Without Myself

WITHOUT MYSELF

When I opened my eyes the first time, I didn’t know where I was. It was cold all around me, and white everywhere. I closed them, wondering if I was dreaming, wondering what had happened to me. No answers came. I didn’t even know my own name. The last thing I could remember was myself, crying, driving on a deserted highway. I couldn’t remember what I was thinking at the time. But I could still feel the pain and the betrayal. And I knew that lying there was not doing me any good.

I forced myself to open my eyes again, to try to get up. My limbs felt numb for a few minutes, but then I was able to stand up. I looked around and didn’t recognize anything. The ceiling was very high, there were no windows or a lamp anywhere, but still there was light. I was sitting on what appeared to be an operation table. As soon as I felt capable to stand up, I did so and I started walking around the room, staggering, as if bumping into invisible objects.

I was wondering where the door was, when I noticed a mirror in one of the corners. I could swear it wasn’t there before, but now that I was looking at it, I couldn’t be so sure anymore. I walked to it, afraid of what I was going to see. The image in the mirror couldn’t be me. I was wrapped in a white sheet with red stains all over it, my skin was unnaturally white, I noticed an open wound across my scalp, and my hair looked like I hadn’t combed it in a month. I was a total disaster, and I knew that something terrible must have happened for me to look like that. Besides, the ugly wound on my head had no logical explanation that I could think of.

I felt my knees getting weak so I let myself fall down on the tile floor and I started crying. Not knowing who I was, where I was, but most of all, what had happened to me, was starting to frighten me more than my own image. I had to find a way to get some answers. I imagined I felt just like the people I had always been trying to help, all alone, confused, hopeless.

I turned around, looking for a door again, thinking that maybe one would appear, just like the mirror. No door anywhere. Instead, in the opposite corner of the room, on a beautiful red leather armchair, there was this…lady. She looked somehow familiar, but I couldn’t place her anywhere. I started walking toward her, I tried to open my mouth to ask her who she was, who I was, but I realized no sounds were coming out. I could feel my lips moving, but no sounds, just like in a nightmare when you try to scream, but you can’t hear your own voice.

She was wearing a white dress, her hair was curly and looked soft, perfect make-up, an ironic smile on her face. She was smiling bigger and bigger, with each step I took. I finally stopped in front of her and, when I could look closely at her face, I realized she was…me.

Again I opened my mouth to speak and again, no sounds. I was starting to think I was insane, when she spoke:

“Sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”

I sat down on the floor in front of her, feeling big, cold tears rolling down my face.

“I suppose you don’t know where you are, who you are, or what happened to you,” she said in a chilling voice.

I shook my head, wondering how come I couldn’t speak, and she could.

“You’re dead. You died about 30 minutes ago. The doctors tried their best, but the accident was pretty bad. Horrible, in fact. No one could have survived something like that.”

I was looking at her, wondering why she was so cruel. I didn’t care anymore about who I was, I just wanted to know why she was doing that. Was this a sick joke?

“What nobody knows is that it wasn’t an accident. You crashed your car in the first big tree you could find. Of course, no one could blame you. I understand there was no way for you to go on living after what you did….” She looked at her watch and then added: “I think you can speak now, if you want to. It takes a while for your voice to come back after you die.”

“I’m not dead. I can’t be dead,” were my first words.

“Yes, you are, darling. You’re very dead. You can take my word for it or just check your pulse. You won’t feel anything, because there’s nothing there.”

I tried to find a pulse, like I had seen people do in the movies, but I couldn’t. I started crying again and this time there were no tears rolling down on my face. At the same time, no matter how sadistic this whole thing seemed, I realized it wouldn’t do any good trying to bitch about it.

“Why do you say I killed myself? How do you know that?”

“Because I was there, with you, darling, that’s why. I watched you die. It’s beautiful. I’ll take you to see someone die one day.“

“Ok, let’s say I did kill myself. Why did I do it? I’m not the kind of person to do something like that. I would never…”

“You’re also not the kind of person who cheats on people, but you did, and it wasn’t the first time. It almost seems that you don’t have that little voice inside that usually says ‘Don’t do it, how are you going to live with the guilt? Don’t do it, no one deserves that, especially someone who didn’t do anything to you,’ she interrupted me and the more she spoke, the more I realized how much she relished hurting me. “Or if you do have that voice inside, you never listened to it.”

“You’re lying. Why are you lying to me? Who are you, anyway? What do you want from me?” I thought that if I lashed out at her, I would scare her enough to tell me it was all a joke. But she didn’t look impressed. On the contrary, the ironic smile on her face was even scarier than before.

