Reaching Out (a short tale).

 

Gabreilla's phone calls for help, her whispers about the people living in her attic, stealing her food, clothes and meds, her terror hiding in the bushes outside, revealed to me that these obvious delusions were necessary to her current life, her existence, her loneliness.  

When the delusions began, my first effort to help this sensitive being was to show her there were no people in the attic causing her fear. This was a figment of her imagination, a product of brutal domestic violence she experienced years before.  

Gabreilla asked me to stay over one night to witness the people in the attic.  

After she made a few phone calls to family, she made a makeshift bed in the front room on the couch.  

My habits are considered bad by many, so that night I refrained from my nightly glass of vodka and a sleeping pill. As I loved my friend, I needed to remain aware, and give her delusions the benefit of the doubt.  

After reading a few pages of my novel, sleep came easy. I woke to a loud, persistent knock at the front door. My phone read 3:00am. Because the knocking moved to a frenetic pace, I pulled myself from the couch and opened the door. There was no one there. Feeling tired and grumpy, I yelled out: 

“Try this again and I will find you”!  

Closing the door, stumbling in the dark, I landed on the couch and plummeted into a deep sleep.  

The morning was greeted with my friend handing me a cup of green tea. (It takes me awhile to wake up).  

“So, you saw them, right”?  

I explained the knocking on the door at three in the morning.  

Gabreilla laughed.  

I had that uncomfortable feeling of ambiguousness. The loud pounding on the front door was strange; but when looking around, the novel I was reading, Anna Karinina, and my full pack of cigarettes on the coffee table, had vanished. I decided not to tell my friend about my missing book and cigarettes. I said,  

“It was too dark to see who was outside. When I come back, I will take a better look around.”  

I felt a pang of guilt for not telling her about the missing book and cigarettes. I told her and she asked, 

“Look in your backpack, is your book in there”?  

Rummaging through my bag for the book and cigarettes... 

“They have got to be somewhere”? I asked. 

I searched most of the morning and my property could not be found.  

“Did you take them”? I asked.  

Gabreilla looked sad and defeated.  

“Of course not.” she whispered.,  

Before leaving, I pushed and broke the wood cover to the attic. This issue needed to be resolved today. Climbing the ladder, I scanned the musty area with my phone. There was no evidence of squatters, the small space was empty. 

“I cannot see anything, but I will come back and take a better look later.” 

Gabreilla’s expression seemed fine with my answer.  

Before leaving, I told her that my number on her phone was on speed dial, and to ring me anytime day or night.  

Six weeks had passed before hearing from Gabreilla again. It was late afternoon, working on a review about a stupid film for an obscure publication, when my cell phone jumped off my desk.  

“Hello.”  

“Is this Mr. Middleton?”  

“Yes. Who is calling, please?”  

“My name is Carey, and I’m a nurse at the {...} psychiatric emergency unit.” 

Oh know, I thought.  

“How can I help you?” I asked.  

She hesitated, “We have an emergency patient who has used your details for contact.”  

Although I knew, “Who is it?”  

“The patient’s name is Gabreilla (...) and I’m terribly sorry, sir, we do not have enough beds at the moment to adequately treat her.”  

I asked, “Is there something I can do for you?”  

“If possible, I’m so sorry, can you please come to the hospital and take her home?”  

Because I do not drive for reasons irrelevant, called a cab and met nurse Carey and Gabreilla in the back parking lot of the hospital. Carey gave me a box of medications with detailed instructions. A follow up appointment had been arranged with Gabreilla’s doctor.  

While helping Gabreilla into the cab, the nurse continued to apologize, “I’m so sorry...”  

We did not talk about anything for the entire journey to her house.  

When finally, settling her in bed, giving her the medications, followed by a cup of tea, she soon fell asleep.  

I thought, not much happening tomorrow, so I plonked on the couch and turned on the television, to find mind-numbing game shows, and finally flowed into unconsciousness.  

What happened next, recalling it now, defies the rational mind.  

I have read a few psychological magazines in my time, and there is a phenomenon called the hypnogogic state – a place of the mind between dreams and wakefulness. Whether dreaming or not, I heard heavy boots pounding on the stairs to Gabreilla’s bedroom. Moving off the couch was like a feeling of being under water; my movements felt to be in slow motion. Removing myself off the couch to get up the stairs was impossible.  

I heard Gabreilla scream.  

I remember peering out the picture window, seeing the blue of the dawn.  

At last, using all my strength and will power, rolled off the couch like a wounded seal.  

I heard the front door close. 

Gabreilla called to me from her bedroom. She was visibly in fear. Once beside her bed, I noticed a small red cut above her right eye. She reached out to me crying in shock.  

Later that morning, after a few cups of strong coffee, Gabreilla asked me to check the entrance to the attic. Once opened, the cover was now closed, and black smears, like fingerprints, were smudged around the parameter. Investigating outside the house, looking for anything unusual; no footprints, nothing.  

Walking back inside the house, my friend was taking a shower.  

On the table in front of the couch, placed neatly next to my phone, was my Penguin edition of Anna Karinina, and my pack of cigarettes. Placed on top of my pack of smokes is a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it, the message read: 

We mean you no harm. We are reaching out. Now you understand we exist. Remain aware, and take great care of the woman, Gabreilla.  

At that moment I felt like I was falling into a dark abyss.  

Immediately, I grabbed a cigarette and left the house. I walked for hours, contemplating these bizarre events.