Doctor’s Orders
JP was normally the one to wake me. He knew how much I hated alarms, even the gentle ones, and would whisper in low tones, “Morning; time to rise,” next to my left ear. Only this way could I pull myself from dreaming. His voice rippled, rose and fell; the best voice by far to wake me up. JP was on time every morning, 7:15am. Once awake, I heard the others going about their morning business; joking with each other; calling out to see if I was awake yet. Happy shrieks and gurgles came from baby Maddie in the kitchen.
JP guided me through my bathroom routine. He would tell me to brush my teeth, comb my hair, and take my prescriptions. I dressed in what JP suggested, and always tucked in my shirt. As we worked, I could discern more voices and breakfast sounds; forks on plates, the coffeemaker belching coffee steam. Footsteps tumbled down the stairs; doors slammed; keys clicked in the front door lock.
Miranda liked to be up before JP, singing while washing the dishes from the night before. Her songs bled into my dreams, and often, when JP woke me, I was already humming along with her. She kept track of what everyone else was up to and would report back to me when they didn’t feel like talking. When I appeared in the kitchen, she would remind me to sit at the head of the table, put my napkin on my lap, and to use the silverware set next to my left hand. Miranda never judged or treated me like I was unusual.
Today my feet hit the floor after 10am. I never heard JP. There was no song from Miranda already playing in my head. I had no idea when to wake, and had overslept for hours. The air should have been alive with voices by late morning, but I could make out nothing. The house groaned and sighed in the gale blowing outside, but there was no coffee-maker belching, no one singing with the running water. There wasn’t even breakfast waiting on the table. I strained to hear JP’s singular laugh. Nothing.
I stood in the hallway, looking over my one shoulder, then the other. Where the hell did everybody go?
Even Carol Anne, whose voice punctured my eardrums like a hot syringe, would have been welcome at this point. The one who wouldn’t help me; who called me a burden; who told the rest to leave me. Carol Anne tried to sabotage anything that would bring me joy.
For the past few weeks, I had been wondering where many of my roommates had been disappearing to, and if Carol Anne had anything to do with it. Little by little, I was able to overhear less, and what I did hear seemed faint or muffled. Miranda hadn’t been informing me as often as before. Once the epicenter of life in our house, I had been relegated to an afterthought.
What I appreciated about everyone at home was that they kept as strict a schedule as I did. Although I felt defenseless against their casual arguments, baby Maddie’s fussing, and endless daily commotion, it all had a predictability. I knew when the house would be noisy, and the times of day it would be more serene. My roommates’ daily rhythms stabilized my own by helping me tell the time of day, and whether it was a weekday or weekend.
I certainly did not appreciate this deviation.
Stumbling back to my bedroom, I called, “Hello?” into every room I passed. My veins burned from adrenaline and I felt my muscles quiver. I looked down and noted that my tattered pajama cuff caressed the floor. My throat tightened and I sobbed hard and silent against the mirrored bathroom door. JP would have never allowed for this; but there was no one to be found anywhere.
A sudden thought froze me in a silent panic after minutes of weeping into my hands. I’m supposed to take my prescriptions. All I could remember was that the pills were important, but not which ones to take or when. I guessed it was the blue one in the mornings. My hands grazed the bottles on my nightstand, the kinds with the hard-to-open lids. Those bottles scared me right then more than ever. I was almost sure that I had to take the blue one in the mornings, before I ate my breakfast. JP would always have my pills ready before I had to ask.
My sobbing punctured the dust and still inside, as the weather ravaged anyone unlucky enough to be caught outside. That one thing I could clearly hear, my own ugly weeping, echoed back to my ears amplified. I was deafening myself. It was then that baby Maddie chose to cry as well, and we howled for a while in unison. The gale outside roared with us.
At a certain point, the baby girl found a voice, a clear and true voice. She ceased crying and spoke for the first time, sweet but assertive, sounding so much like her mother Miranda.
