“There’s a lady inside of my head,
who comes out when I am in bed.
She dresses in white,
she keeps out of sight.
And pulls at my mind like a thread.”
It was the first thing I said that morning. It was just something that popped up. Sammie, still half-asleep, turned to face me. She clutched the covers tight, her brown hair tussled with the ergonomic pillow. Saturday mornings would be far less beautiful without her.
“What… what did you say?” she asked.
“Huh? What?”
“The rhyme. Why’d you say that?”
“Must’ve picked it up somewhere,” I sighed. “Some Netflix show, maybe?”
“Creepy.”
She rolled away, hogging the covers. I’d only slept for five hours, but I was still wide awake. I’d found Sammie’s old diary the previous day, and we’d spent the night reading it together. But for some reason that rhyme stuck with me. “A lady inside of my head”.
As I went to work that day, I had that rhyme on repeat in the back of my mind. It played tricks on me. I mistook background chatter in the cafeteria as someone whispering to me. A sheet hanging off a clothesline looked like a white dress. And every now and then, I felt this surge of tiredness get the drop on me, making me nod off in front of my keyboard.
At first, I thought I was getting sick. This wasn’t like me at all. Still, I powered through, and did my best to just forget about it.
And yet, I couldn’t help but to think that I’d heard that rhyme before.
Over the next couple of days, things were getting progressively worse. I forgot to pick up Sammie after work. I nodded off at the red light in traffic. I woke up, every morning, repeating that same rhyme.
She dresses in white. That line kept coming back to me. Anything white would cause me to twitch, to look the other way. It was always at the edge of my vision; inches away from the corner of my eye.
She keeps out of sight.
A few days passed, and I met my mom for lunch at a café downtown. She was always out to set me up with her friends’ daughters; she never really liked Sammie. I forget why, but it was something small and insignificant that happened a few years ago.
The moment I sat down, she was on me. Despite having the thickest glasses in the Midwest my mom has more in common with a hawk than an old woman.
“Are you sleeping well?” she asked.
“Sort of,” I groaned. “Been having strange dreams. And mornings.”
“You need a good woman to wear you out.”
“Classy, mom,” I sighed. “You know I’m with Sammie.”
She sighed and looked for her coffee order. It’d be another few minutes.
“So what’s so strange about your mornings?”
I tried explaining as best as I could without sounding like a madman. I told her about sleeping no more than 5 hours at night and waking up with that strange rhyme on my mind. I was about to tell her about my problems at work when she suddenly left to get her coffee. When she came back, she didn’t skip a beat.
“The rhyme?” she asked. “The rhyme about the white lady?”
I hadn’t said anything about what was in the rhyme. How the hell did she know? I froze.
“The lady in white, who comes out at night. You mean that rhyme?”
She said it so casually, carefully sipping her coffee. I just nodded.
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Yeah, that.”
“You still on about that?”
“What do you mean ‘still’, mom?”
“I’ve heard this a thousand times. We’ve talked about this. You used to say it at the breakfast table when you were still in middle school.”
“No I didn’t.”
“So it’s another rhyme? It’s not about the lady in white?”
“No, well… I mean…”
She just shook her head, sipping her coffee. As the seconds passed, she knew she’d won.
“This is why you need a woman.”
The more I thought about it, the more I remembered. I made that rhyme up years ago, for some reason. It was a sort of reminder of something that was important to me back in the day.
I’d been a troubled teenager. I ran with a bad crowd, and one of my closest “friends” was a nasty abuser. The kind of person who could drive people to make bad choices. While not part of my life anymore, I had a few old names from those days left on my socials. The kind of people who never really stepped out of my life. The kind of people you’re happy to see that they’re doing well, but you’d never actually engage in conversation with them.
As I picked up Sammie from work that day, I noticed her looking at me. She usually played games on her old phone or sketched something in her notebook; staring was unusual. I gave her a glance back, as if to ask what’s up.
“I’m just worried,” she said as she touched my arm. “You’ve been trying to put all of that behind you. Wouldn’t it be better to just move forward?”
“I’m just curious,” I shrugged.
“You do what you think is best, hon’.”
I put the right turn signal on and checked both ways. There were a few cars coming my way, but they were pretty far off, so I turned.
But there was something there.
In the back seat.
Just inches out of sight, I caught the corner of something white. And there, in the harsh sunlight coming in from the rear-view mirror, I saw a shimmer of something reflective. A thin strand, reaching from my temple into the back of the car.
A thread.
Completely losing my focus, I turned my head around, taking my hands off the wheel. Sammie shrieked and covered her face as the car spun out of control, making us face the wrong way. The cars in the distance swerved out of lane to avoid us, throwing themselves on the horn as they screamed past.
I just sat there. Sammie took out her inhaler and tried to calm down. She gulped for air. As the seconds passed, I turned the car back around, and Sammie caught her breath.
Of course, there was nothing in the back seat.
Sammie and I didn’t talk for a while. She was uncomfortable about this whole thing, and didn’t want me to pursue it. I didn’t see the big deal; I just needed a reminder.
