Fear most those chains held by a damaged mind, and the prison it builds.
Darkness.
The Man heaved his top half into the attic, but it was dark. He hung there, wondering if he should go up. It seemed like a good way to fall through the ceiling, or worse. Definitely a terrible idea. He wondered why openings to attics are always so small. As if they were not inevitably accessed for some important reason or another. Strange.
Footsteps and voices.
From downstairs. The Man snapped to attention, and heaved his top half into the attic. Dark or no, he’s not dying here today. Someone was after him, and he didn’t know who. But they were panicked, crazed, desperate. He could tell by the way they were speaking to each other, shoving furniture around, even yelling out the windows. Who knows why they took him. He’s no one special. But he saw this attic panel in the ceiling and saw his opportunity. He had no problem lifting himself into the opening, he keeps in shape.
“Why did they bring me here?” He thought to himself. In the same moment, a hush fell over the downstairs of the house, except the sound of one person loudly shushing another. The Man stilled himself as well, listening intently.
“How many are here?” he thought to himself.
As the thought entered his head, there was a pounding of feet like a stampede, many feet galloping up the stairs. In panic, The Man heaved his top half into the attic, and in one deft motion, swung his legs up and over. He quietly slid the ceiling panel closed, just as 2 figures rounded the top of the stairs and entered the hallway below him.
Horrible.
The Man’s head spun as he tried to understand what he was seeing. The figures were clearly a young man and woman, but their faces. Something about their faces wasn't right. They had eyes, a nose, lips, he slowly took inventory of their features. Yes, they had them all. But they were…jumbled? No, they were in the correct places. Maybe, they were like individual features that have been cut out of a magazine. It was…terrifying. But he wasn’t scared. He was dizzy. This was all too much.
The Man rolled onto his back and tried to identify his surroundings. He was definitely in an attic, that much was clear. But it was too dark to determine much else. Through the window he could tell he was in a residential neighborhood, and it was maybe late afternoon. Was he taken to someone’s house? Dare he call out for help?
Water?
Yes water, he needed water. He put his hand on the ceiling panel to lift it, but he stopped himself just in time. What was he doing? His mind was fuzzy, and he felt like he would fall over any second, even though he was laying on his stomach. Vertigo? Did they slip him something?
He peeked through a crack on the ceiling panel, down on the heads of the two crazed individuals. Yes, they were definitely looking for him. Dashing in and out of rooms, huffing foreign sounding words to each other. The Man squinted, trying to catch anything they were saying, but each strange, garbled word they spoke went through his ears like a hot knife, giving him a migraine. But maybe, he thought…
Dimitri.
That's a word he caught. Dimitri. Who was Dimitri? You don’t hear that much around here…
Here.
Where?
The Man's knees felt weak. “What did they do to me?”
He braced himself against a Shape, and eased himself down to the floor. His head was spinning. He tried to remember his name. He had none. He never had one. That must be it. In no way would he accept he couldn’t remember his name. He leaned his head against the Shape and closed his eyes. “What did they do to me?” he wondered.
One of the figures below him started to wail. It was not sadness was it? It sounded like fear as well. Despair? The Man could not begin to imagine what they wanted with him. They were disgusting. Their guttural sounds made him sick. It was the female wailing. Howling with…grief? Terror? Her words were a mangled mess, but her voice…
“Lita.”
The name came from his chest, washed over his lips, and entered his own ears. It was several seconds before his brain snapped back to the present. “Lita!” He clamped his hands over his mouth, praying he wasn’t heard. A tear formed in the corner of his eye, as he remembered his wife, Lita. They would have been together when he was taken, do they have her too? “No, nononono…” he whispered as he shakily pulled himself across the wet floor to peek through the ceiling panel down at his…captors? Pursuers?
He could smell them. Their smell was rising up through the cracks and filling the cramped attic space. It smelled like urine and mold, and he winced in hatred and disgust. He knew at that point they had Lita. He could tell by the way the female was sitting on the floor, with her head buried in her knees, sobbing. Deep, deep, very deep down, he wanted to pity her. They must’ve been in huge trouble with someone even more depraved than them. But if there was even a remote chance they were holding his Lita somewhere…in her condition? His hands formed fists all by themselves. He wanted to rip that panel off right then and there and confront the evil, face to face.
The male of the duo came into the hallway moments later, speaking strange words into his hand. The Man couldn’t recognize what he was holding, but the male was speaking into it, strings of nonsense. The Man was sure now, it wasn’t another language, it simply sounded like nonsense…or a code? He strained further, concentrating on catching anything familiar in the male figure’s message. But once again, he could only make sense of one word: Dimitri.
