes commitments and problems, happiness and sadness. Joy and fear.
Except no one can escape fear.
Fear. What a world it is to be able to live without fear! I cannot even begin to explain how life has changed, now that Nell and I don’t need to worry about the fear that plagued us every day when we walked in the door. Two years ago. Two years ago today, we escaped that beast, that SHELL of a woman that used to be my wife, her mother.
We escaped fear.
Except no one can escape fear.
Little Nell hasn’t even mentioned her mother. She is so young…I am thankful for the mind blocking out those things that it knows are bad. Nell was fearful, so very fearful. But then it changed. She escaped it
Except no one can escape fear
and kept living her life right away. I haven’t been so fortunate. I still make sure that no one is anywhere in the house before I leave and right when I get home. I still have the gun hidden under the floorboard that Jane and I ripped up to hide our belongings when we left town. The “decorative” samurai sword still hangs over the fireplace. For whatever reason, I just can’t let go of them. The terror I outran would find me. I would again be held by fear.
Except no one can escape fear.
Sitting here, looking out the window, I know now that I did the right thing. Jane needed help. Something was wrong with her, and I couldn’t do anything to save her. The hospital is working to fix it, whatever “it” is. Jane is safe, she will be cured. Maybe she can come home soon. Maybe we can all go picnicking as a family again, with Nell and her dolls, and Jane spraying on the lavender perfume she loved so much. Maybe she won’t be so disturbed, so abusive, so…paranoid.
But I know that can’t happen. It’s just the rain playing tricks on me. Jane can never come home. The hospital can’t make her better. She is a mental patient, patient number 112358-F, and she will be until the day she dies. She can’t ever leave the hospital. She can’t ever escape her fear. She can’t ever be like me and Nell.
Except no one can escape fear.
It’s just the rain. A silent storm. Drop after drop hits the window, no thunder to be heard, no lighting to be seen. Nell calls storms like this “Angel tears,” because the angels are sad about what is happening on Earth, but they don’t want God to hear them crying. Sweet Nell… I’m sure she would love to be right where I am now instead of upstairs taking her nap. That was something that Jane was always good at, putting Nell down for her nap. It’s still a fight to get her to sleep. Luckily, once she’s down, she’s out for the count. Even if the angels were screaming, not crying; even if thunder rolled and lightning crashed, she still wouldn’t be waking up. Nell always sleeps through her naptime, and through the night. I wake up every now and then looking at the empty spot next to me on the bed. I wonder if I did the right thing with Jane, condemning her. Then I remember the fear that Nell and I lived with, and how happy we are without
Except no one can escape fear.
her in our lives. What a world…
I actually thought about this a lot last week. I saw in the paper that a mental hospital burned down in a freak accident. Of course the first thing that I thought of was Jane. It wasn’t her hospital that burned down of course, she was in New York. There is more than one mental hospital in New York, of course it wasn’t hers. I almost went to see her after I saw the news, but it’s late November in Maine, and I don’t want to worry about foul weather. So I stayed. I called a few times, but always got a busy tone. Probably other panicking relatives.
I fixed myself a pot of coffee, and went to sit on our covered porch. The storm was starting to pick up a bit, now there was quite a bit of wind to accompany the rain. For whatever reason, I like sitting outside when it gets windy. I guess I’m hoping that the wind will carry me away from all my problems, my future. My past. Especially my past. One thing is certain; the wind definitely carried me away from my fear.
Except no one can escape fear.
The wind and rain made for a calming sound, and I watched all the raindrops fall into our pool and send small ripples out. Drop, ripple. Drop, ripple. Drop, ripple. Drop…ripple… Drop…
A crash woke me up an hour later, making me spill my now lukewarm coffee all over my lap. The wind, which had really picked up, had blown the front door open, and as I ran to close it, I saw that the same thing had happened to many other houses down the street. I shut and locked the door, then turned to go up the stairs and check on Nell and change. But as I approached the landing, a smell hit my nose that was all too familiar. Memories flooded back to me, good ones and bad ones and memories that even the rain could not wash the dirt off of. Memories of picnics and dolls and fancy perfume.
