Unnamed

Unnamed

A little boy (a child?) stood on her doorstep. Beatrice Maria Montgomery opened the door to a pair of eyes that seemed to contain the entirety of the universe (of heaven or hell?). Devoid of emotion; the lackluster brown consumed his entire face. His pretty little features shaped into something monstrous (maybe, beautiful) as if there was a thousand year old man holding his body hostage. He was minute; his bones thin like worms and his belly concaved, evidence that he lacked the consistency of a hot home cooked meal. The clothes on his frail little structure were tattered and ripped, his shoe gaping wide mouthed and his pants torn at the seam. In his arms was a stained leather suitcase.

The boy was the embodiment of misery (my misery) - and the woman's heart opened to him, she wanted this sad creature inside her because, although horrific as he looked, she knew that not even a sad creature such as he would survive inside her poisonous womb (my womb, my death womb).

"Good evening," he said.

Beatrice heard the kind whisper of hope (no, not hope, delusion. A way out. Easy.)

Throughout her sixty two years of life, she had dreamed of a child and there he was - as if a dream, thin and wispy.

"Who are you? What do you want? Where's your Mama, boy? What are you trying to sell?"

         The questions streamed out like rapid fire.

"Mama?" he asked; the word foreign on pursed rose petal lips. "I'm not selling anything, Ma'm."

"Don't you have someone hollering after you? Sure you're not selling anything? If you are, I'm not buying."

He shook his head.

She worried (hoped) that he was alone, on cold streets with a cold belly with nothing but eyes to give him sight, and ears to hear the comfort and love around him that was never granted to a person such as he. (Or me? Where is my love? You? Never you. Not this boy.)

"What's your name, boy?"

"Name?" he answered in a flat line. "I haven't got a name."

(No name? Not a person. Not a thing.)

"No name? Ridiculous. You tell me your name, boy."

"No name. No name. No name."

He shouted it. He spat it out like a snake. The venom dripped off pointed teeth.

(The bodies floated together towards the sky and then down to the Earth, whirling into a pit of fire they later found out to be the unholy Hell.)

"Now you don't lie to me. I don't like liars."

"Not me, ma'm. I wouldn't lie to you. Not me."

"Lying? Of course you're lying. A boy without a name? You're just scared, maybe a little stupid. But, I'll leave the beating for your Mama and the Lord."

         She made the sign of the cross over her sighing heart.

(Cross your heart, cage the evil inside, let in and never out. Chains of worship. Worship from beneath, never from above.)

She looked at the boy coldly - waiting for his answer. Waiting for a way out of this bizarre situation. A situation she desired so wholeheartedly but was scared of its immediate existence.

(Reminds you of anything, Beatrice?)

"There is no mama, ma'm. Just me. Just like it's just you."

Beatrice was alone. Her house was an empty shell of ancestral lineage (they left nothing). Her mother's knit work (swollen with smoke) still covered the couches, and her odd trinkets still decorated the walls. The mantles were dressed with pictures of black and white faces (faces of the underworld) with painfully straight lips.

         She had nothing to say to him. She thought of his peculiarity, of his monotone voice and empty mannerisms. (Empty? One speaks of empty yet has nothing to fill.) How does a boy, so young, see through her stone face and into her most precious of secrets? His presence made her uneasy and she wanted to send him away. (Send away? Lust, love, marriage, maternity. All the same.)

         "Hold your tongue, boy. You say not what you mean. Come in, before the Lord almighty strikes down a boy of such lies and rudeness." (The Lord! The Lord! The Lord surely has kissed your old, rotting cheeks.)

         He walked over the threshold like a ghost. The wisps of darkness trailed behind him and enveloped Beatrice in an eternal embrace.

         Beatrice cooked the boy a meal, something plain and uninteresting (worms and dirt, better than an aching tummy.) She did not bother to interrogate the boy because secretly, she wanted to keep him (my son.) She wanted to know him. She tucked the boy into bed, and he stared at her and it occurred to her that he seemed like a lifeless doll.

         (With a pillow over his head. Struggle to breathe.)

         (Can I play with you? she whispers.)

         The next few days crept by with the stillness of a damp and consuming fog.

         The boy did not say much. He stared without intention, expected nothing, and did not reveal a single detail about his shrouded life. He sat at the dining table mechanically when Beatrice (control - the sweet utter domination of life and all of its components) told him to. He never ate all the food on his plate and drank his cup half empty, as if he neither enjoyed it nor needed it. At night, he went away to the guest bedroom without a word and slept until morning, never using the bathroom and never running to his caretaker's (prison keeper's) room for comfort.

The only time, Beatrice observed, that he strayed from the schedule (a dance of commands?) she had placed for him was when he sat at the table, alone, and wrote perfectly scripted out manuscripts on multiple tattered notebooks.

