Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) (10 page)

A
s Jan was wrestling with his pants, he heard Martha come out
of the bathroom.

Martha entered the hallway, and she smelled smoke. “What
the hell?” she yelled, and rushed to the kitchen. She ran to turn
the stove off, and then turned the exhaust on. “I’ll kill you!” she
screamed. The items on the stove were still burning in flames, but she

nonetheless proceeded to start punching Jan, who could not escape.

With his tied arm extended upward toward the stove, Jan tried to curl
into a ball, to live through yet another beating. When Martha stopped
punching him, she poured water on the fire to put it out. Then she turned
her attention to Jan again and started shaking him. When she saw blood
coming from the wrist that was bound to the stove she stopped.

Jan looked up at her, dead on, and said, “Everything you learned about
love was a lie! I hate you! I wish you were dead! I wish you died when I was
born.” He stopped, thought, and spat, “I wish I never
was
born!”

Something about his eyes and words stopped Martha cold.
What am I
going to do? He’s here, and there’s nothing —
she was becoming
disoriented. She staggered and leaned onto the kitchen counter, her
adrenal glands exhausted. “I can’t stand up. I can’t think,” she said,
rubbing her eyes.
There’s got to be an answer, there’s got to be another
way.
Martha looked again at Jan, who was sitting there, tied to the stove,
staring back at her, fearlessly.

“What am I going to do with you?” she said towards the wall, dazed
now, baffled by this impossible yet inescapable situation. She could not
live with him, and she couldn’t kill him.
What did he say? Everything I
learned about love was a lie.

Martha’s mind drifted to the documents she had found in the bedroom.
I need to burn them!
She looked at Jan again — he was still
cowering, yet defiant. She had no answers. Her exhaustion was overwhelming. “What can I do?” she wailed, looking up.

Jan was squatting now, watching her. Studying her.
The idea of the letter she found kept replaying in her confused mind.
They are all lies! I need to burn them all!

Before she knew it, Martha was heading down the hall. She marched
into the bedroom, went to the top drawer in her dresser and pulled all the
papers out. Then as she frantically went to the spot on the carpet that she
had previously burned, her adrenaline petered out and with it went the
pressure that kept the blood in her head. She started to pass out. Martha
collapsed to the floor, spilling the papers on the floor in front of her.

It only took a few seconds to regain consciousness, but Martha was
absolutely drained by the morning’s events. She lay there prone,
hyperventilating on the carpet, head lying sideways. When she tried to get
up, she got dizzy, and then fell back down again. There was a paper in
front of her face. Martha weakly reached for it, and the words of the
ancient Platacs came into focus:

“…the epiphany of love does not come easily in this world. When it
does, the daggers thrown at us by our world would completely destroy it if
possible. Once lost, it is just as difficult to find as the first time. Only our
connection to God makes it possible to remember love again, but the true
God is not welcome here…”

The act of reading the words could not but have had their effect on
her, before soundly rejecting them. Still weakly lying on her side, she
plopped the page face down on the floor.
It sounded so real — that’s why
I was seduced,
she scornfully thought. Her rambling feelings continued.
She lay there — gazing at that page, as well as the others sprawled out on
the floor before her. She started entertaining the idea, tempted by the
thought and remembrance of a quick release from her pain.
A little
pretending for now might be better than this. Even if it is fantasy, it did
make me feel better before. There is nothing else — I have nowhere else
to go — but to go back there?

Little did Martha know that she had already begun to relapse. After
considering the forbidden idea a little more, she thought,
still, what could
it hurt — I can always burn them after I look at them. Maybe I can find a
clue — an idea, something —

Martha was eventually able to get up from the floor. She gathered the
pages, and lay down on the bed, organizing them. She found, and began
to read, the letter she had written to herself before entering lovedeprogramming school. It seemed as if years had passed. As she looked at
the gentle handwriting and words before her, she said, “Another person
wrote this,” shaking her head.

“Hey, untie me!” Jan yelled from the kitchen. “I need to go to the
bathroom!”
Martha went cold. She stood up. “You wait until I’m ready!” she
screeched. She took a breath.
Calm down.
She sat back down, and started
to read:

“Dear Martha,

I know how hard it must be for you to begin to look at this letter.
You are probably frightened. I don’t know what you have had to
endure, but you’ve got to remember that the passing of time always helps anyone who has gone through the school. Remember
your favorite picture —”

Martha was thrown into the thought, dreamily wandering her mind for
her favorite picture. She felt the distant glow of it within her bosom, and
somehow knew that the memory was there in that warm feeling.

