Whitewashed

by Charles O’Hara

If you could describe pain in one word, what would you use? It’s a silly question, I’m sure. Pain is pain. What more is there to say in so short a time? I imagine many people would scoff at the idea that such a complicated concept could be reduced to a simple four-letter word. There are so many facets of pain, so many nuanced observations of its role in nature. One simple word could scarce contain the endless array of dissertations and experiences that humanity has contrived in its effort to understand.

Pain is a funny thing. It has the most thankless job of any feature in our bodies, this premonition of immediate danger. Its inescapable touch can be the difference between life and death, yet it’s that very nature that compels us to shun it without a second thought; because in some cruel twist of deific irony, this life-saving salve can make us wish for the same death from which it aims to rescue us.

I’d like to imagine there are those who would answer my question with immediate, unbridled confidence. They have their word, a word whose significance is a mystery to all others. It’s a word they didn’t come by naturally, nor did they contemplate the language or pore over the vast compilation of literature, all of which simultaneously contradict each other and claim, with the brevity befitting the inexperienced, that theirs is the truest understanding of the concept. For those few who have their word, they know it is not so simple, because the very word they discovered could only be found in the depths of that same unbreakable despair from which they finally escaped. It is theirs and theirs only.

I wonder what your answer would have been. Would you even have one, or would you brush the question away as pointless conjecture? While I’d pondered such answers in prior days, today I am lucky enough to forget. I lie within my immaculate house on a soft bed of white, much too large for a single soul. No such philosophical quandaries exist here. No harsh realities or platitudes to compel my heart to contemplate what purpose my pain might serve. The tears ebb. My labored breathing fades to a slumbering tempo.

Peacefully, I rise from my nook, pushing aside the heavy comforter that binds me to this mattress. It is cold to the touch, an unusual phenomenon but not one that warrants any alarm. My feet hit the carpeted floor, toes curling deeply into the fibers. I feel none of it. The numbness has already begun to set in.

I pass by my window curtains, black sheets of drapery shutting out the harsh light of the world beyond. The rooms within are pleasantly dim, almost dark enough to hide the pallid impressions on the walls, rectangular displays of pure white that had only recently been exposed to the open air. I ignore these blemishes on my perfect house, walking briskly towards the bedroom door to the hallway beyond.

My eyes are set straight across this narrow hall. With each step I steel myself as temptation drives my eyes to wander. I catch you in my periphery as I pass your study, but only for a moment. Hardly enough time to witness the blur of features I’d long since forgotten. As the numbness reaches my legs, I remind myself that it won’t matter soon. Bit by bit the distant pain in my body recedes, as if my cold white blanket still bound me in place. I walk on regardless.

An inviting whistle spews out from my kitchen. The pot on the stove has already been set for me. I don’t question it, removing my singing teapot from its source of heat and shutting the stove off, thinking with some amusement that it will never spring to life again. I pour the nearly boiling water into my favorite blue cup. A box of lavender tea bags lays against the table in the dining room. I take one, let it steep, and sit back in my chair.

Far away, a curious scratching noise tickles my ears. Perhaps it’s some mischievous squirrel, scurrying around on the roof above. No… it’s rhythmic, a constant tapping of something against glass. As I remove the bag and hold my cup, I glance at the window just beyond my table. As before, my vision is blocked by a single black curtain, hiding the world beyond. Whatever the source, it’s coming from that window.

As I sip my tea, this incessant noise lingers on. I close my mind to the shrill cacophony, but it only rings louder all the while, rising in volume and tempo.

Tap. Tap. Tap…

It pierces my ears, threatening to steal away what sanity remains. I want to scream. I want to gouge out my eardrums, if only for two seconds of peace. Finally, the ethereal noise stops as a small cracking sound breaks the air, followed by an unsettling silence. Curiously, I study the curtain. An odd bulge pokes against the listless sheet, resembling a wispy hand of gnarled fingers reaching out to grab me. I try to place the distant, intrusive memory, but the instant shattering of the window beyond the curtain throws my thoughts into disarray.

The deformed figure leaps toward me, and I scramble away from the table as a shower of glass and fabric litter the room. Tearing away the obscuring curtain, my assailant crashes into the dining room, demolishing the table and chair where I had been sitting moments prior. The mangled hand reveals itself as a spiky arrangement of conifer branches, each finger of its gnarled hand jutting out from the immense log that now occupied the space of my dining room.

