part 1

It could be another Amex rep in India. It could be his boss telling him he needs to come in earlier. It could be a number of things. Thankfully, he is in the habit of answering his phone as someone else and deferring messages to himself later. He holds the phone to his ear.

“Who is this?”
“Uh, hello!?” fumbles the younger voice from within the receiver.
“Who is this?”
“This is Pete over at the Glen Oaks Senior Center.”

Larry snaps out of anonymity and back to attention.

“Was there a problem with the check?” He prays there wasn’t.
“No, it’s Mrs. D.”

A pause.

“Is she all right?” Larry found his voice suddenly small.
“I think you’d better come down here.”

Pete hung up as something shattered in the background. Larry stood for a moment in the enveloping steam before shutting the water off and scrambling to get dressed. He circled the kitchen table three times before Charlie pointed to the keys on the floor by the door. Charlie was dressed and eating cereal, watching him with an odd look on his face. Larry mumbled his thanks and headed for the door.

“What is it?” Charlie finally asked.
“It’s Danuta.” Larry replied, anxious to leave.
Charlie looked at him blankly.
“Your grandmama.”

Charlie stood, gulped the milk down and followed him out the door. Together, they jogged down the steps along the side of the building and headed for the car.
“What about your sister?” Larry asked, as he ducked into the driver’s seat. Charlie did not reply.

“Eh? Should we get your sister?” Larry asked again.
“Her?” Charlie said doubtfully. They did not use Emma’s name very often. It was generally understood that the pronouns her and she meant Emma. Charlie repeated his one word question. Finally, Larry started the car and drove to the edge of the city to the Senior Center.

The old building with faded pastel paint looks little worse than it did the last time they visited. The flowers in the front garden were alive this time. Charlie had remarked on their way in that the flowers had died in the winter and now that it was spring again, they were blooming. Larry suggested they’d been replaced thanks to his monthly check, and his alone. They entered and held their breath. Nurses and employees shuffled past in scrubs and booties. The young man at the desk flagged them down.

“Hi Mr. Thomas, we need you to sign this form here.”
Pete thrust a clipboard at him with an uneven bunch of papers stacked on it. The pen was dangling from the side from a small chain. Charlie peered around the familiarly dreadful place. Everything looked the same. The walls were still peeling, the carpet was still an indiscernible color and the air was strangely moist. Maybe they had spent all the money fixing the flowers outside…

Larry scanned over the form, brows furrowed. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Please, Mr. Thomas.” Pete looked frantic. Perhaps his wild hair and disheveled clothing—which was popular for his age was all that made him look so, Larry thought. “She’s at it again.”

Larry’s hands went cold and the hairs on his arm pricked up. Was Danuta starting up again? How long would this spell last he wondered?

“Just sign so we can give her the sedatives, we need your consent.”
“I can’t—
“Please, she’s getting out of hand, sir.”
“I can’t! I told my wife I wouldn’t put her back on them.” Larry mumbled at last and Pete fell silent.
“Let me see her.” Larry gestured toward the hallway with the clipboard.

Pete led the way, Larry followed and Charlie lagged behind. The hallway was brightly lit with fluorescent lighting, probably bright enough to burn a hole in the retina. A lone senior citizen sat in a wheelchair by his door, testing this theory. Larry shuddered. That guy was sedated. The noises grew louder as they were led further down the hall. The last room on the right threw echoing voices and clanging sounds down the hall at them. In the doorway were two of the center’s employees, cowering from the small woman inside.

She was four foot nine, sturdy and scowling. In one hand was a shattered family photo, being waved threateningly at the employees. Her eyes were wild, and the mess around the room was clearly her doing. Everything had been cleared from the top of her dresser and smashed upon the floor. Bedding was strewn about on top of this, and even the paintings on the wall were displaced, short though she was.

“You let me out of here!” cried the shrill voice of Danuta—lovingly called Mrs. D, in her lucid state. “I’ve got to save her!” She waved the frame and exposed photo at them all. Under her arm was her purse, stuffed with some odd bulky items.

