Catharsis (Book 1) Page 4

  I’m getting hungry, I realize. Distractingly hungry. All this running is taking a toll on my system (I’ve run more than eight or nine miles so far.). I need to replenish some energy. And soon. Thoughts of leftover Chinese food from last night’s dinner motivate me to move a little faster.

  Reaching my neighborhood within minutes, I walk slowly towards our family's run-down two-story house. Our street is mercifully dark with only a handful of easily avoidable streetlamps (This extreme light sensitivity issue is getting old. Fast.), but that darkness has allowed me to see that our front room's light is on before I’ve gotten too close. Out of desperation, I move to the back where my bedroom overlooks the retention pond.

  Our home’s sides are old, crumbly brick, and my room is on the second floor with no strong trees anywhere in sight (This is probably a safety measure to help prevent burglars from gaining access to the upper level, but it also makes sneaking in or out nearly impossible.). We have a number of windows on the second floor but most lead to either my parents’ or sister’s room. Only one of the windows opens into my room. What I need is a way to get to my bedroom: a place with no easily accessible entry points.

  Growling in frustration, I can see where I want to be - a mere eleven feet above where I’m standing - but I have no way of getting to it without alerting my father.

  On a whim I decide to try something that shouldn’t be possible. Climbing the bricks around our house has always been impossible in the past since their quarter inch cracks had only enough room to allow my fingertips to enter, and that wasn’t enough for a useable grip (I used to try when I was younger and a bit more adventurous.). After tonight’s craziness, though, climbing a wall with just finger strength almost seems plausible. At the least, it’s worth a try before committing to the front door and confronting my father.

  Stepping up to the bricks (still foreboding and tiny-cracked), I reach my right arm up as high as it will go and stick my four fingers into the thin crack above a brick. Plunging my thumb into the crack below that brick, I squeeze. My forearm tightens as I test the grip and pull backwards. It holds. Step one accomplished.

  Following the same procedure with my left hand, I get a solid grip on the second brick. Raising my right foot, I dig the side of my shoe into a crack and push slowly upward until I’m standing on that foot. Pausing for a moment, I consider where I am: hugging a wall about two feet off the ground.

  I break into an involuntary smile. This night just continues to be full of surprises.

  Bracing my left foot into another crack, I gently release my grip with my right hand and reach up for another brick. Pinching my new handhold as tightly as I can, I pull myself up another foot. Left hand release, raise and re-grip. Rinse. Repeat.

  Once I finally give up doubting its ability to be possible, my progress speeds up, and I move more steadily. Reaching my window takes me less than a minute.

  Removing the screen is a simple enough matter, and my bad habit (according to my mother) of not locking my window pays off wonderfully. I shimmy into my dark room, replace my screen and shut the window.

  Stripping my foul clothes off, I hide them in an extra trash bag in my room, and I stuff that bag into an old, red duffel bag I had from a soccer camp I attended as a kid. I stuff that duffel bag into the bottom of my school backpack so that I can dispose of it all later.

  After putting on a clean shirt and some shorts, I check myself out in the mirror in my room (All the lights are still off, but I can see myself just fine. That’s an anomaly to be worried about later.). There are still smears of blood on my cheek and in my hair and on my hands. Grabbing a bottle of hand sanitizer from my dresser (Thanks mom for your constant germ paranoia.), I give myself a ghetto bath by scrubbing the alcohol into all the spots I can find. It does a decent job.

  With that accomplished, I check the clock in my room. It's after two in the morning, but I still don't feel tired. What I do feel is hungry. Voraciously hungry. Eat-a-cow-down-to-the-bones-in-the-Amazon-River kind of hungry.

  The plan I’ve concocted is to pretend like I've been in my room and in bed for hours. I’ll act like I came home and didn't see anyone in the front room and just went to bed and fell sleep. I'll tell my parents I didn't feel well, and I didn't check the clock so I have no idea when I got home. I'm sure I'll get in some trouble, but it would have to be less than coming in the front door after midnight. It's as solid a plan as I can come up with on short notice.