I sneer at this lifeless attacker of mine, cursing it for its shameless attempt to terrify me once more. “You’ve already had your way with me,” I mutter, trying to ignore the distant ache in my jaw as I speak. “What do you have to gain by breaking my wall?” The snow-frosted limb merely lies against my ruined table, powdery dust sprinkling against the floor. A small flurry of snow weaves its way through my destroyed window, carrying with it a gust of icy air.

My invisible blanket wraps more tightly around me, the numbness rising to my waist. The lavender tea in my cup freezes instantly, and I casually toss it aside. “I’m tired anyway,” I retort, wondering why I’d slithered out of bed in the first place. I turn back to my narrow hall, sleep casting its spell on my eyelids. As I turn toward the comforting embrace of my bed, a figure stands in my way.

It’s you.

You block my access to the narrow hall, your face a formless blob of pale skin, all that remains of you. Never before have you left that study. Not once was I forced to bear the sight of you in my perfect house. I had been careful. For years, I’d managed to push this phantom of yours away. So why now? Why, in this sheltering blanket of snow and bare walls, do you stand in my way?

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I tell you dryly, as if this sentiment had been foreign to you. You stand by, as you’ve always done, your face a fuzzy mess of unrecognizable features. I’d put all of it away; your face, your voice, your smile… Every bitter memory of you that I had once treasured. No trace of you was left in my perfect house.

Yet here you stand in open defiance, that final uninvited spark in my study that I’d failed to snuff out, a pathetic phantom fragment of what you used to be. Don’t you realize how much it hurts to see you like this? To recall with bitterness the happy life that had been stolen from us? I shut you away for a reason. I’d just as soon have you out of my perfect house, even as it crumbles around me.

I step forward, but you stand resiliently before me, blocking every possible exit. “What do you want?” I whisper venomously. I try to push you away, but you stand firm, immobile against my advance. I think it a trick of the light, but as I watch, your face slowly focuses into view. I scream out, kicking and pushing against your immutable form. You aren’t allowed. You aren’t allowed to bring those memories back. I don’t want to remember you.

All the while, I helplessly watch as these scattered pieces of you fall back into place. Your hazel eyes and short black hair focus into view. Bits of stubble form against the defined edges of your face, as if you’d only just arisen from my lonely bed moments before. I try to pull these features away from you. They aren’t welcome in my house anymore. The photos that once lined those white blights on my walls don’t belong here anymore. But I can only watch as you breathe warmth into these dimmed walls, the light burning my eyes as these painful memories return. Finally, you complete your spiteful transformation, and I look upon your true face for the first time in years.

Your arm gently wraps around my waist. Though the feeling is lost, I smile in resignation. Fine. You may have this final moment. Against every mechanism I’d invented, every delicate and painstaking maneuver to protect myself from you, I allow this one respite. Let me remember you as you were; let that serve as my last thought, so that this perfect memory of yours might die with me. I study your lips, see the color return to them once again, taking in how full they are. I cup your cheek, failing to feel the rough edges of your hair on my fingertips. I lean against you, and we embrace in our final kiss.

An old sensation rattles in my mouth, a familiar ache that threatens to rip me from this dream. I ignore the pull, embracing you once more in a stubborn effort to stay at your side. But with every kiss, this ache pulls me further from you. A wall of white blocks my vision. The sting of the snow returns to me.

Wake up, you mouth wordlessly, but it’s not a request I can honor. I don’t want to go back into the cold. I don’t want that world that dares to turn without you in it. Give me your world, give me this moment, even if it’s my last.

Still, you refuse to yield. After years of standing here in defiance to the empty house you left behind, you push me back in my final moment of need. All the pain from which I’d run returns, and it’s more than I can bear. I wrap my arms around you once again, refusing to wake from this dream.

But the ache never fades.

It worms its way into my mind, invading this perfect dream with its persistent throbbing. I can hear the crashing wave of destruction as my bedroom is swiftly consumed by an avalanche of snow. It invades the hallway, destroying these colorful walls and rushing toward us. You back away from me, disappearing into a thick wall from which you’ll never return. The snow falls away, leaving nothing but a black hole that draws me forward. I yearn to follow you, to let this churning, frozen abyss consume all that’s left of me. But this constant ache plants a simple thought in my mind.

I love you… More than anything. More than anyone I’ll ever love again. My life was yours. My heart was yours. I would have followed you anywhere.

But I’m not ready to follow you there…

My vision blurs, my head feels dizzy. Already, this numbness has risen to my chest. I don’t have much time left. I try to blink, try to push away from this cage I’d created for myself. As I struggle against this gradual pull into the abyss, visions of white flash before my eyes. My consciousness fades into delirious obscurity. I can’t move. I can’t think. My heart slows to a near halt, letting drowsiness overtake me.

