Death is Not an Option - 16. Chapter 16

For the first time in ages I wake suddenly and the first thing I realise is that I am alone. The second thing I realise is that the photograph is no longer in my hand and I panic. I sit up and a wave of pain and dizziness washes over me, making me fall back onto the pillows. Fuck!! I HATE feeling like this. I hate the weakness most of all, the pain I can handle.

Panicking even more I stare wildly around the room and there it is, propped up against the water jug. I freeze, completely freeze. I can’t think, can’t feel, can’t breathe. My parents. Those strangers, those beautiful strangers are my parents. My hand is trembling as I reach out to touch the photograph, the paper smooth and shiny under my fingers. She does look like me... my mother, but she was far more beautiful, more beautiful than any woman I have ever seen. And my father... my father was a god. He was tall, like me, towering over the others and he looked so strong. No wonder my mother had left Caleb for him.

Caleb. The very thought of him makes me shudder. Sometimes, when I close my eyes I can still see his face, bending over me, his lips spewing poison into my ears while he watches me sink under the one his needle had pumped it into my blood and I am hard put to decide which hurts the most. He is like the angel of death, haunting my dreams with heavy steps and a dark, brooding presence that screams of decay, pain and oblivion.

Not that I wouldn’t have welcomed oblivion sometimes. Not the oblivion of death but that of sleep without dreams. I would give anything for a night of dreamless sleep. Every time I close my eyes and feel that darkness gathering I see that it is shot through with red hot tongues of flame and each flame is a searing dream that burns with its imagery or message. Over and over the message is the same... I am an abomination, I am evil, I would be better off dead. Is that because this is what I am or only because it is what I believe myself to be?

I don’t feel that I want to die any more. I don’t feel that I am evil; that anything I have done has been wrong; that anything I want to do with my life from now on is wrong. However, if I am being completely honest with myself, this could be because I don’t feel anything much at all. So much has happened to me, so much to take in, so much to understand, so much to get used to. Can it be that there has been so much that it has burned me out, that I am nothing more than an empty shell with no more capacity to feel than the cold paper I hold between my fingers?

I stare into the eyes of the woman from whose body I sprung and I feel... nothing. There is not even curiosity. The photograph is precious to me but only because I know with my conscious mind that it is my only link... my only safe link with the parents I never knew. It is not precious for any other reason... not because I feel any connection with the people in it.

What about my brother? My brother. Jon. I don’t feel anything much about him either. He is more present than the people in the photograph. He is flesh and blood. He is here. I can speak to him, touch him, relate to him. He is easy to be with and he represents... more than just family. He represents a future for me. Not only that but he represents an unique opportunity for me to explore...what I am. And yet...

I close my eyes, pressing the photograph over my heart. It hurts. The fact that I feel nothing hurts. I am afraid. What if it never comes back? What if I never feel anything, ever again? It occurs to me that perhaps the fact that I am afraid of that, I mean so afraid that it makes my chest hurt, means that I do have feelings. Isn’t fear a feeling? Is it?

If fear is a feeling then I have plenty of them after all. The fear has been with me for a long time. Maybe even before I ever came here, before things all went wrong. Maybe I have always been afraid. Does that make me a coward? What am I afraid of now? Everything.

I am afraid of being ill, of listening to my own heart beat externalised, of the way that people look at me and their hushed voices. I am afraid of facing the members of the community, of telling them that I can never trust them again, that I can never live among them because they have stolen from me every last shred of trust and faith that I ever had. I am afraid that everything I ever believed, everything I held on to as truths and anchors has been ripped from me and thrown to the winds.

I am terrified that I don’t know where I am going to go when I leave the hospital. It is all very well and good for Jon to say that I have choices but it seems to me that every one of them is a scary one. I am afraid of him. I am afraid of myself. My life is fear.

I cannot bear to think of leaving this place. I have begun to feel safe here. The man, Richard, he makes me feel safe. He makes me feel that I can talk to him and he won’t judge me. To be fair, I feel that with Jon too. I want to believe in him, I want to trust him, but... I have been betrayed so many times how can I even begin to trust even myself, my own judgement. If I leave here with him I will be entrusting myself into the hands of strangers and how can I do that when even my closest family and friends could not be trusted?

Where will he take me? What will he do to me? The community is the only home I have ever known. I am not quite so naive as to believe that the world beyond our doors is anything like the one we have created for ourselves. Even being here, in this place, this hospital, has taught me that and, God knows the prison did. How will I ever learn to negotiate it, to live in it?

