The Gate Page #2

A short thriller, inspired by Roald Dahl’s short stories.

• Short story
• Fiction

								

“She's dead! My baby, my baby’s dead!” A neighbor and his wife were holding her head, and blocking the dreadful view. The man with the blanket came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, said something I couldn't hear, then proceeded to gingerly and solemnly place the blanket over Lizzie. I felt dizzy and hot. I was going to puke. I was going to die. Every internal alarm I had was blaring and I suddenly couldn't stand anymore. My knees buckled and I dropped to the hot ground, granting me newfound visibility of the front of the truck. There was a stringy clump of something hanging off the bumper. At first I didn't know what it was, then I remembered the missing piece of scalp. That did it. I leaned over the steps, and vomited. 

The proceeding weeks felt like a terribly vivid nightmare that I was unable to wake myself up from. It had been only a little over a month, but it felt like much longer. I was stuck, trapped as a bitter spectator to my own life. I felt like a rock lodged in an icy river as time washed over me and continued down its perpetual current, the water swirling past me, never slowing or pausing. Just passing. It was agonizing. I wanted so desperately for time to slow or pause, better yet–rewind. Infact, I had become entirely obsessed with the notion. I was drowning in the infinite tempestuous fantasy of time and all its impossible possibilities. “What-ifs” crushed me, and “should haves” destroyed me. I clung to any alternate reality than the one I was trapped in. But some awful thing would always prevent me from being fully consumed by my delusions, tearing me away from my fantasy and thrusting me back into my perch on the hardwood landing. Every day I would sit, peering through the slotted railing as random characters crept trepidatiously through the front door with tin foil meals and bundles of flowers. In the days preceding the funeral, the creaky landing halfway up the stairs had transformed into my sanctuary. I felt a strong obligation to be witness to all that transpired within my home during the weeks following Elizabeth’s death, but had a crippling aversion to actually participating in it. The elevated perspective granted me indirect involvement without any obligation to actually contribute, and I found myself unable to exist anywhere but there. It felt wrong to coop myself up in my room, even though all I wanted was to melt away into my comforter and sink into my mattress until the end of time. To escape that god awful look on strangers faces as they cooed and frowned, nodding with furrowed brows as if they could manufacture grief. I was insulted by their empathy and maddened by their unsolicited advice and murmurs of heaven and forced godly teachings. I wanted them out of my house, away from my mother and what remained of Lizzie. So I lingered, a decorative participant in the grief, but an inactive member. 
	Besides, the days were the easier part. I could blend into the communal atmosphere, and contribute nothing but observation. I was more of a ghost than Lizzie; it was easy to be ignored and avoided. No one knew what to do with me, and no one expected anything from me. The busy atmosphere quieted my mind and silenced the untamable storm of abhorrent thoughts and reminders. I was numb, and days went by quickly. It was the silence of evening I feared. The veil of night. There was nothing for me to do but torture myself with memories and imaginings ranging from vivid recollections of the violent scene, to overwhelming feelings of guilt and regret. And every night I would be faced with the devastating truth. The impending void, the ultimate nightmare of it all, was that it was my fault. I wasn't an idiot. I knew what happened, I knew what I had done. And so did my mother.
	On that god-awful afternoon I didn't just kill my sister. I killed my mother with her. I crushed her- I gutted her. When I left that gate unlatched, I brought down my entire world. It ended, along with my mother’s. She was a dazed dried husk of a woman, the embodiment of the color gray. After the daily swarm of family and visitors, she would skulk around in her bathrobe, nursing a bottle and sucking down cigarettes as though any second they would sprout wings and leap from her fingers. The house reeked of smoke and week old casserole, the countertops were cluttered with ash and premade meals. Flies zipped about and old photo albums and pictures of Elizabeth collected on every surface. All the curtains remained drawn, and the air felt stagnant and musky. Lizzie was the sunshine at the center of our three piece family, and without her our lives were completely devoid of light and warmth. I watched from my perch as my mother roamed about, with a dark and resentful scowl twisting her lips and deforming her brow. It was just us now. She was stuck with me. How painfully ironic, I thought, that her cellmate had turned out to be her own son, and her daughter's killer. 
	I woke up late, the air in my bedroom was already humid and hot, the heat pouring in through the open window. My bedsheets stuck to my back and my lips were cracked and grouted with dried drool. I hated waking up. Every night I would lull myself to sleep indulging in fantasies of spontaneous combustion, or any other freak accident–that I might drift off to sleep and never wake up. I would stare at the ceiling fan praying it would dislodge itself and come flying at me, its blades spinning furiously, maybe nicking an artery or severing a limb. Things would make sense then. I rolled over in bed, further twisting myself in the clammy sheets. I wished I could go back to sleep and dream what was left of the day away. Really I just couldn't face my mother, couldn't bring myself to walk down those stairs and meet her scornful eyes as they glared back at me, disapproving of my very existence. 
It was simple and jagged–she hated me. Why wouldn't she? I had taken everything from her yet she still had to house me, feed me, look at me. How could she coexist with such a monster? Each day it became more difficult to live with myself. More impossible to face what I had done. What I didn't do. It became increasingly difficult to differentiate between her words and mine. Every need or desire I had was an imposition, met with a cruel quip about gratitude or a crass comparison of my sister and I. To her my sister was everything I was not, and I was the one who had destroyed her. I was just an ugly reminder of what she had lost, what I had taken. I never once tried to plead with her, or debate and argue. I just took it, absorbed every word, endured every stab or attack. I was empty, addicted to self loathing and hurt. Penance; it was the only thing in the world that made any sense. 
On this particular morning, as I degraded myself into crawling out of bed, I was struck by a familiar ruckus. I sat up in bed, resting my feet on the cold wood floor and listened. There was a burst of clanking pans, a distant sizzle, and a definite aroma. She was making breakfast. I continued listening. I could hear the dinky portable radio she keeps above the microwave playing fifties classics, and her cheerily humming along. I rubbed the heaviness of sleep from my eyes and images of her in her cream colored apron, one hand on her hip the other aggressively stirring, tossing, mixing, flashed about. Maybe she's waiting for me to come down, I thought. Maybe she’s back. I jumped up and scrambled to get dressed. I swished with mouthwash, neglecting to actually brush my teeth and splashed my face and hair before combing it out with my fingers. I practically skipped my way to the top of the railing before scurrying down the stairs, skipping a few steps. And there she was, tinkering away with the water running and stove sizzling, batter dripping on the counter. It was heaven. I stood gushing, overwhelmed by colorful and vibrant emotion. It was as if my wishes, my prayers had come true. It was stunning. Time had been reversed. I was not that abominable thing, I never left that latch open. I never killed her. I never broke my mother. No. That never truly happened, none of it. This, this is my life. 

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