At the top of the stairs, looking into Nell’s bedroom, spraying on that damn lavender perfume was Jane. She sent a playful wave in my direction, then pressed a single finger to her pale, chapped lips, and walked into the room. I sprinted up the stairs, suppressing the urge to shout out her to get the hell out of my house, and before I knew it I was in Nell’s doorway. Jane was sitting on the bed, watching Nell sleep with the bottle of perfume on the ground by her feet. In her right hand, she caressed the gun from under the floorboard. In her left, the sword from the wall lay flat against Nell’s stomach. Her hair was flat against her face, soaked by the rain, and an old, dirty, ripped smock was plastered onto a body obviously suffering from malnutrition.
“She grew up so fast. Two years and she already looks like a young woman. Hello Dick, how ya been?” Jane whispered this as she ran the sword up and down poor sleeping Nell’s body.
“Jane, get the hell away from my daughter.”
She laughed. “YOUR daughter? Why not OUR daughter?”
“You lost your claim to her the first time you slapped her. Get the sword away from her, point the gun elsewhere. Just leave her alone.”
“Point it elsewhere? If that’s what you want.” She slowly lifted the gun and pointed it directly at me, the sword then following. Her arm was steady as the heavy samurai weapon became parallel with the floor. “Let’s talk. Downstairs.” Jane began walking towards me and to avoid the point of the honorable blade, I was forced to walk backwards, down the stairs and out onto the patio.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of hers. “How did you get out?”
“We all did our own laundry. Two years of smuggling bleach and one match made it pretty easy. I’m sure you saw ‘Mental Hospital burns in Freak Accident: No Survivors.”
“You’re insane.”
“Dick, you abandoned me! I loved you so much and you shut me up in that godforsaken place. Why did you do that Dick? Why?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “You didn’t love us. You TORMENTED us! The last few years I tried to save you, but I ended up LOATHING you, not loving you.”
“But you knew something was wrong. The doctors from hell told you I had something wrong in the head. But they were wrong. I knew what I was doing, and I know what I’m going to do.”
“Jane, you’re disturbed. Get out, or I will call the police.”
“Go ahead! I already called them! Someone is going to need to clean up the mess that you caused.”
“There hasn’t been a mess since you left and we finally started living a life that we enjoyed, and life with happiness, and without fear.”
“Oh Richard… What a true sentence. Except no one can escape fear. You should know that. Well, I restate that. No one LIVING can escape fear. You want to escape it? I will be more than happy to oblige. I’m taking my daughter back. Good-bye Dick. Escape your fear.” With that, Jane lowered the gun and leveled two shots into my chest. I couldn’t feel them, but I knew they hit, because I saw the world falling down as I collapsed on the floor. I saw Jane drop the gun. I heard a small voice cry out “Daddy?” And everything slowed down.
Jane spun around, swinging the samurai sword at the source of the noise that had violated her ritual. I saw the sword fly back in the air, crimson drops scattering off the front of the sword, and watched Nell’s body drop to the floor, her head rolling up against the opposite wall. I heard Jane scream and heard the clatter of the sword against the cobblestone floor. I saw her run, and run into the arms of one of the three policemen at the front of the patio. I heard the police calling for back up. Then I heard Nell’s laughter, she was calling to me. Singing, over and over again.
No more fear Daddy! No more fear! We escaped fear! No more fear Daddy! Come picnic with me, come play with my dollies! Come on daddy, we can make angel tears now, let’s make angel tears. Don’t let God hear you, he might get upset! Let’s cry on Mommy, let’s cry just for her!
Angel tears…Let them fall. As the rain falls, let the tears of the angels fall onto Jane.
Of course, Nell. Let’s go make angel tears for Mommy.
