His hand waited beneath the popcorn like an antlion. My fingers were the unsuspecting ants. I reached for the popcorn, and the trap sprung. Fingers weaved through mine at an odd angle. Instead of adjusting for my comfort, he pulled my hand into a firm grasp.
“Ouch?” I said before pulling away. We watched the rest of Madame Web in uncomfortable silence.
A first date on Valentine’s Day is never a good idea. It comes with too much pressure to be romantic. All romantic gestures are essentially well received creep moves. Anything resembling an insect predator should never be well received.
We didn’t speak until we were outside the theatre. I lingered because I didn’t want him to follow me to my car.
He had his hands in his pants pockets. “So?”
I shrugged. “It was nice meeting you, Jon.”
“Ah,” he said, “it’s like that.”
I tried not to express pity. “It’s not anyone’s fault,” I said.
Jon backed away toward the sidewalk. “It is. It’s mine. It always is. I’m sorry.” He took a quick glance back, straining to look both ways along the street. “Since I won’t see you again, I can tell you this: I love you. From the second I saw your photo, I knew. Goodbye.”
It happened fast. One second, Jon was there. And then… gone, taken out by a bus.
I’ll give him this: His suicide was better timed than his romantic gesture. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I feel bad Jon killed himself. I just don’t own any part of his reasons for doing so. Clearly, he was deeply troubled.
I already have a therapist for unrelated reasons, so I knew I’d have to deal with post-traumatic stress. What followed, however, has nothing to do with a mental break or psychosis of any kind.
After speaking with the police, I went home. My sister came over for support, but I hardly noticed her until the weekend. I was in a daze, processing a near stranger’s tragic death, I suppose.
I’d been using work as a distraction, but reality demanded I deal with Jon’s death, which pissed me off a little. How dare he burden me with shit I didn’t earn. We had no relationship, and now we did. Forever.
Heidi used the big bowl for a mixture of Doritos, all-dressed Ruffles, and chocolate M&Ms. She called it the celebrity mix because those were our favorites.
Sacraments might be more accurate. I viewed these junk foods, paradoxically, as cleansing.
She turned on a movie, and we started to veg. We shared the bowl, unconsciously munching. I thought about Jon and the antlion maneuver. When I felt something hard in the depths of the snacks, I imagined it was a finger. Then it seemed like a hand, and I recoiled.
“No!” I shouted.
“What the fuck?” Heidi said. “ What’s wrong?”
I got closer to the bowl, and tapped the edge.
“What? What is it? A spider? Is it a spider?” She started to freak and leapt off the couch, brushing off her pajamas and shaking. “Ew!”
“It’s nothing,” I said. PTSD can mess you right up. Again, it pissed me off. Jon’s depression made him inconsiderate. Being sorry for yourself all the time is selfish and often destructive to those around you.
That’s why it’s important to fight depression, every day if you must. Staring at the sacrament bowl - also our cake bowl and occasional vomit receptacle - I resolved to remember to fight. I would raise my anxiety medication. I would exercise harder. I would get through this, you fucker, Jon.
“You okay?” Heidi asked. “You’re staring at the bowl and getting all red and stuff. Do you hate the bowl? We can get another bowl.”
Heidi’s humor was lame but served to get me out of my thought spiral. I smiled and shook my head. “Let’s watch some more.” I sat down with my arms crossed and forced myself to stare at the TV, and not the bowl.
“Maybe I should grab the wine too,” Heidi said, going to the kitchen faster than I could agree. We each drank a bottle and fell asleep on the couch.
It was in the night, in the midst of a dream about a dog nipping my palm and tugging that I awoke to my hand in the sacraments bowl, half buried in chips. Figuring I’d passed out mid snacking, I retracted my hand, which felt sore. The muscles on the inside of my thumb hurt, and fingernail crescents were there, pressed into the skin.
I stared at the imprints. Still inebriated, it took a moment to realize the marks were facing the wrong way. If I’d squeezed hard, the inside of the crescents would face my palm. They weren’t. In fact, they were the opposite.
Working my hands into various configurations to see if I’d somehow done it in my sleep, I came to only one plausible, yet highly unlikely theory: I had dug into the skin with the nails on my other hand.
Too afraid to test this conclusion by placing my nails in the grooves, I went into the kitchen for more booze. Clearly, I hadn’t drunk enough. I needed to be passed out until daylight.
With a topped up glass, I also found the M&Ms bag. Chocolate would help. Chocolate always helps.
Stiff digits were inside and the bag flexed out violently as the hand within grabbed at mine.
I fell over. The M&Ms spilled everywhere. More delusions. Had to be. There was nothing real in there.
I opened the bag to convince myself, and the fingers and the hand they belonged to sprang, clipping the bridge of my nose.
The antlion had returned.
Blood trickled from a small cut. Delusions and stress and PTSD couldn’t do that.
Jon could. Jon did. He was there. At least, his hand was.
Of course, I’d dropped the bag again and stamped on it as if crushing an insect. Seriously freaking out, I returned to the couch with my wine and gulped as much of it as I could in a single swallow.
The short, agitated breaths from my squeezed together mouth woke Heidi.
“Uhh, what time is it?” Gradually, she recognized I was not okay. “Hey, what’s the matter?” She looked everywhere for the source of the problem.
I pointed to it. “Go and check the M&Ms.”
It took more convincing and she was obviously reluctant because I wouldn’t tell her what I thought was in there. Heidi used a pair of salad tongs to complete the examination. After a long look, she tore it open to reveal nothing. It was empty.
