WRITING & POETRY
Three Strangers
Palms are clenched. The soft hospital music is forgotten as three strangers huddle together in a crowded emergency room. Moments from the past are forgotten and the potential loss is feared. If it were not for the other two holding her up, Nejla's knees and heart would fall to the pasty, uncaring floor. Jason, the local, is unknowingly the leader now. Frank is a middle-aged man with a lost boy's heart.
"Are you excited about your trip to D.C.? Make sure to call, and…fun, have fun. I love you," said Nejla's mother. "Yes, ok, bye," Nejla slurred back.
Slam.
This the first time Nejla has been excited about leaving. Since the incident, she has stayed in her room and written.
"It drives away my mental pains," she said to her therapist, one day. Her therapist asked if she would ever write about the incident.
Slam.
The memory came back to her. She shriveled into a little girl, knees ready to fall onto the brown carpet, like the time in the hospital. Nejla forgot about the therapist's question for a while.
As she stares out the plastic smudged window as the airplane glides through the clouds, she feels the urge to write. Taking out her blue spiral notebook, the kind little kids are eager to buy for school supplies, but then begin to hate as the year progresses, she writes.
Two years ago I was on a volleyball tournament with my school. As we left NYC and drove to Chicago every moment was filled with laughter, until my best friend, Karen, and I walked into a drug store, the kind you definitely do not want to use the bathroom in. Slam. A man stood behind us, right as the door closed. I glanced around checking out the situation, like a deer does when it hears a twig break in the field where it is resting. They were four others in the room, a college guy it looked like, with his perfect looking girlfriend, who was as terrified as a worm you're about to use as bait. Then there was an older man who did not seem scared, but rather numb to the situation, a sort of desperation in his eyes hoping for the man with the gun to shoot HIM. With the lonely middle-aged man was his son. I later found out the son was only 9 years old, who dreamed of playing baseball. We were asked to get…
"Jason," his sister yelled. "Dinner is ready, come on."
"I'll be right there, just let me finish this sketch up."
"You know you spend so much time in those other worlds you create it would be nice if you would join ours once or twice."
No reply. He took his thumb and smudged the edge of his sketch.
"So you have been drawing?" His therapist asked
"Yes."
"And…how do you feel about that?" the typical day to day question of his therapist.
"I don't know…I've been having these dreams though."
"Yes, what about?"
As he remembered, he described them to his therapist. They were about when April, his girlfriend, was shot.
"It happened so fast, after those two teenaged girls walked in, the two men screamed at all of us to get down on the floor. April was shaking so much that all the men's words were incoherent to her. I grabbed and grabbed at her blouse, but she stood straight up like a piece of cardboard. Slam. She fell to the ground. I could see her pain through her eyes. She was still alive when we got to the hospital. The strange thing is…is I can remember my emotions and my fear at the time, but I don't remember showing it. After the girl, Nejla's friend, was shot, Nejla was the mess. I felt like I needed to be brave for her, and Frank. Especially Frank, I mean he saw his own son shot. And…you know what, the more I think about all of this, the more I wonder why it was them that were shot? Why? Why not me? Why not the other two?"
"Do you keep in contact with the other two?"
"No. We went through a lot together especially for strangers, but it would be to painful. Besides, Frank, the one with the son who died, he killed himself."
"Do you know him ma'am?" The morgue director asked.
"Yes, it's my husband Frank."
"We classified his death as suicide. Do you know why he might have done this?"
"Yes, he left a note."
Slam.
The moment of her finding her husband's last words lying on the mahogany desk she had given to him for their 26th anniversary and received but a smile in return, that moment grabbed her.
Dear Vanessa,
I am sorry. I know I have not been there for you, and when Luke was alive I was a bad father. Please forgive me. I never thought my numbness to life would cost our son his life. I know my doing this will cause more pain, but I do not know what else to do. I have made so many mistakes there is no hope. I've felt more alive since the incident, and that has left me open to pain, and I am too weak to withstand that emotion. I love you. I realized for sure that I had to do this after Luke's funeral yesterday. Everyone, blaming me with their looks. Move on with your own life, Vanessa. Find hope, something I was too weak to do. I do love you. I'm sorry. Love, Frank
Three strangers huddled together in a crowded hospital emergency room. Why them? The strongest connection strangers have to one another is human emotion. Feeling wakes us up. Feeling weakens us, but feeling reassures us that we are still alive.
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7/31/05