Doing the Wash

The laundry basket is too heavy.

I set it down on the step below. The gaps between them are too big, the rickety wood thin with rot.

Don't look down. I won't.

Below me, something is breathing. Dave is going to be so mad. I have to get this done.

Where is Brian?

In his room.

I push the basket hard with my foot and it tumbles, sliding across the gap to the next step. I follow, picking it up again. So heavy. It needs to get done. Somewhere a kid is crying. Brian? No. In bed. The basement stairs move slightly under me. Something is wrong. I feel like I might throw up.

I pull the chain on the bare bulb when I get to the bottom. There is breathing behind me. Turn.

No one there.

Where is Brian?

Brian is in bed.

No clean anything. Have to get this done. Dave is going to be so mad.

The hallway is too long, and thin. It is silent like those liminal spaces, an uncanny reproduction of my own house. Something wrong.

The storage room gapes to the left of me now, and in it, something shifts, a part of the darkness comes loose. I jump, move forward, looking close. Weapon, I need a weapon. I'm still not safe. Still-

No. Just the vacuum box, standing half-crumpled in the gloom. I run my hands through my hair. Pick up the basket again, so heavy, and walk down the hall.

It stretches like beige taffy. 'Help', I say, but the words die on my lips. We're in trouble. Who's in trouble- Brian? Brian is in bed.

Need to do this. Now. No more laundry. David will be mad.

Something is moving in the room at the end, churning. I go toward it but the hall refuses to end. The walls moan. The laundry basket is so heavy. Something is wrong. Brian?

In bed. In bed.

I get to the laundry room and stand in the dimness, watching the dryer mutter and shake to a halt. Right. Not done yet; need to get this finished.

The lint filter up top is sticking up weirdly and I reach for it. My hand is the wrong color and does not look like part of my body. I pull the lint filter towards me and it comes up, and up, and keeps going, like a long black tongue. Clumps of old black gunk fall off and scatter on the dirty white top of the dryer.

Not lint. Spiders, scrambling, crawling up over my arms and ticking, stinging.

A thundering comes from behind me suddenly, someone pounding down the stairs. I moan, try to stuff the lint filter back, but it cuts me, slicking my fingers with bright red. I stare. The colors are sharpening as my blood drips down onto the top of the dryer. Time to load the washer. Time to...

Light. Blinding. Crying. Brian? In bed. In-

"STOP."

.

What am I doing here?

The thought occurs to me through a fog, and I hear a clamoring at my back, the sound of raised voices. I turn, and the light gets more intense, slicing into my eyes.

I'm at home. I'm in my laundry room. I'm in the laundry room. I'm at home.

Men are here in blue suits, strapped with guns. Police. Why are police here, in my laundry room? And then I hear the crying, again- not a dream- and my head jerks around, looking for him. Brian. Where-?

There he is, standing beside one of the officers, his head in his hands, all eight years of him seemingly melted down to four. The officer has a hand on his back, comforting him. That should be my job.

"I tried to tell Dad..." he says, "I heard you're not...you're not supposed to wake them." He hiccuped, stuttering to get his words out. "Everyone says that. But Dad...he didn't listen. He didn't listen and-"

"PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!" another officer bellows, and it takes a moment to realize he is talking to me. I slowly raise my arms in compliance. It's not the first time I've sleepwalked. It is the first time I've woken from an episode with an entire police force in my house.

"WALK TOWARDS US, NOW!" the same officer says over the sound of Brian’s frightened sobbing. He won't look at me- my boy won't look at me- and when I obediently start forward, my foot catches on something and I nearly trip. My eyes travel down, slow, as if they already know what they'll find. Nothing softens the horror, and I let out a little cry as I understand what I'm seeing.

What I must have done.

"DO NOT LOWER YOUR HANDS. CONTINUE TOWARDS US. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR HOMICIDE."

I feel like I've stumbled out of one barely remembered dream into another. I continue forward, stepping over my husband's dead body and turning without protest as they put the cuffs on me. My son's crying is getting more distant- they are taking him away. But maybe- maybe not forever. I'm all he has. And at that, I can't help but feel the tiniest flutter of hope.

There will be bad times ahead, but the nightmare, at least, is over.

.

Beacon Hill Times- January 20th, 2014

WOMAN KILLS HUSBAND IN SLEEPWALKING INCIDENT

A local woman, Judy Bennett, claims to have killed her husband, David Bennett, unknowingly in a random episode of somnambulism. Ms. Bennett has apparently been experiencing these episodes since she was young, yet none have ever resulted in violence to herself or others before.

The couple's 8-year-old son, Brian Bennett (currently placed in foster care while the investigation continues), woke to his father shouting. He claims to have witnessed his mother, asleep, club his father suddenly over the head with a laundry iron (marks on the deceased seem consistent with this story). His mother then began to drag the body to their basement. When she did not respond to Brian's attempts to speak to her, he ran to dial 911.

Bennett, 43, was found in her basement laundry room, beside the washer/dryers. If she was indeed asleep, the presence of the task force seemed to wake her. Police have made several previous house calls to the Bennett address for domestic violence, and it is believed by some that the lawyer on her case may be pursuing an argument of self-defense if the sleepwalking angle falls through. More news on this case as it develops.