         Another day passed and still the boy remained an enigma (did she even inquire? Would you?)

          It was Monday - on Monday, Beatrice carefully wiped all of her dead (sleeping?) mother's trinkets clean.

Rigidly, mechanically, she cleaned.

Rigidly, mechanically, the boy wrote.

(Write. Clean. Write. Clean. Write. Clean. We are but automatons in a mortal shell.) 

His hand moved over the paper fluidly without stopping. His eyes sometimes flicked for a second, open and close as if he was contemplating something, and continue to write with just as much vigor. Surely the boy must have a story, a history, something that made him of this place.

(What is this place?)

Beatrice retired to her room early, which was unusual because dinner had not been made and the last few pages of her romance (you want to get fucked?) novel lay untouched. Her room was bare; the same four poster bed that belonged to her departed parents still lay in the center of the room. A mirror lay on the wall above an old dresser; it was cloudy and offered a vague image of its possessor (not Mother?). The image reflected back was hollow, old, and unsightly. She hated that image and disgust arose in her belly as she observed thick lines of age etched into uneven skin, a hooked nose, and eyes that held no glimmer, no wonder of youth (was there ever youth, Beatrice?).

Her body ached on the hard mattress, her bones felt brittle, and she felt old (dead?). She closed her weary eyes and heard nothing but impenetrable silence. Silence that should (would) have been interrupted by high pitched child squeals and soft baby laughter. There was none. There was nothing but the gasps of her failing lungs.

With trembling hands, she lit a cigarette and let the smoke dwindle into wisps far above her to the ceiling and the polluted sky.

She remembered events from years before. She remembered her parents, missing (hating) them sweetly, and how their silence gave her comfort, their presence gave her security. Even as they punished (why do you beat me?) her for the small things (for nothing) she did wrong, she praised them, loved them for their discipline (the cruel snap of the whip).

Beatrice remembered years of loneliness (rejection). The fear of God (the fear of men) removed her from the world of romance. The crushing weight of her own self esteem ("An ugly bitch I birthed.") smashed and obliterated any morsel of happiness dwelling within her cancerous (sick and dying) body. Rejection made her afraid of the outside world. It kept her away from happiness, and thus caused her to reject those around her. It was a silly fear (mental crutch), her therapists told her, and it consumed her.

With old memories tormenting her, Beatrice slipped into the heavy dusk of sleep. She slipped into the twilight of two worlds. In this limbo, she found the boy, waiting, silently, patiently, he said nothing.

(Say nothing. Do nothing. Feel everything.)

After two weeks, she noticed (hoped) that no one had come looking for him.

Beatrice expected social workers and police (kidnapping, kidnapper, pervert) to knock on her door. They never did. She looked (watched) for his picture on milk cartons, in the newspaper, and on the bulletin boards of the church. There was nothing. When curiosity began to obsess her, she called the authorities and described the boy to them: about five or six, thick curly hair, brown eyes. What, what do you mean there are no missing boys with that description? What does the boy say his name is? The boy doesn't have a name at all.

(Happiness?)

She wrapped the telephone wire around her hand. Her heart sank deeper and deeper as the police denied her any proof that such a boy existed.

Are you crazy, ma'm?

The telephone slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor.

The boy sat in his usual seat, perched on his knees, writing. She walked towards him from the kitchen. As she approached, he swung the notebook closed and protected it with his forearms. He watched Beatrice with blank eyes.

A furious anger grew inside her. She had known rejection all her life. She looked it in the eyes now and saw the blank uncaringness of that rejection and it drove her insane.

(She loved it.)

"Tell me, tell me who are you? What are you?" she yelled. "No emotions, no desires, no thoughts, nothing! I speak to you and you gaze as if there was not a soul within you! As if you aren't here, but you are. I can see you!"

(Who was she talking to?)

(Herself?)

(You?)          

He looked up at her. He tilted his head to the side like a curious animal, sniffing its prey (just a slab of meat on a barbeque, Beatrice), capturing his surroundings. Then as a matter-of-factly he responded: "Are you sure? Are you sure I'm here? It's just me and you. Where's the witness?"

(I think he died.)

The little boy suddenly was not her child or a child, anymore. She supposed that he may not always have been but was, in her eyes, the illusion of youth. The glass mirror of Beatrice's secret dream (warped fantasy) exploded at this moment. For she did not know whether he was a beast or a man at the very least.

(Yet, does she wonder about herself? Man or beast?)

"You miserable thing," she spat (whispered) at him and before she could stop herself, her open palmed hand landed across his cheek.

(Pain is relative.)

Beatrice staggered backward. Her hand trembled at her lips.

Bravery! At long last.

The boy silently said to her: Pain does not exist. Suffering is not welcome here. Try. Try again. You will get nowhere. You will get nothing. (I have nothing.)

(Can I hear him? In my head? Like a whisper?)

