Revelation
The New Testament
Revelation
Photography: Max Vakhtbovycn
To-Do 4/7/2005 1. Clean the house - mirrors and windows - vacuum and mop - dishes - fold laundry - bring in garbage cans 2. Stock refrigerator *make fresh sweet tea - green beans - coffee - soy milk - peanut butter - pork loin - corn - granola bars - dog treats - laundry detergent 3. Goodwill - drop off clothes and shoes 4. Goodbyes - call family and say “I love you” - take Buddha to the dog park (with special treats) - organize letters and mix CDs 5. Smoke the biggest joint you can roll 6. Play the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C# minor 7. Drink a cup of Earl Grey tea 8. Shave head (?) 9. Put Buddha in the bedroom with his favorite pillow and squirrel toy 10. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE
I want to cut off my eyelids. Amelia folds the to-do list neatly in half and chastises her own thoughts. Hush. This is supposed to be a day of gratitude. She pushes the image from her mind slice the eyelids and focuses on the promise of her impending death. Freedom. Independence Day. Flashes of flags and balloons, somehow always red, white, and blue balloons – They choke the sea turtles. Miles Davis’s ‘Bitches Brew’ screaming through her mind. Creeping. Uninvited. Can’t have that. I’m not going out like that. Her continuous musical hallucinations plague her like Miles’s stringent timbre needles the brain. She is prepared.
The brilliant play of early afternoon light on the CD labeled DEATH MIX in her hand is two-dimensional and colorless to her. Couldn’t think of anything more subtle? Amelia talks about suicide so often that her roommates didn’t blink an eye when she included it in the rotation about a month ago. Just another interesting quirk. Just another dark joke. After I’m dead, they’ll call this a “red flag.”
The stereo opens. She carefully slides the disc into place and pushes the play button. Debussy. The prelude to Suite Bergamasque. F major – A warm key – Rubato. The octaves boom over each other and settle into the space under her collarbones, broadening her. She thinks about all the time she spent finding the perfect version for this moment. So many pianists mangle it. She agrees with herself: They rush it. They don’t let it into their marrow. Impressionism. Monet. Manet. Art Institute. Free Student Tuesdays. Chicago skyline. Her fingers twitch. Maybe I should play it. I have time to play it. But today is a day of gratitude, not regret. Amelia is grateful to herself that she has chosen the perfect music to accompany her into the dark. The Richter interpretation is the best.
Amelia takes off her clothes unceremoniously and stuffs them down the trash chute. The music rings in the vaulted ceiling of her skylight bathroom as she slides open the glass door. The grout around the deep Jacuzzi tub is shoddy and Amelia can feel the jagged edges in the back of her throat. She ignores the mirror and the voice in her head – Fatty fatty fat fat, gonna kill herself naked in the tub like a stuck pig squealing for death – Part of her wants to count her ribs and slit her wrists on her hip bones but she doesn’t want Mirror Amelia to reach through the glass. Mirror Amelia is vicious. Mirror Amelia started moving independently a few months ago, so she only washes one half of her face at a time, always keeping an eye on the phantom. Amelia repeats herself: Today is a day of gratitude. ::sneer::
They are all excited. Out of the infinite voices and facets of personality she has in her head, every single one is in favor of this decision. Finally, something on which we all agree. I hate them. I wish I could cut them out of my brain. Fry them out. Sting them out; hold in the doctor’s hands the wasps of healing and let them sting me to death. The song changes. Kurt, I’m sorry. Elliott. Layne Staley – Who was surprised when he killed himself? Every one of his songs encased in despair. Jimi Hendrix. Jeff Buckley. Nick Drake. We KNEW, and we let them all die anyway. She sees the bemused faces of her friends on her mind-screen. I wonder how long they waited. I wonder how long they waited to die as I have waited. Gouges in the eyes, hurt the eyes Stop it! Can we all just focus here? You’re spending your last hour thinking about crushing your eyeballs? What the fuck, man? Today is a day of…? GRATITUDE! chirp the perpetually excited kindergarteners. That’s better. Her eyes soften and she allows a slight smile.
In her mind’s eye, a crow stands watch over an old box cutter on the side of the empty tub beneath the skylight. She tears her eyes away from the mirror. Like a monk, she repeats her mantra. Today is a day of gratitude. Escape. I’ll be rid of that terror once and for all. Disembodied hands, disembodied Cheshire cat smile Alice in Wonderland: THE MIRROR. The music becomes delicate, distracting her.
Amelia does not turn on the faucet, but steps into the dry bathtub naked. Less dramatic. The kindergarteners are afraid that insects will come swarming out of the jets. For ten years my head has been crawling with cockroaches. So what if they did swarm? she allays the fear. Wouldn’t that be appropriate? She has waited a decade to silence the sadists the pushovers the children the typing hands the part of her that is John Wayne Gacy the part of her that is Mother Teresa. It all must end.
