Annie, Rush the Gates

I

I’ve been sleeping for so very long, I think they’ve forgotten I’m here. It’s not their fault. I’ve changed. Nurse Sarah says I’m a woman now. At one time I had blue eyes and blonde hair that fell in tangles down my back. Not anymore. My hair is brown now and not a pretty brown either. It’s short, matted and oily, and I think I’m bald in the back from years of nothingness. They let my hair grow for a while, as they waited for my eyes to open, for that day we could all rejoice at a job well done, at prayers well versed, at hope well spent. For that beautiful, marvelous day when there would come a crack in the darkness and light would flood in and all would be well and good.

And yet we wait

Still we wait.

Annie, rush the gates. Pry the lock and rush the gates.

II

Sometimes, when I’m feeling very sneaky, I leave my confines. I leave this body, this bed and this room behind and I roam, and I watch. A phantasmal voyeur. A spectral peeping tom. I have seen how people live today. That is how I know my mirror image. That is how I know they cut my hair. Annie wouldn’t have let them had she been here.

III

We wore seersucker shorts and flour-sack shirts and ran through sprinklers barefoot. We ate Popsicles in the sun–dripping sticky sweet–and kissed a boy behind the shed. We stole molasses cookies from Grandma’s cupboard and fed them to fire ants. We raced Daddy’s Oldsmobile–the garage door giving way to a menacing track–and of course, we always won. We laughed at little nothings, ‘til our cheeks hurt and our bellies ached, and then we laughed some more.

Rush the gates, Annie. Please, rush the gates.

IV

Though I normally stay within these halls with their sterile people and silver tools, I do sometimes venture out. I go see Annie often. Her smile is warmth, and her laughter–mystical, magical–sends me spiraling back to glistening times. Her eyes hold the light that all are drawn to. A patient flame that brightens her soul.

But sometimes she’s hard to find, elusive in these hazy wanderings as I try desperately to gain solid ground, to keep my feet below the clouds.

When I do travel beyond these walls, my journey ultimately ends in a field, wide and green. I don’t often see green. There are four stones sitting pretty in a row. Three have writing and one is blank and I wonder what they say, for I fell asleep before I learned to read.

V

We played cowboys and Indians in wheat fields and dreamed in lazy shade. We drew hopscotch on the sidewalk and played kickball in the dirt. We smelled of cantaloupe and corn chips and strawberry shampoo. We shared sandals and shoelaces and braided wildflowers into our hair, letting them bake in the sun, filling the scorched atmosphere with evanescent perfume. We dressed exactly alike, laughing when Daddy couldn’t tell us apart, wrinkling our noses at his silliness. We took baths with baby oil and Mama’s scented soap, and we crossed-our-hearts swore to keep each other’s secrets–forever and ever–sacred ‘til our dying day.

VI

On Saturday we went boating. Mom and Dad wore sunglasses and smiled at each other like kids in love. Annie and I were the appointed captains, sharing the commission as would be expected. But when the winds turned against us and the waves grew angry we slid under our seats and huddled together, and Annie cried. We didn’t make the best captains, shirking our responsibilities at the first sign of danger, and I remember being puzzled that Annie would cry. She was always the brave one. She was always the one throwing caution to the wind; but perhaps, in its betrayal, the wind laughed and threw her caution back at her, hard enough to knock her breath away, to sprain her courage and bruise her soul. The wind didn’t scare me. The waves didn’t scare me. The boat, reeling and crashing, didn’t scare me. Annie scared me.

VII

Mrs. Tibbs in the next room is a bit crazy. She has mean hair and harsh nails. When she wheels herself down the halls she knocks things over and then tries to wheel away before the orderly catches her. When he does—and he always does—she screams and hits him until he restrains her in a chair. And she yells and bites and calls everyone names. That’s where I gained my more colorful phrases. Before she came along, I had no idea an orderly could be lower than a snake’s penis.

VIII

Annie would lick the blood from her scrapes with her candied-blue tongue. I often wonder, had I licked my blood would I be here today? Did that somehow make her stronger, more courageous? Did the coppery taste of her own lineage give her a taste for life itself?

She was spared these indifferences, these surroundings with their stale air and gray walls. I’m glad. She wouldn’t like it here. Annie’s mere presence demands flavor. God created light to place at her feet, to dance in her hair, to sparkle in her eyes. She would transform the dead air that lingers forever in these halls to incandescent butterflies and we would laugh and chase them and upset the orderlies, I’m sure.

IX

There was a young man who worked here a short while; I never knew his name. He would whisper in my ear and rub my stomach. I tried so hard to pay attention, to grasp his airy words through the fog. He would kiss my eyelids with his warm lips and squeeze my feet. He would spread my legs–his words falling into oblivion–and send a strong hand up under my gown to check the tubes there, softly rubbing where they invaded, his cool fingers stroking, soothing. I loved him just a little.

X

We ate watermelon and ice cream ‘til our fingers stuck together and drank Kool-Aid through twirling straws. We painted our toenails tea rose pink and wrapped velvet ribbons around our wrists. We caught grasshoppers in Mason jars and frog-princes in the rain. We jumped rope in our Sunday shoes and climbed trees in our socks. And we held hands, skipping through fields of sunflowers and yarrow, completely oblivious to that which lay just beyond the schism–the one between now and a split second later.

XI

Mr. Spunkmeyer in room eighteen snores. It tickles me to listen to him. He breathes in just fine, but when he breathes out, his mouth flubbers like a horse. I’ll bet he’s great at raspberries. I like to smell him when he shuffles past my room; butter cream mint and Castile permeate the air. Sometimes he’ll come in and talk to me, sitting for hours before the nurse shoos him away. He tells me to quit being so lazy then winks. His milky hands shake and his gray eyes twinkle and, truly, I think he knows. I think he’s seen me sneaking through the halls, creeping into corners. He won’t tell.

XII

There was so much water. It was blue and green and brown respectively. It enveloped us and pulled us in and we kicked and fought and screamed for release. We scratched and clawed and twisted and turned and begged and begged for release. It told us to breathe and we mistook water for air, its cold thickness filling and choking. And then all was quiet and calmness seeped in and release no longer seemed necessary. Everything was clear. Annie and I looked at each other, giggling with our new knowledge, marveling at its simplicity. Then I was torn away. It was fierce and hard and it hurt–each time they pushed it hurt. Crashing against my chest. Forcing me back to a place I didn’t need to be.

Annie, rush the gates. Pick the lock and rush the gates.

XIII

I like Nurse Sarah. She talks to me while she changes my sheets and tells me all her secrets, then she asks my advice, which I freely give. I often wonder if she takes it; although, I must admit, I don’t know that much about men or how to domesticate them. But she must really like them. They’re all she talks about. She says I’m pretty, and if I would wake up, I could have all the men I want.

I’ll just wait for Annie, thank you very much. She should be here soon.