Dragonfly

Lost-1

Lost

It was the first thought to greet him every morning upon waking, usually as a carryover of tearful dreams and nightmares, and it was the last thought that carried him to those dreams at the end of each day. The last time Eldin Cain saw his little girl, his baby, haunted him. His last words to her would forever scar his heart and mind.

Get away from me you little brat . . . go to bed. Daddy’s sick of you tonight.

Viola was just a few weeks past her second birthday, her outgoing disposition intensified by the dreaded terrible twos. Eldin was stressed and exhausted from his typical twelve-hour workday. His delivery route took away everything he had to offer physically, and what was left mentally was stretched between wife, child, and study. The subjects were basic, standard skills required of anyone applying for government work, but for Eldin they were challenging enough to keep him mentally tied up, often studying and reviewing a single topic for hours on end. Eldin held no illusions about his intelligence. He was not bright, he was not even average. He had taken the State test twice already, and failed both times. He was hoping the third time would be a charm.

Viola’s offense that night was minor, dashing past his recliner in typical toddler fashion and screaming at the top of her lungs, she had kicked over his cup of coffee. Without thinking he let his book drop and swatted her diaper-padded butt hard enough to make her stumble.

Then came those odious words. Get away from me you little brat . . . go to bed. Daddy’s sick of you tonight.

He regretted them immediately, was sickened with himself for speaking them, but it was too late to take them back.

It was his fault; the coffee should not have been there in the first place. Instead of being thankful that she hadn’t scalded herself, he had yelled at her.

Screaming, Viola ran away, into the kitchen and her mother’s comforting arms. Anna lifted Viola with a thoughtless grace and love only a mother possesses, and held her close. She made quiet comforting sounds, patting her baby’s back until the screams dissolved into a series of exhausted sobs. To Eldin she said nothing, only gave him a quick, cool glance as she carried Viola past him to bed.

Eldin opened his book again and hid his face behind it, deeply ashamed but too proud to admit it.

“Uv oo daddy,” Viola said between choked sobs as she disappeared down the hallway in her mother’s arms.

Those sweetly spoken words, his baby’s last words to him, also haunted him.

Eldin ran through dry, unrestrained waves of wild grass and thistles, raking the path ahead with exaggerated sweeps of his flashlight, assaulting the ominous silence with desperate cries. “Viola . . . Viola!”

Behind him the search party, family, friends, and a few neighbors, spread out with their own flashlights, making their own cries into the darkness. They concentrated on the area around the small trailer park. They searched the wooded area to the north where the older kids played hide and seek, the worn path through the trees to the small fishing pond beyond, the deep run off ditch by the highway to the south, and the streets of Normal Hills to the east. A few men searched the tall grass to the west of the last row of trailers, but they moved with a dreamy slowness, walking only a few feet before turning back the other way.

He moved ever farther away from them, following an irresistible pull from the darkness. The calls behind him grew distant and the lights dimmed as Normal Hills drew away from him. At last he stopped, standing at the edge of a gorge, a steep rocky gash that dropped into complete darkness. He was alone now, Normal Hills was gone, and he stood stranded in a strange land with only the ashen face of the moon to keep him company. Exhausted he fell to his knees and screamed at the uncaring night. It was a soul sick cry of despair, an admission of defeat, a prelude to madness.

Distantly, from the darkness below, he heard her voice.

“Viola,” he screamed.

“Daddy.”

He followed her voice down the rocky slope into the valley, scrambling blindly over loose stones, across dips and holes, through patches of thick brush, and over obstacles that should have tripped him a hundred times. All the while he shouted her name.

Her replies, distant and weak, drove him on, pulled him toward the bottom like a magnet. All the while, in the part of his mind that knew it was only a dream, he began to grow sick. He had never seen this valley before, in dream or waking life. In all of his searching, he had missed it. Halfway to the bottom he felt something move past him, a cold, dark presence; the shadow of a monster, a human monster.

“What did you do with her,” he screamed. His only answer was the rustle of dry grass and a breathy chuckle, close enough to lift the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Where is she?”

“Daddy.” As distant as before, but now pained as well.

He was off again, running with nightmare slowness toward the sound of her voice.

At last he reached the bottom, and took just a moment to rest.

“Viola, where are you baby?”

His only answer was the agitated twittering of a nearby rodent. He called her name again, waited, but still no answer. The cleft of the valley slanted, leading further into the darkness, away from the lights of home. He fled the diminishing light further into the wild. Further into his own blooming insanity.

He found a small form sitting on the ground, propped up against a moss-covered rock, silent and still. A large scrap of cloth was draped over the still form, covering it completely. Slowly he bent over it, and carefully pulled the blanket aside.