Let me peel off your skin for you, Honey. We can make beef jerky earrings or something sad that smells like blood. Let me use you – Suck out your eyeballs – Rape you with a barbeque fork – Show you the ruins of your soul so you can thank God that there is no such thing.
She has been praying for nearly ten years. Praying for God to save her from her own untrustworthy brain, from being tortured by demons and fallen angels. She has been praying for the voices to stop, for the music to be silenced, for the nightmares and suicidal obsessions to end. What a coward. Mother Mary’s statue crying bloody tears. It’s rigged! The Pope posing with Piss Christ. Waiting hasn’t worked. Praying hasn’t worked. It’s time to take personal responsibility and end it myself.
Like every musician, Amelia obsesses over timing. Do it, her consciousness speaks first. Do it. Do it, they add. Do it. Do it. Do it! chorus the kindergarteners. Do it, type the disembodied hands. Her thoughts frantic, urging her on. It’s time. She holds the blade to her upper forearm, takes a deep breath, and slices down to her wrist – cracking ice crows flying from a white tree the dark is rising – an explosion of thought and sensation. She opens her eyes to assess the damage.
The gash is six inches long but barely a quarter-inch deep ::laughter:: Are you fucking kidding me? She can see the fat beneath the skin as the wound wells with blood. She makes another incision to the arm with the dull blade. The crow throws its head back and caws. Goddamnit! In a fit of rage, she hacks into her left arm, creating a bloody mess. The fascia under the skin suddenly bulges out. She panics at the sight of it. Breathe. Breathe. Your skin is an organ and it holds you all in. Nothing to fear, let it out. Listen to the music. Elliott stabbed himself in the heart, twice STAB STAB STAB in the chest his chest her chest yes, yes, I’m ready to die.
The right arm is easier because she knows what to expect from the blade. Amelia thinks of all the movie suicides she’s ever seen; the lame tearing-paper sound and clever camera cutaways play in rapid succession behind her corneas. ::schickschickschick:: People would think differently about it if they knew how gross it looks. It’s much more difficult when you’re using your non-dominant hand, slippery with blood.
Amelia studies her wounds, running red, and decides they’re sufficient to kill her. Not pretty, but it should do. She relaxes in the empty bathtub, looking up through the skylight into the cloudless blue, the corners of her mouth turned toward her ears. Everyone is satisfied. Every voice and perspective in her head goes mute. Only music. I’m sorry we abandoned you, she thinks to Elliott. I’m sorry you suffered for no reason. And I understand. You escaped. I will escape, too. The drums enter as her thoughts wander.
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good AND bad come? Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins?
Her blood feels silky against her skin. The serpent slithers into her.
Eeeeeeeeeevvvve, it whispers. Will you pick me up and ssset me in that heavy branchsssh there, by your ear?
Amelia nods, gently picking up the snake. God flicks the serpent’s forked tongue out of its mouth for want of her skin, for the taste of her, and she notices.
The serpent-God slithers, wrapping itself around a delectable piece of fruit, and hisses, Becaussse you have helped me, I shhhhhall give you a reward. What would you like, mossst of all?
“I want nothing more than to taste the fruit around which you are coiled and be spared from its poison.”
The serpent flicks out its tongue and shudders, dislodging the fruit which falls neatly into her smooth pink palm.
I sssswear to you, if you eat thisss fruit, no harm shhhhall come of it, vows the serpent-God.
Amelia takes a cautious bite of the ripe flesh, bursting with gratitude. The room distorts.
FINALLY.
She gropes for her phone and clumsily dials 911.
A bored voice answers, “911. Is this an emergency?”
“No.”
“Please hold.”
Metallica rings in the silence.
A different woman picks up the line. “911, how can I help you?”
Amelia leans back, cross-legged in the tile tomb. “I’m about to die and I want you to come pick up my body.”
“What?”
“I’m committing suicide and I want you to come pick up my body so my roommate doesn’t have to find it.” Twenty minutes.
“Where are you located?”
“115 Montrose, apartment C. Please specify that they are not to use any sirens or make a scene.”
“Don’t do it! You have so much to live for—” Amelia throws her phone against the wall and it shatters. She closes her eyes and waits for her song to finish. To die. Finally.
Her agony bounces from darkness to light, sometimes colliding with thoughts. No resonating or deeply affective last words. Brickles – that electronic blip on the screen that is my sorrow. ::plinkplink:: It catches between the top and the bottom and erases her, wipes away what is constant and leaves only blackness and an environment. Edges soften until she’s staring at the screen of herself. DE TACHE D. Take out the eyes. That was my favorite sound – the erasing part, like winning in skeeball eat the umbilical cord until it was replaced by the THX test sound in movie theaters. I feel more whole listening to that than Mozart. Bleed the stuck pig. THAT is the failure of mankind. The voices go silent and listen to James Hetfield beg for forgiveness.
And then there are sirens.