I got in touch with my old buddy, Clark. We hadn’t talked for a few years, but from all the people in the crowd I used to hang out with, Clark was by far the most humane. He was the kind of person who always seemed interested in others, no matter what their interests and lives actually were. Years later, and he was still the same guy.
I asked him about the rhyme. I tried to play it off as something funny, but he picked up on it right away.
“Yeah, I remember.” he wrote to me. “You mumbled it when you fell asleep in class. Doodled a statue of her in your notebooks.”
That night, I went out like a light. I had that kind of dreamless sleep that just makes you feel like the power went out in your head. Off, then suddenly back on.
Except I didn’t wake up in the morning. I woke up in the middle of the night, staring into the ceiling.
“There’s a lady inside of my head,” I muttered. “Who comes out when I am in bed.”
There was a mild pressure at the side of my head, like someone gently pulling a hair. A part of me knew that if I just quickly turned to look, I’d see something terrible. I could feel a radiating cold, like an open window. A promise of pain.
“She dresses in white, she keeps out of sight.”
I just looked straight ahead, at Sammie. Watched her shoulders rise and fall in comfort. Meanwhile, I could feel my heart rising in my chest. An ache building in my stomach. And all the while, a little pull at the side of my head.
I had to turn. To face my fear. I had to.
“And pulls at my mind like a thread.”
I burst into action and stood up. I could hear Sammie stirring.
Again, there was nothing there. Just a white t-shirt on top of a dresser.
“You have to stop,” groaned Sammie. “You’re hurting yourself.”
Over the next few days, I tried to make sense of it. Turns out, this was a rhyme I’d made up back in middle school, and I’d repeated it every now and then ever since. Sometimes I’d stop for several years, and other times I’d just say it over and over. Still, I couldn’t remember ever saying it. It was as alien to me as it is to you reading this.
But I’d feel that little pull on the side of my head. When standing in line at the store, while waiting in traffic, when taking out the trash. Every now and then, whenever I wasn’t paying enough attention, there was something pulling at me. Something just out of sight, dressed in white.
Just a little thread. A little pressure.
Like a knife slowly being pushed into my heart.
One day, as I was coming home from work, I drove by my mom’s place. She’d asked me to pick up some groceries. Nothing much, just some butter, sandwiches, jam, and such. I was feeling a little tense, like something was standing right behind me. Like something was lurking at the edge of my vision. Her.
But seeing my mom and her ridiculous glasses helped. It always did.
I helped her put away the groceries as we made small talk in the kitchen. After her usual tirades, she stopped to look at me for a moment. I saw something in her face; something apologetic. Like she knew I was suffering.
“I think we should go for a drive,” she said. “You look like you need some air.”
She made some sandwiches, and we were on our way.
We made our way out of town to a small countryside church. I remember being there a few times as a kid. Mostly for funerals, but also a few weddings. Coming back there felt like getting a whiff of your least favorite food. We parked, and my mom took me down a path on the far-left side. Rows of old tombstones, lined with withered tulips, roses and sunflowers. Mostly blue.
We stopped by a stone I hadn’t thought about in years.
My dad’s.
“Remember the last time you saw him?” she asked. “You’ve told me you can’t remember his voice.”
“Still can’t,” I sighed.
We stood there for a moment as she placed some wildflowers on the dirt.
“You stopped coming,” she continued. “You sort of… forgot.”
“Kids cope,” I nodded. “We don’t know how to deal with… this.”
She held my arm, and we stood there in silence.
As we left, we walked by some of the graves of richer people. Tall obsidian monoliths, cherub statues, elaborate crosses with golden text. And by the exit, the statue of a beautiful woman made out of shining pearl marble.
“You were always fascinated by that one,” mom said. “Always.”
I had such a vivid memory of it. There were many things about this church I couldn’t remember; not even my dad’s tombstone, but this statue was burned into my head.
“The lady in white,” I muttered. “That’s her.”
“I suppose it is,” mom sighed.
Flowing black hair covering unblinking eyes. An elaborate white dress, slick from the rain.
Terrifying.
That night, as I got home, Sammie wasn’t there. I figured she was out with her friends. We weren’t really talking right now, but I still texted her to make sure she was okay.
I laid awake in bed, thinking. The woman in white. I had a better memory of her than my own dad.
I remembered thinking about her over the years. It was a comfort, of sorts. Someone who listened when I was alone. Whenever I came to that church, I didn’t say my prayers to God; I spoke to the white lady, telling her about all the pains and problems of my world.
That’s how it started.
Over the years, I talked to her more and more. Whenever I was sad, or hurting, I dreamt of telling her all about it. After a while I didn’t even need to see her; I could just think about her. And after a while, she came to me no matter what. That rhyme was my way of remembering her; a call to her, and to have her comfort me.
But no, that wasn’t that.
That wasn’t all of it.
A shiver went up my spine. A horrifying thought. That pull at the side of my head grew cold, as I reached for Sammie’s diary.
I turned to the last page, as I felt the chill of a presence entering the room. Her presence.
“It’s not… no, I-…”
There it was, clear as day. My own handwriting, dated four years ago.
“I miss you, Sammie. I miss you every day.”