  Out of boredom, I try to find a way to pass the next couple of hours until it's time to get up for school. Lying on my bed, I stare at the ceiling and recount everything that's happened in an attempt to make some sense of it (Going over the night’s events, I notice that I can remember everything that’s happened down to the exact details. My memory is eerily perfect.), but I lose concentration whenever my stomach growls. It hurts.

  If I go into the kitchen to get food and settle my belly, then I'll have to confront my father sooner than I had planned. But if I don't go in and get something to settle my stomach, then I fear I might actually get nauseated and not have to pretend to be sick. I’ll feel sick enough for it to pass for the real thing.

  I debate with myself for several more minutes before the hunger in me puts in its vote with a cramp strong enough to double me over. The hunger's vote marks the deciding tally. Standing up, I head out to the kitchen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Opening the door of my room into the dark hall , I pause and try to get a sense of what to expect before continuing.

  All the lights are off except for one down the stairs coming from the front room. That's good news for my sensitive eyes. The muted and reflected glow off the far wall is easily tolerable.

  I can hear my father breathing in the front room; it’s a soft and heavy whoosh of air that tells me he's calm and near sleep but still conscious (Why? Why do I know that?). I can smell subtle hints of fear and worry in the air mixed with an underlying tone of anger that stings my nose (Once again, how is this something I can smell?). He's been up all night, and he's not happy.

  Sighing, I resign myself to whatever reprimands the next few minutes might hold for me. Moving down the stairs as quietly as possible (I make no sound at all. Literally none.), I step into the kitchen without turning on any lights. I still don't need to. Being able to see in this darkened room is simple.

  Before my bare feet even touch the cold tile of the room, I notice the competing fragrances. The smells are everywhere, and they're overwhelming. I can smell every box of opened food in the pantry. There are faint hints of sealed foods that haven't even glimpsed the light of day yet. I breathe in the aromas and smile having never noticed the wondrous smells of our kitchen before. It's glorious.

  After carefully getting out a plate and fork without making a noise (Any noise. At all.), I turn my attention to the refrigerator and its bountiful stores. If any food came home last night, it will be in there. Without thinking (And here I blame my tummy for its distracting effect.), I bend over and open the fridge door to get a peek at what's inside. This move puts my face level with the fridge's light that springs on as soon as the door opens.

  Instant blinding pain shoots through my eyes and pierces the hair on the back of my skull. Howling a curse, I slam the heavy metal door back into place and tumble away from the horrendous appliance that just blinded me. I can't see anything except stabbing white flashes in my eyes followed by dancing black spots. The pain is dizzying. Sitting and cursing is all I can do until the pain subsides (Well, my cursing that is...poopy pickle, and crap hats, loaf-licker and the like. I'm still at home, and under my mother's roof. I'm not crazy enough to utter anything that would offend her on the off chance she might hear. I'm in pain and possibly going insane...not stupid.).

  Within seconds of starting my crazed, gibberish-infused rant, I realize I'm no longer alone. I sense my father is next to me in the kitchen (I can smell his scent - Davidoff cologne mixed with laundry soap and old person pheromones - and I can hear his breath
ing.).

  "Christ, Catarina!" He exclaims next to me, and I giggle a little on the inside. It always makes me smile when he puts my name next to the Lord's. Forgive me, but the alliteration of that particular sin just tickles me. "What is wrong with you?"

  "Ugh," I reply as articulately as possible. My eyes are still watering from the blast, but they are clearing quickly.

  In an attempt to be helpful, my father does the worst possible thing he can at that moment. What he does is more painful than anything I can remember in my previous decade and a half of life.

  He turns on the kitchen light.

  The room flares to a horrifying whiteness around me just as I manage to get my eyes open to look at my father. The intense wave of pain that washes through me is more than I can take.