Without warning, there was a crash in the kitchen.
“Shit!” Martha exclaimed as she jumped out of the bed, and ran to the
kitchen.

Jan had pulled the big jar of suka off the countertop, and it had
smashed on the floor. He was yelling at it, calling it stupid and ugly, when
Martha lit into him, pounding him on the head and back with closed fists,
as he curled up once again. This time, however, he did not hide his face.
He kept staring at her, gritting his teeth with tenacity and rage.

All of a sudden, Martha felt light-headed again, and nauseous. She
stopped, grabbed her stomach, and ran to the bathroom, where she started
throwing up. “What’s happening to me? Who am I?” She cried as she
watched the water of the toilet swirling its contents away. The room was
spinning around her. She plopped her butt down on the edge of the
bathtub, and bent over, elbows on her knees, face in her hands.

Jan was still shouting from the kitchen.

“What can I do?” Martha asked once again, shaking her head. She
paused. The recent thoughts of the bedroom came back to her.
“I need to read that letter,” she declared aloud. She felt better just
thinking about it. It gave her hope, however unreal and taboo.
“What about Jan?” she asked herself. She thought about it.
Doing
something nice might work.
“Doing something nice?” she responded
aloud to herself, incredulous at the thought.
It couldn’t be any worse.
She
allowed the outrageous idea to linger in order to contemplate it more
fully. Through desperation and force of will, she saw herself doing it.
“Yes!” Martha said aloud, with sudden inspiration. She went back to
the kitchen, where Jan was squatting, wrist still tied to the stove, stretched
up above him.
“My arm hurts,” he complained. Jan was staring at the floor now. The
mess from the broken suka jar was sitting there inviting retaliation.
Martha studied him. He appeared different to her for some reason.
She looked at his wrist, and the blood had dried now. She actually found
herself feeling some small pity for him. She was on an impossible
mission: she was going to try to be nice, while something inside her was
screaming for revenge. Martha slowly walked closer to Jan. She gradually
reached out her hand, and the gently touched tips of her fingers to his tied
arm. She calmly told him, “I want to untie you, and I want you to go into
the living room. I’ll put some music on for you there OK?”
Jan did not look up, but he didn’t reject her, either. “OK,” he said
stiffly. “I still need to go to the bathroom.”
Martha was surprised to see Jan cooperate, and it gave her some hope
in her new approach. “Can I trust you to be good, and to be quiet while I
go to my bedroom and read?” she asked, as steadily as she could. She
desperately wanted to finish reading the letter now.
“Don’t hurt me or grab me,” was Jan’s answer.
Should I do it?
Martha thought to herself.
I’ll try.
She went to the
other side of the kitchen, and took some scissors from the cabinet. She
came back and cut the disposable cuff from Jan’s wrist. The cut on his
wrist was not bad, and now was not the time to deal with it. She waited as
he went to the bathroom. He did his business, washed up, and when he
came back, they both went into the living room. Martha retrieved the
music box. She was going to play the music he liked, but she paused and
asked, “What would you like me to play?”
Jan was not ready to play nice. “You know, and what do you care?”
he spat.
Martha had to fight the urge to scream and pound on him again. She
took another deep breath, and put his favorite recording of songs on the
player.
Jan was sitting on the chair beside the sofa, against the wall. He did
not know how to handle this change in Martha. It did not make any sense
to him. He had a blank look on his face.
Martha turned and observed Jan sitting there, returning her look with
an evil eye. The cheerful music that was now playing was unfortunately
not reflecting the present environment. She still found herself torn
between the thought of attacking him versus the vague feeling that her
escape magically lay in the letter in her bedroom. “Will you stay here and
be quiet, while I go back to my bedroom?” Martha asked.
Jan then averted her eyes, and now stared at the opposite wall. “I told
you already!” he said, with aggravation in his voice.
Martha swallowed hard, and said, “Thank you.” She then went back
to her bedroom. She left her door open to hear anything that Jan may be
doing. She had a seat on the side of her bed, picked up the letter, and
continued:

