Motion Masquerade

Ariya awoke with her knees tucked up tightly against her chest and her arms cinched securely around her legs. Her head felt leaden and foggy, and her vision was bleary — as if spiders had spun intricate, sticky cobwebs between her eyelids as she slept. It was dark and Ariya struggled to retrieve her most recent memories.

It was quite a task to pull her hands apart, stiff and sore as they were from being clasped together for too long. Her tingling fingertips graced the edges of the leather boots she was fond of wearing before touching the ground beneath her. Ariya ran her palms against it: soft, but pilled — like a carpet. She definitely wasn’t at home with its cool Saltillo ceramic tiles. Struggling to lift her aching head, she reached behind her. Her left hand slipped against the silken texture of the wall. Where the fuck am I? she wondered.

“Hello?” Ariya called out. Her voice sounded like fallen autumn leaves — withered, dry, and crackling. She swallowed and tried again. “Hello?”

She thought she could hear the faint sound of voices somewhere in the distance in front of her. Blindly, she attempted to stand. Ariya’s legs were like the youngest boughs of a mesquite tree in the vicious winds of a summer monsoon. They swayed and buckled beneath her. She fell to her knees, the pain causing a swift burst of brightly colored stars in her head. She rocked back into a sitting position and swiped at the wet wound on her right leg, mumbling, “Son of a bitch.” Then thought, Wait a minute. Where the hell are my pants?

Ariya ran her hands down the front of her torso, finding the hem of her t-shirt and then discovered the flannel of her husband’s boxer shorts. In a mild panic, she thought, I really need to try and remember how I got here.

Again, she was momentarily distracted by the indistinct sound of voices. She could’ve sworn she heard the deep rumble of her brother’s laughter; but, he’d been gone for the better part of a decade. Don’t lose your shit, Baby Girl, she told herself.

Ariya ran her hands through her long, dark hair. It was damp with sweat and hopelessly tangled. What was I doing before I fell asleep? As this thought tumbled through her mind she was temporarily blinded by a bright circle of light. Her eyes adjusted and she realized it was a spotlight — exactly like the ones they used to use in all those high school theatrical productions she was a part of.

“Hello?” she shouted again.

She looked around her and saw that she was sitting on a carpet with a lurid peacock feather pattern in colors her mother would’ve described as “only fit for a whore house” — scarlet red, canary yellow, and lavender. Ariya burst into giggles. These were shades that Ariya had once adored and wanted to decorate her childhood bedroom in. In fact, she and her mother had once had a terrible fight about it. Of course, her mother had won and doused the room in evergreen and mauve. Focus, she told herself, get your shit together.

She braced herself against the wall and stood on trembling limbs. She looked to her left and then to her right. Ariya realized that she was in a narrow hallway, both walls adorned with carmine-colored, silk curtains. She couldn’t see any doors nor the end of the corridor on either side. What the fuck? Though she didn’t think she’d been here before it felt eerily familiar.

There was a burst of sound, like pebbles being shaken in a glass, and tiny hail stones began to fall from somewhere above. Ariya shouted in terror and squeezed her eyes shut while her arms instinctively flew above her head. When she realized she wasn’t going to be hurt by the tiny missiles, she opened her eyes and let her hands falls to her sides.

She crouched down and inspected the fallout: pills. Dozens and dozens of pills.

A chorus of laughter filled the hallway and she recognized not only the sound of her brother’s throaty chuckle, but the belly whoop of her Uncle Kirt. Kirt had also died many years ago. Oh my God, she thought, am I dead? And then, she remembered.

Ariya had filled the bathtub with hot water, grabbed a bottle of Jameson’s, and downed every pill in the house… she couldn’t remember taking off her boots or making it to the bathtub though.

Fuck, she thought, I’m goddam dead.

“Baby, come back to me.” This voice was not muffled like the others. It sounded like it had been broadcast over a loudspeaker; and this time, Ariya had no problem distinguishing who it was. It belonged to her husband, Anel.

“Don’t leave me,” Anel whispered, “I need you to stay.”

“Anel?” Ariya cried, “I’m here. I’m right here!”

“Please, Ariya,” Anel said, “Please, wake up.”

The joyful raucous in the distance grew louder and Ariya could hear her brother telling one of his famously hilarious anecdotes. She desperately longed to see his brilliant smile and feel his warm embrace.

The length of the hallway lit up and two doors became visible — one at each end. To her right was the sound of the people she had lost; to her left was the melancholy pleas of her husband.

Ariya’s heart yearned to be with both.

“Ariya,” Anel’s voice broke as he said her name, “come back to me. I can’t do this without you, my love.”

“And then,” she heard her brother say, “we knocked that frickin’ Christmas tree straight through the screen door, right off the patio, and on to the golf course. My sister was fierce!”

Ariya closed her eyes, asked for forgiveness, and sprinted towards the door.

Dazed and confused, she tried to speak, but couldn’t. Ariya reached out and clawed at the tube in her throat, desperate to remove it.

Anel grabbed her hands and said, “Honey? Honey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Hang on. Let me get the nurse. You have an intubation tube down your throat. They’re going to have to remove it before you can talk.”

Anel pressed the button above her head and then bent down over her. His eyes were full of tears as he kissed her forehead and then her cheeks. He continued holding Ariya’s hands gently in his.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said, “I’m so glad you made it back.”

This post is in response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge #518.