Love and Other Nightmares, Part 2
Nov 23 '02 (Updated Oct 29 '03)
The Bottom Line The peculiar emotional tension between the roommates simmers, until it explodes......
Distressing sounds. A cry for help. Stemming from a woman, sounding muffled, as if from behind a wall.
April could hear these sounds, sounds that broke into her mundane landscape, a landscape with little to worry her. What were these sounds? Sobs. Moans. Murmurs. None of these broken sounds could form themselves into decipherable words or phrases. April reached out her arm, her hand, trying to reach out and touch, or at the very least, point out, where the woman was crying from. She stumbled, unable to focus on her psychical presence. These sobs of distress were overtaking her concentration to the point where the objects in front of her were growing ever more fuzzy, the situations that transpired in front of her made less and less logical sense.
The sobs continued. She wanted to rescue this person, but she could not see her. She could not find her. She could not even call out to her. Her voice was dry, weak......
Suddenly, everything around her changed. April was lying on her bed, in her darkened bedroom. Fred was sleeping beside her. The only noise was the occasional late-night car. Perhaps all those sobs came from her, and she didn’t realize it.
Relief oozed throughout her body, yet a nagging sense of incompletion resided in her heart. A sense that something wasn’t quite as it should be..... but her eyes drifted off to sleep again.
The sizzling of the frying pan. Friction between the pan, the heat, and the grease and oil that catapulted off the meat resting on the pan’s smooth surface.
The brittle noises could be interpreted in both positive and negative ways. The sounds could trigger the pleasurable, communicating the tasty, fulfilling aspects of the upcoming meal. In turn, the worries could be called to, as well, in streams of guilt, arising from the notion that one could eat better than what was voluntarily offered to oneself.
April found herself in a particularly ambiguous position. She was hungry. She was preparing something exceptionally quick and good... but at the same time, she knew that this might not have been productive in the long run. Especially with all the worries about her weight and her body that she gloomily entertained herself with.
She had found herself conditioned into this particular lifestyle, with all its ambiguities intact. She worked almost every day at the petshop. She was also living with a roommate... one with apparently rather limited tastes. She had to cook for two, and it was easier to prepare something that both people would find reasonably satisfying than to worry which dish would get the least amount of complaints.
April did, however, attempt to spice things up with the pan-fried fish the other evening. The experiment appeared successful. The pan was frying two hamburgers at this moment. April was in little hurry to repeat the other evening.
She had the occasional belief that maybe she would have eaten better if she hadn’t moved in with Anna. When April lived by herself, she frequently cooked food that was more diverse tan fried foods. She had space all to her own. She played with her food, in constructive ways, of course.......
Anna’s habits didn’t completely conquer April. But they didn’t help April lose any weight, if that were indeed possible.
The steam rose greatly over the frying pan. April left the kitchen, and the pan, to go to the mailbox, outside the apartment.
The mail was for Anna. Nothing crucial, just the latest issue of US magazine. The glossy cover had women like Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, and so on. Hollywood actresses who had, supposedly, no moments where they stood in front of the mirror, thinking that their stomachs were too full.
Or did they? Did even these people concern themselves intently with looks? Well, of course, they were in moving pictures........a more vulnerable arena then the confines of a drab apartment.
Anna matched the women on the cover, to an extent. She was tall, with well-kept curly dark hair, thin arms and legs, a taut face. Her frame was petite. Anna looked more like Sarah than April ever could. Did Anna ever concern herself with this fact?
April had to decrease the heat of the oven, or else burn the meat.
She knew about eating disorders. The people who starve themselves. Or the people who eat and eat, only to give it back as tasteless vomit in private. She reflected on those women, on those actions, those methods of losing weight. On the surface, it looked easy. Don’t eat. Or don’t let all that horrible food settle in your stomach for too long.
