Cass
‘She knows the human heart and how to read the stars. Everything’s about to fall apart’
(The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Garbage)
My heart thumped erratically, a classic symptom of a pending attack. *You can do this, Cass. *
I urged myself forward carefully breathing in and out, in and out, inhaling to the count of three and exhaling to the count of six, just like the doctors taught me.
Diversion. Mindfulness. I traced my fingers along the wall of the corridor at waist height and stared deep into the faces of long-forgotten alumni, laureates, doctors and professors who looked back, lifeless and frozen from their portraits. I noticed that all of the frames were dusty and in the late winter sun that streamed through the narrow windows I could see particles of dust suspended, dancing in the light.
The corridors were silent, the last lectures of the day started at least fifteen minutes ago whilst I was locked in the restrooms trying to gather my sanity and wrestle the tangle of anxiety and nerves into something that I could tangibly control. I sat in the stall breathing carefully like I have been told:
‘Shallow, regular breaths. Don’t over-breathe! You’re taking in too much oxygen – no wonder you feel like you’re dying!’
I rummaged through my bag, feeling overwhelming gratitude when my fingers finally grasped what I was looking for. I broke the little yellow pill from its blister pack and stared at it intently as I rolled it back and forth between my fingers. As I struggled to catch my breath, I could feel the familiar numbness spreading from my fingertips up towards my wrists and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone attend the Intro to Pysch lecture on ‘Brain and Behaviour’ that I was already late to, unless I got this under control.
Eyeing the little yellow safeguard, I decided to split it, running my fingernail over the crease in the tablet. It broke into two uneven halves and I dry swallowed the larger one, licking the residual crumbs from the palm of my hand before I stashed the other half in the silver locket I always wore.
I waited two more minutes before cautiously emerging from the stall. Good. I was alone. I splashed my face with cold water, forgetting my carefully applied mask of make up. Mascara streaked down my pale face like ink. I mopped it up with hand towel, scrubbing my cheeks until they were flushed. I didn’t want anyone to think I had been crying. I hadn’t been crying. A certain combination of physical symptoms coupled with adrenaline had started an irrational fear cycle that momentarily overwhelmed me, making me think I was about to die.
Again.
That was all.
That is what I tried to tell myself as I made my down the hall of the Social Sciences building to the Psych lecture. The Valium had finally started to kick in, locking me in a comforting embrace that dissipated the rigid tension that usually held me tight. I had stopped over-thinking my breathing, which is what normal people do – apparently and I felt myself slow down to suit the pace of the rest of the world. My heart still skipped and jumped, but the palpitations and tightness didn’t scare me as much.
I turned my focus back to the mindfulness exercises I had been forced to memorise, evoking the five senses to take my mind off the fear, the overwhelming fear that it would get worse, that this would be it. The slight odour of aging, mildewing books from the library upstairs combined with the dust and irritated my sinuses. I could feel every grain and bump in the paintwork of the wall as I dragged the fingers of my right hand along it, letting it guide me to the lecture theatre. My bag was slung over my shoulder, weighing down my skinny frame on one side and no doubt leaving a red mark. I felt the texture of my thermal sweater sitting warm and soft against my skin. I was swaddled in layers of clothes. Each winter seemed to get colder and colder and in spite of the half hearted effort of a watered down sun, today was no exception.
The only thing I could hear was the sound of my own footsteps as I walked with trepidation down the hall. He was going to be in there. Expecting me. Waiting for me.
I stumbled, audibly gasping as the momentum pushed me sideways straight into the wall, bending my fingers right back. My knees buckled and I cursed my clumsiness before I realised that I was starting to white out. I blinked, trying to regain my focus, as I leaned back against the wall, but it was too late. It was coming.
Six years old.
I rocked lazily back and forth in the swing that Dad had tied lopsidedly to the cherry tree. My feet barely scraped the floor. It was early spring and the days had just started to get longer. The sun filtered through the branches in a yellow wash, casting light over the crocuses and bluebells that were the first herald of the changing season.
