"Bastards!" Mattie yelled as she slammed the bathroom door behind her. She surveyed the damage her brother Russell and his friends had been responsible for in the mirror. Mustard, ketchup and dirt splattered in her hair, face, across her white T-shirt, her arms, her legs and her jean shorts; and, she seethed. It had been a ambush of the worse kind, orchestrated by her twelve year old brother and his evil cohorts, they had called Mattie out of the house on the premise that her boyfriend had arrived, unexpectantly. Two seconds at the mirror combing her hair calling down to her toad of her brother to wait, she happily came skipping down the stairs out onto the front porch where the little bastards were in wait. A few seconds of stunned reaction to get the first layer of mustard and ketchup, and then open warfare, including catching Russell's little friend and shoving his little face into a pool of his own tears, to be rescued by the opportunity to catch Russell himself. Unfortunately, laughing or crying the little heathens took off for safety and Mattie was left to go inside, climb the stairs to the safety of the bathroom, to try and clean up.
Mattie pulled the shower curtain straight before she turned on the water and pulled the knob to start the water falling. She took off her tennis shoes first throwing them into the corner, she was careful to fill the sink with cold water and soak her white T-shirt in the hopes that it wouldn't stain; angrily aware it would take alot more to get the stains out of it. Briefly standing naked, she entered the shower, pulling the curtain close behind. She quickly got wet and washed the mustard and ketchup off of her skin before she put her head under the shower head getting her hair good and wet. A loud knock on the bathroom door made her outwardly groan; there was only one person it could be since both of their parents were still at work. "GO AWAY!" She screamed!
"You're boyfriend's here!" Russell sing-songed on the other side of the bathroom door, more for the amusement of his immediate audience.
"I SAID GO AWAY!" Mattie managed to yell and lather up the shampoo at the same time, which impressed her. There was some giggling from the direction of the door, but Mattie knew with a locked door and his ruse spent, Russell would get easily bored. And after a couple of seconds of not so quiet whispering, Russell fulfilled his promise and left his post with a parting shot at his sister. "When Vince gets here!" He warned, "I'm going to tell him you're up here wet and waiting for him!"
Mattie didn't bother to respond; it was pointless. She was just happy the little brat had left her alone at last. The privacy of the bathroom and the shower was one area which was not allowed to be breached even by a purvy little brother and his purvy friends. Her hair all lathered up she leaned back under the shower head and let the warm water separate through her hair as the suds of soap raced down her body for the tub floor. Her eyelids were closed, so the fact that there was movement beyond the shower curtain came as more of a instinct than a visible fact. Instantly on guard, and naked, or not, ready to kill her brother with a towel and a smile on her face. She knitted her eyebrows together and opened her eyes to see nothing, no shadow, against the shower curtain. Releasing her breath a little, she shook herself a little at the absurdity of the situation. Feeling through her hair, she felt a spot of condiment strewn wreckage and grabbed the shampoo again for another go around. Lathering up, this time facing the shower head with her eyes closed, she again had that sensation of movement. She cracked open an eye at the shower curtain and saw a big dark shadow pass over it, causing her to fall forward into the shower head, getting soap in her eyes. Panicking, she rubbed at her eyes with water and went into a crouched position at the bottom of the tub yelling at, who she assumed was her tormentor, "RUSSELL! GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"
The dark shadow stood still on the other side of the curtain not reacting to Mattie's tone of voice or her command. Not wanting to be on display for Russell and his friends when they finally sprung forward, Mattie looked out at the corner of the curtain at the towel rack holding her towel. She lifted her hand to grab the towel when the shadow moved closer to the curtain, its form coming more into focus. Taller than Russell, or any of his midget friends, Mattie realized for the first time that it wasn't Russell. Fear gripped her heart but common sense told her not to panic; that there was a explanation. She reached across for the towel and grabbed it in one swoop, however, as she pulled it toward her the shadow of a large hand passed over the curtain toward the end. And, despite covering herself in the towel, Mattie felt like she was freezing as she sat trapped under the shower's warm water. "Vince?" She said, hopefully. "Vince. This isn't funny."
Her little bastard of a brother must of gotten the door opened without her hearing it and let in Vince; and for whatever reason, he had agreed to scare her, and she was willing to break up with him over this point. But right now, since she was covered and he wasn't she was going to turn the tables on him. The Shadow stood looming in what a one moment appeared close up and another somewhere in the middle of the room; it was hard to tell from the sizes crossing the folds of the shower curtain. Mattie steadied herself, using the back wall to stand up and without giving Vince or anyone else any warning she pulled back the shower curtain.