I am crying. I didn’t notice the tears begin but they are dripping onto my chest, onto the photograph. I move it out of the way so that it is not spoiled. I ease myself down in the bed so that I can rest my head back, sinking into the soft pillows... although they are not so soft now. I have been lying on them for a long time. I contemplate my tears.

To cry I must feel, and yet I don’t know what it is that I feel. I don’t know why I am crying. I surmise that it must be the fear. Fear of the unknown, of a world I have never lived in before. I realise with some surprise that the only world I am considering now is one with my brother in it. Somehow, somewhere, the decision has been made. As much as I fear it I know that when I leave here it will be with him. I am not sure whether that makes the fear better or worse.

It doesn’t help that my mind is so sluggish. I feel as though there is a blanket over my brain, a soft, cloying thickness that turns my thoughts to treacle and means that every path I follow leads to confusion. Much of the time I lose track of my thoughts before they reach any logical conclusion. I lose the thread, forget the point, where I was going. I realise that this is because of the drugs they are still feeding me in regular portions but that does not make things any easier for me.

I have to think. I have to get things clear in my mind. How can I decide where I want to go from here if I don’t know where ‘there’ is and have only a sketchy understanding of what it means to be ‘here’? Somewhere along the way I have lost myself. Somewhere, somewhen Isaac died and I don’t know who now inhabits his body. I am not familiar with me.

I have my eyes closed and, when the door opens and someone sits on the bed at my side, I don’t open them, although I suddenly remember with a jolt that there had been someone there before, someone small. I can’t help but smile.

“Are you awake Isaac?”

It is the pretty nurse, the one who has always been nice to me. Katie. My smile broadens and I open my eyes. It is surprisingly difficult. It is always difficult these days, everything is difficult.

“Hello there.” She is smiling and her hand is cool and gentle when she brushes from my face hair that I had not even realised was straggling across it, until it was gone. That coolness is exquisite and I find myself silently pleading with her not to withdraw the hand. Of course she does and it makes me sigh.

“How are you feeling now?”

Feeling? She has no idea... no fucking idea. If only I could tell here. If only there was something there to feel, to describe, to own. I frown, trying to find a feeling, trying to find the words to explain that there are none. All the while she keeps smiling, a gentle smile.

“Okay.”

“Is there anything you need?”

Anything I need? I need my life back. I need my emotions to be switched on again. I need to be able to make sense of what is going on around me. I need.... “No thank you.”

“Are you hungry?”

Hungry? That was the last thing on my mind. I haven’t thought about food for the longest time. Am I hungry? “No.”

“Alright. But if you do need something, you just shout okay. Anything.”

“Where’s my brother.” She smiles. I think it is probably at the shocked expression on my face at the words that came out of my mouth.

“He and Sean have gone to check into a hotel. They’ll be back in a while. It must be strange huh? To suddenly find out you have a whole family you never knew existed?”

“Strange? I suppose.” Yeah, strange, scary, confusing... at least that’s what it should be...isn’t it? “Katie...?”

“Yes hun?”

“Why don’t I...? Why...? Such... such a lot has happened. But I... I don’t know... I don’t know how to feel about it.”

“How you should feel? No one can tell you that, sweetheart. You feel as you feel.”

“No... not how I should feel... how I can feel. I’m just... just...I don’t feel anything, not really, not any more.”

“Oh, I see.”

A strange look comes over her face, as if she is working out what to say to me. She takes my hand, almost as if she is not really aware she is doing it. She is very careful and it is the first time that someone holds my hand and it doesn’t hurt... well not much.

“Isaac, you have to remember that you have been very ill. You are still not strong. The things that have happened to you... all of them, have put a great deal of strain on your heart and we have been concerned that it might be permanently damaged.” She looks at me as if she is worried the information might disturb me. It means nothing. So I’ve got a bad heart... so what?

“At the moment it looks as if that hasn’t happened and you are starting to get stronger but we can’t afford to take any chances. All of these things that have been happening to you, even the good ones are very emotionally draining and we... Rick felt that it would be better for you if we took the edge of it a bit, just until you are physically strong enough to cope.”

If she thinks she is explaining anything she’s dead wrong. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Katie sighs and strokes my fingers. That is having a hell of a lot more effect on me than her words are. It is such a nice feeling, I could get lost in it... just the sheer physicality of it.

“I can see that you don’t really understand what I’m saying so I will try to make it as simple as I can. You are not strong Isaac. Your heart is weak and if you get too excited you will put strain on it that might cause damage. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do you remember what happened the last time you got very upset?”

“No.”

“You had a seizure. Do you know what that is?”

“I may be slow right now but I’m not an idiot. I know what a seizure is.”

