Merely a second draft, still some rough spots.
Black Widow
I feel drained. Despairing. Murkier than any depression. This is something different and I
am so shattered that I canʼt seek the roots of it; I can find no cause no matter how
deeply I delve within myself. It drives people away, drives me away from people. Like a
wild animal, I prefer to lick my wounds in solitude; in safety.
Years ago, a stranger walked up to me and spoke. He was something of a vagrant,
working at a mobile home dealership, returning to the lot late at night to bathe, sleep
and dress in the home set up for an office, always the first salesman on site in the
morning.
Dray was badly frayed around the edges, worn and tired, the shell of his being thinning,
nearly transparent in places where the gray pallor of his soul became visible to Sight.
Thatʼs something Iʼve always been susceptible to, the pain that comes from others. It
drove me to therapy for a time, to an extremely pragmatic therapist; sheʼd been a
physicist in her previous career, so she wasnʼt buying — or selling — any New Age easy
outs. We put in over a yearʼs time together, twice a week. Tears, epiphanies, denials,
“oh shit” moments, the standard therapy fare, until the day she leaned across the gap
between the chair I always chose for my seat, being too self-contained to ever literally
lay on the couch, and took my hands in hers.
I happened to know from outside sources that her husband was suffering from a
terminal illness and that she was devoted to him beyond the usual measure. Her
anguish was palpable to me. She didnʼt know that, of course, until she took my hands in
hers, thinking to comfort me.
In the midst of squeezing my hands to encourage me, she stopped in mid grasp,
holding on, scanned my eyes silently for a moment, then let go of my hands and sat
back.
“Youʼre an empath. Youʼre like a receiver thatʼs always on, with no filters, no shut off. No
wonder you live on the edge.”
The cognitive dreams, the Seeing, being conscious of othersʼ thoughts, the prescience,
an awareness of evil and goodness, auric perception, started back as far as I can
remember. When I was around eight, about the time my menses came, I became aware
of the reality of these things on a more conscious level. Somehow I knew not to tell
anyone.
But I grew up with it, learned to bury it deep and ignore it for a great while, but still never
learned to turn it off.
Thank the Gods.
But Dray picked up on it. My “mistake of the moment” worked at the mobile home lot
and weʼd come by to bring the dinner Iʼd cooked to share with Dray. We sat and listened
to his stories of experiences in the Southwest with the shamans while we all ate.
I donʼt remember why, but he had put his big, scarred hands on my shoulders to show
us something heʼd learned from a medicine man, many years and peyote buttons ago,
and he stopped, stared at me and slow tears came to his eyes.
“Youʼre like some angel come to take othersʼ pain from them. You absorb it, take it
inside yourself.”
I couldnʼt say anything as the tears that had begun their journey in his eyes traced down
my cheeks.
No escaping it. I knew, even being unaware, and the words of the scientist and the
tattered sometime shaman only confirmed what was, from two worlds in total opposition.
So here I am today. Drained.
Why?
I could settle. It hurts that Iʼve never been wholly loved, never been cherished as a
woman, as a human, even as a child.
Iʼm an inconvenient being. Always have been. Probably has something to do with all this
Seeing.
Not many people want to be Seen that truly, nor do they truly want to be loved for
themselves. Oh, they say they do, but what they want is to be loved for their illusions of
themselves and they look for a partner with whom they can mirror that shallow graph
back and forth, in an endless reflection that becomes smaller and more
indistinguishable with each repetition. Ever find yourself between two mirrors hung on
opposite walls? Thatʼs it.
And so, once again, Iʼve caught myself trying to settle; this time it seemed maybe there
were more than dregs at the bottom of the cup for me and I made yet another leap of
faith into loving, or at least amorous arms.
At least I went in feet first this time, and a good thing; the water was shallow.
There was a great deal that should have made me step back, but thatʼs not my nature
and never will be, and there was romance and sweet words that over-glossed the cold
hard fact that Brett was always there when he needed me, and I obliged, leaving my
own bed to go to him when he called to tell me heʼd been wakened by bad dreams,
going to roust him from despondency when our phone conversations turned to how he
was so depressed he couldnʼt move off the couch. His family, mother, brother, even his
son who was understandably wary of yet another girlfriend/potential wife, called me if
they couldnʼt reach him, the unspoken fear in their voices, wanting me to be the one to
find him if heʼd shoved a bullet through his head. Iʼd reasoned and reassured him
through imaginary illnesses; cajoled, pleaded and encouraged him through the one real
health threat he courted. I absorbed all this for the greater part of our two yearsʼ
courtship, and he had come so far, seeing a new professional and financial life open up,
getting out, interacting, strutting, showing me off to his acquaintances, looking forward
to a come back with a vengeance, looking back with indignation replacing self-pity.
But all of that is secondary to the story. This is, by the way, more of a tale of horror than
a romance.
In the course of time, after nearly two years, after Iʼd helped him get back on his feet —
delicately — emotionally and professionally, this leeching darkness began to take hold of
my soul and I didnʼt know why, and Iʼd distanced myself from my “arts” since Brett had
told me so many times that I “creeped him out.” So . . .
