Charades

It happened again.

Granted, it had been a while since the last time, but it was there.

It's not like you hear about in movies, though. Neither was it like that blog post written by your next door neighbor's cousin who once had 'it'.

More than anything, it felt like that incessant state of lethargy you get lumbered with after a bad bout of the flu. The purgatory period where you should be thankful for finally being able to breathe through your nose, but not being able to appreciate the newfound sensation because your body feels like it's done ten rounds in the ring.

That floaty feeling, as if your body's on autopilot. Your whole life becomes a game of The Sims. As if somebody else is controlling you.

You, the observer, watching.

And then of course, comes it. I wish I could turn down the noise that follows.

But I can't. So now?

I write.

I write in this little black book because that's what they tell me to. They write in theirs about what I've written in mine.

We repeat.

I've been on this hamster wheel for a while now. At first, I tried to fight it. To stop them in their tracks as I stopped in mine. A few jarring spins around the wheel soon taught me that jumping of did nobody any favors. Rather than land headfirst into a pile of soiled hay, I learned the best way forward was to just keep on running..

'How's your sleep been, Billie?'

'Fine,' I lied.

He wrote. I wrote. His eye twitched. I read somewhere that a twitch is symptomatic of lying.

'Honesty is encouraged inside these walls, Billie.'

For a brief moment, a flicker of sincerity flashed across his eyes, before dissipating as quickly as the steam from the mug of tea he would never enter the room without.

The blackness of his pupils returned, back to his script.

'Has your appetite returned?'

No.

'Billie?'

'Yes. Yes it has.'

'Let's got back to the day the volume changed. Can we start from the moment you woke up?'

Things had always been slightly off-key. It us for most of us. Only, most of us don't tune into it.

Lucky for them.

That day, I was forced to.

Our brains are normally too congested with mental ghosts of the media we consume; each spinning around our heads and intercepting our usual thoughts. A catalog of outfits of the day, bottomless brunches and yet another selfie posted on the world's new collective brain. Your mind is so full of tweets, stories, app update reminders and #hashtag new profile pictures each multiplying with every scroll, slowly forming into one torturous image that makes up the deafening voice in your head.

Only, it's not your voice anymore.

Meanwhile, Sally from Finance's status update has taken the last three megabytes of space in your brain, so you don't notice. The noise continues, dulling to a hum. A barely noticeable hum.

But that day, there was a bang.

'It started with a bang,' I told Dr Kennedy.

He wrote. I wrote.

'Take me back to the morning of the bang,' he squinted as he leaned forward. 'What was the very first thing you did after you woke?'

It came like an assassin in the night.

It wasn't.

The sun shone through the blinds, telling me it was morning. I stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil - the only place I felt at home. The kitchen was my vacation from the heaviness of life. My one place of light.

A knock at the door.

As the kettle signified the water was ready to pour, the once piece of goodness I had in life soon turned out to be like everything else - gone.

The floor shook. The mugs on the side rattled. Everything around me vibrated, causing an earthquake that shook and shook inside my head.

Another knock at the door, so piercing the weight of the sound knocked me off balance.

'It was a Tuesday,' I told him.

He wrote. I wrote.

'And what happened on this particular Tuesday?'

I steadied myself on the counter, trying to make sense of the deafening sounds around me. Another terror attack?

No. It hadn't been long since the last. The last time I left the house: March 24th.

The mugs crept in slow motion, returning to their stationary hanging. But the sound. The sound continued.

Another knock. Louder this time.

Hesitant, I glanced through the peephole to eliminate signs of danger.

A smartly dressed woman stood impatiently, wearing the whitest smile I'd ever seen. Fake, of course. Nobody's smile was real these days, least not strangers who knock on your door with a rudely deafening force.

As fleeting as that meeting through the peephole was, I knew that was it. Life had changed forever. This was the moment I'd wished would never come. The one that haunted my dreams. The one everybody told me was all in my head.

That noise certainly wasn't.

Another knock, louder still. I knew she wasn't going to give up. What else could I do?

'Billie?' her eyes widened as I opened the door.

A man stood a few feet behind her, bowing his head.

'Yes?' I eyed the pair with caution.

'I'm so glad we've found you!'

I held the door slightly ajar, eager to keep a barrier between us. If I slammed the door in their faces now, I could maybe change fate. Call the police. Signal for help. But I knew nobody would believe me.

'Oh wipe that worry off your face, sweetheart,' her smile was so warm it almost melted the iciness of her lies. 'We're family!'

She leapt forward with force for an embrace. The sound ricocheted through my every bone. Another earthquake erupted in my head, but I knew the worst of the blasts were yet to come.

**************

'They announced it with a bang,' I told Dr Kennedy.

