Chapter 27 27

The next four hours were the worst of Jesse Burlingame's life.Her muscle spasms continued, becoming more frequent and more intense.However, it's not the pain in the muscles that makes the time between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm so scary.It was her mind that stubbornly and disgustingly refused to let go of her sane mind and enter the darkness.She'd read Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" in junior high, but it wasn't until now that she understood the true horror of the opening line.nervous!Really, I am, always have been, nervous, but why do you say I'm crazy? It is a relief to be mad, but madness refuses to visit, and sleepiness does not visit.Death may defeat both, and of course darkness will come.All she could do was lie in bed, existing in a gray, olive-coloured reality.Occasionally, the muscles twitched, and blinding bursts of pain pierced through reality.The convulsions mattered a great deal, as did her dreadful and weary sanity, and the rest seemed insignificant.

Of course, the world outside the house no longer really meant anything to her.In fact, she had grown convinced that there really was no world outside this house.All the people who once occupied this world have returned to the casting department of some existing movie studio.All the scenery was put away like the stage sets, which were based on Ruth's beloved college drama club productions. Time was an icy ocean, and her consciousness drifted like a rickety, lumbering icebreaker.Voices came and went ghostly, voices chattering in her head.For a moment, Nora Calligan was talking to her in the bathroom.Another time, Jesse has a conversation with her mom, who appears to be hiding in the living room.Mama came to tell her that if only she had done a better job of packing Jesse's clothes, Jesse would never have been in such a mess. "If I could get a nickel every time I pulled a petticoat out of the corner, or turned it inside out once," Mom said, "I'd buy the Cleveland Gas Works." My favorite word to say.Jess realized now that no one asked her why she wanted Cleveland Gas Works.

She continued to move feebly, kicking her feet, moving her arms up and down, doing as much movement as the handcuffs—and her dwindling strength—would allow, no longer to prepare her body for when the appropriate choice finally came to her mind. time to escape.Because she finally understood, in her heart and mind, that she had no choice.That jar of cream is a last resort.She's only exercising now because the movement seems to ease the spasm a little. Even though she was exercising, she felt the cold creep into her feet and hands, like a layer of ice falling on her skin and then into her body.It's not like sleeping at all.She felt that way when she woke up this morning.It was more like the frostbite she'd gotten from long afternoons of cross-country skiing as a teenager.Those wicked brown blotches on the back of one hand, and on her calf, partly covered by her leggings, didn't even seem to respond to the heat of the fireplace.She speculated that the numbness would eventually subdue the convulsions, so that her final death would be quite peaceful after all—like going to sleep on a snowdrift—but it was too slow.

Time passed, but this wasn't time; it was just the relentless, unchanging flow of information from her sleepless senses to her somehow waking mind.Just the bedroom, the scenery outside (the last few scenes used on stage were about to be put away by the props man in charge of this sleazy little film), the flies buzzing about turning Jerrod into a late-season incubator and the shadows of the sun moving slowly across the floor as the sun moves across the colorful autumn sky.Now and then a spasm would poke into her armpit like an icepick, then it would be like a thick steel nail being driven into her right side.The afternoon rolled on endlessly, when the first cramp began to hit her stomach, where all the torments of hunger had now ceased.The spasms also hit the overstretched tendons in her diaphragm.The spasms of the latter two were the worst, stiffening the muscular sheaths of her chest and suffocating her lungs.She was in agony as convulsions came, her eyes fixed on the ripples of water reflected on the ceiling.Shaking in all limbs, she struggled to hold her breath until the spasms eased.It was like being buried up to the neck in cold, wet cement.

The hunger is gone, but the thirst is still there.As the interminable days wore on around her, she came to realize that what thirst alone (and nothing else) might accomplish was increasing pain, even the fact that she was about to die. failed to achieve.Here it is: Thirst driving her crazy.Now, not only was her throat and mouth thirsty, every part of her body was crying for water, even her eyeballs were thirsty.Watching the ripples on the ceiling dance towards the right of the skylight, she moaned softly. With these very real dangers looming toward her, her fear of space cowboys should have diminished or disappeared entirely.However, as the afternoon passed slowly, she found that the appearance of the pale-faced stranger not only did not ease, but weighed heavily on her heart.She kept seeing its shape, standing just outside the little circle of light that surrounded her fading consciousness.Though she could only make out its outline (thin to the point of gauntness), she found that she could see the grin distorting its mouth, growing stronger as the sun dragged its time plow westward. The more exposed.Its hands rummaged in the old-fashioned chest, and she heard the eerie clattering of bones and jewels.