She took (dragged, controlled) him by the wrist (where are you taking him, Beatrice?) and led him down the hallway. He followed obediently.

         There was a small closet at the end of the hallway. Dusty and unused. (Dark and full of nightmares). She had not opened the door in years; she didn't have much to store. (Nightmares - rolling tears and bloody arms) Opening the door revealed a menagerie (dungeon) of memories; they were alive in the dust balls and in the damp darkness.

She could see through the boy's (her son's) eyes, and she whispered silently: I once was here. I had it worst. This is to make you better. To make me better. To make us better.

(My child. My miserable thing.)

         She placed (threw) him into the dusty room.

         "Don't cry," she said, even though he wouldn't and didn't cry, "bad children need to be taught a lesson. I'll be back at supper to bring you something to eat. Make yourself comfortable. Sometime soon we can be a real family."

         (A real family? What is a real family?)

         She swung the door closed, and out of the pocket of her dress she produced a tiny skeleton key and locked it shut.

         Beatrice stood there for a moment, gazing into the nothingness of her hallway, and listened to the boy breathe. It was hushed, hardly audible, but she could feel his presence. The creep of another entity chilled her skin; he was with her even now.

         (From my body. From my blood.)

         Beatrice Montgomery collapsed at the door of the closet. Years of misery followed her to this moment and crushed and grinded her old, ancient bones into a deadly power. The strength of delusion failed her now.

         Her degenerating body convulsed in sobs. As she lay there, on the wooden floor, a wave of hopelessness came over her. The tears began to dry, leaving trails of black on rosy, flushed cheeks. The snot ran from her nose across her face, and her eyes were red from the irritation and horrid emotion that capsized her body.  Beatrice was no longer the same, her body changed - her mind broken. It was as if this little boy walked through her door, and into her spirit, and drew her into madness.

         (Came from madness?)

In the closet, she heard a soft giggle. A mocking laughter, a sarcastic, evil emotion rang from the boy's prison and Beatrice was overcome by humiliation. (Humiliate, Beaty. Wheaty Beaty. Titty Bitty. Humiliate, Titty. Humiliate, Titty!)

This boy, this inhuman boy, knew her hell and he mocked her.

          "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?"

         She banged on the door with her fists. Over and over.

(One. Two. Three. Four. I'm going to knock down this fucking door.)

         With her fists bloodied and the door splintering like the shreds of her sanity, she escaped down the hall.

         The guest bedroom lingered like a drug in front of an addict. She smoothed her grey hair over with her bloody fist. Nervous, scared. (Excited, delusional.)  Blood smeared her face transforming a seemingly sweet grandmother into a harpy with sharpened claws and rotting teeth.

         (Evil is as evil comes.)

         The leather suitcase sat on top of an unclothed bed. There was nothing else in the room. Not a sense of individuality.

         In the suitcase were six composition notebooks. (Manuscripts of the heavens and the Earth.) They were bent and broken; the cover of the first one ripped off.

         Painted in perfect penmanship read the line: "I am your repressed memories."

         Over and over and over again.

         (The darkness of the closet. Dripping of the water. Drip. Drip. Drip. The light shined like a beacon under the door. A hunger ached in a young Beatrice's belly. If she cried hard enough, they would come. They would love her. If only she cried hard enough.)

         She reached for the next notebook. Just as tattered as last yet this book was covered in a red lipstick Beatrice was very familiar with. In thick, messy lines, the boy wrote: "I am the sex you desire. I am the pig inside you."

         (On her back. Legs wide. Daddy inside?)

         Beatrice shouted: No! No! Not these memories. Not this. Not from this perfectly bizarre unnatural boy. Why? She threw a lamp across the room in anger. It shattered loudly leaving a sense of fracture behind.

         The next notebook: "I am the abuser you try to redeem. I am your abuse. I am my abuse from you."

         (The boy. The boy with blackened eyes. My son.)

         And the next: "I am your murder. Your suicide. Your crime."

         (Her hands lingered over an infant. Crying, crying, crying. The noises so shrill in the midnight air. Then, he stopped.)

         The fifth notebook was simple: "I am your delusion."

         She prayed to her God with slightly upturned palms. (Convenient, right?)

         Finally, the last notebook. It was strange because this one was perfectly bound. No tears or rips or stains. The pages were crisp and only written on once. It lay in the bottom of the suitcase like a smile. Open me, Beatrice. Solve the puzzle. Solve the crime.

         "I am your Misery."

         (Lord, please forgive me.)

         Beatrice turned to exit the room. But, right in front of her, was the boy.

         She whispered to him: "What are you? Why have you come for me?" 

         The boy smiled. He whispered to her - his voice was small but confident. His eyes gleamed like a stolen black diamond.

         "I have no name."

         (Let me give you a name and thus you shall be born.)