Party poppers filled the air, courtesy of the neighbors who'd gathered around in their troops. News had spread that I'd found my birth mother, or that she'd found me.

Bombs of laughter erupted across every corner of my once silent living room, exploding with a knowing mockery. The sound had lessened, but it was still there. That's how it works. It tells me when there's danger.

I know this now.

And even way back then, when I barely understood this shining of mine, I still knew something was very wrong.

'Announced what, Billie?' asked Dr Kennedy.

'They told me I'd cashed in big. $20,000 big.'

I hadn't.

'I see. And what the source of this sum?'

'Sandra.'

For the first time in these sessions, a hint of surprise swept over his face.

On cue, he wrote in his little black book.

I braced. Each stroke of his pen caused the desk to tremble, awakening a once-dormant earthquake that erupted inside my eardrum. Danger.

I always knew Dr Kennedy was an impostor, but dangerous?

Something was coming.

'And why had Sandra called round that day?'

'We're family,' I lied.

Dr Kennedy's face showed signs of the just-noticeable raise in his eyebrow. He was good at playing the game. Even his ID tag played along.

Dr Ian Bentall, it read. I knew his real name. He didn't know I knew. We've been on this hamster wheel a while now.

'And how exactly are you related?'

I knew something was off from the moment she knocked on the door, but if I could've preempted the true travesty that was to follow? Well, there's no point analyzing the past, it'll only lie to you.

'She's my mother.'

He played his game. I played mine. He knew exactly how we were related. At least, he knew how she told everybody we were.

'My real one,' I clarified, keeping up the facade.

He wrote. I wrote.

'She'd come to find me.'

Noise continued to buzz around the room. More than a longing to rid the unwanted presence of strangers in my living room, I pined after the sound of blissful nothingness.

The sound of silence I hadn't been granted in so long.

'I can't believe you finally found her!' screamed the woman from 44.

We'd never spoken before this precise moment. I wish we never had.

'Even better that she's rich,' she winked.

And there it was. News had spread not only that my birth mother had found me, but the real motivator behind anybody feigning niceties - money.

Sandra was some big-shot lawyer from D.C. She came with the suit and the glasses and the expensive perfume. Told me - and my entire block - that she'd been saving $1,000 each year we'd been apart, in the hopes of one day handing it to me in person.

$20,000 as a commiseration for being absent my whole life?

I knew it was a trick. This was not my mother.

'Let's play a game!' Sandra yelled from the other side of the room.

The sound traveled from the top of my skull to the tips of my knees with brutal force. Danger.

The man who always stood a few feet behind Sandra walked forward. I saw his face properly for the first time.

'Charades!' the man yelled.

The noise pierced my skull.

Danger, it echoed. Get out.

He looked me dead in the eye with a knowing amusement. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

It was him.

The man who plagued my dreams. He looked different, but I knew that expression. I knew he'd always try and find a way to get to me, but a plan this elaborate? In front of this many people?

He was halfway through Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when I neared the door.

'You're not supposed to use your words, Ste!' said Sandra in a tone so sickening it'd make someone with even the strongest of stomachs vomit.

As Sandra laughed, so did Ste. It was an infectious venom they shared. Only, when his vocal cords gave way to laughter, the room began to shake.

With each wail, I felt the force run through every nerve in my body.

He was resolute on acting out those last two words. Bang, bang. He clapped twice with a power words do not do justice.

Desperate to turn down the sound, I shot for the door.

**********

'It ended with a bang.'

And for a brief, blissful moment - there was silence.

'And by -'

'I didn't kill him,' I told Dr Kennedy.

He wrote. I wrote.

'Dean, Billie? You didn't kill Dean?'

No. That's the name he gave to the cops.

'Yes.'

He closed his little black book, signalling the session was over.

At last,

there was silence.

***********

'I've been writing,' I told Dr Kennedy.

'Has it been helping?'

No. Nothing does.

'Yes.'

'And what exactly have you been journaling? Would you like to share?'

Life used to be full of noise, I read from the little black notebook lay in front of me. The silence in its place is deafening. He filled up every room with laughter. You could hear Dean's smile before you saw it. Louder than life itself, every move he made was an audible blessing to those lucky enough to be in earshot.

'Not this week, Dr Kennedy.'

He wrote. I wrote.

She was in the news again today. Billie. Paranoid schizophrenic, they say. She took everything. All I have left is my little black book to fill the silence.

He closed his book with a thud, a signal that meant our session was over.

I welcomed the sound.

The session may have been over, but as for my plan to get to her?

That's still very much in its first draft.

2.24.2021

Patient showing further signs of Dissociative Disorder. 'Sandra' now showing dominance over 'Billie'. Both in denial over homicide. Suicidal tendencies present. Patient to be moved to higher security.

Dr Ian Bentall