Russell heard his sister's screams from outside in the backyard. He knew they weren't the usual irritated screams Matilda was famous for. There was real distress in them, and his friend Paul's face going white only hurried his response back into the house and up the stairs. The bathroom door, as always, when Matilda was in there was locked. Russell screamed at her to open the door. But she only screamed, she seemed to be screaming NO! and STOP! but than she stopped and that was worse. Russell pushed his friend Paul down the stairs to go call for help. Paul's mom was home. Russell began to try to force the door, his other friend Johnny grabbing a chair out of his room and they used that on the door but it wouldn't bulge. At wit's end, Russell yelled; "OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!" He hit the door with his fist out of frustration, and the door, opened. Not only opened, Russell heard the door unlock and turn. Paul and his mother were climbing the stairs as well as another neighbor. The police would come, as Russell's parents and more people; and all of them would ask the same question. What happened?
Mattie sits in a open area at a table with others playing cards. She doesn't see them play cards, or anything at all really. She watches the windowsills and the blinds, watching for something beyond reality that even if she could explain no one would be interested in knowing about. Russell, now grown, never visits his sister. She was taken away in a ambulance when he was twelve years old in a catonic state of mind. After drilling him for anything a brother could've done or didn't do, the powers that be decided that Mattie had had a psychotic break and it was no one's fault. But Russell knew that his mother and father blamed him and each other and everyone eventually got divorced from each other through lawyers or through high school. So the idea that he would be, after all these years, be faced with the prospect of being in the same room with her made him physically ill. But he wasn't here for her, he was here to abandon his own daughter just like his father had done with his sister. The experts told Russell and his soon to be ex-wife that their Jillie inherited her mental illness from her aunt. Russell was at his wits end. He had come home at the emergency call that his beautiful Jillie had attempted suicide, and now after doctors and medications and Jillie's refusal to accept any of it; he was facing the plexi glass room where his sister sat.
What happened? He shook his head. The twelve year old boy swore someone else was in the bathroom with Matilda. That she had been attacked. But his friends Johnny and Paul, and Paul's mother and the other neighbor all saw Matilda curled up in the tub under falling water wrapped in a wet towel and both her wrists cut. He tried to tell them at first, but the threat of being crazy and being shipped off cut that conversation short and the end of Russell's childhood and family and home were all there. Without thinking he opened the door to the community room and walked into the area, staying in the background, he refused to acknowledge the woman asking him to play cards and sat down at the table behind her. Without saying anything to her, Matilda turned around and looked right at him.
"Not the same." She smiled. She looked odd, old but young at the same time. Her skin was translucent and pasty from years of being indoors; she use to have such a beautiful tan. He didn't really think she recognized him and was about to write it off as a coincidence when her eyes followed his sharply. "Not the same. HE left the room with me." She said, and than she smiled. "Russell." She waived at him, "Bye-bye."
Russell made Jillie come home and argued with his ex-wife until Jillie started taking her medication and getting on a program of her own. He visited his mother's and stood in the bathroom where he lost his sister and breathed in the air remembering. Something struck him funny, a smell he remembered from all those years ago. Mustard. Mustard was the scent he picked up listening to Matilda. A few years had passed again, before he came to sit by Matilda's bedside. She smiled at him. "Leave me alone." She said.
"I'm sorry." Russell said, quietly.
"No, not you." She smiled. "Him." She pointed at the shadow on the wall.
For the first time Russell saw it. He recoiled was he going crazy? He smelled mustard and he turned to his sister for an explanation. She just laughed.
"What is it?" Russell couldn't help himself.
Matilda only shrugged, this question was no longer of importance to her. She nudged her brother with her gnarled hand and said, sickingly sweet; "Run, you little bastard!"
At the funeral, afterwards and in his own home, Russell thought he saw the shadow. He fell out of sorts with everyone and took retirement early sitting in the sun watching the shadows. Everyone around him thought he was crazy, his daughter Jillie tolerated him but even she was aware there was a problem going without treatment.
One day, from his porch he watched a neighbor girl of ten or so come running down the street screaming. Grabbing his cane he followed her down to a home with a broken fence and up the stairs to a locked bathroom where a child was screaming inside. Without waiting for others, the children were trying to get in. Using his cane he leverage the door and lifted it to swing open. The shadow having been interrupted recoiled at the sight of Russell, long enough for Russell to push the toweled, teenage girl out of the room.
Afterwards, cooler heads prevailed. The victim had fallen, the children and Russell had saved her. The excitement was too much for the old man and he had a heart attack. The sightings of a shadow, or something menacing were childhood fancies, and after time the children grew to believe them. And to this day, there is no shadow that will attack a woman in the shower. That's just crazy.
THE END
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Ghost story
The sun is now bright. A new day to discover what tasks I have before me, my own mystery. I will learn how to walk and talk again, to be seen and heard. Reach out from my vantage point. I feel young. I hate that.
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