It will come to kill her.It will appear as soon as it gets dark.The dead cowboy, the outsider, the ghost of love. You did see it, Jesse.It is death, and you do see it, as is common to those who die in lonely places.Of course they saw death.It's inscribed on their distorted faces, and you can see it in their bulging eyes.It's the old cowboy Grim Reaper.When the sun goes down tonight, he'll come back to you. Shortly after three o'clock, the wind that had been calm for the day began to blow again.Then it started banging endlessly against the door frame.A short time later, the chainsaw stopped too, and she could hear the faint sound of the wind whipping the small waves against the rocks on the lakeshore.The loon didn't raise its voice, perhaps deciding it was time to fly south, or find a place on the lake where it couldn't hear the lady screaming.

Now it's just me.At least until something else comes here. She no longer deceived herself that her night visitor was only an imagination.The development of things has been far away from what I wish, and I can't help but wishful thinking. Another convulsion drove its long fangs into her left armpit, and she grimaced, pursing her chapped lips.It was like being poked in the heart with the tines of a barbecue fork.Then the muscles under her breasts tensed, and the bundles of nerves in her abdominal plexus seemed to light like a pile of dry wood.The pain was new, but it was intense -- far greater than anything she'd experienced so far.The pain made her bend backward like a stick, her torso twisted from side to side, and her knees snapped open and closed.Her hair fluttered in clumps.She wanted to scream, but couldn't.For a moment she was convinced that this was the finish line.The last attack is as powerful as six tubes of dynamite buried in the granite reef, and you are gone with a whoosh, Jesse, the exit is on your right.

However, this episode also passed. Panting and relaxing, she turned her head toward the ceiling, and for a moment at least, the dancing reflection stopped tormenting her.All her attention was directed to the breast chambers and the bundles of nerves beneath them.She waited to see if the pain would actually go away, or get worse.It's gone -- but barely, and it promises to return soon.Jesse closed his eyes, praying to fall asleep.Dying is a tiring long work, and at this moment even a short break is pleasant. Drowsiness didn't come to visit her, but darling—the girl in the shackles did.She doesn't care whether there is a word of sexual temptation, she is as free as a bird now.She walks barefoot across the pastures of whatever Puritan village she lives on.She walked happily alone—no demure downcasting of eyes needed for some boy passing by to catch her eye, wink or grin.In the dark green distance, on top of another hill (this would be the largest pasture in the world, Jesse thought), a herd of sheep was grazing.The bell that Jesse had heard before sent a dry, dull sound through the fading day.

Babe was wearing a blue flannel pajamas with a big yellow exclamation mark on the front - hardly Puritan clothes, though of course it was modest enough, covering from neck to feet.Jesse is very familiar with the dress and was excited to see it again.Between the ages of ten and twelve, she was eventually persuaded to donate it to Rag Basket.She's been to at least twenty-four slumber parties in that goofy outfit. Baby's hair completely covered her face when the pillory grew so long that she had to bow her head, and now she held it up with a darkest blue card.The girl looked lovely and happy.Jesse wasn't surprised by this at all.The girl was out of her shackles after all.She is free.Jessie didn't envy her for it.But she did have a strong desire—almost a need—to tell her that while she was enjoying her freedom, she had to do something else.She has to value it, protect it, use it.

I fell asleep after all.I must have fallen asleep because it must have been a dream. Another spasm.It's not quite as scary as it was in the previous episode.The previous convulsion had set her belly on fire, and this convulsion stiffened her right arm and caused her right foot to swing involuntarily in the air.She opened her eyes to look at the bedroom, and the daylight stretched and slanted again.It's nothing like "I'heure bleue" (blue hour) as the French call it, but now that time is fast approaching. She hears the door banging again, smells her sweat and urine and A sour breath from a sleepy chest. Everything was exactly as it had been, and time had moved forward, thankfully not flying forward. That's what happens when people wake up from unplanned naps. Her The arms were a little colder, she thought. But the numbness was the same as before. She wasn't asleep, and she wasn't dreaming...but she was doing something.