I was holding Lucie, our tormented and long suffering Siamese cat, clutching her tightly to my chest as I swung back and forth, back and forth. She was older than me, my Mum and Dad’s first pet and after my precarious toddler years we were practically inseparable. She followed me everywhere like a little lilac shadow. Her fur was soft, she was always warm and her eyes were bright blue like the buttons on my new school cardigan. She was my best friend. She slept in my bed every night, tangled in my hair. Every time I woke from one of those nightmares, she was there, purring reassuringly into my ear.
The nightmares were relentless.
I lie motionless on a cold, dusty floor and I am completely paralysed. I can’t move.
I hear them first. A slow, languorous rasping, whisper-quiet, the sounds of something dragging slowly across the floor. I’m frightened, terrified and I can’t move. I feel them approaching. They hiss.
‘Let us speak’, they whisper in unison.
I can’t move. I’m lying face down and I can see my breath stirring the dust. My limbs are too heavy and I strain to lift them, but I can’t move.
That’s when I see them. Twisting, writhing gracefully like dancers into my limited field of vision. Snakes. Their tongues dart in and out of their mouths, which seem to curve upwards in sinister smiles. Their eyes are lifeless, typically reptilian and give me no idea of their intentions. Are they going to bite me? Some of them are large enough to swallow me whole.
As they get closer I see how their scales glisten, I appreciate the intricate beauty of their patterns and the jeweled shine of their sinuous skin. They get closer and closer to my face until I can feel their tongues brushing gently against my skin.
‘Listen to us’, they demand.
They crawl over me, cool and dry. I can feel their weight on my prone body as they make their way up towards my face. They crawl up, putting pressure on my chest, pressing on my windpipe making it difficult to breathe. They slither over and under me, getting closer. They tangle in my hair and I can feel their forked tongues tasting, testing, and seeking.
The snakes, dozens of them, some as thick as my arms, others smaller than my little finger, gather around my head and I feel their forked tongues dart in and out of my ears.
‘Now you hear us!’ they insist.
I try to open my mouth to scream and I can’t make a sound. I wake up, sitting upright, gasping for breath with the sheets tangled in a twisted, sweaty knot around my small body.
Lucie looks on with concern and nudges my small face with her wedge shaped feline head. That was only the first of the nightmares. I had other nightmares. Sometimes I woke Mum or Dad when I screamed out loud in my sleep. At first I tried to tell them about the dreams. They listened, but they didn’t hear. The terrible things that I saw and experienced were just monsters under the bed. They didn’t believe me, but I saw them watching me. I heard their hushed whispers and I saw their concerned glances. As the dreams continued, waking us all in the night, I heard talk of doctors, pediatricians, specialists.
When I looked in the mirror, even I could see the difference. My pale face looked almost translucent; the green eyes were ringed with dark, bruise-like circles. I looked tired. Only my untamable halo of auburn hair remained unchanged. It twisted in curls and ringlets around me, making a mockery of my strained face.
I was eating a red icy pole that I had surreptitiously taken from the fridge, knowing full well that I would be in trouble if I was to be caught snacking before dinner. It started melting in my chubby hands staining my fingers and Lucie’s fur a lurid shade of pink. I held her tightly to my chest and rested my head against her body, listening to the comforting, familiar rumble of her purr.
I turned the swing around and around until the fraying rope that held it was twisted right up to the branch of that lonely old cherry tree. It was the only large tree in our small garden and I had been warned never to eat the cherries because it was ornamental. I threw the stick from the icy pole aside before I lifted my feet and I clutched Lucie tight to me as we spun, the world turning giddily around us.
When we finally stopped spinning, I jumped off the swing and placed Lucie on the ground, laughing out loud as we struggled to regain our footing. I stopped laughing when the white started creeping in at the edge of my peripheral vision. I stumbled to my knees, staining my socks on the damp grass as everything went white and I saw.
It occurred to me very suddenly, very clearly and for the first time in my life that Lucie was going to die. She was going to leave me. Not in five or ten years, but soon. I saw two bright lights cutting through the night like knives. I felt pressure, pure shock and the urge to run.