“You already know why we’re all leaving,” declared baby Maddie. “And why we all got so distant.”
“You talk?”
“When you want me to.”
I was stunned.
“Look at the bottle you’re holding, “ she instructed. “The one with the blue pills you take in the morning.”
“Pills chased everyone out of here?”
The infant girl stayed silent for a moment, as if waiting for me to come to a certain conclusion. I began to doubt that we had been talking at all.
“Read the label, William.”
“‘ Olanzapine, 10mg tablet. Take one tablet by mouth every morning with or without food. Dr. Claus.’ It’s one of my prescriptions. What about it?”
“William, you already know that Dr. Claus gave you the blue pills to help your brain quiet voices that aren’t real.”
“For auditory hallucinations,” I whispered.
Baby Maddie paused again. “And you know that I’m not real either. None of us exist outside of you.”
“And yet you all left me, one after the other.”
“We are all part of you, which means it’s impossible for any of us to ever truly leave you. But you’ll only hear from us rarely, if ever, from now on.”
“But I need JP for my morning routine, and Miranda makes breakfast.” Hot panic intensified the fear in my words.
“Is that really how it works?” Baby Maddie sighed. “Or do you complete every task yourself? You know all of this William.”
Heat flushing my chest and neck, I got to my feet and turned on the bathroom light. After much struggle, I opened the bottle of blue Olanzapine. Brain poison. I poured the month’s supply into the toilet bowl and held down the handle with a trembling hand. No more, Doctor. I want them all back, even that hateful Carol Anne. I slid down to the cold tile floor and held my knees to my chest. Not then nor ever again was I willing to ask, “Where did everybody go?” Leaning my head back, I dared to close my eyes.
Hours after I originally sunk to the floor did the faintest sound hit my ears. Miranda was in the kitchen, running water for tea, humming with the Beach Boys playing in the background. I heard JP there too, his voice rich and low.
“William’s been in a panic trying to find you,” Miranda mentioned between songs.
“Who knows why,” he replied. “I’ve been right here all morning.”
Home Alone
I blink the early light of the warm summer morning. I sit up looking around the room. It's quiet. Why is it quiet?
Mama?
I make a small noise, a reminder that I have awoken. Nothing. Minutes pass, but it feels like hours.
Mama, where are you?
Silence. I cry louder, clinging to the white bars that separate me from the rest of the world. Tears begin to well up in my eyes. I can't even hear the birds chirping outside.
I try to call to Papa now. He does not answer either. Where did they go?
The tears fall. My voice rises, a wail of panic echoing in the empty house.
I shake the bars again, fear beginning to take over. Am I alone? Did they abandon me? Through my sniffles and sobs, I can't see the world clearly anymore. Colors blur and the rooms begins to spin.
Planets whirl; wait, what happened to my circle of colors that hangs above me? What's going on? The floor is falling away. I scream, and somehow the bars break. I fall, and the tiles with me.
It is dark, empty. I can't see. I'm scared. Eventually, I feel a strange warmth surround me. It feels like home. But I wasn't home anymore.
I blink a few more times, fighting furiously with the dark. A sudden flash, and they open for real. I blink again, and I understand the warmth.
I snuggle into Mama's chest, hoping to forget the thoughts of my sleep. She coos quietly, stroking my hair. I realize I am safe now.
The empty world cannot get me here.
Come Back
whatever did you leave me for—
oceans crashing forevermore?
beaming globe, blinded night
or fields unending, chasing light?
vibrant cities once awake
now abandoned and at stake
blank emotions, faces dead
sunset bleeding crimson red
town devoid of any reason
passing by a lifeless season
dusty skies, deserted floors
raging tempest, thunder pours
where has mankind ever gone
before the golden crack of dawn?
will you come back just like before?
whatever did you leave me for?
Trapped in our Phones
Where’d Everybody Go?
People are all just so trapped in their phones.
Social media seems to be the only place to go.