The Man snapped his head away, some foaming spittle flying off his face and across the room. He had never felt this anger. He wanted to rip the house, and everyone in it, apart piece by piece, until he found someone. He loved her. They were never apart. That's why he knows those…DEMONS had…her? Who? The Man grabbed his hair and pulled until it hurt, as if he could pull The Woman’s name out of his head by way of the follicles.
“No”, he thought? No, he said aloud. She was gone? He stood up and pulled harder. He needed to find her, that he knows. But her face. Forget her name, but please not her face. He looked around the dark room with palms outstretched, as if there was someone to plead with. But there wasn’t. It was gone. He couldn’t remember the face of The Woman he loved.
A scream rang out.
It was the scream of someone who had lost everything, and didn’t know why. The scream rang through the attic, out The Man’s mouth and back into his ringing ears. The two figures below froze in place and looked up at the shifted ceiling panel, and after a moment, sprang into action. The Man heard their clamber, but didn’t care anymore. All he could think is one thing…
Dimitri.
Dimitri took everything from me.
He was right. The Man had nothing left. And he was exhausted from fighting to stay lucid. His vision was slowly constricting, and he couldn’t walk straight. But he knows there’s The Woman somewhere that needs him. She was the love of his life. She had always been, even before he met her. She was…a goddess.
The Man tipped the Shape from earlier on its side, and it crashed onto the ceiling panel, just as the figures below put their ladder into position. He sat on the Shape. “She made the most beautiful dresses,” he said aloud. The figures below stopped their screaming and scratching, as if they were listening to him. Or maybe, he just tuned them out. All he could see, through his remaining pin-prick of vision, was a dress form, right across the room from him. On it was a flowing, purple dress, sparkling along every edge. It reminded him of The Wo…
He screamed again, louder this time. It was as if she was stolen from his mind.
He writhed in helpless frustration until his hand struck an object. It was a small Square, and it was shiny and smooth. He tilted it towards the slit in the floor so he could see it better. It was…a family. Was it Dimitri’s family? The Man sat bolt upright, finally getting a clue about his situation.
In the Square was a tall, fit man with thick dark hair and a carefree look. The Man gritted his teeth at the thought of this being the man responsible for everything he’s currently going through. The woman next to him was objectively lovely, almost as tall, with a flowing, elegant figure. How dare this Dimitri have the love of his life, and take someone else's away from him!
Below the man and woman in the Square were two young children. The boy was ruddy, maybe elementary school age, and was making a tough-guy pose to the camera. He looked like quite the little terror, but the man was holding his shoulder warmly, with the grip of a proud father.
In a shared embrace between her parents, raised in their arms, was a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than 3. Her face was pressed against the woman’s, and they looked…they looked so much alike.
The Man was watching his dream. He always wanted a boy and a girl. He always wanted a little boy he could raise to be a real man, but also a little girl he could raise to be a princess, just like The...The Woman he loved. If all that was taken away from him, he didn’t know what he would do. So he sat and stared down at the man in the Square that had everything The Man wanted. A monster in every way.
“Dimitri!!” He pounded on the Shape below him. His own voice was distorted, twisted, backwards. He clawed at his cheek, not knowing what to do next. The wailing and scratching below him had resumed with even greater fervor. The Shape beneath him bounced with every attempt to remove it.
He felt like he was losing himself, being pulled apart bit by bit. But he wouldn’t lose her.
Sirens?
Yes. Sirens. In the distance. The Man looked across at the dress form. He knew it should make him feel something that it had before, but now, nothing. There was a warm spot in his heart mere minutes ago, and it's like someone saw it, and removed it then and there. The Man opened his mouth as wide as he could, to curse Dimitri again, but only a loud, hoarse hiss came out. Tears started streaming down his face, as if his body demanded to be heard, in one form or another. The Man rolled off the Shape and stumbled over to the dress form and hugged it tight, soaking it with his tears. He fell to the ground, pulling it with him, hitting his head so hard the world briefly illuminated in a flash of light, before falling to darkness again.
He buried his head in the dress, silently crying in frantic despair. But something…the smell…
“W-W-WHERE?! W-WIIIIFE!” He managed to scream, his mouth almost forgetting how to form the words. He needed to know. He couldn’t lose her, not again. Every time her existence left his mind, it was like she died. He couldn’t let her die, he had to save her. He had to…
He flung himself up, and before he could change his mind, he closed his eyes and threw his left shoulder into the sharp corner of the Shape with all his weight. It slammed back into the floor, and the figure lifting it up crashed onto the floor below. But The Man growled in frustration. He didn’t feel the impact at all, none of the expected pain that would focus his mind and steel his resolve. His head was spinning, he could barely see, he had to try again. For her. He had to save her. Wherever she is.