“I’m sorry. I just want to make sure you understand what I’m telling you. It wasn’t the first time you’ve had a seizure since you’ve been here and we are a little worried about that as well as your heart. Do you see why it’s important that you keep calm?”

“Yes but... calm is one thing this is... this is... just nothing.”

“You are a very emotional person Isaac and that is not a bad thing, but right now it could be dangerous for you so it was necessary to for us to intervene, to make sure that you stay calm.”

“I... see.” No, I don’t... hang on a minute... is she saying...? “Are you... are you saying that you’re drugging me not to feel.”

She pauses and again I can see her looking for words but in the end she just shrugs. “Yes.”

Now there is feeling... and the feeling is... not quite anger, I can’t quite seem to build it up that high... extreme displeasure though. Surely I have enough drugs washing around inside me as it is? “Can you stop?”

“Not right now Isaac, no. Until you are stronger and more stable it wouldn’t be safe. It’s either that or we keep you sedated and that would be worse.”

“Would it?” I am very tired... always so very tired. Would it really be so bad to just sleep?

“Is that what you want?”

Just to sleep and wake up when it’s all over and... but it wouldn’t be over. It would be just that same as it is now but I would have all the hard emotions to deal with, all the pain and the confusion and the fear. Right now I may be tired but at least I can get to know Jon without freaking out every time I speak to him.

“No.”

“Good. Now... how would you feel about a cold drink? Some iced water?”

“How would I feel? How should I know?”

For a moment she looks doubtful and then she sees my smile and returns it. Well... I may as well laugh as cry, neither one means much to me right now. “Iced water sounds good.”

It is better than good. It is incredible. I am so hot and the cold seeps through from the inside and makes me feel great. If I find myself unable to feel anything much in the emotional realm then at least I can make the most of anything I can get physically. Although, at the moment that is not very much. Everything hurts. Not much but enough to make me feel thoroughly uncomfortable.

My back is aching again and my buttocks and thighs feel sore and sticky. My arm is throbbing painfully and every place where my body is pierced by needles and tubes, which suddenly seem to be more than I have ever been aware of before, itch and burn. And then there is the dull pain in my shoulders and wrists... oh and the ever present headache. Why have I never been so keenly aware of it all before?

“Is everything alright?”

Is everyone here psychic? They all seem to be able to read me like an open book. “Everything hurts.”

“Ah... Don’t worry. It’s a good thing Isaac. You’re getting better, becoming more aware of your surroundings. Unfortunately that means you have to take the good with the bad... and that includes pain and discomfort. But you don’t have to suffer in silence sweetheart. That’s what pain relief is for. We may have to work a little on getting the right dosage but we’ll get you through.”

“Okay.”

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“Some of it.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She walks around the bed and fiddles with a machine. It might sound stupid but it’s the first time that I really notice the machines. There seems to be a lot of them. It crosses my mind to be curious about them but then, quite suddenly, the lights go out.

When the lights come on again Jon and Sean are sitting at the side of the bed chatting and laughing together. I don’t want to open my eyes, just to lie here and listen to them. They sound so... normal. They tease each other and laugh, sometimes giggling like children and I can hear the rustling when they embrace, sense the subtle tension when they kiss.

My brother Jon. For the first time it occurs to me to wonder if he will like me. I must seem so... strange to him. He’s spent his whole life out there in the real world, not hidden away like me. That takes my mind back to the community and I drift for a while lost in memories. Maybe I should go back. Maybe I should... Maybe... The thought of going back to the community, of walking away from Jon, my family is unbearable and a sob squeezes out. I am not awake, not really, kind of drifting on the edges. If I had been awake I would never have allowed myself to show that kind of feeling. It has never gone down very well.

“Isaac? Isaac are you awake? Are you alright?”

Damn. Now I have to wake up. He sounds... concerned. The thought that someone is concerned for me, caring about me, draws out another sound that is half a sob and half a hiccup and it turns into a sigh as I realise that waking up is not as easy as I had thought. My mind is catching on but my body is lagging behind.

I find myself making soft noises as I struggle with my body which seems to be wanting to stay in stasis.

“Isaac? Sean, maybe you should go get someone.”

“No, I think it’s okay. He’s still asleep. Maybe he’s dreaming or something.”

“Are you sure? I’m a bit scared.”

“Don’t be daft. He’s being well taken care of. I sure someone would know if anything was going wrong. I keep telling you... it’s going to be alright. Stop worrying. You freak out every time he twitches.”

He what? My brother watches over me and worries about me? He cares about me?

