Fiction Friday - II

Two in a row doesn’t quite make a trend, now does it. But none the less, here is Friday Fiction part duex.

This is turning out to be harder than I thought it would be. Not that I can’t come up with the stories but having time to write. Good grief!!! I’ll bet I have 8-9 hours in this one. Reading and re-reading, adding thoughts. Enjoy!!!

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Psychosis


Kelly smiled hard in the mirror, frowned, opened her mouth wide then relaxed... “no wrinkles... yet” she thought. Looking towards the full length mirror, she flexed her hip looking over her shoulder in her best ‘I’m so sexy pose’, “not bad for 36”. She proceeded to apply about a hundred dollars worth of her favorite creams and cleaners, totally convinced that it works flawlessly.

Before she turned to leave the bathroom she glanced down at the sink. Left to right; washing cloth (clean), soap (wiped dry), faucet (spotless), tooth brush in holder... “Damn” she thought as she moved her toothbrush to be in the 3rd hole of the holder. “Good thing I check these every night, what if I woke up blind in the morning? I’d never find my toothbrush”. Smug with pride, she smiled to herself, that she had caught a misplaced item and scolding herself for being so careless.

Someone saying Kelly was OCD was like saying the noon July 4th sun is hot in Phoenix. Her pots and pan are always stacked in largest to smallest order, her dishes are stacked just so... Hell, Kelly has never misplaced her car keys. She always knows where everything is and everything is where it belongs.

She clicked the light off, “one, two, three and a half steps, turn right 90 degrees...” four more steps and she sat. Knowing with confidence her bed was there waiting for her. Of course, it was. Kelly could find anything her apartment, in the dark.

Kelly smiled with anticipation of sliding into the flannel sheets in her satin PJs, The momentary chill from the sheets as her body worked to warm them up. She laid her head on the pillow and was asleep almost instantly, dreaming.

Skipping through an unending field, full of beautifully colored butterflies and happy singing birds, happy little bees buzzing around and THUMP!!! A tree fell, it was now pitch black. “There are no trees here”, Kelly mumbled to her self still somewhat asleep.

Dazed and confused Kelly realized she was sitting upright in her bed... “That thump wasn’t in my dream!!!” Straining to hear anything... what was it? Is someone here? The only sound was her heart, pounding harder than she had ever known.

Kelly listed off all of the windows in her mind. Had she mad sure they were all closed? Was the front door closed? Of course the door was, she always unlocks it, opens it, looks out, closes it and re-locks it every time she walks by it.... she just knew the front door was locked. But the windows. It was mid October, she hadn’t had the windows open since that warm snap in the end of September. They were all closed, but were they locked???

Kelly got out of bed and walked out the bedroom and down the hall as she turned to enter the living room. CRASH!!! Pain shot up from her foot, so intense she saw a bolt of light. Screaming in agony she dropped to the floor and realized she had kicked a chair!! “WTF!!? Why is a dinning room chair in the living room?” She was sitting on the floor and as she held her foot she could feel the sticky warmth of her own blood in her hands. “Dam it!! I broke my toe nail” she thought. Her mind raced to towels, rags to clean the floor, how to get the blood out of her pajamas. She was so sure they were just ruined.

“ok, that’s enough!” Kelly got up and turned on every light she could reach.

Everything was where it was suppose to be except for one dinning room chair. It was sitting squarely in the entrance to the bedroom hallway.

Paper towels, tissues, gauze, scissors, antiseptic, bandages, all spread on the table before her. She sat in a kitchen chair with her foot pulled up on the seat. Looking around and basically hugging her leg, she began the tedious process of cleaning the blood from her foot and between her toes. The nail was split and still bleeding pretty good. She used the small suturing scissors to trim back the ripped and exposed nail. Blot, blot, press, PRESS... still bleeding. More trimming, more gauze. A singe of pain, made her jump and almost throw the little scissors across the room. She had cut across a nerve. She groaned at the pain, white hot in her toes. It was beginning to make her sweat. “I have to get this cleaned up”, she says almost in a panic.

Each press, blot, trim exorcise finished with her looking at the bloody rags and gauze and each time she dropped it to the floor. When she has finished, there was a pile of blood soaked gauze and rags on the floor. White cloth bearing evidence of a death by exsanguination averted.

Once the bleeding had stopped she got up and with out thinking or pausing, just went to bed. Leaving the mess, the light on and as she passed the chair, she moved it back to blocking the hall way. Just as she had done earlier that day.

Dreams returned to the tired and blood drained woman but they were not butterflies this time. These dreams were for lovers. Eyes meet across a simple street café. Hers sparkle with the excitement of a physical attraction. His, deep and blue, mysterious and lustful. Her cheeks flush at the knowledge and acknowledgement of each others thoughts. They walk toward each other loosing sight of reality and any one else in the café. Arms out stretched in anticipation of lustful embrace they approach each other. At that moment in her dream she closes her eyes and when they reopen, she’s kissing a light pole, or a phone pole. All of the other patrons of the café are laughing, pointing. Kelly runs, down the street, around a corner. Stops, panting, breathing nearly escapes her capacities. She sits at a near by café and orders a water. There is a guy there, he’s cute There eyes meet, she smiles. Forgetting completely the circumstances that brought her here.

