Sarah stood over the sink, hands dipped in the soapy warm water washing the utensils. The scent of lemon infused the air around her, which was the scent of the soap she was using. Normally, the soft, velvety feel of soap bubbles, the almost tepid warmness of the water and the lemon scent calmed her nerves and helped her to relax. Yet today, the smell of the soap was cloying her, making her feel like she was suffocating. The warmness of the water caused her to feel disgust, wondering why the water’s temperature was so indecisive: it should either be hot or cold. Yet Sarah was still objective enough to realize that this had nothing to do with the water but rather what she had witnessed with Mark.
Mark had spoken: it was not what he had said that had agitated her so, something bound to happen to any couple, but rather that he had actually spoken. For other couples, hearing your partner speak was not such a big deal. The fact was that Mark had come back from work late at night, his clothes drenched in the water and with black bluish bruises all over his body and had not spoken since. A rather controlling man with a temper to match, she had at first thought that he was playing mind games and simply ignored it. As for the bruises, she was used to seeing him banged up and had learnt early on not to ask questions.
Within a few days however, she was worried. He no longer went out of the house at all and had to be reminded to take care of himself. By the time she decided to call a specialist, Mark seemed to be stuck in another world. It was now several months since Mark came home in that fateful night and she was at the end of her rope. Three consultations and thousands of dollars later, she still didn’t know what was wrong with her husband. While two experts seem to lean towards Schizophrenia, they could neither agree which psychological disorder afflicted Mark nor its possible cause. In her opinion, all that their expensive opinions did confirm to was that Mark was messed up. She could have told them that already and maybe made herself some money in the process.
What she hated most was the fact that she thought Mark was faking it. Each day, it seemed like he had somehow managed to unlearn something he previously knew, something she now had to do for him. She hated herself for thinking that Mark could do that to her while also hating Mark for doing this to her. In those moments of clarity when she could look at the situation soberly and objectively, she knew Mark would never do that to her. His controlling nature and hatred of dependency was rooted in a fierce need for freedom; in fact, it was what had attracted her to him. He would never want to be dependent on her leave alone anyone else in the world. She had long accepted the fact that there was a part of his life she would never be a part of, secret parts of him she would never know.
Of late, Mark had started following her around as a little baby or a puppy would. He was like a shadow that reminded her constantly of her circumstances and his constant hounding sometimes threatened her more than looking down a gun barrel or meeting a mad dog would. In her uncharitable moments, which were increasing by the minute, she called him in her mind her Mad Dog.
Mark, in street slang, worked as a fixer and exterminator. His job ranged from making bodies disappear to turning humans into bodies. He was highly regarded for his skills and his fees reflected it. He understood that what was happening to him related to his job but already, he was forgetting what it is that exactly got him into his current predicament. When the call had come in, he had been reluctant to take on the job. He had just collected payment for an assignment he had completed and was flush with money. However, the fee of the job had changed his mind. Even by his high rates, the fees offered for the job was astronomical. It was the kind of money on which he and Sarah could retire on in Japan, where both he and Sarah always fantasized about relocating to. Now it seems that the fees, in addition to changing his mind figuratively, was going to change it literally too.
When he had gotten home on that fateful night, he had been slurring like a drunkard. Rather than alarm Sarah, he had simply take a bath, changed into warm clothes, eaten and gone to sleep. He had been sure that the slurring would go away in the morning, attributing it to tiredness or getting too old and spineless for the job. A good night’s sleep should take care of any fatigue and misplaced conscience, he figured. He had learnt one thing that night: when he slept, It gained even more control over his brain. By the morning, he had lost his power of speech and writing. Since then, he slept as little as possible to slow down the taking over of his mind and self.
He thought he had seen it all and could deal with anything life threw his way. Yet what was taking place inside his mind was like nothing he had ever known. Initially, he could clearly tell when he was in charge and when It was in charge. The reality he saw as himself was vastly different from that It experienced and he always felt like an observer in his own brain when It had the reins. Now, he was not sure of which reality was really real. When he had inevitably fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion, he woke up not to a single reality but two, one his and the other clearly Its. Within two weeks, he was experiencing several realities which kept getting more similar over time with his real reality. It was as if It, determining a clash of two realities was easier to deal with and compensate for, had bombarded him with more. Then it must have realized that the dissimilarities with the versions of reality it experienced and his were vastly different and thus easily distinguishable and had reacted accordingly by making the more similar.
Sometimes, when it took over control of his mind and he felt himself as if floating away from his own body and looking down at himself, he could feel Its incredible power and realized it was simply a part of an even larger entity. The temptation to surrender his reality and let it take over his mind was tempting but he always found a reason to fight off the temptation. He had also found a reason why holding on to his mind was important to him: It wanted to take over Sarah too.
He had learnt that he could sometimes tap into Its mind, for they now shared a brain. In an effort to learn the enemy, he had spent increasingly more time ‘eavesdropping’ on Its thoughts, where he had learnt two important things. One was that it planned to take over Sarah’s mind when done with his. The other was that core memories helped in keeping him grounded and in control of his mind. His most powerful core memories involved Sarah and to keep her in mind, which was getting more difficult by the day, he took to following her around. Since there was no way she could stop him following her, she only came out of the house when she had to and today she had to: there was no food in the house and she had to go shopping. For Sarah, shopping had turned from an enjoyable hobby to something akin to walking on hot coals barefoot.
Maria was new to the neighborhood and just learning the dos and don’ts of the place. One of the don’ts that her new friends had let her in on was that you didn’t play with Dennis, know by his moniker Dennis the Menace. While no one would tell her why, the nickname, which was used even by older children and adults, was sufficient warning. The other was that you never handed in Miss Morgan’s paper late or got into any trouble with her ever at school. This one had been wasted on her, since she had learnt that lesson firsthand in her first lesson with Miss Morgan.
Amongst Dennis the Menace’s many talents according to his friends, or mischief tool according to the rest of the world that was unfortunate enough to know him, was being a serial troublemaker and a class clown. On seeing a new girl in his class, Dennis had decided to cause trouble in Miss Morgan’s class, something even he dared not do normally. The repercussions had been swift and brutal and Maria already had Miss Morgan on her watch list of people likely to terrorize her much like airports did.
The third don’t faced her right now. As she walked the last meters home from school alone after parting with her friends, she saw Old Watson hobbling down the street, occasionally turning back to chastise Imaginary Watson. These were the names older children had nicknamed the Watsons, saying they had a complex relationship. While what all that meant was too complicated for her, Old Watson and Imaginary Watson did serve rather well for naming purposes. She had learnt from Yvonne, a friend who lived closest to her, that Old Watson had lost it since their spouse (Imaginary Watson) died, whirling her hands around her head and rolling back her eyes to show Maria just how crazy Old Watson was. Seeing Old Watson for the first time, Maria felt guilty for having found that funny. As she crossed the street to avoid meeting with Old Watson, she wondered what kind of grief and love could drive a person that cuckoo.
EXCERPT FROM UPCOMING ANTHOLOGY OF SHORT STORIES NAMED "When the hyena ate its young and other stories"