“Tell me,” she said. We are sisters, close in age. We keep nothing from one another, so I told her everything. She expressed no skepticism and didn’t rationalize. Instead, she went into the freezer, got out the vodka, and poured us some straight shots.
After we’d finished, Heidi began the experiment, setting bowls, buckets, and an old popcorn bag she found in a drawer, onto the kitchen island. Into each vessel she poured the sacraments, Ruffles primarily.
“Okay,” she said, “here we go.”
Heidi put her hand into the first bowl. Nothing happened, but I didn’t expect that it would. Then it was my turn. No amount of alcohol could stop my shaking.
“I’m right here,” Heidi assured me.
But what could she do if Jon grabbed me? I buried the thought as I buried my hand in chips. No ghostly fingers were there. Relief sank in and Heidi noticed but didn’t say anything until we’d repeated the experiment with the other containers, including the old popcorn bag.
She let me draw the conclusion rather than doing it for me. “Stressed out delusion,” I said. The condition wasn’t good either but at least it had a reasonable explanation.
I must have scratched myself.
“We’ll get to a doctor tomorrow,” Heidi said. “We should hit the hay.”
I agreed and went to bed, finding sleep easy and the dreams only a little harder. Jon was there. I guess I was in my kitchen and his hand shot out of a pot.
“It’s not stress,” he said as the hand gripped the lip of the pot and pulled his head into view. His skin looked gray and green. If I could have yawned in a dream I probably would have. This didn’t scare me. I told him so.
Dream Jon appeared confused. “Why would you be scared? We’re in love.”
Before I could gently correct him, I woke up. Heidi had already left the bed and was in the shower. I called up the doctor’s office and explained to the administrator my situation. She said I could come that afternoon. Everything was going to be fine.
I poked my head into the bathroom. “Heidi, want to go out for breakfast?”
“Sure!” she shrieked over the hiss of the showerhead. “Now get out here you little pervert or I’m gonna slap you silly!” I laughed. “Oh, you’re cookin’ Heids!” She launched into the rest of the Home Alone reference and I went to find my purse.
I reached in for my meds. That’s the last time I saw my right hand. Jon’s fingernails had become familiar. They dug into my skin like thorns and pierced deeply as I fought to free myself.
Heidi raced from the bathroom to find me writhing on the floor. She was confused but joined the fight until I begged her to stop pulling.
Out of breath, she looked to the purse still full of my hand, and his.
“Jon?” she asked. I nodded. “Can I meet him?” Heidi hadn’t accepted his existence. Neither was she scoffing at my belief. Telling someone their delusions are crazy goes about as well as one might think. Plus, I had proof, and I needed her totally on my side.
“Jon,” I said, “my sister is here and would like to meet you… I’ve… told her so much already… it’s long overdue.” The death grip slackened. Blood trickled down over my fingers and started to fill the bag.
With salad tongs again, Heidi pried open the purse. Her mouth went wide before she started screaming. Jon squeezed so hard I felt a bone pop.
“Heidi! Stop! Stop it!” I needed her to calm down. She did. And then she went to the kitchen for a knife. “No! Heidi! Stop! He knows! He knows what you’re doing!” I writhed and screamed; the pain brought me close to unconsciousness, which would have been good. Unfortunately, I stayed awake, and now it’s like he’s aware of that possibility as a means of escape.
The ordeal did not cease. Jon pulled harder, and the purse slipped up to my elbow despite the actual depth being far shallower.
My sister put the knife down and begged Jon to stop. “Sorry, Jon! Sorry! It was… a misunderstanding! I’m so happy… to finally meet you.” She didn’t sound or look remotely happy.
I could hear him whispering from inside the bag. “What… is it, Jon?” I asked, bringing my ear closer.
“If you or anyone tries to part us again,” he said quietly, calmly, “I’ll rip your goddamn arm off. I’ll bring you here. With me. Forever. Because I love you.”
I nodded. “Of course, Jon. Why would I leave?” Heidi started to cry. So did I. We sat on the bedroom floor for a long time with Jon making suggestions for conversation and activity:
“It’s too quiet.”
“Ask about my day.”
“Let’s walk to the park.”
If I hesitated, I paid for it immediately with pain. We walked to the park. We kept the conversation going. Jon and I and Heidi had another sleepover. He strongly suggested we watch all the Spiderman movies, so we did.
We went to bed. It’s Sunday night. I brought out my phone.
“What are you doing?” he inquired, pressing his index finger into the cartilage beside my thumb, a not so subtle reminder to forget about escape.
“It’s work tomorrow, Jon,” I told him. “I’ve a few things to sort out, especially since… I’ll be bringing you with me to meet everyone…”
What I did next makes me sick. I stroked his disembodied hand, wiggling the digit in his death grip until he relented and let me trace a path along his palm with one freed finger.
“Why don’t you sleep, Jon? It’s been… a long day. I’ll be down soon.”
I had no intention of sleeping, and when he didn’t respond, I wasn’t foolish enough to think he’d gone to sleep or needed to. It’s probably some kind of test.
I typed this out with one hand. I’m lying here with him, and Heidi is here too, staring at me. She doesn’t dare ask what I’m up to because he’d kill me for sure, or make good on his threat to pull me to where he currently exists.
Need a way out though. Don’t want to lose an arm. Or die. Or go where he is. Help. Can anybody help?