He tells me it's me. He tells me I've been wearing this house down. That I've been putting this poor house through hell. That the wear and tear of my continual use is breaking it down, one piece at a time.
I shake my head in disbelief. How is it that I could have missed this? I've been so vigilant.
So I tread more carefully. I don't put weight on creaky floorboards. I tighten up screws before they loosen. I seal up the cracks in the walls. I board up the windows.
But each time I turn away to mend a broken spot, I find that the places I looked away from have begun to break down again. I must be moving too much. I must stop walking.
So I sit. And I make sure only to move when I must. Only for the most necessary things. Only when the rain starts and I desperately try to patch the leaky roof. Only when the wind blows and I board up the doors. Only when my foot falls through a weak floorboard and I patch it back up fervently.
He looks around at this damaged house. He reminisces of the place it used to be- the place he built for me. It was perfect, he says. It was strong. What have I done? How have I let things come to this?
I hang my head in my hands. My mind races.
What have I been doing? How could all of my tireless prevention have led to this?
He points out that I've begun to walk with a limp. I had felt my body slowing, but I didn't understand why. But there it was. Thud. Thud. Thud. My lead-like leg uselessly dragging behind. It's ugly.
He looks at me disdainfully, like an owner looks at his dog before he puts it down.
He tells me that I need to get help. I nod in agreement. I begin thinking up a plan. I must go out for help. But no, then who will take care of the house while I'm away? No, I must stay.
I must call for help. Loudly, as we are so very far from others. I don't remember when it happened that we became so isolated here, out in the wilderness. I swear, when we moved in, there were neighbors just down the road. Family used to live nearby. But one by one, each moved further away. I will have to be very loud.
I call. I only hear my own echo. No one hears.
He shakes his head. His disgust is written on his face as he looks at my leg.
"Call louder," he tells me. "Why aren't you trying?"
I strain my voice until it cracks. I want him to see how hard I'm trying.
He doesn't believe me. He says I'm not trying hard enough. I ask him to help. He says he can not. What can he do for such a significant injury? Call louder. Quickly, for time is running out, he says to me.
I scream. I beg for someone to hear me. I go to the boarded up windows and bang my fists against the splintered wood.
"Please!" I plead, bloodying my fists in desperation.
"Don't you care about me at all?" I hear him say quietly. I turn to meet his gaze. I see a match in his clenched fists.
"Of course I do," I say weakly. He turns from me. He says I do not. He says that the burden of my injury is too much for him to bear. That I should have gotten help earlier. That he's suffered greatly. That while I've been calling for help, the house has begun to deteriorate. That in my selfishness, I've neglected the repairs. How could I do this to him? After everything he put into this beautiful home? How could I be so selfish?
I apologize profusely. I had no idea. I will try harder, I promise. I will call louder. I will walk on this leg even if it doesn't work. I will fix up the house quickly. I will restore it to its former beauty.
But as I make my promises, I see that he's already struck the match. I ask him what he's doing.
His face is sullen. He looks remorseful.
"You made me do this." He says, and he throws the match at my feet. The old wood beneath me lights up, and I begin to stomp the flames with my one good leg. I plead for him to help me.
He says it is too far gone. The house is broken. It's too late, he tells me.
My feet are burning. I continue to stomp anyway. It's not too late, I scream to him. But he has turned away from me. The flames spread quickly on this old, dry wood. I see his figure through the smoke.
He is pouring something on the floor.
I recognize it distinctly.
Gasoline. Everywhere. He pours it haphazardly around me. Fire surrounds me and licks my skin with its stinging heat. My screams turn to bloodcurdling shrieks and gasps for air. Please, I beg him, please don't do this. But he looks at me through the fog of smoke and says, "I can never forgive you."
And with that, he walks out the door, and bars it shut behind him.
I watch as this tattered house erupts in flames around me. The thick smoke chokes me and chars my lungs. I will die here, I know. I feel the life slipping away from me.
In one last desperate attempt to live, I claw at the thin, brittle walls and rip the wood from the frames. Light pours in through the hole I made. Smoke pours out, and clears the air enough for me to make out a shape on the ground. I peer through the thick, poisonous air. I see iron links bolted to the floorboards. I reach down to touch the scalding hot metal, and pull the chain. I feel a tug on my bad leg.
My hand trails the links backwards from the floor. Link by link. It gets closer to me. Closer. Until I feel my own leg, clasped in the grip of an iron lock around my leg. By the light peering through the hole in the wall, I see clearly now. I see my injured leg chained to the ground. How long have I been captive here? How long have I been pulling this chain around? Why didn't I see it before? These unanswered questions spin with the clouds of smoke around my head.
I try to free myself from the lock. It is securely fit to my ankle. The flames are closing in, threatening to burn me down with this condemned house.
I pull on my leg. The iron cuts into my skin. I pull harder. It cuts me deeper.
A glimmer catches my eye. I hold my hand up to the light and see my ashy fingers wrapped around a key. How long I've been holding it, I don't know. I don't have time to remember. I slip the key into the lock on my ankle. It releases, and I find that my leg is not injured after all. It was only weighed down by the grip of the chain.
I throw myself into the broken wall with what little strength I have left. The wood splinters and breaks. My body tumbles through and I roll onto the dirt.
Smoke and ashes follow me out.
I get to my feet and I begin backing up slowly, trying to make sense of this turn of events. I loved this house. I worked so hard for it. How could all of my efforts have gone to waste? How could it all be lost so quickly?
And that's when I see him.
I see him throwing rocks at the burning house. I see him breaking the windows, one by one. I see him busting holes in the walls.
And I realize he's been doing this for years. Throwing rocks. Breaking windows. Breaking down the house. Ripping it up when I was turned away.
He calls out to me, "You did this!"
I shake my head. No. No, I didn't.
"You made me do this!" He yells.
I back up further.
"Look what you've done to me!" He cries.
And instinct takes over. I run. I run away from the burning house. I run away from the chain bolted to the floor. I run to the open field, the flames at my back, the smoke rising in the distance.
And the further I run, the clearer the air becomes. I can breathe. I feel the cool air on my skin. I had forgotten what it felt like.
People are rushing to the scene of the fire. He will tell them I did this. He will tell them about my limp. He will tell them how I let the house fall apart. He will tell them how he had no choice.
He will not tell them about my chain.
He will not tell them about his rocks.
He will not tell them that he left me there to burn.
He will point to me running in the field and say, "see? She ran. Look what she left behind."
But I will keep running. Because I am liberated. I will run until the flames flicker into nothing. Until the smoke is but a memory in the distance.
Because I am free.
Heartbreakingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteOnce you see reality it can't be unseen.