The Vision

The howling March wind had come early this year, ushering in the first real storm of the season. The rotund, stiff-shirted chauffeur, who hadn't spoken a word since departing the institution known as Ravenscroft, fondled the lapel of his jacket and sighed in boredom. One would think transporting patients was a tremendous task. Jenna just shook her head in disbelief at the man she only knew as Ralph.

Approaching her house, after what had seemed an endless ride, Jenna remained silent. Ralph aligned the van carefully along the curb in front of her house. He was such a perfectionist! She watched as he stepped out of the car, onto the pavement, and offered her no help with her suitcase.  Its contents held things of not much value. Her clothing had long since disappeared. With the exception of a few faded tees, her toothbrush, and two pairs of jeans, she had nothing.

During the ride, she had rehearsed what she would say when she experienced the reception that awaited her much-anticipated arrival home. Exactly six months had passed since her mother, Marge, had hesitantly signed her daughter into Ravenscroft.  Its reputation was good and the hope offered there came at a costly price.

The embarrassment of having a daughter “out-of-control” had taken its toll on her mother.  Marge, as a single parent, had had to handle every situation since Jenna’s seventh birthday. Twelve years had passed since Jenna’s father was killed in an automobile accident, and maybe the spiraling downward into a storm that never seemed to dismantle itself, had begun for Jenna then. For Marge, Ravenscroft seemed to be  the answer, even if it meant sacrifice.

This was Jenna’s first visit home since entering the institution, located nearly one-hundred miles away, in a town known as Claremont.  At first, it had made a difference to Jenna. She felt better about herself. The discipline it required, she needed. The anxiety and depression medications had certainly helped. The psychotherapy and availability of someone to talk to were worth her mother’s money and invaluable to Jenna.  Besides that, it took her out of her mother’s hair.

The Dispensing Nurse had administered her medication to her shortly before her departure. Some time had elapsed and she was now experiencing the need for them. However, the prescription in her jeans pocket could  be filled at a local pharmacy, as soon as she arrived home. She tried to analyze their reasoning in not just giving her the whole bottle of meds before she left.  “Maybe they think I’m still suicidal,“ she thought, “but what do they know? I’m a regular chameleon.”

Focusing on the security of knowing her medication could be filled, she practiced her monologues as a method of trying to calm herself.  “Self-talk” was a technique she'd been taught at the institution.  Sometimes it helped conquer the anxiety, at least temporarily, while she waited for the next round of medications. She ran images through her mind like a “flip-page” video, and she could visualize the long lines of mentally-ill patients with small paper cups in hand, waiting to be medicated.  They reminded Jenna of persistent hypochondriacs waiting for a nighttime fix. Of course, that was not the image she held of herself. She had known from the beginning she didn’t belong there, but it met a need for a mother’s sanity.

Today was homecoming! She was coming home. With that fact sustaining her, she stared at the gray flagstone path which led up to the front door. Strange, she hadn't remembered it being so long before. Nearing the front door, she was surprised to see it standing slightly ajar. Mother never left doors open, and always made sure the alarm system was on. What was going on?  Of course, it may well have been because she was coming home. Pondering that thought and trembling now, she approached the open door and timidly entered her own home, as though it belonged to strangers.

The mismatched button, she'd sewn on yesterday, caught her eye, as she removed her sweater. Somehow the button looked displaced, a little like she felt, but was the best she could do. She grasped the coarse wool of her heavy sweater and held it against her chest, while using her remaining strength to close the door against the pressure of the gale.  Finally, within the confines of what one called home, she scanned the living room for signs of life. Then she carefully buttoned and neatly folded her sweater. After which,
she placed it on a chair near the front door.

She didn't need the proverbial “string” around her finger to remind her that the doctor's prescription was in the pocket of her jeans. It was a comforting thought. She had forgotten just how much she depended on these little, yellow oval pills. This much she knew, she was feeling the distinct absence of medication, and someone must go to the pharmacy, soon.