She had thought about it. Long and hard. But the only emotion that resulted from her reflection was shame. Shame that she would dare consider such a dire state of being... the arena of crack-addled supermodels and mentally unstable teenagers. She couldn’t imagine living for days with an empty stomach, gnawing excruiatiatingly at the center of her presence, spiraling slowly and gruesomely into nothingness. She couldn’t see herself shoving her fingers inside her throat, pushing them so far inside that the foreignness of her digits against her throat would compel everything inside to spew out. The meat upon the pan was almost finished. She shuddered at the thought of re-experiencing everything she had already consumed, and even things that she hadn’t consumed... the food, the stomach acid, the bile.... and who would subject themselves to such torture unless they seriously yearned for punishment? April almost couldn’t bear the thought of eating, due to her vivid thoughts of the textures of her mouth if she succumbed to the bulimic plague.
Sarah Jessica Parker. Halle Berry. Angelina Jolie. Julia Roberts. Actresses. The most famous ones. All with a similar look. They all projected a power. They appear on big screens, and people took the time to go to these screens to view their images. If these images of these women were projected onto three-story tall screens, amplifying the constructions that some sort of biologically-minded magician had conjured, and were still liked for their looks and beauty ... then clearly there was something about these women that people admire more, than in other kinds of women.
The hamburgers were done. The bread was sitting on the plate. The ketchup and relish were in the fridge, about to be used.
The women were fantasy, they were beauty, they were women. That was the point. April wasn’t fantasy, beauty, woman. She was just April. A nobody. A woman with April’s features wasn’t on the cover of US. She wasn’t promoting a product in a makeup ad. She wasn’t engaged in sweaty nude scenes or passionate love scenes. She wasn’t the heroine of her own movie. Therefore, she wasn’t the ideal woman. Logic dictated this.
April was helpless. She could not help but to feel inadequate, during these private moments of existential despair. Women were everywhere -- they sold everything, they showed everything. Women seemed to be the primary public image.... and April didn’t feel a part of that.
Fred would tell her that she was beautiful. He would tell her that those images are just like paint on canvas, images on paper, not real women. Don’t take such images seriously! Real women, even women like April, were better looking, because they were immediate, they were close, they were real.
Fred didn’t understand why April could ever have such emotions of guilt, shame, doubt, insecurity. Of course he couldn’t. He was a man. He was spared of the need of self-consciousness, of relentless self-awareness.
April took the first bite of the hamburger. The food was enough to dilute the bad taste of her thoughts, at least for now...........
A quiet evening. Neither Anna nor April were working, having already done so during the afternoon. April had worked at the petshop all afternoon, while Anna had returned home from a day at the call center.
The apartment itself was quiet. No living people were speaking.... no words were uttered. Anna was sitting on the sofa, entranced, or perhaps merely distracted, by the television. She was watching Friends, or at least on of these situation comedies that were popular at the time; it was hard to say. She laughed at the appropriate moments, when the titters allegedly from a real live studio audience soared from the tiny speakers in the set. Thank goodness for that canned laughter, or this television program would be such a dry slog..........
Anna didn’t watch TV to learn, to be informed, but to be entertained. She must have been so; she never left the sofa for at least two hours.
April, on the other hand, lay sprawled on her bed, in a state of mental numbness. A tiny notepad lay on top of her stomach, open to a page, a page that contained mere phrases. She had written in the pad, but gave up, once it was clear she wasn’t going to magically conjure up any fascinating stories, or even parts of stories. Ideas were dancing in her head, but April was too timid to show them in public, or even outside the realm of her imagination into the surface of the paper.
She had reflected on her life; she was confined to the usual hobbies of locals. Going to the pubs. Watching mindless television. Anna was the perfect prototype; sprawled out on the couch, stuck in a rut.
April was stuck in a rut as well, but she knew she needed to get out of it. She decided to pick up a notepad one day, out of the blue, just to see what mischief she could get into with it. Her success was limited, however. She couldn’t do much with the brains that God gave her. She didn’t understand the first thing about writing a compelling text. She didn’t read books in her spare time. She didn’t even watched would could be considered intelligent film. All the plots that existed in her mind were cliched swill, formulaic claptrap. No truth, no life... just a faded, unconvincing tableau of inanity.