The Man spun his body, and in one smooth motion, shot his right side into the Shape this time. This, oh yes this he felt. He felt it pierce his arm, down to the bone. “Too much?” he thought. Perhaps, but instantly his vision expanded, and his mind once again started to focus slightly. They were coming up the ladder again. This was his only chance. He won't die drugged up in this person’s attic. He will use the last of his strength to find her.
With all of the might he could muster, he sent the Shape sliding across the floor with one shove of his foot. At the same moment, as if in slow motion, the ceiling panel beneath began flying upwards, and he knew this was it. He took one step back, closed his eyes, clenched his fist, and flung himself through the opening.
Red.
He opened his eyes as his shoulder made contact with the first figure’s head. And in that moment, he saw darkness above him, and red beneath. It was as if he was leaping into death itself. And in a way, he knew that’s exactly what he was doing. Dimitri had won. What he had won, The Man had no idea. Which made it even more infuriating.
As the man slowly drifted down into the opening, the terrifying scene expanded before him. But he wasn’t terrified. There is no place for, or need for, terror, in defeat. As his body drifted down and down, his gaze drifted across the faces. Disfigured yes, but not really. Just, unrecognizable as faces. They clawed at him as he fell, as if they were too impatient to wait for him to finally crash to the ground. There were so many in the narrow hallway, at least 7 or 8. A sea of red, distorted beings in a strange house of an evil man.
Dimitri. Was he there?
Dimitri took everything from me. He took her. He took me. He took the kids we wanted to bring into this…disgusting world. Our whole future…taken.
Screaming.
The Man realized he had been screaming the entire time. His heart felt like it would burst. All his body was in terror, but his head was distant. And his heart was broken.
Broken.
He knew he wouldn’t get to her. He felt the first hand dig into his injured right arm. Since he was still falling all it did was make him tumble unevenly, thrashing him further into the crowd of red. He reached out and clawed at the face of one of them, wetting his hand with the figure’s blood. But he knew it was no use. Still, when the figure screamed and recoiled, it was satisfying. The Man would know, when it's all said and done, that he didn’t give up.
They were above him now, grasping for him. DEMONS. Can’t even wait a mere moment longer to rip him apart. He opened his eyes once more, and could barely see them through the glaze of tears. Red and faces everywhere, forming a dome of despair around him. Just as his numbed left side hit the ground, he saw one face appear above the rest. It was her. She came for him. He thought Dimitri had her, but maybe it was only him that Dimitri had. But why was she here? And what was she screaming? Just before the back of his head hit the ground, he was able to say, “MY LIT-”. And then, all at once…
Darkness.
“Lita. Letheia Alexander. Her funeral was today.”
Alyssa Alexander held her head in her hands as she addressed the surgeon. At that moment she didn’t care if she could be clearly heard or not. At that moment, she only cared about one thing.
“Understood, understood” mumbled the doctor, as he wrote something on his pad. “And you mentioned that you brought the list of medications he was taking?”
“My brother brought it,” she whispered through her fingers. The surgeon looked up at the window of the waiting area, and the large man in his 20s facing it. Even from behind, the man's spirit seemed to be vibrating, as if he might explode at any moment. The surgeon wisely turned his attention back to the man’s younger sister, and sat next to her.
“Yes, I’ll have a nurse collect that from him shortly. In the meantime I want to update you both. As you know, your father suffered several injuries while trapped in his attic, and of course in the fall. Firefighters at the scene were able to minimize bleeding in his arms and head. But it wasn’t until EMS arrived that his stroke was discovered. My team has successfully relieved the cranial pressure, and stopped the bleed. However, from the description of events, your father was in the midst of an episode before the stroke occurred, so it's unclear what his recovery will look like.” The Surgeon paused to gauge the reaction of his words, but after several seconds of no movement, he continued.
“We were encouraged to hear him initially saying his wife’s name, that’s a good sign. But without knowing more about what led up to the incident, we’re playing a waiting game.”
Alyssa Alexander looked at the surgeon with a tired expression. “A waiting…game…” she repeated, with an uncomfortable intonation that made the surgeon believe he should move on.
“Could you give me a little more insights on how you found your father in that state? What condition was he in during your mother’s funeral?”
It was clear in that moment that Alyssa Alexander was carefully holding herself together up until that moment. She looked up at the surgeon, smiled with a tilt of her head, and started to heave with exhausted grief. The surgeon instinctively recoiled at the suddenness, but the young man across the room didn’t seem to notice either reaction. He simply answered the question.
“Our mother died Tuesday. She had…she had M.S. Has needed a lot of care from my dad over the last couple years. They were always together…” At that point Dominic seemed to forget what he had been talking about, and stared at his hands. After a moment, he continued.