“...Remember your favorite picture —”
“What was it?” she asked herself. The warmth of the memory inside
returned once again, but she could not place it. She said to herself,
“Maybe I should look through the photo —” Martha abruptly remembered
that she burned the photos the other night. She sighed, and read on:
“…Remember your favorite picture, and hold it in your mind. If it is
too painful for you, just sit and think of anything good…”
“Good? What can possibly feel good?” Martha complained as she
threw the letter down on the bed in disgust. “How stupid I was to believe
this crap,” she bitched. “I give up! Where did Griswolt put the matches?”
She rose and started searching around the room, and then it dawned on
her. The picture came through as clear as day, rushing into her mind like a
warm breeze.
“Yes,” she exclaimed, as she became overwhelmed with a feeling of
fullness and warmth with the whole remembrance. She could smell the
water —
The picture was one of Martha, Griswolt, and Jan on a friend’s boat
at the local lake. The day had been a sunny and warm. Griswolt and Jan
had been fishing, but had not caught much. In the picture, they were all
laughing at something the friend had said, as he took their picture. He
had captured the happiest, most perfect smiles on all three of their faces.
“It
was
perfect,” Martha found herself saying aloud, vision distant.
She felt a twinge of regret when she remembered that she had burned the
photograph. She continued reading the letter and found her body relaxing.
She became slowly aware of the “something else”. Her letter went on:
“… before love-deprogramming school, you had to use your discipline to meditate. We use love and love uses us at each other’s request. We
use love to become aware of our invisible minds, and put them at the
service of our souls, which point to our home in heaven. LERN requires
this discipline because minds trapped in a world in which everything dies
are lost indeed. Now, Martha, you need to do the pinch exercise, and
meditate.”
“The pinch exercise!” Martha said to herself. “I remember.” She
found herself feeling better, clearer, and hoping for more. She went to the
chair against the far wall of the bedroom and had a seat. She pinched her
arm, hard enough. Then she focused on the part of her “self” that did not
feel the pain. Martha repeated the mantra for this exercise, “There is a
part of me that feels no pain or fear, and has no body. It is my soul. I am
aware of my other self now, and the love that comes from there. It is my
life. It is my future.”
Martha did this with eyes closed, and continued for a while, and a hint
of a smile developed. She stayed with it for over an hour, finding herself
surprisingly free. Then her eyes popped wide open, and she exclaimed,
“Jan!” Her expression changed to one of empathy, followed by shock, “I
can’t believe how I hated him.” She was suddenly changed by the
appearance of familiar presence within her.
She realized a schizoid shift, as she switched in a flash to another
personality, the real Martha. “It feels — weightless. I — I remember —”
She was still sitting very still, calmly, letting the love grow in awareness.
Then she remembered another part of the exercises, “I have to look
with love on Jan
now
. I can’t believe how I treated him, I need to focus.”
Martha then closed her eyes again, becoming aware of her invisible self
again, and from that place, looked on Jan in her mind, loving him. “Oh
Jan,” she said to herself, with heavy remorse. She got past the remorse,
and just loved him. Her emotions abruptly switched again to resolution
for the job ahead of her.
I told him I would remember love for the both of
us.
Martha got up from her chair and left the bedroom, heading for the
living room.
Jan was still sitting there listening to the music. He was looking at a
scab on his leg he was busy scratching. He was aware that Martha had
come to the living room, but did not acknowledge her.
Martha looked at her own ugly scabs, and started losing her peace.
I
can’t lose this feeling so soon. Love, stay with me, please! I must act now!
Martha slowly went over to the sofa next to Jan and had a seat.
Maybe if I
can get him to look at me, he can see that I’m calm now.
“I feel much better now,” Martha found herself saying very gently.
“Thank you for giving me time to relax, Jan.”
Jan continued to sit and pick at himself. He had been tortured for a
month, and terribly abused by his mother. He was not ready to respond
just because his crazy mother decided
she
was.
Dismayed by the lack of communication, Martha was desperately
trying to hold on to the awareness of her love. It was all too easy to be
