BECOMING SUPRA

Chapter 7

ÆSH

I am sliding, sliding precariously over an expanse of black ice, sitting in what looks like a gargantuan timber truck. Cutting through the sleet, the truck trundles on frozen water, leaving in its wake a trail of cracked spider-veins.

It is cold to the bone, my teeth are chattering, my eyes are blinking wet. I'm wrestling for control of the wheels with a man, I can't make out who it is. It's a tough wrangle, he wants me to turn right, I want to follow the straight line ahead.

I throw a punch, it breaks his hold on the wheel and he falls back. I see the full contours of his face. It's my father!

I pull at the wheel, the truck swerves, nauseously. Logs of timber come undone and fall like hyphens in a lost story.

Through the blur of snow, I spot a figure. It's a woman, as tall and broad as me. My father yanks at the wheel, I pull back with force. I throw another punch, his skin bursts open and a trickle of blood runs down.

The truck barrels forward like a pinball towards a lone target. She gets forked between the headlights and I immediately recognize her. It's my mother! She is looking directly at me, fear rising in her expression as the gargantuan timber truck inches closer and closer. I slam the breaks. But it's too late, the wheel locks, the truck swerves in a perpendicular sweep, keeling over and slamming my mother - face front.

A vermillion smear.

Blood Rorschach on black ice.

I jolt up through the blood Rorschach, my hand whacks a tumbler, it shatters to the ground.

Woken by the sound, my roommate Varun asks, "You okay?"

My heart is still racing, my face is balmy with sweat. I get out of bed and look out the window. On the glass, I catch my expression, a frown is knitting my brows. Through my reflection, I see the tropical darkness of the night. And exhale with relief.

It – was - just – a - dream. It was just a dream.

"I'm going for a walk," I tell my roommate.

"It's in the middle of the night and the doors are locked." He lifts the covers and returns to his pillow. "But if you absolutely must, use the fire escape window, one of the grilles is broken."

For a moment I stand in the dark. The thought of my father floods me. The horror on his face, the wide-eyed dread when he realizes he can't prevent me from killing Mother. I haven't spoken to him since I joined school. I pick up my phone and walk out into the corridor.

It will be late evening in St. Petersburg. I try calling but the line drops without connecting. I try twice again but the phone does not catch a signal. I throw my phone on the bed and walk out of the room.

I can't possibly sleep now, what if I slip back into the nightmare. I've got to get out of here, clear my head, get some fresh air. I walk to the end of the corridor and examine the window with a chink. I pull at one of the grilles, it comes off easily. The gap now large enough to wriggle my body out of. I exit onto the fire escape and make my way to the rooftop.

I stare into the black sky, dissecting my nightmare frame by frame. My mind replaying the moment when the truck whacks the front of my mother's face.

The day before Mother died, I had a dream with a certain kind of bite. It was violent and disturbing. I saw carnage, I saw gore, I saw blood pudding on the forest floor. I remember waking up with a sense of foreboding, it sat heavy in me like it is today.

I sat for hours dissecting my nightmare piece by piece, trying hard to erase the images clean. Before me, the contours of a placid lake slowly took shape. A rooster crowd, the pink freshness of the morning emerged. I quietly made my way back to my dorm room with a knowing something bad was going to happen soon, I could feel it. History repeats itself. If it's happened before it's going to happen again. The thought gripped me like a silent shriek. And I got stuck in a thought loop I didn't know how to disengage from.