“I’m not that bad... alright maybe I am but hell Sean... he’s my baby brother, and he’s such a great kid. I came here not knowing what I would find. I was prepared to be open minded and to take whatever I found, to try and like him, to try and be some kind of a brother but... It didn’t turn out that way. I haven’t had to try and like him... he’s... As soon as I saw him, saw his mother in him... I love him Sean. He’s my baby brother and I love him and to see him like this...”

He loves me? My brother loves me? I... Hell, those drugs must be wearing off because suddenly I feel... I feel...

“Sean, he’s crying. I think he must be in pain or something. Please go get someone.”

The glue that has stuck my eyes together seems to have been unstuck by the tears and suddenly they fly open to see two anxious faces hovering over me. Swallowing the rest of the tears I try to smile but it isn’t very successful.

“Hey there bro. You had me worried. Are you okay?”

“Um... I... They drugged me.”

“They did?”

“I... I’m getting better now... and it hurts.”

“Are you hurting now buddy?”

“No. I feel... I feel.”

“You feel...?”

“I’m scared.” It seems as if everything has suddenly swum into focus. That focus is not sharp and so I assume the drugs are still active only no longer blanking the feelings altogether. A lot of things are swimming around in my head. Memories of what has happened to me, thoughts about what is happening to me, what might happen. Everything is whirling so fast it is swamping me and the overall feeling is of pure, blind terror.

I feel like I did when I had the dream about the snake, as if my emotions are coiled around me, crushing me in their intensity. I am frightened, frightened and confused. Until now, everything has seemed only half real. It has all happened so quickly and half the time I have been too drugged to care. Now I care.

“Don’t be scared bro. You have me now. You have a big brother to take care of you and I swear that I will. I swear that no matter what happens, no matter what it takes I will take care of you. I will make everything alright for you.”

The coils release a little and I sigh, staring into those sincere eyes. But... but... there have been eyes before, they were so sincere, so... ‘Trust me. It will all be alright, I promise. Trust me.’ and I trusted him, I trusted them all... the people who loved me, who cared for me. I can’t... I can’t trust him. How can I trust him? He will hurt me. He will let me down, just like everyone else, just like Jacob did. The coils tighten again making me gasp.

“It’s alright Isaac. I know it’s hard for you. I don’t expect you to trust me. I know that’s impossible for you at the moment, after everything that happened. You don’t have to trust me. You just have to relax and concentrate on getting better. Do you remember, when we talked before? I told you that you don’t have to make any decisions just yet. You just have to get better.”

“I... I think so.” I don’t but I have to say that don’t I? I don’t want to upset him. I don’t want him to stop liking me, stop caring for me.

“Then just get better and stop worrying about anything else. When you can leave here you can decide where you want to go, what you want to do. I will support whatever you want. If you want to come home with me you will be more than welcomed by so many people who are just waiting to love you.”

Oh fuck... oh fuck... too much... too much to think of. All those people I don’t know. All those people who know me, who have known my mother and father. All those strangers.

Jon must see the terror in my eyes because he is quick to reassure me. “It’s okay Isaac. You don’t have to do that. You can go back to the community if you want to. I will help you get settled back there.”

But that’s even worse. Better the devil you know, they say... like hell! The devils there will not be so easily dispelled for me. Every corner, ever ear of corn, every blade of grass, every home, every smile... they all have memories. Memories of betrayal. I don’t want to go back.

“I can’t go back.”

“Then you won’t. If meeting the family seems like too much for you then you can come and stay with us, just Sean and me. We have our own place, not too far from the family but far enough that you can take your time to meet them and get to know them.”

“You live together?” The idea shocks me and curiosity begins to take the place of the terror. The coils release and then they release a little more as Jon and Sean exchange an amused look and smile at me.

“We do, but there’s always room for a small one.”

“I’m not small.”

“Then you will have to put up with cramped conditions.”

“Do you live near my grandmother?”

“Yes, a few miles. Would you like to meet her?”

I think about it carefully and find to my surprise that the fear seems to have got lost somewhere in the curiosity. I am naturally curious, always. “Yes. I would like to meet her. She knew my father and my mother.” I turn my head to look at the photograph on the table beside the bed. “Does she have photographs?”

“Does she have photographs?” He laughs. “Trust me, she has a million of them. Photographs of all of us. She has videos too... she has one of Dad. I think she has one with both of them in... you father and mother.”

“Video? I can see them?”

And now there is no fear, only longing, a longing so deep and so real it makes me choke back a sob.

Jon smiles gently and takes my hand. This time it doesn’t hurt and I wouldn’t have cared if it had. I cling on, searching his eyes, looking for a hint that he is lying to me, deceiving me, playing with me. I see nothing but understanding. And then I can’t stop the tears.