The Gift

Prompts used:

hallucinate

useless instructions

Word count:

1492

Happy reading!

The Gift

I went and overslept again. The digital clock announced the time as 1:30 pm. No big deal, I thought. It’s not as if I've got a job to go to.

Shaking off those bitter thoughts, I hauled myself out of bed and shuffled down the hall to the kitchen. My favorite, ratty slippers scraped against the scuffed linoleum as I messed around with the coffee maker. When it finally wheezed out the last drop of coffee, I took my cup out on my tiny patio, and settled into the white plastic chair with a cigarette. I sipped the coffee slowly, while I thought of ways to motivate myself. I should start writing again while I’m looking for another job, I thought. The temp agency was a good place to start, but I really wanted to make a living writing articles again. Don’t people like a little crazy with their writers? They might not like them at a software company (stupid bastards, can’t recognize genius when it’s staring them in the face!), but I can be an artiste! I laughed at myself as I glanced around the concrete patio, looking for my coffee can ashtray. My eyes stopped at an unfamiliar sight. A small brown package propped up against the chain link fence.

I blinked.

Did I just hallucinate again? I wondered. Maybe the Clozapine’s stopped working. It’s not like I've never tripped while on medication. I got sacked from my last job even though I was on my meds, because I started getting terrible headaches and rainbow like auras around furniture and people. Sometimes, I would hear ethereal, otherworldly music emanating from the walls. Not so bad, you might be thinking. Maybe it’s not, but the voices…well, that’s another matter entirely. At least it was to the old cow in the cube next to mine at the software company we worked for. I guess she took exception to my conversations with the voices. After all, they often opined that she was a waste of space, and that somebody ought to Do Something about her. I suppose it didn’t help that I agreed with the sentiment. I got fired before I could Do Something, though. Good thing for that dried up prune.

That package, though. Nobody knew I lived there. No one that’d care to send me a package, anyway. My folks are long dead, and I'm an only kid. I was a handful, I guess. I didn’t want some snot-nosed kid brother anyway. Mess up my routine, and I can’t stand it when that happens. Besides, I’d lost my old apartment while I stayed at Green Hills. It’s a bit difficult to pay the rent with no job except swallowing my pills, sitting in on bullshit therapy sessions, and learning to follow useless directions about “body care.” I might be crazy, but I still know how to brush my own teeth, dammit. The only things I found in the mailbox were stupid sales circulars and cobwebs, since I never left a forwarding address for my creditors. Suckers!

I picked up the package and inspected it carefully. It was light, whatever it was, and bound in some twine. A label with my name, Jacob Elder, and my address, 2106 S. James Street was pasted on it. The letters were small and neat. Entirely printed by hand, though. No return address. An anonymous package from secret a admirer, perhaps? I choked back a laugh. I hadn’t had a girl in a very long time, and the women I met at Green Hills ain’t exactly dating material. So who sent me a package?

I carried the box inside, and sat it down on the table. I stared at it for a moment, trying to decide what to do. A sudden thought streaked across my mind, and I smacked myself on the forehead. Kind of hard, too, and it smarted for a second. I had forgotten about Elaine! I had met her at Green Hills, and she was okay for a crazy chick. Beggars can’t be choosers, anyway, so I chatted her up some while I was there. She was cute enough, when she bothered to comb her hair (guess she didn’t care much for the body care lessons, either), and really intense. We talked a lot about how much Green Hills sucked, what we would do when we got out, and how stupid the orderlies were, how weird everyone else was. You know, stuff like that. Well, one day, she cornered me in the Common Room. Backed me right into the wall, as a matter of fact, grabbing my sleeves so hard that her nails dug into my skin, leaving bloody crescents behind. She was talking fast about how Nurse Kelly had been putting something in her drinks, and that she was trying to kill Elaine. Spittle flew and hit me in the face. Somehow, I managed to escape and notify the nurse. They bundled her off quickly, and she was screaming and spitting and clawing like an angry cat. She flipped me off, too. I heard later she’d been squirreling away her meds, and that’s why she went all Looney Tunes. Well, no freakin' duh! Anyways, I’ve sworn off the chicks, thanks to her.

Maybe she felt bad, and sent me a little something. Elaine caught up to me right before I left, and she apologized, so I told her a little bit about the place my social worker had helped me to find, so it isn't exactly hard to find out my address. Nobody else I can think of would want to send me something anyway, so why not her?

I decided to open it. I pulled up a chair and pushed my coffee cup aside. I tugged on the twine until it snapped, and I ripped the brown paper off and threw it on the floor. The package was a white box, sort of like a shoebox. I flipped the lid, and my God, my face seemed to catch fire! I screamed and batted the box away. My hands started to burn too, so I started waving them in the air like a frantic cheerleader doing a suicide cheer. I stood up so fast, I knocked the chair over, and I remember it hitting the floor with a clang. I ran to the bathroom (Why not the kitchen sink? What do I know, I was in a panic, for God’s sake, cut me some slack!), ran the tap, and started splashing water on my face. It didn’t help.

I looked in the mirror and screamed again. My face seemed to be melting. My nose was distorted, red, and pieces of the end were already gone. I could see the white of bone there, and on my cheekbones where the flesh had started to melt away. My face roiled and bubbled like a pot of boiling water. My vision was going quickly, too, and as I looked in the sink, I could see chunks of bloody, seared skin floating in the water, and the bones of my hands gripping the sides of the sink. There was a strong smell of burnt pork in the air. I leaned over and puked. Then everything went black.

That’s all I remember until I woke up here, in the hospital. Not Green Hills, though. The burn unit at St. John’s. They moved me out of ICU last week, and the police detectives filled me in on what had happened. Apparently, the package was from Elaine, all right. Only it wasn’t your usual “I’m sorry, let’s make up” teddy bear or something. No, it was a fucking napalm valentine. My face has been pretty much erased, and both my arms had to be amputated just above the elbow. They managed to patch me up with some grafts from my thighs and some cadaver skin. I’m glad I was too doped up to know about the grafts. I might have puked again. I spend a lot of time screaming, though. Between the physical therapy and the nightmares, I’ll never be the same.

They don’t need me to testify, thank God. Elaine killed herself with another of her little toy boxes. She had a few more completed and sitting on her kitchen table when they found her blackened body about a week later. She had a big payback list, and my name was at the top, right above Nurse Kelly’s. They're all okay. That’s good, I guess, but I wish the crazy bitch had torched herself before she got to me.

All I know is that she’s dead, and I’m not, though there are times when I wish I were. My life has been a living hell for a long time, but now it’s a lot worse. I’d kill myself if I weren’t sure that I’d find Elaine waiting for me in hell, with her blackened, laughing, melted face. I see it all the time in my dreams.