As she scanned the sheet of paper, all that was on it were sentence fragments, fragments that were inspired by the minute events of her job. “Cat finds owner when she moves finger across the glass, for the cat to chase.” “One spider overtakes another, and kills it, all in full view of potential buyers.” Good ideas, for sure, but she’s not sure if she had the skill to develop and follow through on these ideas. She never once finished a single story. She never found the patience within her heart to see the ending on the horizon.
She heard Anna’s muffled laughter from the other side of the bedroom wall. Perhaps Anna would enjoy whatever lame premise April eventually developed............
April figured she ought to get the blood circulating in her limbs again, so she got off from the bed and walked out to the living room. She went to the living room, to witness Anna’s viewing of the television set. April looked more definitively at her roommate’s face. She noticed the pall in Anna’s eyes, the darkened edges around them, and the paleness of her face.
“..... everything go okay at work?”, April spoke softly. “You... don’t look too great.”
Anna flashed a surprised stare towards her. “Ah....hey. Oh, well, I.. just felt tired. All day I was tired.... tired.”, repeating as if finding it difficult to understand herself.
April went over to the other side of the sofa, and sat down to face Anna.
“Ah....”, Anna swallowed. Her blinking was frightfully slow. “What did you guys do last night?”
“We went to see Lovely and Amazing. It was at the City Cinema.. I doubt if you’ve heard of it.....”
“Was it any good?”, Anna said, looking at her darkly.
“yea, it was pretty good. Kind of one of those real-life, slice-of-life things. I’m amazed that Fred went for it, though I guess it’s just that certain stereotypes die hard. A movie about women doesn’t exactly inflame the heart of a guy who would go for guns, blood, and sexy gals in tight leather! hahaha!”
“Well, obviously he’s not your average fellow.”, Anna sighed.
“How’s you and Adam?”, April asked. It had been a while since she felt this question was worth asking.
“Ah, you know, it’s the same old thing.”, she said. “Nothing new to report.” Anna hadn’t anything new to report about her supposed relationship. She hadn’t even spoken to her about him in at least a week.
“You’ve not been out lately, have you?”, she asked.
“No, not for abut a week. I’ve worked eight days in a row, and every night I’m so bloody twisted. I need to just rest. If only to settle my senses. My eyes, my brain, my legs, all are on massive overload. I need to just keep these things quiet -- simple as that. A boyfriend, no matter how wonderful he might be, is still too much of a burden. I’m not a superwoman -- sob!”, she tagged harshly.
April wanted to awaken those dire eyes, just for the experience of not seeing her roommate look so sorrowful, so disheveled. Anna looked as if she were going to fall backwards and knock herself out cold upon the hardwood of the sofa’s arm.
April knew that Anna didn’t eat anything yet, even though she had been home for nearly two hours. “Want me to cook you something?”, April asked, caressing the twists of Anna’s dark hair. “Just rest on the couch; I’ll shake you when I’m ready.....”
“You’re not going to shock me with any gastronomic terror, are you?”
April laughed. “No, whatever do you mean?”
“Oh, just...... nothing like the other night, huh?”
“Like the other night....?”, April asked. Hmm, what did they eat the other night? Just the....
“The fish, you remember?”, Anna reminded her.
April frowned, confused.
“I didn’t like that fish, April.”, Anna continued, condescendingly. “I know you tried your best.... but you didn’t need to go to that trouble. The fish was just so -- flaky -- and, all those bones, and all that other stuff. The texture, you know!”, attempting to explain the distasteful uniqueness. “I just don’t think that fish belongs in a pan, on a stove, especially if it’s not that good, and especially if it’s expensive. How much did that cost?”
“Ah... about ten dollars.”, guiltily.
“Ten dollars?”, Anna smiled. “That’s a lot to spread about wantonly like a poor old sob who tosses her money to every charity in the book. I’ve got bills to pay, rent to keep on top of... a life to lead. I wouldn’t spend ten dollars on a bloody meal!”
“You didn’t spend it. I did.”, April grinned, regretfully.