  My brain shuts down to protect itself from the attack, and that’s the last thing I remember before my world goes black.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The light is still on when my stomach manages to rouse me from my narcoleptic plunge into slumber. The piercing light still hurts. Squenching my eyes together as tightly as I can, I turn my face towards the coolness of the kitchen floor.

  "Light," I manage to get out through muffled lips smashed against my bare arm.

  " I turned it on," replies my father. "Why?"

  "Off," I continue. "Light off." I pause before continuing with, "please." I wait several seconds and hear no movement from my father.

  "It hurts my eyes. A lot."

  My father steps back towards the doorway, and there is a sharp click as the refreshing drape of blackness covers everything around me. Relief floods my nerve endings.

  He doesn’t move away from the light switch, nor does he return to where I'm lying on the floor. I can smell confusion on him now. It doesn't smell as strong as the anger or worry, but I can tell it's there.

  "Are you drunk? Have you been drinking?" His voice is soft, the sternness of it lies just beneath the surface.

  "No." (I’ve never touched alcohol. Addiction runs in the family, and it’s kept me paranoid.)

  "Are you hung-over? Is that why the light hurts your eyes?" My dad asks.

  "No. No alcohol at all,” I tell him, and then because I can sense the next question before he even has to say it. "And no drugs either. Of any kind. I'm completely sober." (As far as I know, that is.)

  In a few steps, he closes the short distance between us and bends down so he is closer to where I’m lying on the ground. Air quietly whistles through his nose, and I’m surprised to realize he is gently smelling me. Well, the air around me to be accurate. Does he also have the super senses I have? Has he been hiding them from me all these years? Is he where I got all this from? Is it inherited?

  And then I get a flash - a premonition if you will - of what he's doing. He's trying to see if he can smell marijuana or tobacco on me. I smile. He doesn't have super senses. He just has parent senses.

  "You won't smell any smoke on me, dad. There's nothing there to find."

  His body tenses next to me for a moment. I must have startled him by calling him out on it when he thought he was being sneaky.

  "Can we get up, please?" I ask. "Maybe sit at the table and talk? I think that'd be good."

  He nods and we both stand and move towards our heavy wooden kitchen table. Pulling out chairs, we sit down facing each other. Both of us are silent and just look at each other in the dark kitchen. Actually, I can see him just fine, but judging from how far his pupils are dilated I'm guessing my body isn’t much more than a shadow-filled outline. I continue to stare at him and try to figure out where to start my story when my stomach throws in its grumbly vote again. I'd almost forgotten my whole reason for coming in here.

  "Hey dad," I begin.

  "Yes," he answers cautiously. He’s guarding his response. Anger and curiosity are battling in him, but there's still some worry in there. It's just taken a back seat on our current trip down how-to-best-punish-my-daughter lane.

  "Could you, uhm, I mean, would you mind," I stop for a moment. This is going to sound dumb. "Can you get me something to eat from the fridge?" I add meekly, "Preferably something from the restaurant last night?"

  My father continues to stare at my dark shape in the oaken chair before replying, “Sure, I can do that, but is there a reason why you can't do that yourself?"

  “The...uhm...fridge light hurts my eyes right now (Yup. It sounds dumb.)." My shoulders sag after saying the words out loud. "But I can tell you what happened tonight if you’ll get me some food. My stomach hurts. A lot."

  He doesn't move. He just stares at me. I know he heard me. I watched his face twitch as he listened to my words, and I can still sense the anger on him.

  "Damn right you will," he finally says and stands up to walk the few feet to our flower-magnet and school report card covered fridge. Those four words tell me a lot. My father never curses. For him to say that one word says everything.

  I follow his movements to the fridge door in anticipation of something to calm my belly, then I remember the door light just as his fingers wrap around the vertical handle of the fridge. Turning my head, I clench my eyes shut to protect them, but the light doesn't seem as bad this time. Slowly opening them, I look at the far wall and the light is just fine. My father's silhouette moves in the lit rectangle of the opening. Looking directly at the light now is only mildly irritating; it’s nowhere near the blast of pain it was earlier. Am I getting better? Is it because I'm farther away? Was it because it surprised me? These are questions I have no idea how to answer yet.

