Corners

CORNERS

No corners are safe. I avoid staring into the corners. Somebody hides
there. It could be any corner. I lie absolutely still and make no
sudden moves.
I know he watches and waits. He'll wait to see if I breathe or twitch
or scratch-then the floor will make that creaking sound.
I never let him know that I'm awake. I crawl into my brain and command
it, "Keep still!" Not even the man in the corner can hear my
thoughts.
Maybe he'll forget about me this time. I don't even squint my eyes
because it might get his attention.
But my body is cramping. My legs beg to stretch. I want to turn over to
my other side. My bladder is in agony. I know he senses this.
The silence becomes louder and I can almost hear him breaking out of
his stiffness. "Oh God, help me to be still. Help me to escape." But
only more nightmares await my sleep.
For now I am as silent and frozen as a steel hull at the bottom of the
sea.
My bladder explodes and I urinate a hot stream of water down my legs.
It begins to soak clear up to my chest because I am in a tense, fetal
position. Soon I'm cold, and lie in fear and shame.
I know my mother will scold my brother and I in the morning. She's
disgusted with changing the pissy sheets, she'll say. Her eyes will
burn from the ammonia smell and she'll open the windows so our
mattresses will dry.
She thinks my brother and I pee the bed in our sleep. The doctor say's
our problem is physical. "They'll grow out of it," he say's to her. I
would never dare tell her that we pissed countless gallons on our
mattresses while wide-awake, fearful of the arms that might grab us on
the way to the bathroom.
A creaking noise on the wood floor pierces my eardrums and sends
hammering waves of tension up to the base of my skull. My throat
tightens like a noose. My whole body screams inside like a great fire
alarm.
I know my brother heard the creaking noise. Like me, he's also aware of
the man in the corner and is curled up in a ball. No doubt he is also
lying in his own puddle of urine.
I would know if he was asleep because he'd be snoring and talking
gibberish. But now his breath is muzzled. His knees are fused to his
chest and his elbows tucked into his stomach. His teeth are clamped
tight like a vise and his throat and mouth feels like it is stuffed
with cotton.
We're both drenched in sweat and piss. The painful throbbing in our
chests is racing off the charts.
My brother and I communicate through our fear. Like radio waves they
send messages that stab at our brain. Hard, pointed pinpricks like
flashes of fire sear through our consciousness.
The language of fear shouts caution and resounds with warnings to
resist the urge to move or look upon the origin of the cracking sound.
Could be the man in the corner has waited long enough and is making his
move. Now the pinpricks stab at me. My brother sends me flash.
He's about to break. For the entire world to hear he is going to scream
in one terrific spasm. I send a message back: "Hold on! If you don't
peek or twitch he won't see us."
But the creaking noise was too much for him. He's sure somebody is
standing near his bed and breathing down at him. He feels the weight of
the man's spirit crushing him.
"Don't look at him!" the pinpricks stab across the room.
Then in one terrifying instant, a deafening scream from my brother
exposes our tenuous strategy.
Paralyzing fear comes in bright, pulsating colors. They're teeming in
a brilliant, colorful pool against the inside of my eyelids. Thousands
of iridescent flashes like burning meteors crisscross my pupils. Fear
has shut down my ability to think; like a person on the throes of death
by murder who turns to stuttering and babbling uncontrollably.
Then-I moved. The sequence is always the same. I move and the man
turns his head towards me.
I'm waiting for his trembling hands to pull back my covers and stretch
out my cramped arms and legs. Like the other nightmares, I find myself
stretched out on my back, shivering in wet flannel, while the stranger
gropes my ribs and moves his fingers under the elastic band of my
pajamas. I feel his rough beard nuzzle against my cheek. "Time to knead
the dough," the voice always says. Then I feel the weight of him as the
bedsprings squeak.
The hands are large and I feel a chill on my thighs. I want to cry out
for my mother but my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and my
lips feel dead like their pumped with Novocain.
The nightmare always ends the same way. The man will massage his sharp
nails against my scalp and say with his steamy breath, "Your such a
good boy not to cry."
The voice is always familiar and I try to place it with a face.
Batteries of dark, blurred faces shuffle past my eyelids like a deck of
cards, but they're elusive and I can't pick out any particular one.
It's like my mind is playing a game with me. If I knew the face maybe I
wouldn't be afraid of the corners at night. Now the voice belongs to
the shadowy stranger who lies along the edge of my bed.
His disembodied voice floats into a tranquil echo-narcotic. I feel
like I'm levitating toward the ceiling, but always pulled back down
with a long finger just before I can escape.
More rough caressing and "kneading," and I lapse into paralysis from
nervous exhaustion. The man then slinks back into his dark corner and
waits for another night.