Expectations are being held by standards that aren’t always confirmed.
Where’d Everybody Go? Lonely, this generation must be. Although everyone is perhaps cat-fished because we can’t tell what is real or fake anymore. We’re all hiding behind our phones, and that is no way to go. People should be able to glow without their phones. People should be ready to shine without social media. People should be able to say how they feel in a room. No not a Reddit forum, like out-loud.
Where’d Everybody Go? The world might be so much better off if we connected more in person than on social media. People should consider being in tune with planet earth more rather than social media platforms.
Where?
Alli couldn’t find a single person. She had been searching her neighborhood since 6am when she awoke and her husband and children were gone. Just gone. Charlie and Abby’s blankets on the bed were arranged exactly the same as when she had tucked them in last night. It was like they had vanished into thin air and the blankets had collapsed around the empty space.
She sat down on the curb and put her head in her hands and sobbed some more. This must be a nightmare. It must. She just had to last until she woke up.
“Why are you crying?” a girl’s voice asked. The girl looked about nine years old. She had long brown hair and brown eyes and wore blue shorts and a matching tank top.
Alli grabbed her hands. “Where are your parents? Do you know if anyone else is around?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own – it was high pitched and hysterical.
“There are supposed to be other people around, like you.”
“What?” Alli said, confused. That wasn’t any of the possible answers she had anticipated.
“I wished all the people away, but I got lonely so I wished back some nice people. You must be one.”
Alli didn’t know what to say. This must be a dream. “Can you wish my family back?”
“I don’t know. Are they nice?”
“Of course they are!”
“Well, you would think so.”
“I’m nice and I love them, so they must be nice. Maybe the wish didn’t work quite right?”
“That does happen sometimes. Ok, I’ll wish them back, but if I don’t like them, they can’t stay.”
“Sure,” Alli said. This was a dream, so why not just agree?
Tom was standing in front of her with his back to her. Just like that. Not there, then suddenly there. He turned around and saw her. “Alli! What the hell? Am I sleep walking?”
“Only if we all are,” Charlie her fourteen-year-old said from behind her.
She whirled and saw Charlie and Abby standing there. She grabbed them both in a huge hug and didn’t let go.
“Oh God,” she said weeping, this time with relief and joy.
The four of them gathered together in a cluster, with Tom in front taking a protective stance. “Who might you be?” he asked.
“Calie.”
Tom looked around and saw the absence of cars and planes in the sky, and noted the complete lack of noises from human activity. “This is a dream,” he said.
The girl looked at Charlie and Abbey and said, “Do you love your parents?”
Abby, age 11, slid behind her brother and didn’t answer. Charlie said, “Yeah, I guess.”
The girl shook her head.
“Charlie,” Alli said, “Be honest. Tell her exactly how you feel about dad and I. This is your chance to let it all out.”
Charlie looked at her then at the girl and nodded. “I do love them. I don’t love their rules. The rules are stupid, and they make me angry.” He took a deep breath and continued. “I like dad better. Mom is always keeping me from doing things.”
He looked worried and Alli said, “Good job. Anything more to add?”
He shook his head.
“What about you,” the girl asked looking at Abby.
Abby nodded.
“I don’t understand.”
“That means,” Charlie said translating for Abby, “That she loves them. She won’t talk to you. She doesn’t know you.”
“And you love them?” she asked Tom and Alli.
“Of course,” Tom said.
“They are my breath, I would die without them.”
“That’s a yes?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What?” they all said at the same time.
“I don’t love my parents and they hate me. You’re all lying and telling me what you think I want to hear just so you can be alive. I want people that tell me the truth. You can all go away.”
Home Alone XVI
It happened again.
Except, after eight or so iterations, you get used to it. At this point, he had his Kevin McCallister Christmas week planned out on the assumption he'd be forgotten, separated, or confused for some other sixteen-year-old kid.
This year was was different for one, very specific reason.
This year he had challenged Harry and Marv to a car race.