Brett had picked up a client, “Martha.” Her sister had referred her. The sister knew Brett
from an internet forum that Iʼd participated in sporadically but abandoned mainly
because the bad energy and prurience made my skin crawl and, frankly, interaction
made me feel unclean.
Rather, the client, Martha, picked up Brett.
A widow. Her husband (married when she chose him) had died unexpectedly and
unexplainably when they were on vacation, a vacation theyʼd taken as she was
recovering from breast cancer therapy. Heʼs been dead barely over six months, and itʼs
been two years since her treatment. She said, “Iʼm a cancer survivor and I donʼt want to
waste time,” and she went in for the kill, and yes, she knew all about me. Brett referred
to me often on the forum and Iʼd been brought up with some regularity. They even talked about me.
After sneaking around for a couple of months, Brett made a balls up of weaseling out of
our relationship, of course, mostly via e-mail, as a weak man will, betrayal, numerous
and varying stories, lies — more even to himself than to me, and he believes his own
bullshit as thoroughly as he fell for the flattery, even though heʼs been played on the
self-same line, almost verbatim, in the past and wound up, well, in the emotional mess
he was in when he stumbled into my life.
But thatʼs on him and isnʼt my woe anymore, nor are his dramas, hypochondrias or
vapors.
The first few days were rough, predictably. I donʼt love lightly, no matter the
unworthiness of the subject. Somehow, when a lover has ambitions to be a better man I
see it as done. Zen archery applied to love. It took a bit of adjustment to see him without
that soft focus lens and star filter Iʼd been using, but I made it and the filth of despair is
dissipated, blown away by a clean wind.
Friday night I went to Walmart; out of cream for my coffee in the morning. I go through
more of it than I should. My little Pitbull listens for the clink of my spoon as I stir the dark
sugar into the Creole chicory coffee mix I like. Then when she hears the breaching of the refrigerator door
seal she appears at her bowl, wide eyed in anticipation of her
dollop, like a young Catholic girl at her first Communion, waiting for her first taste of the
sacramental wine.
Never do I go in the far store entrance, even though I usually park toward the middle of
the lot where I can always find a spot near the front since my faithful Fila is usually with me
when I go out at night. It amuses her to watch people while Iʼm gone, and I donʼt worry
about some idiot teasing her if sheʼs where thereʼs a steady stream of customers and
cart boys passing by. But for some reason I went in the far door, not the grocery door, looked off to my left
and there they were. Brett didnʼt see me, I donʼt think, not with his blank, downcast eyes
at any rate. I doubt Martha would know me if she did since I donʼt like photos of myself
floating around and the one Brett has on his computer, well, I don’t see him sharing that with her. Surely.
My first impression was of how beaten he was. His shoulders were slumped, his head
down. He was shuffling. Ever hear the expression, “meat sack?” She was three quarters
of a step ahead of him, militaristic. Imperious. Nurse Ratched. Like a mother with an
irritating child. There was at least a foot and a half between them. No talking. She
looked straight ahead, he looked at the ground.
When Brett and I were at that stage in our relationship — really, up until just a couple of
months ago — he always had hold of my hand, watching my face, talking to me, even
stopping to kiss me in the middle of the aisle, wanting to be seen, proud of his
inamorata, eager to show the rest of the world what heʼd found. We talked as we waited
in line, as we walked, animated, intense.
I continued into the store, then thought again and hesitated, watching them as they
turned the corner to the exit and as they left; what I saw stayed with me like a high definition
video, stored away on the drive to replay again and again, vivid and real with the option
to pause the image.
Most people have vari-colored auras surrounding them, somewhat muted, too often
pastel or muddy colored. The rare jewel hued one catches my attention; so do the
murky, dark ones.
Brettʼs has always been pale, with flashes of sky blue and specks of sun gold, but
Friday night it was a pale, sickly wan shade of greige. It was flickering and narrow about
him.
Martha . . . That aura was swamp black. Not the velvet mystery black of a new moon
sky; the black of dried blood, cancerous and unclean, not the normal, surrounding halo I
mostly see, but emanating from her core. It pulsed and expanded. It bled into Brettʼs,
and where its disease reached, his waned in time with its pulse.
Now I know, I have seen it. I know where that darkness that threatened to overwhelm
me came from, and now I know why Marthaʼs husband is dead.
Sheʼs a survivor.
**********
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
~William Shakespeare “Hamlet”, Act 1 scene 5
All the heaviness, the awful lethargy and something that was worse than depression lifted like a curtain. The chest pains stopped. Even the horrible soreness in my joints, bouts of vertigo, inability to walk across the yard without losing my breath, the inability to focus or think that had come crashing down on me over the last two and a half months or so . . . lifted. Gone.
My clocks are speeding up again. For the last month and a half or so they’d been keeping regular time which was convenient, but not the norm in my world. The first night my bedroom clock jumped two hours in the course of eight, but it’s settled down to a standard ten to fifteen minutes a day, with an occasional quickening. I can gather a ball of energy in my hands again — haven’t been able to do that for at least a month.
And I can write again.
felurian 