I can't do it anymore either.She thought and closed her eyes.As soon as she closed her eyes she was back on the improbably large common.The girl with the big yellow exclamation point between her small breasts was looking at her, her expression serious and cute. There's one more thing you haven't tried, Jesse. That's not true.she told baby.I've tried everything.Believe me.and what do you knowI figured if I hadn't dropped the damn jar of cream when the dog scared me, maybe I'd be able to wriggle my hand out of the left handcuff. What a pity.The dog came in at that time.Either that or retribution.Either way, it's a bad thing. The girl moved closer, and the grass was moaning under her bare feet. Not the left handcuff, Jesse.The only thing you can squeeze out of your hand is the right handcuff.It's a fight to break free, and I agree with that, it can be done.I guess the real question now is, do you really want to live. Of course I want to live! She is closer.Those eyes—a smoky color, like blue, but not quite blue—seemed to see right through her skin to her heart now. Yeah?I wonder. Who are you, psycho?You think I want to still be here, handcuffed to the bed, when— Jesse's eyes—blue but not quite blue after all these years—opened slowly again.They looked around the room with terrified solemnity.She saw her husband, now lying there in a distorted position, staring at the ceiling. "I don't want to come back after dark and the guy is still handcuffed to the bed," she said to the empty room. Close your eyes, Jesse. She closed her eyes.Babe stood there in her old flannel pajamas, staring at her calmly.Now Jessie could see another girl too—the fat one with pimples on her skin.Fat girls are not as lucky as babes.She didn't get away with it, unless death itself was an escape under certain circumstances—an assumption Jesse had become quite receptive to.The fat girl either suffocated or died of some kind of disease.Her complexion was the purple-black color of a summer thunderstorm cloud, and one eye bulged out of its socket.Her tongue stuck out between her lips, and was bitten bloody by her repeatedly in the final desperation. Jesse turned to Baby tremblingly. I don't want to end my life like that.Whatever happened to me, I didn't want my life to end like that.How did you get out? slipped out.Baby answered immediately.Slipped from the hands of the devil, happy in the land of hope. Jesse felt a pang of anger in exhaustion. Didn't you hear a word I said?I dropped that damn Nivya face cream!The dog came in and surprised me and I dropped it!How can I-- And, I also remember eclipses.Baby interrupted her abruptly, with the air of disapproving of some complex and pointless social convention.This custom is: you salute, I bow, and we all hold hands.That's how I came out.I remember the eclipse and what happened on the platform when the eclipse was in progress.You have to remember too.I think this is your only chance to be free.Jesse, you can no longer avoid conflict.You have to turn around and face the facts. here we go again?Is that the only thing?Jesse felt an unfathomable surge of exhaustion and disappointment.For a minute or two, hope is almost back.But here to her, there is nothing.Nothing at all. you don't understand.she told baby.We've been down this road before -- and it's been going on.Yes, I think, what my dad did to me back then may have something to do with what's happening now.I think it's at least possible.But why go through all that again when God finally gets tired of torturing me and decides to lower the curtain? no answer.The little girl in the blue pajamas, the little girl who had been herself, was gone.There was only darkness behind Jesse's closed eyelids, like the darkness on the screen after the movie ended.Then she opened her eyes again, and looked for a long time around the room in which she was to die.She saw the batik butterfly frame from the bathroom door, and her husband's dead body from the table. The stupid autumn flies were buzzing like a poisonous rug, and the body was lying under them. Stop it, Jesse.Back to the day of the eclipse. Her eyes widened.It actually sounded real—a real voice from the bathroom or the living room, or from inside her head, yet seemed to seep from the air. "Baby?" Her voice was now low and hoarse.She tried to sit up a little more, but another violent spasm hit her midsection.She immediately leaned back against the bed and waited for it to pass. "Baby, is that you? Isn't it, dear?" For a moment she thought she heard something, but the voice said something else.But even when it did, she couldn't make out the words, and then it