Purgatory
I lie in panicked paralysis for what feels like hours. My mind is extremely sharp, I can hear everything, see with extreme clarity. I cannot look away as I see a shadowy figure facing me at the foot of my bed.
I recognise its shifting profile. The grinning boy with his threatening stare full of hatred. His older brother, Momen, terrified and in pain, blood dripping from his mouth, dead accusing eyes fixed on me. Myself, bloodshot eyes, patchy skin, uneven beard, greasy hair, face emaciated and pale. A hybrid between our three faces that make up one. This, I know, is the face of my Death.
I watch in horror as the kid opens his mouth and utters an ominous curse, in too deep a voice to be his own: “Wallah, da zmakay khurdaan shay, beghairat” I have never heard those words before, of that I am sure, but somehow, I know exactly what they mean. “By God, may you become fodder of the earth, coward.” He giggles in his normal toddler voice, but it resonates as a demonic growl.
The face shifts ever so slightly to his brother’s. He rasps and gurgles his dying words to me, pleading, in his thick accent: “Friend. I… Brother”. It echoes in my ears and becomes another word: “Qatel” it rings over and over, louder and louder.
The face shifts again, and I am staring it at myself, murmuring “Murderer” in an echo. And then in Pashto, I murmur: “Eh de okrl؟”, in a disappointed, defeated tone. “What did you do?”
The three faces, disguised as my Death, repeat their torture, over and over again. Then, after an eternity, the apparition quietens its tormenting accusations and fades slowly, leaving me alone with my guilt. I stifle a sob as I feel myself gaining my senses again.
I feel like I have been freed from an invisible force that was bounding and gagging me. I feel its sudden release and I sit up hastily. I take a long deep shaking breath and collect myself. I look around me. The phantom has definitely gone. I feel relieved, unsure of what is happening to me, fearing I might be losing my mind. Fearing even more than I am not.
I do not remember coming to bed last time. Last thing I remember is drinking beer after beer, smoking cigarettes after cigarettes, in front of the TV. I remember deciding I’d sleep there. I remember it was because I had trashed my room. My anger and frustration got the best of me and I broke everything I could reach, tore my sheets, even punched a whole through the wall.
I clearly remember tidying up as much as I could, struggling with the broom and one leg as I was sweeping everything to one corner of the room. But I notice, baffled, the state of my room. It is in complete disarray. The sheets are torn and bloody, the bedside table on its side, one leg broken, the lamp smashed to pieces and its cord torn from the outlet on the wall. It is as if I haven’t cleaned after myself yesterday.
I am both confused and terrified. I half reach for my meds before remembering that I have been short of them since it all began. I look for my phone, and as I see its broken remains on the floor on the other side of the room, I curse to myself. Why is everything so confused and fuzzy?
I try to think positively by telling myself that at least the nurse is due to come in today. The nightmare will be over soon. I need to distract myself and decide a shower will do me good. I strain to lift off the bed with my crutches, and head to the bathroom. I feel grimy and itchy everywhere. Yes, a good long shower is way overdue.
In the bathroom, I empty the tub of the few shards that reached it, carefully avoiding looking at their reflective sides. The events or hallucinations of the past few days have rattled me enough, I don’t need another episode.
I start the water and undress as the hot water starts stealing up around me. I stand under the shower for a minute, enjoying the comfort it brings me. Then I start rubbing with soap. With the sponge, I focus the scrubbing on the dark marks I noticed all over my skin. They’re intensely itchy, almost painful. I scrub and I scrub, head down, eyes fixed on the drain. The water is filthy as it disappears down it. I’m a disgusting mess.
I suddenly feel a sharp pain on the spots I’m scrubbing. I observe in horror a wiggling white maggot crawling out from under my skin. It drops in the tub and disappears down the drain. I feel sick and gag, almost throwing up, as I detect many more of them, under my skin, wriggling, eating their way out. I start freaking out and vehemently scrub everywhere I see the dark marks, or feel movement. This is so messed up.
I don’t feel nearly clean enough when I eventually step out of the shower. My mind pacing in dread and revulsion, my heart pounding in shock and pain. Bloody spots cover my body, skin scrubbed raw. I am shaking.
I start drying myself, when I hear the knock again. My first wishful thought is that it is the nurse at the door, but I know full well it isn’t. I hold my breath, immobile, praying for all of it to go away. But the knock resonates again in my bathroom, from the shards of mirror scattered across the floor.
I know I shouldn’t, but I automatically look at them, almost compelled. There he is, the man in the mirror. Myself, the little boy and Momen, staring back at me in its familiar sinister grin.
“What do you want?” I shout in a roar. “You’re dead! Leave me alone!”
I am terrified, and angry, and in shock, and underslept, and in pain. I fall to my knees in front of the larger shards, face inches from it, as I repeat myself. It leers at me with disdain, then opens its mouth in a twisted sneer.
“Nho ، taso mrih east. Staso daxly da laroa sreh gry. ؟Aea taso da doe harkut ahsas kole shay, staso da sre gose leh lare da doe larh xorl”. I freeze in horror. Like when he appeared to me in my sleep paralysis, I understood every single word. “No, you are dead.” He said in a low growling voice. “Your insides crawl with maggots. Can you feel them moving, eating their way through your rotten flesh?” I recoil from my reflection, dizzy and weak.
My world is spinning and I am sobbing softly. The reflection calls my attention back to it when it knocks on the mirror again. I look at him intently. It starts humming the tuneless song, the one that has been stuck in my head for so long, the one the boy was humming when we first spotted him through the window. It bares its teeth in a cruel smirk, and then abruptly lets out a roaring laugh echoing in a devilish sound. As it does, thousands of maggots pour out of its mouth, crawling out of its eyes and nose, flies buzzing and swarming around him, his skin decomposing before my eyes.
I am dead, or so my reflection told me. And with that statement, the last few days came flashing before my eyes.
I was angry and frustrated, tortured by my guilty conscience, in tremendous physical and mental pain. I indulged myself with fast food, alcohol and nicotine. I pushed everyone away. I wallowed in misery and self-pity. And I finally broke down. I let my fury out into the world, punched the bathroom mirror hating my own reflection, breaking it into pieces. The day after, I destroyed my bedroom, broke everything I owned, punched a hole in my wall. I screamed and I cried but I couldn’t feel my release.
My psych said that if it got worse, she’d have to have me institutionalised. She talks too much sometimes. She shouldn’t have said that.
My pills… The empty bottles… They were full when the nurse gave them to me. What had I done? A plastic bag over my head for good measure. Am I still on that bed right now? Rotting away and feeding maggots?
Nobody is coming for me. There is no undoing what I have done.
This is my Death. And this, is my Purgatory.
Original story & Copyright by Julia Mesrobian
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