Immediately, she sensed emptiness in the house, but the distraction of howling wind and clouds that looked like large boulders of  black-ribboned rock, occupied her thoughts. She was thankful for shelter from the elements, and was keenly aware that real fear had not yet set in.  She practiced breathing deeply and exhaling slowly, another technique she’d mastered at Ravenscroft. She tried to compose herself. The sky was dark and becoming more threatening.  Storm clouds were billowing and  a real storm was definitely brewing.  Anxiety fluttered like butterflies in migration, in her stomach. Calming the turbulent sea known as "self”, was a hard thing for her to do.

She steadied herself and again listened for any signs of life. The house was empty. She stood in the vacuum of being alone, again. Her past swirled before her somewhat distorted and alien. Her thought refused to come together and “fear“ now full-blown, wouldn't dismiss itself. 
Dark memories, like sheep bounding a meadow fence, scattered themselves and hop-scotched through her mind. They came in rapid succession, relentless. Internalizing each, she was momentarily taken to a surreal world of pale gray walls, barred windows, nurses in white uniforms, and a radiator that grumbled at the thought of warming her room. Anything pleasant that had happened to her never surfaced.

She assured herself that being home would make everything okay. Surveying the situation, she saw the familiar fire logs, and the imitation fire flickering in the fireplace. With such dim lighting, it cast eerie shadows on the walls of the room. The dog’s bed, by the hearth, was empty. Cub, her dog, would be barking, were he here. The silence was now becoming deafening. “Where is everyone? “ she pondered in disbelief.

The weather in upper Madison was still cool, so the warmth of the fire was appreciated.  She lingered for awhile, warming her hands and thinking. Looking into the flames, she said aloud, “My mother likes artificial, superficial things. In fact, she likes things ‘perfect‘.”  Jenna was not perfect and she knew it. Ravenscroft, for a stay of six months, had been her mother’s answer to perfecting her imperfect daughter.  Had it worked? Jenna thought not, knowing she could never please her mother, no matter what.

Not thinking clearly, she wondered if everyone, for some reason, had gone upstairs. Ascending the stairs, she noted the drifting aroma of familiar spices coming from the kitchen. She knew the smell of fresh-baked pumpkin bread and steaming apple crunch. She conjured up images of freshly-baked loaves cooling on a rack, just waiting for her. From her bedroom door, she noted her favorite pink sheets on the bed.  At her window, she could see the white, picket fence surrounding  the backyard. Mother had said it was a security measure for keeping Cub safe. Jenna wondered why there hadn’t been some safety net in place for her.

“What lies in wait for me?” Doubts were stacking up. “No one is home,” she extinguished the thought, before she had time to think the worst. “Focus,” she told herself, “I must dwell on the present and forbid the feeling of being ‘disjointed‘. I will dismiss the past and make it work this time. I will."

Before she'd been admitted to the institution, there were days when  all the parts of her anatomy had seemed disjointed!  It was a feeling that usually started at her ankles and moved upward, finally stealing her breath away. She remembered the gasping and screaming. Moreover, she remembered how she desired to end it all. She had perfected a plan, so unique, no one would know her death was not natural.  She still remembered it in detail.  She wouldn’t want to embarrass her mother by keeping her from collecting on the insurance policy.

At the age of ten, she had been diagnosed as “depressed” and later as “manic depressive“.  Demons of the past always hovered near, ready to take their places on the stage of her life. They never completely disappeared, just hid in the shadows, waiting for some “external” event to open a door.  She determined that would not happen today, not with the homecoming which was supposed to be awaiting her.  Unwilling to admit that the  absence of living bodies and no apparent  homecoming had already opened the door. She sighed and withdrew into herself, dismayed.
.
Descending the stairs, the fireplace beckoned to her. As she gazed at fire, all kinds of ideas floated through her broken mind; things just didn't seem right. She seemed unable to put her thoughts into perspective. She knew “reality” for only brief periods of time.  She knew she was “alone” and could no longer think. She’d been here before.  No sounds echoed from the walls, when she cried out. Her own voice came back weak and unintelligible. She was the silent-lipped statue, she often saw in the park, speaking, but unheard.

Outside, the storm was worsening and an unfathomable depth of fear nestled in her consciousness. She’d always been afraid of storms, and could remember how her grandmother used to gather all seven grandchildren into the central hallway of her thirteen-room house when a storm was raging. Thus, it became the safest place to be. In that sanctuary, Jenna always sat as close to her grandmother's knee as she could, and stayed there until the thunder stopped.  Today, offered no refuge, no hallways, and grandmother slept in the ground on Vista Ridge.