sucked out of this state. Still, she knew it was the only way to waken Jan.
She also knew it would fade away into the minutes and hours ahead, and
Jan’s state appeared impossible to overcome. Martha continued to try.
“Those scabs need to be cleaned better,” she said to Jan.
There was no response from Jan.
Maybe if I touch him
, Martha thought. The chair Jan was sitting on
was close to the sofa. She slowly leaned over from the sofa and reached
for Jan’s arm, gently touching it. “Jan,” she said as softly as she could,
“Can I —”
Jan pulled his arm away, and yelled, “Don’t touch me!” He started
curling into a ball on the chair. He put his hands over his ears.
Perplexed, but not dismayed, Martha rose from the couch and slowly
came over to Jan. As she approached him, she squatted down to be at his
level.
I must catch eye contact with him,
she thought. She tried again, this
time she attempted to touch his hands. Very, very softly, Martha said,
“Jan, I am going to touch you just a little bit, and I promise I won’t hurt
you.” With that, she slowly reached out her hand and placed it on his.
Jan was still on high guard. He did not know what to make of the
change in Martha, but was now trained to hate her. Her touch, far from
comforting, was now interpreted as painful — but he did not pull away.
He froze, as he was now confused, and did not know what was coming
next. It didn’t look like a beating, though.
Martha was relieved that he did not pull away. She held her hand very
still. Still, she had to do more. “Jan, when I was in the bedroom right now,
I remembered love —”
“Love!” Jan screeched, and grabbed hold of her right arm, biting it
with his sharp front teeth. He jumped up and hid behind the sofa. “Lies,
lies, all lies! I’m going to turn you in to the police!”
Martha screamed when Jan bit her, and would have reactively
punched him if he had not jumped away so quickly. The arm was
bleeding badly.
Now I’ve got two bites on this arm. I’ll kill him!
Martha
thought as she ran to the kitchen to get a towel to compress her bleeding
arm. The other bite had opened up again as well. She wrapped them
tightly, and while doing so remembered her mission.
“What’s the use?” she said to herself with a sigh, and plonked down
onto a kitchen chair, pressing the towel on her arm. She remembered the
bedroom experience, and thought,
you’ve got to stay with it Martha.
Don’t lose sight of the love. You’ve got to wake up Jan! You can do it.
“I
can
do this,” she told herself with renewed resolve, and went
straight back to where Jan was hiding. “If I can do it, he can do it.”
We
must.
Jan was still hiding behind the sofa, close enough to the end of it to
peek around and see if Martha coming back. He ducked his head back
behind it when she returned.
Martha entered the living room, and slowly made her way to the sofa.
She quietly knelt down at the end from which Jan had been peeking. Out
of nowhere, she decided to pray aloud. “Dear God, help me to find peace
with my son, Jan. Help him to remember us.” She knelt there in silence
for a minute or so. She thought to herself,
tell Jan about how you feel.
She considered it, and said, “Jan, I am so sorry about how I treated
you, the things I’ve done here.” Martha said. W
hat else?
Martha
continued, “They made me crazy in that awful school, and I just wasn’t
myself. Please, please forgive me,” she begged. After a short silence she
said, “Jan, I feel different now, and I know what I’ve done to you is
terrible. I promise I won’t be mean to you anymore.”
There was no reaction from behind the couch.
Martha bent a little closer, to where she could see Jan’s face. He was
staring at her, still defiant.
Was there something different in his eyes this
time?
Martha moved right up to the space behind the sofa, on her knees,
holding her eye contact with Jan.
“I am so, so sorry, sweetie. They hurt Mama in school, really, really
bad.” She paused, looking at Jan dearly, looking past his hate to what they
had before. She hoped it was there, in spite of the distrusting look on his
face, and continued, “They hurt Mama, just like you. They, they —” She
was choking out her words now, and could not speak clearly. Her mind
became flooded with the memories of the tortures she had endured, as she
also recalled the awful photos of Jan being tortured.
Martha became lost in this, breaking down and weeping. She folded
up in her kneeling position. Her head was almost touching the floor, face
in her hands, as if trying to contain her deep, uncontrolled sobbing.
Jan stirred from behind the couch at the scene before him. It may
have been because he felt that she couldn’t attack him in this weakened
