Friday, January 5, 2018

I

found light in another place. My eyes failed to open underneath a sticky layer of thin crust that melded my eyelids shut.

The mystical venom in my body seemed to wane the way melatonin wears off in the body as the sun rises.

The very tips of my fingers tickled something soft like a cotton blanket. With all my might, I wiggled them, and the feeling spread through my arms. And though my whole body remained weak, I felt the hairs on my skin stand at attention as a gust of wind blew in through a nearby window.

I remembered the last time my eyes were open: I could see Jack nuzzling up to me from my breasts, while my head lay on the unconscious Travis's cold stomach.

But now the skin on the back of my neck as well as my ears was able to sense the soft cushion of a smooth cotton pillow that held my head. Under my back was the soft cushion Jack and I used to sleep in together, that is—before Craig and I . . . you already know.

Instead of Jack's head pressing on my breast, I began to realize (while my eyes were still closed in a field of blackness) that a new, lighter being laid their head on my chest. It was as heavy as a little pink sponge ball the size of your hand, and it weighed delicately over my heart.

The bones in my ears vibrated to the mild rumble. My nostrils flared to the distinct smell which belonged to a little kitten, fur wet after the rain.

I moved my lips as I struggled to open my still-stuck eyelids, and I caught the taste of salty sweat on my lips. The acrid taste of the yellow-bellied sea snake was gone. . . yet I noticed now the stench of my wet hair that mopped over the side of my face, and drenched the side of my pillow. I suffered an cold perspiration through my feet, my palms, my armpits, my head—the aftermath of accidentally dragging Travis's body over a pool of poison where the snake had excreted its venomous glands.

Finally—as my eyes began to peel, I heard whispers. My vision finally broke out between my opening lids, and I found directly in front of my face, the silhouette of a breathing ball of fur. The kitten's face was cute, with a little black nose, two slits for sleeping eyes, a total of eight downwardly curved whiskers, and a quiet purr that emanated a row of Zzz's over our resting bodies.

Someone had pulled the curtains by the window, so the room was near perfectly dark. . . that is until an orange light sliced through the opening door from across the room. I still could not move my body. The venom had rendered me motionless. I listened to the sound of two voices, of which the owners both purposely kept quiet for secrecies sake.

I knew the owners. . . the scheming tone of the political type—George, and the uncomfortably passive, nervous voice coupled with a booming bass pitch—Brett. They both whispered something behind the door.

As the whispers loudened by way of time and carelessness, I managed to lean my head forward and net more sound.

I could hear Brett say: "This is wrong. . . We can't do this."

George followed with an urgent, patronizing tone-- "It's either them or all of us!"

Them or all of us? What's going on? What are George and Brett talking about? Are Travis and Jack okay?

Brett argued, "But they're going to die here if we leave them without any food!"

I wanted to say out loud, "You're going to leave us?!" But my neck and mouth were too tired and too swollen to say anything. Trying to do so instantly shot a migraine through my temples and made me more tired.

George said, "The food's downstairs, I put it in the boat."

The food? The boat? I couldn't believe what I was hearing! So, George took the food! But. . . the boat? He took the boat? What boat? The one from the garage in the other house?

There was a pause before Brett said, "So what are we going to do? There's not much room on the boat, but we can still fit everyone, can't we? The boat wouldn't sink with all of our weight—would it?"

George grumbled, and then the door opened with an entrance of orange light that seeped in from the hallway. I don't think they could see that my eyes were open as my eyelids drooped. But I could see Brett's muscular silhouette as well as George's slightly shorter, pompously-good-postured physique through the open doorway while they stood on the landing and watched me "sleep."

After a moment's thought, George said, "I say we only take Zara with us. . ."

I could feel my chest drum. Take me where?

"And what about Jack? What about Travis?" Brett asked.

What about them? What is going on!

Brett continued, "We can't just leave them here. . ."

But George shook his head. "Travis is good as dead," he said. "That head wound has him out cold. As for Jack, there's no room for him on the boat. It's him or the food, and we're going to need all the food we can fit. . ."

You can't be serious! I thought.

And Brett thought just the same: "We can't leave on a boat without Jack and Travis! They'll die!"

But George walked up to Brett so, face to face, and challenged, "We take the girl and we go! No one else!"

They stared at each other for a moment. Through the pause, Brett turned his face to me, back to George, to me again, and then he sighed. He dropped his tense shoulders and he looked back to George in an obvious defeat of will. I wanted to scream once Brett said the words that changed everything:

"When?"

No! I thought. Don't let him take me, Brett! Don't be so passive! Take a stand! Save Jack and Travis, too! Don't desert them!

But to answer Brett's question, "When?" George quickly and authoritatively answered:

"Now."

George immediately rushed into the room, across the carpet and to my bed. Brett sighed and followed quickly. And George and Brett both worked to pick up my paralyzed body, as I tried to open my eyes wider, and screamed inside at the top of my inaudible lungs--

NO! LET ME GO!

The cat meowed pitifully and rolled off my chest and onto the floor in a little heap of fur.

"What do we do about the cat?" Brett asked.

George took advantage of this moment as they carried me across the carpet toward the door: I felt so violated! -- as he carried me, he placed his fingers purposely in an inappropriate place.

About the kitten, George simply said, "Leave it."

And they rushed me out the orange hallway, down the stairs, down some more stairs, and raced me to the spot on the water-level second floor where I had pulled Travis in through the living room door.

The lights were all out—but through the window, in the moonlight, I saw a flashlight looking in at us over a banana-shaped figure in the water. A boat.

As they carried me out the archway and over to the boat—I was finally able to moan audibly as my attempt to scream started to break the threshold of sound. Nobody heard me.

"We've got your girl right here," said George.

He was talking to a dark figure holding the flashlight from inside the boat. The figure had a shockingly familiar voice. "And where is Jack?" the figure said.

"Jack is upstairs, still asleep," said George. "Still won't wake up."

There was a miserable pause, before the voice said, "Good."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This was evil. These three people were kidnapping me! They were deliberately deserting the rest of our stranded family! I was beginning to feel tears stream down my cheeks as the molestation of George's silent, hidden fingers still crept like the legs of a spider between my thighs. My eyes were so heavy and sluggish that George probably thought I was too incoherent to notice.

The figure in the boat pointed his flashlight at boxes of food, and pushed them to the side to make space for George and Brett to pass me over to him. "There should be enough food for us if it's only us four," said the dark figure. "Hold the flashlight for me, George."

As I transferred from the hands of George and Brett to the arms of the dark figure, the flashlight was passed over to George, and thus shined back on the dark figure, illuminating him out of the blackness. My eyes could finally open wide as I took in his face.

But I still could not scream. . . The face belonged to the boy I thought I'd never see again.