Larry pushed his way into the room. Danuta looked relieved to see him.

“Laurynas, thank the Lord! Come here, you have to let me out! We have to save her! You have to save her!” Danuta thrust the picture at him, pleading for his help.
Larry looked long and hard at the photo in her frail hand. He looked until his eyes stung and blurred with tears. He snatched the photo from her hand and sent it hurling at the wall. The frame fell to pieces on the floor.

Danuta raised her hands to her mouth in shock. Charlie crept over and rescued the photo from the shards of glass.

It was a picture of a toddler Emma hugged by his smiling mother.

“I can’t save her! It’s too late!” Larry shouted at the small woman, trembling in his rage. But it wasn’t rage, it was something different. It was violence—yes, but born out of misery and guilt. The sort of misery one cultivates after analyzing their mistakes over and over until it is clear nothing could be done; and the sort of guilt that stems from being utterly useless when one you love needs you most.
Charlie yanked at Larry’s raised arm and shook it until he came back to himself. Danuta was watching him, silently. She looked angry and helpless at once.

“Laurence, I will tell you how to save her! It could work!” Danuta insisted.

“She’s already dead!” Larry tried to shout back at her, but his voice was caught in his throat. The words came out mangled and choked. Charlie tugged at his arm, frightened. He kept calling him, “Dad, dad, dad…dad!” soft and persistent. The boy was trying to calm him, despite his counterproductive methods.

“Laurence! She’s going to die!” Danuta exploded.
“Give me the clipboard!” Larry hissed at Pete. The wild haired intern promptly handed it to him and signaled the nurses.

“Laurynas, no! Don’t let them send me away! I can’t get back—I won’t get back in time to save her!” Danuta pleaded.

Larry held the clipboard in his trembling hand. The chained pen rattled along the back of it as the room was suddenly hushed. Charlie shook his head ‘no’ and the nurses stared hard at him. Larry fumbled for the swaying pen and brought it to the paper. Will he sign the form and sedate his mother-in-law?

Intertwined Intro

He walked the desolate plains of this strange dreamland, fixed on the small sound in his ear. The air was so still that this tiny whimper could travel endlessly, echoing off the crags and in the shallow alcoves. Thick pockets of smoke or fog hung in the air, blurring the horizon and masking the jagged tips of the rock formations that jutted out of the ground. The sky above and the ground beneath were a bleak and dusty gray.

For a moment he thought himself lost, but then the sound would echo again. It beckoned him to come nearer, though he never could quite happen upon it—not lately. It had not always been like this. In the beginning of this period of recurring dreams, he’d been able to rescue her, and carry her—comfort her. Now he simply could not find her. He’d spend the whole night following that soft little sound that pained him so much. It was the sound that he remembered from her childhood years when she’d run to him with a small injury or whatever news had broken her five-year-old heart. And he’d pick her up and cradle her, and promise her things would turn out all right.

The urge to comfort her remained, these fourteen years later. So every night he’d wander in agony, tortured that he was unable to reach her…Tonight was no different, he thought. He walked along, alert but unhurried. There was no reason to believe he would find her this night, if ever. He’d long since accepted the fact that he’d lost her. But at least he could hear her, so she was still somewhere near.He wound his way through the unending maze, sometimes closer, sometimes farther from that soft little voice.

Then at once, the sky darkened and air felt weighted. A piercing shriek rent the silence—answering itself as it ricocheted all around. It seemed to grow louder with each repeating cry, overlapping and until it surmounted into one thunderous scream.The ground beneath him trembled and the sky above turned black. The clouds churned into a swirling vortex and lightning flickered at its edges. He spun around and caught a glimpse of her as she fell. She collapsed into a heap in the dirt, only several meters away from him. He leaped towards her but the ground lurched beneath him and he fell to the ground.