“Well, whatever. The point is that I don’t want to partake in such flights of culinary fancy. So... next time stick to the basics. You know, processed food, greasy deep fried treats, dubious fruit juices... stuff I can consume quickly and thoughtlessly after ten hours of soul-crushing work.”
April tried not to frown at her roommate’s facetiousness. Anna was obviously trying to be a bother; trying to find an emotional weak spot. Anna did this by making April feel that her ideals and curiosities were odd -- that being stuck in one’s ways was more socially acceptable, and that one should deal with that.
April composed her face in a visually expressionless portrait, to disguise any ill emotions.
“Ok... well, next time, we’ll have the cheap package of wieners and Kraft Dinner that you had bought.”, she said. “It works for me......”
“Well, you don’t have to change on my account. I mean, if you want to eat your exotic dishes, in your own time, it’s perfectly kosher with me. I just don’t want to come home from a strenuous job, in which I had to repair stranger’s internet connectivity issues over the telephone, and attempt to find a suitable employee in a haystack of defective employment, and deal with another difficult issue of what to eat. I just want to melt into my chair, and eat something simple. Comforting. Reassuring. Something that will cool my subconscious desire to go absolutely insane!”
April toyed with the notion that Anna was already past lucidity. “I understand... I understand......”
“Actually.... you know. I need a drink. That’s what I need. Did you want to go to the Old Dublin with me later? I think after Friends is over, I’ll take a little walk.......... “
“Hmmm? No, no... I’m a little tired actually. “, but not nearly as tired as Anna looked. Yet Anna really wanted to get out of the house.
“Ah... oh well, I’ll go. I might... I might meet up with someone down there.”, she said, sluggishly, making her gaps between phrases seem wrought with meaning. “It’s possible........”
Midnight. April wanted to get a drink of water before she turned in for the evening. She had the television flickering for the evening, while she had her notepad in her lap. Nothing was transferring from her brain to the paper. Damn this rubbish! Time to go to sleep.
Anna went to the bar, alone. When she returned, she was drunk. She was giggly, she was joyful, but she was drunk. She told April of who she saw, of what they talked about, and of how much fun it was to just go out and have some drinks. Then, Anna proclaimed that, nevertheless, it was late, and she had to work the next morning. Damn those call centers, she laughed. But she had no choice, as she was one of the managers........
April drank her water down fairly quickly, wanting very much to rest her head upon a pillow. She then walked towards her room, which was beside Anna’s. As she approached the area, April thought she could hear a voice, a murmur. Clearly, the only other voice in this apartment would be Anna’s. The voice was clearly audible now, as April came closer to Anna’s room.
The sounds were like sobbing, quiet murmurs of fright, quite similar to what she had believed to have imagined the previous evening, when she was sleeping with Fred. Those sounds of that evening were obviously not part of her imagination. Anna was the one sobbing, murmuring.
April quietly open the bedroom door. She saw Anna sprawled out on her back, her eyeballs rapidly moving beneath closed eyelids. Her body squirmed, twitched slightly. Her breathing was short, intense.
Anna was obviously having a nightmare, a particularly traumatic one. She must have had one the other evening as well. Her psyche was ravaged, her body and soul were alone, without comfort, while April slept soundly with a lover.
But.... April couldn’t do anything. She had to leave her alone. April could sense that waking her up would be as much a bother... Anna would probably complain that her sleep was ruined, and she’d be too tired to work the next morning........
April had returned home before Anna did, apparently. Funny. Anna wasn’t supposed to work this late........
April ended up eating supper all by herself... the frozen hot dogs, and macaroni, that Anna insisted on the previous evening. The food was tolerable...but she wasn’t able to finish it. When will the company that produces these boxes of Kraft macaroni realize that they ought to produce slightly smaller packages for one person?
Afterwards, April decided to make proper use of her evening, and so she went to her bedroom, and called up Fred......
“Anna’s been acting quite strange, recently.”, April said.
“How so?”, Fred, on the other end of the phone, asked, amused.
“Well, she complained about my cooking for one.”