When I came back I was on my hands and knees on the lawn. I stood shakily and brushed the dirt from my hands. Lucie was watching me, seemingly unaware that anything had happened. I scooped her up and ran towards the kitchen door, a beacon of light in the growing dusk. I was crying.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Mum exclaimed. She was distracted from making dinner by my wailing.
‘Mum! Lucie’s going to die! I snuffled through my tears.
‘Don’t be so silly, Cassie’ she chided. ‘She’s only a year older than you. Cats don’t live as long as people – that’s true, but Lucie could easily make it to fifteen – some cats live to twenty.’
Lucie had clambered up around my neck, draping herself over my shoulders. I rubbed my face into her fur to wipe away the tears that were trickling down my cheeks. I could hear her heart beating rapidly as I rested my face up against her.
‘There’s nothing to worry about’, Mum said and I started to believe her. Fifteen was old and a long way away. ‘Did you eat an ice block?’ she asked with a look on her face that revealed she already knew the answer.
I started to make my way to the bathroom to wash up for dinner with Lucie still resting around me. My tears had started to dry and her fur was clumping together stained and sticky red.
Two nights later Lucie didn’t come in after dinner. I strained to hear the familiar thunk of the cat flap and the chime of her bell . I was awake most of the night, unable to sleep soundly without her warmth cradled between my face and my shoulder, her little sleeping sighs in my ear. The next day Mum promised we’d make posters if she didn’t come home by the time school finished. She talked to the neighbours who were familiar with the exotic looking cat with the bright blue eyes, but no one had seen her.
Over a week later, when the posters were smeared and hanging limp from the stobie poles after early spring showers we got a phone call. It was one of our neighbours and he wanted to speak to my Mum or Dad. He lived two doors down and I was a bit frightened of him, He had a stern face and he shouted at me once when he caught me plucking the petals from a yellow rose in his perfectly manicured garden. I tried to put the petals back, but they scattered across the dirt and I ran back to our house too scared to look back.
Mum was to wait with me whilst Dad went over, but I knew it was about Lucie so I snuck through the back door, closing it quietly before creeping down the side of the house to the street. Dad and the man were talking, looking at something under a big bush. The man was shaking his head and my dad’s face was pale, his lips pressed tight together in a straight white line.
I ran across the road without looking both ways for cars and I saw her. My beautiful Lucie lying too still in the dirt in this man’s front garden.
‘She must have run here after she got hit’ I heard him say, but his voice sounded funny and far away.
I ran towards her and Dad grabbed me around the waist pulling me back. She didn’t look hurt, there was no blood, but her fur was dull and matted and some had from her body in clumps on the soil. There was dried blood crusted around the ear that I could see. Dad tried to wrestle me into a hug, but I saw her face. Her beautiful blue eyes, once so striking, the colour of expensive jewels, eyes that watched me wake from the nightmares, they were gone. Empty sockets stared up at me.
Dad wrapped her lifeless body in a towel and dug a hole under the cherry tree. The hole seemed very small. Mum knelt down and held me tight as I watched the first shovel full of soil strike the tightly wrapped bundle that used to be Lucie.
‘Perhaps we should say a few words? Things that we were thankful for. Nice things about Lucie’ she offered.
I looked up at her, tears streaming down my face. They were both crying too.
‘I told you, Mum’ I said, quietly. ‘I told you she was going to…’
‘I remember how much Lucie loved Cassandra’, Mum interrupted. ‘I remember how she seemed scared of you, Cassie when we brought her home as a little baby, but after a few weeks I walked into the nursery one day and found her looking down at you from the edge of the crib whilst you were napping. We didn’t like the idea of the cat being in with the baby, but Lucie insisted and she rarely left your side after that.’ She squeezed my shoulder tightly. I looked down and watched my tears drop onto the lawn like little bombs.
‘We can get another cat soon’, Dad offered. ‘When we feel a bit better’.
I turned away and walked slowly back to the house. My mum watched my retreat, her brows knitted together, scrutinizing me until I slammed the back door loudly, separating myself from the sad tableau.
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