I’m not ready, some corner of my mind whispers. I pull back, fighting the inevitable descent. I’m not ready! My vision goes red. All sense of pain ebbs away, the ache in my mouth the only tendril binding me to reality. Just as the yawning abyss threatens to swallow me whole, I clamp down on my jaw as hard as I can. A sickening crack erupts from within my mouth, and the sharp, searing knife inside pulls me out of my perfect house, just as the floor beneath me falls away.

A shock runs through my body as the darkness pulls away from my eyes. My vision is clouded in a glistening white fog of ice. I’m back in the cold world now, trapped beneath this layer of snow that works to sap what remains of the warmth in my body. I turn my neck back and forth deliriously, trying to gain some sense of where I was. I feel for my legs, likely still secured to my skis. They lay in odd directions beneath me, almost certainly broken, but I feel no pain. The icy grip of the snowbank that had consumed me had numbed them beyond any sensation.

I recall the burning torture of my broken back and shattered legs like a passing dream, just before my consciousness had failed me. The wall of white all around me had begun to feel more like a blanket, sheltering me from the searing light above and lulling me into a blissful slumber.

Visions of my vivid dream that had followed dance in my head, the ache in my jaw the most prominent among them. Despite the numbness in my body, I still feel the sharp dagger inside my mouth. Gently, I brush my tongue against it, and the pain erupts along the nerves in my jaw. A stray tooth, dislodged from the impact, had jammed itself into the tender gumline above, digging into the fragile flesh. The ice had not yet numbed my mouth, the painful ache as intense as ever.

The thought of it angers me. If this damn tooth really meant to yank me from that euphoric slumber, I’m not about to lie here helplessly while the snow consumes me. I pull my numbed arm out from under me, the hand uselessly limp. With some effort, I manage to push it against the snow above.

I breach this deadly wall above me, extending my hand out towards the distant sun. Its rays bounce against the glittering snow, casting a warm glow against the numbed limb and slowly restoring life to it.

I can bend my fingers again.

I reach back, searching for anything to grip. A solid root from some dislodged tree above me serves as a suitable hold. With what little strength I have left to muster, I pull myself out from my soothing coffin, exposing my face to the harsh rays above me.

With this renewed vigor comes the resurgence of pain as the nerves around my broken body spring back to life. I tremble, hardly able to bear the sensation. Distantly, a series of footsteps reaches my ears. A shadowy figure looms above me, waving with urgency to some friend out of sight. Another survivor had been found.

As this team of strangers pulls me free, I silently ponder the answer to my question. Pain is many things. It’s unbearable. It taints everything we know and love with a debilitating ache from which we can never quite return to what we might call our happiest moments. But I’ve learned something from my trauma, a lesson I sincerely hope most will not need to learn. Pain’s antithesis is not joy. It’s numbness. It’s a cold weight that steals whatever happiness might have otherwise come my way. It’s a comforting escape, but it’s a far worse fate than the ache from which I’d fled.

Pain, I’m sure, is many things to many people. For me, it’s warm. When I feel that familiar glow in my heart, I’ll take it in moderation. I’ll allow it to remind me of the happiness I once knew, memories I’ll hold with tenderness, rather than the resentment I’d craved for far too long.

I miss you… I miss you so much.

Days may come when I wish I could return to that comforting blanket of snow and let it salve these strength-sapping wounds of mine. I’ll long for that perfect house, where I can hide from a world that spurns your existence. Every day the temptation to numb myself will linger. But I won’t heed it anymore.

There will be moments – rays of sunshine, a child’s laughter, the gentle touch of a longtime friend – when joy might fill my heart again. I’ll live for those fleeting moments, taking the pain with me as I go. As I ponder your shining face in the halls of my shattered house, I will smile. Because as much as I’d wished otherwise after your death, the beautiful truth is that you’re not truly gone. Not as long as I carry that memory in my heart. I’ll share this life with you wherever I go, and I refuse to stop the warmth of the real sun from shining into my lonely house.

I’m not naïve. I know what a perpetual battle this will be, seeking that joy I had once known before I knew this warm pain. I know I won’t always be strong. I won’t always rise to meet that expectation. Despair might rear its ugly head once again, and I might succumb to that numb addiction once more. Will you forgive my weakness? Will you rise to the occasion again, rip away these black curtains of mine, no matter how glaring the light?

Even now fear takes hold of me… Not of death, but of the life that will follow. I wonder how well this broken body will mend, what new challenges I’ll have to face on my own. But in the wake of these fears, a new thought takes hold as I marvel at the sun I’d shied away from only moments ago.

I’m alive.