The stranger in the mirror | Wattys2016

(5) A door ajar...

When the door opens, there's a horrible mess on the floor, the white tiles are smeared - in a brownish-reddish substance, namely dried blood, and quite a lot of it. The towel that usually hangs on the wall next to the sink has fallen to the ground and is soaked in blood, it looks like it's still damp, and the mirror and sink are covered in blood splatters, too.

It only takes a fraction of a second for me to realize that that's blood I'm looking at, and as soon as the realization hits me, nausea floods my stomach and I feel dizzy. I have a bit of an issue with seeing blood. Now that I've pushed the door open completely, I see what was lying in front of it and causing the resistance - it's her.

I don't really look at her though, I just see Claudia's body, kind of slumped down, I see her leg and then an arm, none of it in an exactly natural position, I see a bit of the back of her head where her hair is black and lumpy with clotted blood, a lot of which has run down over her shoulder and back - immediately, I turn to the sink and throw up violently.

The whole process doesn't last longer than a few seconds, but I feel like I've been hunched over the sink and retching for at least 20 minutes. I can't stop being sick, my stomach keeps contracting agonizingly, even though it was practically empty to begin with. My forehead is covered in cold sweat, my whole body is cold (stone-cold) and I feel disgusting; my heart is racing and I think that maybe, my body is just retching out of sheer, overwhelming panic, because it knows that as soon as the retching stops, it'll have to turn around and take a closer look at that. 'That'...I mean her, of course.

I wash my mouth with cold water, take a deep breath and turn around. She's still lying there, it wasn't just some sick hallucination. Then again, why should it be. There's her shoulder again, covered in blood. I pluck up courage and look at her face. Her head's lying inside the shower, where the blood is still wet because the shower had been turned on before. The shower head's leaky, every few seconds a drop of water falls off and hits the shiny red puddle. Her head is lying in the middle of a pool of dark red and it almost looks as though there's still a trickle of blood emerging from somewhere underneath her hair - but I might very well be mistaken, considering as my stomach is yet again starting to turn at this sight.

I take a step towards her, but then I have to stop and place my trembling hand against the wall for support. I can't get any closer to her, not a single step. I can tell there's a lot of blood all over the left side of her face, there's a major laceration over her brow, but what's more disturbing is that a bit farther to the side, her skull seems visibly...shattered...I can barely finish the thought, it's too repulsive. The sight of the head with the seemingly smashed skull, the thought of the bone shattering in that one spot and the blood gushing - I can't. I'm trembling too violently, I'm too nauseous and on the brink of losing consciousness and I'm so shell-shocked that it feels like I'll never in my life be okay again; and I just can't do this.

I know what I should be doing - I know I have to check whether she's...but she's my wife! I shouldn't be disgusted by this. I'm not supposed to be terrified. I'm not supposed to just want to get out of this room with every fiber of my body and I'm not supposed to be repulsed by the idea of touching her. I should have rushed to her without a shadow of hesitation and checked her pulse, her breathing, anything. But I can't.  I'm so dysfunctional that not even the most basic human impulse seems to be working within me.

I glance over at the wall against which I propped up my trembling hand for support, only to withdraw my hand in horror and lunge away from the wall - it's smeared in blood right there, too, right where I had put my hand. The stain is smeared, some drops of blood made their way down the wall, but it's also smeared sideways, as though she hit the wall and then slid forward, and now there's a vague handprint in the middle of it. Appalled, I grab the nearest bottle of cleaning agent - not soap, but cleaning agent, it's stronger - I don't know what it is and I don't care, I don't even bother to read the label. I douse my hand in the stuff which emits a poisonously pungent odor and wash it for several minutes until the frantic scrubbing and aggressive chemicals render my skin sore and red and I feel reasonably clean again. That is the moment when I finally have the one reasonable thought that common sense should have put into my head right away, if I were a functional husband with adequate instincts - ambulance.

I call an ambulance, explaining briefly that my wife seems to have had an accident in the bathroom, probably slipped - blood, lots of blood, please hurry, here's the address. I hang up and stand around for a moment, lost in my own hallway. I can't possibly go back in there, I can't look at it again, I can't, can't, can't - do anything right now, really. My brain's shutting down. I cautiously walk over to the bathroom door, close my eyes before I get there and feel for the doorhandle. I gingerly close the door and open my eyes. I ponder for a moment, then lock the door and even pull the key - as though I was afraid she'd suddenly rise from the dead and haunt me. I flinch at the thought because I don't want to consider her dead yet. I put the key into my pocket and go back into the hallway, where I just slide down onto the floor and sit there, facing the front door. The dog trots up to me (where's he been all this time, anyway) and starts licking my hands and face (you know how they say dogs can't see colours? I wonder if he notices I'm ashen-faced, anyway...) and whimpering, desperately trying to elicit any reaction. Not a chance, though, I'm practically turned to stone, which he finally accepts. He sits down next to me resignedly and we wait.