“Of course.... that is the first sign of mental deterioration. A dislike for the roommate’s cooking.”, he laughed.
“Oh, I know”, she grinned. “.. but she acted weird about it. As if I was forbidden to cook food that she didn’t like. If I had such gall to do such a thing. “
Pause.
“And.. I think she’s been having nightmares. Something’s wrong. I mean, she works too much at her job. She always looks so tired. And I think.. she drinks a lot too. A couple of times I could smell the odor of the alcohol.”
“So in other words, she’s acting like normal people out there.....”
April realized that drinking wasn’t exactly unorthodox.
“.... I go out for a few drinks too, you know.”, Fred continued.
“Ahh... I suppose so. What ... what do I know?”, April stammered. “I guess I don’t think too much of that. I don’t do a whole lot of drinking. “
“Well, in any case... stop feeding her. She might stop having nightmares.”, pausing for a fleeting second before laughing in scandalous mockery.
“My God, Fred, you seem to have gained this manner of picking on me, in the last few minutes.”, April scorned playfully. “What are you trying to gain by this? Forced celibacy?”
“Oh, you’ll never shut me out!”
“Hmmm..... well, you can’t be too sure.”, quietly grinning.
“Well, you know, I’m serious. Anna’s kind of an irritable person anyhow....”
“Really?” April never really knew how Fred really thought of her. “I don’t... know. She was never like that before, I think. It’s only been recently that she started acting a little... kooky.”
“Well, if you say so. She gives off an unpleasant aura, I believe......”
Hmmm, April thought to herself. Never expected Fred to develop an emotional suspicion of Anna’s character......
“Well....”, wanting to get off the subject, “That’s okay. She doesn’t sleep with me so you won’t have to put up with her tonight. So....... how do you like your breakfast?”
“Surprise me!”
“Well, then I forgive you for all the jibes you gave to me, then. You may come over and join me in my humble bedroom, snuggle up beside me....”, giggling sweetly.
“... heehee! I’ll enjoy that better than any breakfast.”
“Well, after tonight... you’ll probably need a big breakfast if you want to get your energy back.”
“Ah.... so when do you want me over.”
“Eight?”
“Works for me....”
“See you.”
“See you, sexy!”
The phone connection was voluntarily severed, as hopes arose for a more meaningful and intimate link later in the evening.
April rose from her bed, and went out to the living room. She noticed, as she approached the sofa, resting upon one of its cushions, that damned notepad. The notepad was open, exposing to all who cared to witness April’s sloppy penmanship and choppy ideas. She stared at the pages, hoping that some sort of psychic impulse could make those mindless verbal wanderings that she had written any more improved.
But it was to no avail. Her brain was feeble, dull. She felt totally uninspired. She began to believe that she really wasn’t made for anything other than the fates of people like Anna. Depressed, drunk, boring...
She sat upon the sofa, regardless. She touched the paper with her palm, absorbing what she wrote. The words swirled inside her brain, inside her heart and stomach, but did not give her pleasure. Only a sense of failure, of helpless failure. Her palm closed in on the fragile sheet, crushing and bending it. Her lame evidence of skill was destroyed. Her energies, at this moment, were submerged in a pool of intellectual paralysis.
The paper, crumpled into a useless ball, was jailed beneath her fingers. The paper was no longer useful.
April’s eyes looked away from her hand, and to the window. She hoped that something less telling, and more amusing, would strike her fancy. Unlikely. Not in the streets of Charlottetown.
Anna returned home. She appeared quite dazed although she had a sheen of happiness across her face.
“Sorry, April.”, she squealed. “I made a little.. detour... on the way home. Oh I see you cooked those wieners and Kraft Dinner all without me!”, she pointed greedily to the plate that didn’t quite yet make it to the sink. “Oh, well, that’s okay... I don’t care. That stuff costs like three dollars, I can buy it for myself without giving any serious wounds to my wallet.”, she laughed, as if her breath had been beaten out of her.
“So.... where did you go?”, April asked, frowning.
“Oh, I went to Baba’s this evening after work... .had a few drinks, can’t you tell?”, she laughed desperately. “It’s all good!”