Amelia panics. A horse whinnies in her head, as clear as the voices of the men downstairs, then her musical hallucinations return in full force. The heavy door at the stairwell outside the building is locked with a thick deadbolt. The Avalanches blast through her mind. Average response time is twenty minutes! It was supposed to be twenty minutes!
A neighbor buzzes the lobby and footsteps thunder up the stairs. She grabs the box cutter and slashes her inner elbows open as Buddha barks and scratches desperately at the door in his room, men shouting as another horse whinnies – ‘Frontier Psychiatrist.’ The voices chorus in her head. The volume is unbearable. EMTs burst through the door with her bewildered roommate, clutching his keys in the hall.
“GET OUT!” she shrieks from the bathroom. “Get the fuck out and just let me die!”
She wrestles against them, a bloody, naked savage.
“We’re here to help.”
“Where are your clothes?”
Amelia fights them, screaming, as they drag her slippery form out of the tub and try to subdue her.
“I don’t have any clothes,” she snarls. “I threw them away, you FUCK, get the FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!” The horse whinnies again as the choir ohs and ahs. “I told you no sirens! I told you not to make a scene!” A record player scratches over voices in her head in the places where she doesn’t know the lyrics. Buddha is slamming his body against the bedroom door, trying to get to her. Slash murder die die. She wills herself to bleed to death— fights harder knowing her heart rate is rising.
They wrap Amelia in a blanket pulled from the couch and carry her downstairs while she laughs and cries and screams all at the same time, the music pounding in her skull. As they rush her into the ambulance, the string quartet begins. Amelia only glimpses them but she can see that people are gathered around, staring; her roommate stark with shock. The doors of the ambulance slam shut. Boom-kak! Faces asking her questions, hands holding her down. One paramedic’s face is a yellow plastic Lego head.
“You did the right thing in calling us. You’re gonna be okay. Everything is gonna be okay.” He surveys her mangled forearms. “Where the hell are we gonna put the IV?”
“Hand!” answers an astronaut. They place the needle to her pinned arm. She struggles but they succeed. Amelia laughcries as the EMTs work on her – Conversations fading in and out – She moans. The IV is a defeat. Lego man has an iron grip on her wrists.
“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he insists. “The hospital is only a few blocks away.”
A plain man in EMS gear rummages through the supply cabinet. “We need Steristrips or liquid stitches. Her arms are a disaster.”
“Why did you try to kill yourself?” asks Lego man. “Did something bad happen to you?” The horse whinnies again and the choir resumes their ohs and ahs. It takes all three of the EMTs to squeeze her wounds together and tape them shut. Lego man relaxes his grip and promises Amelia, “If you hold still we’ll let you go, but not while you’re fighting like this. You’re making it worse.”
“GOOD!” she shouts, tearing at her wounds with her fingernails. The EMTs ask her questions while they strap her down: her name, what day it is, who’s the president, but Amelia hears only the song, the scritching and scratching of the record.
“Complete psychotic break with extensive lacerations,” the astronaut says into a radio. “Is Jason on?” A pause. “Good. Tell him to set up. He’s good with this sort of thing.” A little girl giggles. The eyes are out the horse is dead. It screams. The guitar carries her through the sliding glass doors into the Lysol-scented interior.
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Still wrapped in the bloody blanket, Amelia is wheeled through the doors, the horses’ hooves thundering through her brain.
“Lacerations!” calls the EMT. “We radioed in.”
A nurse scrambles out from behind a desk and says, “Yes we’re set up for her in 103.” They rush Amelia into a small room off the emergency ward. Not even an emergency. Shoulda got a gun. At the doorway, they release the straps and present her with a clipboard.
“Do you have insurance?” asks Lego man. She nods, dazed and overwhelmed by the extended echo of the hooves and neighs in her mind. They use the opportunity to reposition the IV. “Then you need to sign this.” Amelia makes an attempt at her signature. There is blood on the paper.
“Good luck,” bids the astronaut, leaving her in the surgical suite, unfettered.
I hate hitting the happy button for this, but here we are.
“Mirror Amelia”, meet “Second Canary”.
aka the Villain, as my daughter calls hers: not simply an internal critic (all 4 of us have an overactive one of those, but they keep each of on the straight & narrow), but one so incessantly devoted to its host’s destruction at times that the imagined peace of death is a siren’s call (no, not that kind of siren).
Touch grass, read poetry, post CanCon 🇨🇦 for Freedom. That seems to keep my Villain at bay, when he tries to get past the barrier that ECT has built.
Maybe I’ll even get used to just being DC, but for now it still feels like I’m digging trenches in a bloody war, even at the best of times.
Thanks as always for what you post: I’m sure there are others too, but you’ve made an addict of me, addicted to the honesty, vulnerability, and often raw beauty in what you share with us. And addicted to seeing the art and beauty that surrounds me.
(And for sealing the deal of CC🇨🇦FF#5)