“Too many questions, darling. But I’m not lying. Why would I lie to you? I died with you. Which is too bad, cause I was rather enjoying myself. I would have never believed you would be able to sleep around like you did, but it was fun. And she was not bad…not bad at all.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” I started screaming. It couldn’t be true. I couldn’t have done something like that. I was walking in circles, trying to convince myself it was all a bad dream. Split seconds of memories were going through my mind. I stopped in front of the mirror, looking at myself in wonder. Suddenly, images started to appear. It looked like I was watching a movie, and I was the star.

I saw her the first time we had ever talked, when she had invited me to dinner. I had told her why I couldn’t go, even though I had hesitated for a few seconds. She was disappointed, she had said her timing was always really bad, and then she had promised to be my friend, the only true friend I would have. In time, I had realized it was harder and harder to look at her and not wonder what it would be like to feel her hands on my body, what it would be like to have her arms all around me. And then I heard myself finally confessing that I was attracted to her, that all I could think about was being with her even for a little while. Seated on a chair in her office, I imagined how it would all start, by mistake, like when she had hugged me after not seeing me for a long time. She had held me in her arms a little more than it was necessary, and then she had kissed the corner of my mouth, not even realizing what she was doing to me. I saw the scene when we had finally talked about it and agreed it would be the biggest mistake of our lives, even if it was getting harder and harder to meet and not touch each other. I remembered all the sleepless nights, when I was afraid to close my eyes because she would appear in my dreams; when I lay in bed next to the man I had promised myself to for the rest of my life and who didn’t deserve to be betrayed like that; when I was ashamed of myself, of my desires and my thoughts; when I wished she would go away and never come back, because I knew I wasn’t strong enough to continue to say ‘no’.

Next, I saw myself arriving at the house. College students were already drinking and dancing, two girls were kissing on the front porch. I looked at them smiling, they smiled back and kept on kissing. I went inside, into the chaos of loud music and voices. There were a lot of people I didn’t know, a few familiar faces, someone handed me a beer, and as I was talking to someone else, I saw her. She was with a girl I knew, a girl who was supposed to be my friend, a girl who had told me they were sleeping together, a girl I hated even though I had no right to. They were both laughing, they looked so comfortable together, so intimate. I watched her raise her hand to gently touch a lock of hair on the girl’s forehead. I closed my eyes for a minute, imagining her hand on my face. When I opened them, they were almost kissing. And then she saw me. I turned around. I knew immediately it had been a bad idea. I was making my way to the door when I felt someone grabbing my hand.

Without saying a word, she took me into a room upstairs. She closed the door and just held me in her arms for a while. My heart was beating like crazy, I could barely breathe. I took a step back and somehow found the strength to say:

“I thought we had agreed not to let anything happen. We can’t do this. I can’t….”

She reached out her hand and touched my face. “I know. I know,” and then she just kissed me. Her lips were soft and warm, and all of a sudden I felt like there was nothing around us anymore. The room was gone, the whole house was gone, all the people around us were gone. It was just the two of us, in a mixture of pleasure and guilt, of lust and despair…

I was looking at the two characters in the mirror. I watched them slowly taking their clothes off, kissing and touching each other, I watched the tears on their lips, and I heard the sounds they were making discovering each other. As I was watching myself going down on her, I felt that desire deep inside of me again, just as I had felt it that night, just as I had felt it every time I saw her. At the same time, I couldn’t believe I had let someone else take over me like that, I couldn’t believe I had let her go inside me, wiping away the last traces of strength I had. As I was standing there, I was beginning to remember the way she tasted, and the way her skin felt against mine. I was feeling her hands all over my body, her fingers looking for that spot she knew so well. It was all coming back so fast, so overwhelming that I fell to the floor, not daring to look back up.

“Keep looking. It ain’t over yet,” my other self said.

When I looked up, I saw myself on that bed again. Except I was alone. The sun seemed to be almost up, and there were no sounds anymore. I looked around the room, waiting for her to appear. She didn’t. There was a note on the pillow next to me. “It’s been a lovely night. I was wondering how long it would take me to have you. You see, I love challenging myself, and you were a tough one. I hope you don’t regret it, because I sure don’t.”

And then I understood why I had crashed my car. Because I had been stupid enough to believe her, to give up everything for a few hours of…nothing. Because I knew that no good deed of mine could make up for that… I knew no truth would make up for the lie, I knew my word couldn’t be trusted anymore. And I knew that I couldn’t have kept the secret either, that somehow I would have confessed and then it would have been all over anyway. What was done was done, and the only way to avoid more pain was to die. That, and the guilt, had left me no other choice. I had to punish myself and spare everyone else.

I started laughing hysterically, while I was remembering more and more details. And I knew it was all so true, just as I knew it was too late to take it back. Or to even feel sorry. I was glad I had not lived long enough for anyone to find out about it. Cause sooner or later someone would have. So, in a way, it was better. And I realized that the guilt, the love, the desires were all fading away, flowing out of my body, out of my mind. I did not feel them anymore, I did not feel anything anymore. And I liked it.