Saturday morning. 9 am. Liz (Kelly’s mom) lets herself in. It is their morning. Ever since Paul had died 2 years ago Kelly’s mom had made it a point to see her daughter every week. Saturday worked best for them both.

Paul and Kelly had met almost 4 years ago. Then 2 years later, after a multi-hour-sheet-untucking-body-fluid-swaping romp, they slept. In the morning when she woke, he was cold. Dead.

The County Coroner had said it was a brain aneurism. Nothing that had happened days before caused it to happen that night and nothing done different (or not done), would have saved him. It was just simply his time.

Kelly blamed herself anyways. In an effort to control anything, everything in her life now, she had become the shell of a person that she is now. Completely consumed and compulsive about everything she could and could not control.

Liz gasped as she entered the kitchen. There was blood slung on the cabinets, on the ceiling, even dripping form the chair. Blood was everywhere. She screamed and ran to Kelly’s bedroom.

Almost jumping over the bed she landed on Kelly shaking her violently. Hoping, wishing to shake life back into her if she was...

Kelly was running from the ump-teenth café in eternal humiliation. Almost crying from the embarrassment of kissing yet another tree. But, this time someone grabbed her and shook her so violently she swore her head was smacking the tree. As her dream faded, she realized her head was hitting the headboard. And someone was screaming.

“KELLY, WAKE UP!!! GOD DAMN IT!!! WAKE UP!!!”

“Mom, what the hell are you doing? I’m awake already!! You’re lucky you didn’t scare me to death or bash my head in!!!”

“Oh God, don’t you scare me like that again!! There is sooo much blood in the kitchen!! What the hell happened?” Liz asked, exasperated. Holding back sobs, trying to be strong.

“I kicked a chair and split my toe nail last night, mom. It was nothing.” Kelly assured her. “Someone must have come in after I went to sleep and moved the chair, setting a trap for me. Remember how Paul used to do that to me? I’m surprised my toes still have feeling”

“Ok. Well. It’s after 9. Do you still want to go?” Liz was still grasping for breath. Still not convinced that someone had not been killed in the kitchen last night.

“Yeah, sure. Of course. Give me 5 minutes to get ready, m’k?” Kelly smiled. She had a way of smiling at her mom with a sparkle in her eye that just made everything ‘ok’.

Liz sat in disbelief... ‘must be nothing’ she thought. She kissed her daughter on the cheek and lovingly squeezed her chin. “Don’t scare me like that.” And she pushed her over in the bed. “now get moving, you!”

Liz went into the kitchen to clean the mess, mumbling to herself how she needs to let go and stop ‘mothering’ her daughter. ‘She’s fine.’ She reassured herself.

Bleach and water mixture, sponge. Liz set to the task of wiping down the cabinets, counter and table. She paused, looking at the mess on the floor. Liz grabbed the garbage can and set it in the kitchen. As she stooped to pick up the entire mess in one swoop she caught her breath. Almost a scream, she cupped her mouth and staggered back till the counter caught her and stood there. Her own blood was draining from her very soul. Liz looked down the hall...

In an instant she was in the bathroom. Door slung open, screaming “Kelly!!! OH MY GOD KELLY!!! What have you done??!!”

Kelly was just coming out of the bathroom and her mothers abrupt entry has startled her so bad she that she lost her balance and fell on the floor.

Liz grabed at Kelly’s feet.
“Mom!! My God, What are you doing? Haven’t you scared the shit out of me enough this morning?”

Liz exposed Kelly’s foot and slowly unwrapped the bandage...

Kelly was smiling. She said, “Pretty good work for a non medical girl, isn’t it mom?”

In one motion, Liz’s mouth dropped open and she spun around and threw up. Regaining some semblance of composure, she told Kelly to re-bandage her foot and quickly walked back to the kitchen. She grabbed her purse and cell phone and called Roger, her husband.

Glancing around the kitchen as the phone rang, cursing Roger to answer the phone, Liz saw the bottle of pills. The prescription she had gone with Kelly to fill last weekend.

“Hello?” Roger said. Not expecting a call from either of them until after some serious shopping had been completed. “You ok?”

“She’s not taking her pills, Roger. It’s every bit as bad as the Dr said it would be.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Roger, she cut of her toe off last night!! She said she kicked a chair and had to ‘trim off the broken nail’, Roger! She left all of the bone and cut off all of the flesh... What are we going to do?!!”. Liz was screaming now. Fighting the blood to remain in her head, willing herself not to pass out. What has become of her little girl...?

“We’re going to do exactly what the Dr’s said we should do.”

Roger hung up the phone and called the hospital. The Nurses met him at Kelly’s apartment and they took her to the top floor of the hospital.