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Trapped

by Gawaine C. Ross

March 2011

For years I’d led an unadventurous life as the vice president of a small company that manufactures toys. It had also been an empty life; after 4 years of marriage Amber and I agreed to stay together for the sake of the kids. This entire period was one of intense but repressed rage. I had a reputation to keep up. Amber could do whatever she wanted, and she did. She tried to hide her latest episodes from me, but without much care. I’m sure she brought men into our (my) home, and probably even into my bed.

There was nothing I could do about it, really. I was trapped. This fear of being trapped kept me from marrying in the first place. I had no one to talk to – you can’t trust any boss or employee to see things the way you see them. I felt that my life had been cursed.

In addition with such a flat personality I didn’t have anyone I could call a friend. Amber’s friends, however, were numerous and interesting. Seeing them all whooping it up in the living room made me very envious. I often fantasized about having sex with her alluring friend Stella, but just as the fantasy got going Stella would stare at me very coldly as if she knew what I was thinking. And then one night , conducting my one way flirtation, Amber dismissed me with a flip of her hand.

Furious, I drank a good deal of brandy and dozed off listening to the TV. I could remotely feel creepy things on my skin, but I was too drunk to do anything much. I distinctly felt a centipede or perhaps a small snake crawl inside my ear.

It didn’t bother me until I woke up. I lurched into the bathroom and looked sideways in the mirror. There was definitely something hanging out of my ear. I pulled at it and a section came out in my hand. I had no idea what it was.

I found Amber asleep on the sofa. I screamed at her “You lousy, wolfish excuse of a wife! Why did you put this in my ear?”

This was the first time I’d ever yelled at her. “So Mr. Milquetoast speaks. Willard, what are you accusing me of?”

“Last night you came in my room and put a centipede or something else in my ear.”

I held it out triumphantly for her to look at.

“There’s nothing there, Willard.”

“You’re lying because you want me dead.”

“I don’t want to see you dead. Don’t be crazy!”

“Then look in my ear with a magnifying glass.”

She humored me and repeated that there was nothing in there.

I couldn’t believe it. What if it had already buried itself in either my sinuses or in my brain?

That day I called in and went to the ER at Hennepin County General Hospital. I waited for at least 6 hours to be seen. I expected to be seen by an M.D. but they tricked me. A psychiatrist came in. She introduced herself as Claudette Mireau.

I couldn’t shake her hand. I could see germs swarming all over them, like packs of parameciums. “I don’t want to see a psychiatrist. I need to see an M.D. Last night a centipede or something like it crawled inside my ear and now it’s inside. I’m afraid it’s laying eggs. What if they hatch? What if the insect is like one of those parasites that feed on wasps?”Fear shook my whole body.

“Well, Mr. Ableson, these fears are exaggerated. I know a few things about insects, and what you describe doesn’t sound real.”

I stood up and knocked her over. “How the hell do you know it’s not real?”

She stood up and signaled security. “We’re going to find out,” she said weirdly, “if you’re real.”

That was one of the most frightening things I’d ever heard.

Within minutes I was in a locked ward. The staff called my wife, but she never came.

The staff gave me spiky pills that tasted horrible and besides they made my teeth hum. “This is all Amber’s fault!” I screamed, over and over again.

They put my skull into a dream reader. This machine projects your dreams as visual events upon a screen. They showed me the tape, where I saw myself murder Amber over and over again. Every time I killed her I felt free. If I didn’t kill her, I had a huge rope around my neck.

Three or four days after being admitted to the ward I began to feel things crawling under my skin. I knew that mites could do this. I scratched at my arms until I drew blood and the next day used a plastic knife to scrape at my skin to try to catch some of the little critters. No one would believe that I had insects under my skin, though they did give me medicine for the itching.

All of a sudden there were cockroaches all over the walls and on every surface. Some of them were the size of birds but no one else seemed to notice them. “Call an exterminator!” I yelled. “We can’t live like this!”

Dr. Mireau put yellow lenses over my eyes. “Can you see them now?”

I had to admit I couldn’t. “This is a very strange treatment for a cockroach adumbration,” I remarked.

“The cockroach king said he would call all his subjects to go on a different floor if I just put these lenses on you. I’m glad it works for you.”

Her face was getting weirder by the day. It was getting longer, with a longer nose and a throat wattle, even though she was young. I also couldn’t tell what color her eyes were.

I checked the mirror. Now I couldn’t tell what color my eyes were. “Why is all this happening?” I screamed. “I must be going crazy!” None of the other patients would tell me if I was crazy, but they didn’t deny it either.

On the door to my room was a note. It said, “Dr. Mireau wants to experiment on you.”

No one had signed it. As far as I was concerned, I already was an experimental subject.

I escaped by going feet first down through a laundry chute. The basement exit was very close and so I ran out onto the road in front of the hospital. My wallet was back in the hospital but I did have the clothing I was wearing. I knew where I was and began the walk home only to find that when I did get home my children had the heads of a baboon and a wart hog. Screaming, they ran away from me but Amber came out and led me into the living room where she forced me to sit down saying “Stay there, Goddamit!”

“I’m done taking orders from you! The slave is in revolt! Mistress Amber will bemoan her dominating ways!”

I was determined to whip her. I got an electrical cord and doubled it over. I walked towards her, slapping my hand with the cord. She pulled out a gun and shot me in the leg. She hit the bone. The pain hurled me to the floor. “You bitch! I always knew you wanted to shoot me!”

It’s several weeks later. I’m in the hospital again with an amputated right leg. Amber is pressing assault charges. I pull a packet of insect larva from my hip holster and dump them in my jaw pocket. This is when I realize I have jaws like those of a tiger beetle. I certainly can’t speak.

I can no longer tell if I am dreaming or awake.

I knew I never should have married Amber.

I’ve been writing poetry since the age of 16. Due to various disabilities I am pretty much self-taught. I spent most of my adult life in the nursing field, which gives me a different perspective on things. I want to convey to people the horror of insanity, because I lived it. I’ve been published in the Glimmer Train Press, www.chickasawplum.homestead.org, and a few other small journals. Also, in the Susquehanna Review.