  The smells the door has unleashed are powerful and intoxicating. I smell honey ham in the deli drawer. The artificial sugars of an opened can of Diet Pepsi my mom has put back on the top shelf hints the air. The smell of the Moo Goo Gai Pan in the enclosed foil container manages to reach me before my father even pulls it out. Smelling all of these things at once is wonderful, but it still doesn't strike me as normal.

  "Do you want a Mountain Dew? You might as well have the caffeine. You have school in a few hours."

  I nod my head as I sort through all the aromas hitting me at once. He turns away from my fridge-door-lit features and grunts before grabbing a green can from the middle shelf.

  He sets the foil and plastic container down in front of me along with the can. The intoxicating smell of nourishment this close to me is more than I can bear, and I tear off the plastic top and scoop some into my mouth using just my fingers. It's cold, and I don't care. I chew and swallow, and start on a second bite before the realization catches up with me.

  I can't taste the food. I can smell it, but there's no taste. At all. I might as well be eating boiled cardboard for all the stimulation it's giving my palette.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I pop open my can of mountain-brewed green nectar and chug as big a gulp as my gullet can hold. Swallowing the mouthful of sweetened carbonated water, I wait for the expected burn in my throat, but nothing happens. No delicious lemon-lime bite on my tongue. No rush of joy that only a can of the best made Pepsi product can bring. Nothing but the bland taste of the water that was used to boil the cardboard that my food consisted of.

  This is awful. Whatever happened to me tonight robbed me of the sense of taste. My tongue is useless, but apparently I can hear like a bat. According to my ability to see everything perfectly in pitch black, I must have the vision of a jungle cat on meth. I can pull scents out of the air better than a champion basset hound. I have the strength of a 'roided up Bruce Lee. But my taste? I have the taste buds of an English culinary school dropout (I heard once that British people boil everything and their food tastes awful. That was the best analogy I could come up with.).

  Sighing, I stare at the food in front of me and then continue eating it with my fingers, but much less enthusiastically. I might not be able to taste it, but there’s a chance it could quell the deafening growls generating from my gastro-intestinal tract.

  My dad watches me a bit longer before asking, "Is there someth
ing wrong with the food?"

  "No. Yes,” I say and then pause to organize my thoughts. “Well, no, nothing is wrong with the food. I think there is something wrong with me, though." This isn't exactly where I wanted to start, but I also don't want to ignore his question and leave him hanging. "I can't taste it. At all. It all tastes," I think for a moment for the best image to create for my father, "like Nana Maria's beans."

  My dad flinches slightly. "Oh." (My father's madre is known for making the most tasteless refried beans anybody has ever willingly consumed. Her boiling and mashing and seasoning process somehow manages to rob the legumes of any possible hint of flavor. And she makes them all the time. Their existence continues to haunt my father.)

  I need to tell him something about what's happened tonight. I don't want to keep all of this to myself. My original plan to keep all of this a secret and just make up a lie for my father about being in my room all night no longer strikes me as a good idea. Trying to not lose my nerve, I plunge forward.

  "But that's only the tip of the weird-things-happening-to-Catarina iceberg tonight. I have a bit of a story for you, and I really hope you believe it more than I do." I smile at him after that, but from his reaction I'm not sure if he doesn't hear me or just doesn't find it amusing.

  Not sure where to begin recounting everything, I start with a question that I don't know the answer to. "When was the last time you saw me tonight?"

  He doesn't answer immediately, but when he does it is quietly. "When you stormed out of the restaurant."

  That's news to me. "I did? Why?"

  "Good question. You and Leyna were arguing about something, and your mother and I got involved. You got upset, yelled at us and walked out stating you'd meet us at home. Then several hours later I find you in the kitchen laying on the floor screaming. I'm a little curious as to how this 'unbelievable story' of yours is going to play out."