“I see..... Anna. Is everything okay with you.”, April asked, worrisomely.
“Ah, yea, why wouldn’t it be.....”, falling onto the sofa. “Everything’s all sweetness and light, it’s loverly!”
April watched Anna’s image, tainted by alcohol, by self-loathing. The image was unpleasant.
“Well, last night was kind of a strange evening....”, April began, in an effort to be careful. “I mean, our little argument, and you having nightmares, I believe......”
“Nightmares?”, Anna asked, suspiciously. “What are you talking about? I haven’t told you about any nightmares......”
“Well... I walked by your room last night. I heard you ... sounding like you were in distress. You were twitching and groaning, as if something bad was happening to you....”
“Distress?”, Anna laughed, unconvinced.
“Umm... well, I just wondered if... perhaps there was something you wanted to talk about....”
“Ah, I see....... “, growing defensive. “I see.... I think I can figure out what your problem is.”, Anna said, pressing her glasses tightly against the bridge of her nose. “It’s because you’re living with me. Not me in particular... but with another human being.”
April was baffled, not knowing whether to laugh or not at this quirky statement.
“You told me that it’s about about four years since you moved away from your family to live on your own. I guess it was pretty scary at first......”
April’s eyes squinted, as the rest of her body cringed, at the childlike obviousness of the statement.
“.... which it is.”, Anna continued. “It’s quite frightening. I should know, I’ve done it too. Suddenly... you find yourself alone, having to do everything for yourself. Having to spend all of your hard-earned cash, cash that formerly was for entirely frivolous purposes, on important things. Rent, food, bills, and so forth.
But soon you discover that you don’t have to do everything for yourself... you want to do everything for yourself. You can come and go as you please; you can cook what you want; you can make your life, your private life, at least, in any way you like......”
April’s eyebrows arched. She wasn’t sure where this was going........
“You start sinking into your own habits. There’s certain things you do, that you always do. It’s hard to break them. You are fully yourself when you’re alone. And ... well, people who experience what it’s like to be alone.... don’t mix well with others in such a close-knitted environment......” She created a suspenseful pause.
April wanted to break Anna’s drunken yet dramatic soliloquy. “Ah.... wh- , what are you trying to say?”
“I... I’m trying to say that you don’t understand! You can’t do what you want to do!! You can’t! Not if you want to deal with other people! You can’t be yourself when there’s other people around! They expect you to be whatever they want you to be... they expect you to follow their own mental patterns or their emotions or whatever. Either you control them.. or they control you! But in any case, you can never be yourself... never! That’s just the way it is.”
Anna was no longer wearing that false mask of joy that the bottles of beer had given her.
“I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to get you upset.”
“I hope not!”
“Anyway, um... Fred is coming over in the next little while.... so I hope we can simmer down until....”
“You can’t tell me to simmer down.”, Anna bellowed. “You can’t tell me when to simmer down. You can’t tell me what to eat! You can’t tell me anything, don’t you realize that? God, it feels like I’m trying to argue with my mother!”
April was becoming almost as afraid for herself as she was for Anna.
“I mean, I don’t invite Adam down here every second evening .... just so I can wear out the bedsprings on my matress!”
April was flabbergasted. “Wha... what the hell’s that supposed to mean???”
Anna’s hands began to twitch, as if she could no longer grasp the reality around her.
“F*ck!”, Anna spat out.
Anna rarely felt the need for using such coarse vernacular, until now.
“I’m leaving.”, Anna continued. “If I’m going to simmer down, I’m doing it in my own time, in my own space.....”
Anna put her shoes back on, and returned to the refuge of the lonely, depressed, angry, hurt, desperate, and reckless of the city of Charlottetown -- the local bar, where she can prescribe herself a tonic to relieve herself, if only temporary, of the knowledge of her troubles.
Part 3
http://www.epinions.com/content_2974261380
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Member: David Macdonald
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About Me:
Alice, a story in nine parts, posted on Sept 24, 2008 - http://www.epinions.com/content_5241348228
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