He lifted his head to see her drag herself away, weakly and strangely like a wounded animal. She was so thin and so pallid. He reached for her, but the world tipped to one side and he found himself grasping at the sand and rocks as he was pulled away. It was as though he were sliding down the wall of a cliff; yet still, she crept away—vertically now, as he was falling. He looked down and saw what he dreaded. It was a natural bridge of sorts, stretching over an unexpected chasm that seemed to widen with each clap of thunder. He scrambled to climb back up, but he was always unable.

He glanced back again at the bridge—the bridge to his own world. The end of it was blurred… He knew where it would end, as he always awoke in his bedroom. He could see it even now—not as it actually was, but he could perceive it. Its boundaries were undefined, but its basic shape and form were rather clear. The walls were transparent, but the shapes of the furniture within were sharp and certain. He made one last effort to climb and to remain in this dream, having found her at last, but the whirling clouds in the sky fell upon him and everything went black. His eyes flicked open and he found himself staring at the ceiling. It took him several seconds to realize he was holding his breath. When he’d caught it again, he closed his eyes. After several moments of squeezing them shut, he reluctantly admitted defeat. He could not go back.

He walked to the bathroom, like a dead man. The reflection of his face looked the part, ashen as it was. He ran the hot water and rubbed at his eyes. The dim morning light offered him another half hour of shut-eye if he so pleased, but he refused.

“Wake up, Laurence.” He said to himself. He was frequently called Larry, but chose to address commands to himself with his full name. His wife had used to laugh and say it was actually his mother’s voice echoing in his ear. He would jokingly insist it was actually his mother-in-law, but that wasn’t so funny these days. Both his wife and his mother were gone. His life since had been a nightmare.

And it was so strange to travel from dream to dream. Even as he stood before his mirror awake he felt as though he were still asleep and fighting the same invisible foe. He tested the water, found it still frigid cold and filled his cupped hands. He plunged his face into it and hoped that he could wake himself.

In the next room, a cell phone buzzed somewhere beneath the bed on the wooden floor. It traveled several inches in one direction, hailing the teenager above with its ‘beat-box’ alarm. The teenage girl remained immobile, she hadn’t even heard it. It buzzed again; louder this time before another period of silence. She’d been vaguely aware of it this time, but was counting on its automatic fifteen-minute snooze.

Then it started up again, and a lanky boy with mussed hair and all the awkwardness of early adolescence burst into the room. He didn’t say a word; he just dove under the bed, snatched the phone up and pummeled it into his palm until the battery fell out. Emma’s drowsiness gave way to rage and she bellowed with unearthly volume “Get out of here, Charlie!” She shoved him towards the door, and he flinched. He thrust the remains of her phone at her, lest she scratch his eyes out in her frenzy.

“Emma!” Larry hissed from the doorway as the boy was flung into his chest. The noise of the scuffle had summoned his senses. Ever the referee—though grossly ineffective, Larry relished even this—the most undesirable of his parental duties, as it was one of the few connections he still had with his children. They were more like tenants. Tenants who wished to free up more space in the small apartment by murdering the other occupant.

Charlie recovered quickly from the shove. Larry caught his sleeve and Charlie caught his balance enough to jerk away. He bounced off the walls down the hall in his escape to his own room.

Emma slammed the door. Raving from the other side about her lack of privacy, the dismal state of being that was her life, and the general unfairness of her situation. The latter half of these complaints was muffled by her pillow as she retreated to her bed. Every morning like this was an indicator of how awful the rest of the day would be. And yet everyday was some variation of this same scenario.

He returned to his room and dragged out the shirt and pants he would wear to work. The phone rang right before stepped into the shower. The phone number was unfamiliar and he stands debating as the room fills with steam. Will he answer it? The phone stops ringing and goes over to voice-mail. Unperturbed, he heads for the shower again and again it rings. It buzzes its way off the counter and he catches it before it hits the floor. His thumb somehow catches the ‘answer’ button. He panics. Hang up quickly or own up and speak?