“My sister and I go to UT. I'm an undergrad. We flew in this morning for the funeral.” He turned slightly towards the surgeon. “We…we couldn’t get any flights sooner…I had exams…” His fists tightened as his sister ran from the room in tears. He continued. “When we arrived my dad had trouble recognizing us. I didn’t know his dementia had gotten worse. Our mom would’ve let us know if…what I mean is, he wasn’t this bad last year.”
Dominic noticed the surgeon getting out of his chair uncomfortably. “Anyway,” he said, finally turning to the doctor, “we helped him get ready for the funeral, we went, finished the service, came home, and needed to take some old junk to the curb. We went back into the house and couldn’t find him. Looked everywhere, my sister was frantic obviously. Heard him rooting around in the attic, and tried to get to him right away. Had to find a ladder first. Then it turns out an old dresser fell on the hatch, so it ended up being a struggle.”
“Wasn’t the ladder still there?” the doctor asked.
“What?” Dominic responded, confused. “Oh,” he said, rubbing his injured face slowly, “no, there is no ladder there, I had to get one from the garage. I think he just…jumped up there.” Then to address the surgeon's confusion, he added “I don't know, he’s a triathlete, I'm sure he’s in better shape than both of us, there’s no way this is going to take him down…” He cut himself off as his voice began to waver, and quickly wiped his eyes before continuing.
“By the way, I called 911, and had to practically beg them to send someone out! It got to the point I was just shouting the word “Dementia” into the phone over and over again! How could someone not have basic human feelings, to not know how bad a situation we were in. I swear to god, if he doesn’t pull through…” He turned to raise an emphatic finger to the surgeon, but instead saw past him, to Alyssa, slumped up against the door jamb, looking at him with eyes that seemed to be begging him for something she knew was not in his power to give. Dominic melted into a chair, all anger and passion leaving his body in defeat. He knew there’s nothing he could do, but wait.
He lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "All this," he said, his voice heavy, "it's taken so much from us, you know?"
The surgeon perked up at this, as if more comfortable addressing this emotion. “Of course son,” he said warmly, “it will be a long road for sure. We have a lot of great resources for you, you’ll all get through this. Right now we need to focus on your father’s recovery. Actually, would you like to see him?”
As they walked through the halls together, the surgeon assured them that everything their father went through fits with his early-onset dementia. He mentioned that the stress of losing his wife may have contributed to the rapid and sudden decline. Dementia with Agnosia can lead to not only difficulty recognizing faces, but also objects, speech, and sounds. The surgeon theorized that their father did not know where he was, and may have been trying to get away from who he thought were his attackers. His mind likely reverted to an earlier but pivotal point in his life, perhaps before he had children. Therefore, he wouldn’t know them. Dementia with Agnosia would also explain some of his other behavior in the attic, and the incontinence. The stress of it all, coupled with the injuries, contributed to the stroke.
The surgeon reached the recovery room door and turned to face Alyssa and Dominic.
“I know it feels like Dementia has taken your father from you, but since the temporarily high stress of your mother’s passing may have been the root cause of all this, it's possible that your fathers dementia will not continue to decline at a high rate. He may even improve. However,” the surgeon said with a somber tone, “the stroke is the one variable that makes that hard to know for sure. Either way,” he said, opening the door for them, “just go in there, and try to say comforting things. The anesthesia will have worn off by now.” Dominic and Alyssa looked at each other unsure, then went in.
The Man was battered, bruised all over his face, and his once thick black hair had been hastily shaved off. A long scar spanned the top of his head. His face was twisted, distorted slightly. But disturbingly, his eyes were wide open, and looking straight at them. No…through them? His gaze was pained, intense, but otherwise empty.
Alyssa moved to sit next to the bed, while dominic stared from afar. He gently touched the wound over his eye, fresh and starting to bleed again. Meanwhile Alyssa fidgeted in her chair, and nervously looked around. On his bedside was one of their family pictures from almost 20 years ago. The Man was holding it when he fell out of the attic, and the doctors thought it would help him to have it nearby when he woke up.
“Daddy? It's me Alyssa…”
The Man’s eyes snapped to Alyssa’s face, but remained vacant. “Lita…” he said in a hoarse whisper.
Alyssa sobbed. Dominic punched the wall in misdirected frustration. Two people who had lost someone that day.
“Dim-itri…w-where?”
For the rest of his life, The Man would utter a single word, a name no one would ever understand, a word that had no meaning.
For the rest of his life, The Man would only have one thought. He would imagine the one who took everything from him. His love, his balance, his memories, his tongue.
One thing was all he would be left with. Because he was right. Dementia had indeed taken everything else from him.
END