Jenna had heard, “stones thrown in a  stream always have a rippling effect.” Now, each of Jenna’s thoughts sent out its own rippling effect - that of dangerous prophesies.  As the rain beat down, the thirsty ground sucked up the moisture. Rivulets turned into torrents and the small stream across the road crested.  There was no sound except that of rushing water, as the street filled with water, and fear filled Jenna’s mind.

She could not understand why she'd been abandoned, why no one was waiting.  Then suddenly, with unexpected momentary clarity, she realized that what she had longed for was not present. It was not going to happen! There was no homecoming and there wouldn't be a one. Refusing to admit what she already knew, having exhausted her efforts, she feebly tried calling for Cub. She waited for his response.  None came, and the empty house echoed her own words, in response.

Her eyes had searched the mantle for a “Welcome Home" banner. There wasn’t one, and she didn’t recall one in the front yard, either. Paranoia was in charge now, as she told herself,  "Perhaps Cub’s dead, and they just didn’t tell me. Perhaps something bad has happened to all of them."  True, short chatty letters that never told her she was loved, came from home bi-weekly. She had been told she was missed, but maybe she hadn’t been told everything. With her mood rapidly changing, she regressed so quickly no one would ever know of the progress she had made since she left home.

She hesitated to define her expectations, forestalling the forthcoming pain. In fact, she couldn't even remember what it was she expected, therefore, she couldn't be too disappointed. The demons summoned up the old plan for her demise, offering it
only as a suggestion, at this point.

An acute awareness of the storm outside summoned her to the window, where the hard-surfaced path, adjacent to the house, could be seen. Viewing the mammoth amounts of debris now being carried and blown about like drowning, lifeless rag dolls, she froze. The heartless storm only added to her misery. How she wished she could return to her grandmother's knee until the storm ceased.

Ferociously, the storm roared southward, as Jenna retreated into the depths of despair. She stood motionless in the shadows, fast-losing her capacity to hold on to sanity. Staring blankly into the space outside, the pieces of the puzzle came together and she realized that she was viewing the remnants of a storm that held a message for her. The storm was not about to end; the vision, the real storm, for Jenna, was just beginning!

It was as the lightening, like an angry-spirited god, spotlighted the path, that she saw it. Its size and symmetry, its wrinkled crevices filled with a sickly grayish pink, reminded her of someone’s vital organ, somehow displaced from its place of abode. She watched and waited for the newly-created and soon-to-vanish river to wash it away. She already knew it could not survive as a lone entity. Beyond that, she knew that it was hers and it encompassed the whole of her intellect. Her “mind” had somehow dislodged itself from her body, and that meant it was destructible. She could see it clearly, and she understood what she had to do, quickly.

No sooner had the object appeared, than the wind, that powerful arm of the universe, picked it up and carried it with great strength some distance, and then dropped it with a thud! She watched as it hit the surface and disintegrated, so completely that even the “most- discerning” eye couldn’t tell that it had ever been "whole". No one would ever know she'd returned, repaired, but not fixed. She could hear the screams, but could not distinguish whether they were her own.

At that moment, she realized she must be “perfect” in her plan.  The storm clouds broke into unrecognizable and foreboding shapes in the sky. This vision, had suspended truth.  She no longer knew what was real and what was imagined. As an indescribable emptiness filled her, her thought processes froze. The rush of the storm’s water washed the displaced garbage like pieces of floating, tattered lace into the culverts on each side of the road. To Jenna, they were symbolic of her courage, her faith, her understanding, and her will to live.

She didn't hear the front door when it opened. She failed to recognize the joyful barking of her dog, Cub.  She didn't hear packages tumbling into a pile near the door.
Jenna had arrived home two hours earlier that anyone expected.

Seeing her sweater, her mother began the search.  She discovered
her daughter’s crumpled body lying at the foot of the stairs.
As Cub licked Jenna’s out-stretched hand, it relaxed, releasing
a wrinkled piece of paper - the prescription.