disappeared altogether. Back to the day of the eclipse, Jesse. "There's no answer there," she muttered, "There's nothing there but pain and stupidity and…" And what?what else? Old Adams.The word limit came naturally to her, from some sermon she had gotten tired of listening to as a child.Then she stood between Mama and Papa listening to the sermon, stamping her feet to watch the eyes moving and shining on her white patent leather shoes through the stained glass windows of the church.It was just a word stuck on the flypaper in her subconscious, and it stayed in her heart.Old Adams - maybe that's all, as simple as that.A father half-intentionally arranges to be alone with her beautiful, vivacious little daughter, while thinking it won't do any harm, no harm, no harm at all.Then the eclipse began.She sat on his lap in a sundress that was too tight and too small—he had asked her to wear it himself—and what had happened happened.It was just a brief, lascivious interlude that shamed and embarrassed them both.He ejaculates - that's what happens (if there's some kind of pun buried in it, she doesn't mind).In fact, he ejaculates all of his cum into the back of her shorts - an act that's certainly frowned upon by a dad, and certainly not something she'd seen in "Brady's Bunch."but-- But let's face it, Jesse thought.I ran away from this with little to no comparison to what would have happened...and what is happening every day.And it's not just happening in places like Beaton and along Tobacco Road.My dad wasn't the first educated, middle-class guy to develop a sexual desire for his daughter.I'm also not the first daughter to have a wet lump behind her panties.That's not to say it's the right thing to do, or that it might even be forgiven.That's just to say it's over and things could have been a lot worse. Yes.It seemed better to forget it all for now than to look back, whatever else the darling had to say on the subject.Better to let it talk in the darkness that comes with the eclipse.In this bedroom filled with flies and stinking corpses, she had to do a lot to die. She closed her eyes, and immediately the scent of her father's cologne wafted into her nostrils.That smell was mixed with the faint smell of sweat from his nervousness.The feeling of that hard object against his buttocks, his slight panting.She squirmed in his lap, trying to sit more comfortably.Felt his hands lightly on her breasts.Wondering what was wrong with him.He began to breathe so rapidly.Marvin Gaye sang on the radio: "My friends sometimes say I love too hard, but I believe...I believe...a woman should be loved like that..." Do you love me?baby? Yes, of course-- Well, don't worry about anything.I will never hurt you.Now his other hand moved up to her bare leg, lifting the sundress and wrapping it around her lap.I think…… "I want to make you comfortable," Jesse muttered.She moved slightly against the headboard.Her face was contorted and gray. "That's what he said. My God, he said something like that." "Everyone knows...especially you girls...love can be sad, ouch, mine is twice as bad..." I'm not sure if I want to watch it, Dad... I'm worried about burning my eyes. You have twenty seconds left, or at least that much time.So don't worry.Don't look back. Then there was the snap of the elastic—not hers, but his—as he unleashed "Old Adams." Against the impending dehydration, a tear emerged from Jesse's left eye and rolled slowly down his cheek. "I'm doing it," she said hoarsely, choked with sobs. "I'm remembering. I hope you're happy." yes baby said.Even though Jessie couldn't see it anymore, she could feel that strange yet lovely gaze on her. However, you have gone too far.Come back a little, just a little. A great sense of relief overwhelmed Jesse.She realized that what Baby wanted her to recall didn't happen during or after her dad's molestation of her, but shortly before that. So why do I have to go through the rest of that shit? The answer is obvious, she thought.It doesn't matter if you want one sardine or twenty, you still have to open the can to see all the fish in it.You gotta smell that horrible fish oil stink.Moreover, a little bit of the past can't kill her.The handcuffs that bound her to the bed might have killed her, but the memories, painful as they were, did not.It's time to stop cursing and moaning and take action.It was time to find what Baby said she should find. Just go back to the wrong way he started touching you the other way - before.Go back to why the two of you stayed out in the first place.Back to the day of the eclipse. Jesse closed his eyes even tighter, returning to the past.