state of hers — he came closer to the edge to look at her.
Martha heard him move, and turned her head in Jan’s direction. His
eyes were emotionless, but they did not have the hate in them that was
there before. She said, “Mama’s so sorry,” as she raised her upper torso,
still kneeling, keeping eye contact. Between sobs, she looked, pleadingly
at Jan, and asked, “Could you please forgive me — and — could you —
come out?”
She crawled a distance away from the end of the sofa to give him
some space, and waited hopefully. She continued to wait as Jan stirred,
restless now, behind the sofa.
Jan did eventually crawl out, confused, but he had to come out
some
time. He slowly stood up in front of her, looking at her, waiting for, what,
he did not know —
He was not expecting her next request.
Martha looked at him with great sincerity, and said, “Jan, I need to
show you that I’m OK now. I really am. I need my little boy back, and
only you can give him to me.” She paused, holding her gaze. S
hould I
try?
She tried. “Jan, dear, is there any way — could you —” She stopped.
He’ll never do it, I’ll scare him away.
She ignored the thought and asked
him anyway, “Could you — could you give me a little hug? I really,
really need one right now.”
Jan looked down from her pleading expression. He gazed through the
floor as in a trance, rubbing his right toes in a circle on the floor. The
conflict was clearly evident, and he answered, “I can’t —” He paused,
trying to find the way to say it, “— but
he
can.”
“Who, dear?” Martha asked, wiping her eyes, sniffing up the tears.
“The little boy that used to live here.” Jan slowly stepped towards
Martha. He did not appear afraid.
Martha gave a choking gasp at his response, and looking at him with
great sympathy, said, “Yes, yes, please, please, let him come to Mama!”
while holding out her arms, still kneeling.
Jan hesitated. “Don’t look, look over there,” he said, pointing to the
living room entrance.
Martha, heart leaping, obliged, and looked away.
Jan slowly came to her. Putting his arms up over her shoulders and
onto her back, he gave Martha the most delicious hug she had ever felt in
her entire life. She let loose a torrent of tears, sobbing spasmodically, as
Jan laid his head on her shoulder, patting her back slowly and rhythmically. He stared off into the distance, as if still in a trance, showing no
emotion. This went on for a while, then Martha did look at Jan, and with a
tender smile said, “Thank you Jan, thank you. I’ll never forget this as long
as I live.”
Then as she was looking at his wrist, she said, “I think it’s time to
take care of you. Let’s clean you up.”
Considering that Jan and his mother were both still physically and
mentally tramatized, weakened, and trying to heal, the rest of the day was
filled with simply showering, dressing wounds, and then resting.
After they had tidied themselves up, they took a nap together in Martha’s bedroom.
They were awakened by Griswolt’s voice, as he was shocked by the
scene before him upon entering the bedroom. At first glance, he thought
they were both dead.
“What the —” Griswolt loudly exclaimed, and both Martha and Jan
opened their eyes. Martha smiled contentedly at Jan, and lovingly stroked
his arm.
Jan sat up rubbing his eyes and said, “Hi Dad.” Then he said, “I’m
hungry.”
Griswolt was still standing there with his lower jaw dropped open, the
tips of his tongue loosely hanging out. He had come home early because
his meeting at work had concluded. He had been enormously apprehensive on his way home, not knowing what to expect. He had called home a
number of times from work, but there was no answer, as Martha had
turned the phone off. He just stood and stared. In fact, the scene before
him was so surreal, he felt disoriented. When he realized that it was
“safe”, he walked toward the bed quickly, as if everything were normal. It
wasn’t, not yet.
Martha shot up in bed and said, “Don’t!” She stuck her finger pointed
up in the air again.
Jan dodged Martha’s arm, and putting his hand on it, said to her,
“He’s OK.”
Griswolt stopped dead in his tracks. “Can I come and sit with you
two?” he asked awkwardly, like a school kid.
Jan said, “Sure, come over with us!”
Martha kept a keen eye on Griswolt and warned, “Just don’t touch
me, I can’t —” and she looked at Griswolt with confusion in her eyes. She
didn’t understand why she couldn’t let him touch her, and now she did not
want him touching Jan, either.
Griswolt made his way slowly to the bed, and sat on Jan’s side. He
gently rubbed Jan’s crest, rattling Martha, and shaking his head said,
“You both look great. How —” He stopped, and then continuing said,
“This is wonderful. Thank you both, you are amazing.”