A text on my phone. My message couldn’t be delivered.
Number out of service.
The thread getting pulled out of my head snapped, and for a moment, my head was filled with memories. The asthma attack that’d killed Sammie. The funeral at the very same church where my dad was laid to rest. The memory of her had been forgotten; taken. That’s why I still thought she was around. I’d forgotten she wasn’t.
The diary had brought the white lady back. Whenever I was in pain, whenever I was hurting, she’d come to take it all away. To pull the memories out of my head like a thread. To make me blissfully empty and spin herself a longer dress.
The pressure kept getting stronger, as I heard myself saying it.
“There’s a lady inside of my head,
who comes out when I am in bed.
She dresses in white,
she keeps out of sight.
And pulls at my mind-.”
I held the final words on my tongue, as I slowly turned around. A whisper tickled my ears.
“…like a thread.”
It wasn’t my voice. It was crushed glass, arranged into words. A knife’s edge being whispered into my soul. She was here, and it was no longer a comfort.
She was standing by the side of the bed. An elaborate white dress, woven from memories I’d prayed to forget. Everything from embarrassing teenage nonsense to searing emotional anguish. All of it woven into this beautiful dress; a touch of which would bring it all back.
She wasn’t running away. She wasn’t hiding anymore. She was here, in front of my eyes. An unmoving, unblinking face. Sculpted black hair, unmoved by wind.
Spinning a thread between her fingers, reaching all the way to my soul.
She touched my arm.
I felt the weight of my pain in her. A being that’d come to life from an image, a rhyme, and ceaseless sorrow. She was still pulling threads out of me.
I could feel black spots forming in my memory. Not just painful things, but what I had for dinner last night. The last time I was at a bachelor party, the name of my friends’ dog. It was all being stripped out of me, and she was going faster and faster.
By the time I realized what she was doing, the threads spinning around her fingers were so many that they formed a braid.
I rolled out of bed, feeling my head being pulled back. I struggled to get away, forcing myself into the hallway.
“Like a thread,” she whispered.
Where did I work? What was my favorite food?
I stumbled through the kitchen and out through the front door. I could hear her. She was trying to pull it all out of me. All of it.
I couldn’t remember my birthday, and my chest ached.
Oh God.
I barely felt the gravel under my feet, I had to get away. Whatever it took.
I was forgetting the past few minutes. I forgot why I was running. I ran headfirst through traffic, feeling the wind of passing cars. Screeching tires, last-second horns blaring as I tumbled over the railing at the other side.
Flashes of consciousness. Falling down a hill, scratching my knee on a fallen tree. Hands brushing tall grass.
And there, at the edge of a lake, I forgot how to run.
The pull was so strong. I knew that she’d reach the bottom of my mind, and soon. Like pulling the roots of a weed.
She moved behind me, ethereal and unreal. She was making herself corporeal, taking all that is me and turning it into her. Maybe everyone would forget about me, the way I’d forgotten about the world.
Flashes of panic washed over me, as I realized what I was about to lose.
I was dying, in so many ways.
I got to my feet, as I felt the words fall out of me; slowly being forgotten.
“There’s a lady inside of my head,” I cried.
I stepped forward, pulled by her marble hands. She was greedy. Hungry. Excited to turn to flesh.
“Who comes out… when I am in bed.”
Her eyes were moving, turning into a vivid green. My vision blurred.
“She dresses in white,” I said, watching her beautiful dress. “She keeps out of sight.”
A last ditch-effort. I didn’t even know why I did it.
“And pulls at my mind…”
I fell forward. I could hear her draw her first breath, as my own chest closed. My body was shutting down, my mind and soul being unraveled like a loose thread. Her presence turned warm, as her body felt that first pulse of life.
But as I fell, my hands touched that white dress, and it all came rushing back.
It absorbed into me. Into my hands, my face, my chest. Decades of unbearable loss coming back to me all at once. Anxieties I’d pushed away seeped into the cracks in my mind. Anxiety and sorrow, burning like a hot iron.
I just laid there, screaming. Begging for someone, anyone, to kill me.
For the white lady to end it, to take me away.
But no, she was gone.
I’d forgotten the rhyme.
This was a couple of years ago.
I’ve been to therapy three times a week since then. Doctor Bogan tells me I’m in steady recovery. I’m coming to terms with all that I’ve tried to forget and accepting the things I’ve chosen to leave behind. She’s the first doctor that didn’t just dismiss me as having a breakdown or calling it all a coping mechanism. This was too complicated. While she doesn’t tell me she believes that the lady in white was truly physically real, she has no doubt in her mind that I was on the edge of disappearing; in one way or another.
But then there was that time a few weeks ago. I’d taken a number at the bank and was waiting for my turn. The lady in front of me had probably been there for half an hour. She’d fallen asleep in her chair, clutching her number.
“Number four!” the clerk called out.
As the lady slowly came to, I heard her mumble.
“…like a thread.”
Then she smiled, put her number away, and walked off.
Maybe the white lady found a new victim, trying to make herself real again.
Maybe she just wanted to remind me that she’s out there.
Or maybe she’s back, and I have no way to know what I’m missing.