At the Seams

Chapter 1: Day 1 - 7:30 am

Chapter 1: Day 1 - 7:30 am

Mary awakens to a world of red agony. Sam's alarm clock brays five or six times, each like the crash of a cymbal to her distressed skull, before Sam rolls over and boxes its ears. Then, blessed silence.

The light is terrible, acid in Mary’s brain. She shrieks, slams her eyes shut against the sun. Her mouth makes no sound and her eyelids ignore her. She tries to cover her face to (please, God) block out the light, but her limbs only lie there like concrete in a sack. Her arms don’t even twitch. She screams again. Her body is silent—her jaw a mindless vise, her tongue a lifeless stone, her vocal cords, icicles.

Her left eye remains rolled back in her skull. Her sinuses feel like broken pottery grinding inside her nose and an incredible pressure yanks at the back of her face. She imagines the bones of her cheeks and nose sagging back into themselves, collapsing as a U-boat must at great depths. Each tooth in her mouth bawls; her jaw clamors to unclench.

Her muscles are piñatas of ants, buzzing with stillness and the desire to act. Two inches from her hand is help, Sam, but two inches is around the world. She wonders if she should try to reach for him, but she’s been through that already, before she undertook to mutilate her left eye. She knows her muscles will not respond. She knows her muscles have already tried to respond, just at the faintest hint of her thought—but the message keeps getting lost, fizzling out uselessly as static in her soft tissues. Her eyes burn anew as she recounts the extent of her helplessness.

Her body bounces when the mattress shifts and Sam sits up to toss the covers off his legs. Sam is a morning person, as Mary is, or rather, was, until she woke up encased in marble. He always arises enthusiastically, eager for his morning run and the mug of hot, black, fresh-ground coffee and cardamom with which Mary greets him upon his return. In the peripheral vision of her right eye, Mary watches Sam swing his feet to the floor and stretch his arms above his head.

He drops his arms to the bed, reaching back aimlessly with one hand. When he finds Mary’s leg, he strokes it lovingly, absently. "What a beautiful day," he murmurs under his breath. He pushes himself up from the bed, stretching again briefly, still gazing out the window.

Mary dares to feel some hope. Sam will turn around any minute and rescue her from her paralysis. Warmth floods her breast and belly—lunatic, considering her circumstance, but she is already falling in love with the heroics Sam performs in her head. She knows his routine. Next, he'll tuck the covers around her and kiss her hair, then go to the bathroom to put in—

A cold hammer of panic steals Mary’s breath. Oh, Christ, he's blind without his contacts. Surely, her eye looks horrific, but will he even see it? How will he be able to tell something is wrong if she can't speak and he can't see? Mary has heard about people sensing their loved ones’ distress over great distances. Would Sam sense her torture from two inches?

Mary catches her galloping mind roughly by the bit and hauls it to a stop. She has one chance to get immediate help, and if she freezes in fear, Sam will know nothing. Mary cries deliberately, not a difficult chore. She feels the familiar pricking, as if someone has flung dust in her face, when the factories in her lower eyelids—darker over the last ten years; now, a nightmare of violet—go to work. Slight pressure fingers her right eye as its engine starts. Her left eye, however, is a slug writhing in a hill of salt as the tears pour into her pulverized socket. Mary must cry, though; when he kisses her, Sam will feel the moisture and investigate, and she will be saved.

 Mary follows Sam as he circles around the bed. He curses lightly when he trips over Jay, their Doberman Pincer. Mary fixes her good right eye on her husband, willing him to see her, smell her dread, taste her tears when he kisses her, have an intuitive moment, anything, just help her. Tears stream down her face, collecting in the creases of her neck and ears. Her skin flushes hot with fear and frustration. Sam must realize something is wrong. How could he miss it?