It was Viola. Her nightdress was covered with ancient dust; its bright pink dulled to a pathetic, lifeless shade like a wilted rose. Her flesh was mottled gray and rotted away around the cheeks and mouth. Grass and wild vines had overtaken the lower half of her body, growing around her, imprisoning her.

She greeted him with a lipless smile; watched him in her attentive way with hollowed eyes.

“Hi daddy.”

He awoke screaming her name, the tears that welled in his eyes threatening to spill over in a flood that wouldn’t stop until he was sedated and sleeping again.

It was just a dream, he reminded himself. He’d searched for days, walking every street, every path, every deserted place he knew, but he never found her. Through the scorching heat of those August days and through the empty, desolate nights he searched, until at last they took him away and put him here. He never found her.

She was still lost.

He lay across the stripped mattress of his narrow old bed, hugging himself tightly under the bleach-white jacket. He appeared comatose to the night orderly who came by occasionally, peeking in at him through the narrow window of his room’s steel door. He made no sound at all and his only movement was the infrequent, involuntary tug at the straps that bound him.

Outside his barred window a summer storm brewed. Infrequent beads of rain splatted against the dusty glass, distant thunder purred at him, and though the night’s light show had yet to begin, his senses sizzled from the approaching storm’s unspent power. The south yard’s security lights glared through his barred window, casting vertical shadows on the tiled wall across the foot of his bed. He watched the stale light, minutes passing between each blink of his eyes. In his mind there was another shadow, superimposed over the shadow-bars of his eye’s prison. The small, well-defined shape of a child. She stood on the brick lattice, her tiny hands gripping the bars that kept them apart. So detailed was the image that he could clearly see each wild strand of hair as the wind tossed them about.

He wanted to rise from his bed, to walk to his window and be closer to her, to truly see his Viola, but was afraid that if he turned to look she would not be there. He was content to see her this way. He was happy. After an eternity of loneliness and madness he felt close to his baby again. Almost as if she were really there with him.

Watching his baby’s shadow on the wall, he fell asleep.

Eldin’s sleep that night was easy, his dreams calm, and he awoke the next morning feeling more rested than he had since his baby’s disappearance. He felt more than rested though, he felt renewed, clear. He felt as if his mind had finally come home after taking a long vacation. His memories were starting to return, the trivial things that were overridden by the grief of a devastating loss.

He tried to sit up but could not. He couldn’t move his arms to push himself up. He was startled by a glimpse of the straitjacket that bound him. At last he began to take a greater notice of his surroundings, blank white walls, a brightly polished steel door with no knob on his side, bars on the single, unadorned window, and a smell so sterile that only a hospital’s janitor could produce it. He didn’t need to see the scenery outside his window to place himself. He’d come here often on the job, delivering fresh bed linen to housekeeping and picking up the dirty for washing. The place was familiar, only the perspective was different. It was the old State run mental hospital on the hill just north of town.

He rolled onto his side, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and after a few moments of shifting and straining was able to sit up. He did not try to stand, just sitting up had worn him out. He felt older, weaker, out of shape. His legs looked scrawny under the thin, white fabric of his pants. He looked away from his skinny legs and found the spot on the wall where he had seen, or imagined he had seen, his daughter’s shadow the night before.

There was muffled speech outside his door, and he flinched, startled, as the steel door popped open with a loud click. An orderly entered pushing a cart with his breakfast; a pale blue hospital tray with a bowl of pudding, another with oatmeal, and a half slice of buttered bread. There was also a small glass of juice, and next to it a smaller cup with an assortment of pills. It was the kind of food these places fed to their vegetables.

How long have I been like this? he wondered. The soreness in his muscles and the apparent deterioration of his physique told him weeks, perhaps months. It was still summer outside, so it couldn’t have possibly been that long. He watched the young orderly as he pulled a small folding stool from the bottom shelf of the cart and sat. The orderly arranged plastic silverware on the blue tray.

“Good morning,” Eldin said wearily.

The orderly looked up, eyes open in astonishment, then jumped from his stool. He ran to through the door screaming for a doctor, slammed it shut behind him, and was gone.

I have to get out of here. I have to find Viola.

He was tugging at the straps of his straitjacket when the door opened again. This time it was a doctor, his name badge identified him as Doctor Stewart. He passed through the door slowly, beholding Eldin with disbelief.

“I could really go for some eggs and toast,” Eldin said, more to break the silence than anything else.

The doctor nodded.

“Hey, James,” he called into the hall. “Bring some eggs and toast for Mr. Cain.” He turned back to Eldin. “Well, this is quite a surprise. You’ve been …gone for quite some time.”

“Catatonic,” Eldin clarified.

“Yes.” Doctor Stewart bent down, righting the overturned stool, and took a seat across from Eldin.

“Why the funny jacket then,” Eldin asked, tugging at the straps for emphasis.

“Sometimes you have nightmares,” he said.