Narrative; Is it to be or not to be
WHO: Lisa WHEN: Feb 17th onward to Feb 24th WHERE: Lima, New York, Lima again WHAT: Lisa's not sure what's going on. Nowhere seems to have answers for her. WARNING: Language, mental anguish.
Things were crazy. Like out of control crazy.
The biggest thing was waking up in a school, randomly. She'd freaked out, the bodies and the chaos and the huge ass fucking storm, it was just way out there. Of course finding her car in the parking lot of a Lima fucking Ohio school was just retarded. She'd managed to navigate herself out of town, onto the fucking highway and out of the state.
It didn't make a lick of sense. What the fuck had she done that took her to a high school in Lima in the middle of June? Was it June? Fuck if she knew right then, all she knew was that it was summer, and summer meant no school. At all. She wasn't the type to even venture into a school during summer, for any reason. She avoided the place fairly regularly during the school year.
Stopping for the night in DuBois, Pennsylvania wasn't her first choice, but driving through the night didn't seem like such a wonderful idea either, so she pulled over at the nearest motel, forked up her credit card and fished out her cell phone.
"Mom, I know you're probably pissed the hell off right now, but I swear to God I'm not in a ditch. I dunno what happened but I'm on my way home, I'm really sorry I didn't mean to stay out this long. I'll be home in a few hours, I'm gonna spend the night some where and I'll call you when I'm leaving. I love you, I'll see you soon." Her mother was terrible for answering her phone, so Lisa left her cell beside the motel bed, ringer turned to full volume, just in case she called and freaked out.
There was nothing on her cell in the morning; no text and no missed call and no voicemail. Maybe her mom was just working a late shift or something. She makes it as far as Bloomsburg before stopping again, she's been filling up with gas the way there, but she stops for food and calls her mom again. "Hey mom, um, I'm about two and a half hours away, should be home soon. Call me when you get this, okay? Thanks."
She's not sure what the deal is with the radio silence, just like she's not sure why she was in Lima -she knew of Lima. Her uncle and his brat children lived there, her Grandma lived there too. It was where her mother was from. But Lisa hadn't seen Grandma Morrison for years, since before Will died. The old lady just wasn't fit enough for travelling and Lisa usually avoided those few trips her mom took to go visit.
It's getting dark again when she drives through East Orange, and that's kind of strange, because it's not that late. What's even weirder is when she rolls up to her house and there's a 'For Sale' sign in the front lawn. The whole street is kind of deserted and Lisa lets the Dodge idle by the curb for a minute before killing the engine.
The front door has one of those weird lock things on it, like when the real estate companies are keeping the houses secure. It means she needs to break into her own house, confused to hell and back as to why. There's nothing inside, no boxes or furniture, it's just empty. Her room is void of anything that once marked the room as hers, not even the hole in the far wall where her console controller went flying in a pique of annoyance at the machine. There are no pictures on the wall, no belongings on shelves, and Michael's old room is painted pink. Fucking pink.
Lisa curls up in her old room, on the floor and cries herself to sleep, because it's just not making sense.
She always figured, if she ever went insane, she'd do it in this really fucked up way. There would be drugs and booze and probably a lot of violence. But this just feels so fucking hollow, like she's just woken up one morning and forgotten everything, like shit's just moved on without her. What if she's really in a psych ward? What if everything around her is just a hallucination?
The thought comes at the same time as children giggling, noise in the kitchen and Lisa's scrambling over the floor and down stairs to see what it is. But there's nothing there. She can still hear it, but there's nothing happening in front of her.
She really has gone insane.
Driving out to Hoboken, she decides to spend time with Mattie. Mattie is the same; crazy, drug addled, conspiracy Mattie. She's pretty sure he doesn't recognise her, but that's fine, he never usually did, maybe that's why it doesn't mean as much. It's Tuesday before she starts to think, maybe Lima is better just now. Uncle Martin and the brats, they'll be there, maybe they can explain what's going on. There's still nothing from her mom, and Lisa doesn't try again.
Stocked with RedBull and chips, Lisa only stops for gas on the way back to Lima, thinking shit over in her head and blaring the noise of White Rabbits in the car to keep her semi-focused. At least it's not raining when she gets back to Ohio. It's weird, like she recognises things from when she was a kid, but at the same time, she doesn't. She was like, nine the last time she was there, and driving through the streets to find her Grandma's old house is a little difficult.
"Grams!" The old farm house is exactly like she remembered, the furniture's been updated, but it's the same. Even the psycho cat is there, mewling at her from his perch. "What up, whisker face, where's yo momma?" It's the barking that throws her off.
The pups are weird, Grandma totally wasn't a dog person, but there they are, a chihuahua and a dachshund. What the hell was Grandma thinking. A quick look around declares that Grandma isn't home, but the dogs are hungry and the cat is like starving, so she wanders to the kitchen to get them fed. She's surprised to find her laptop on the kitchen island. Just sitting there, sleeping.
What really freaks her the fuck out is the date on the calendar by the fridge. Fucking February? For real, Grandma, was she losing it too? Figuring it wouldn't be long before Grandma got back from wherever she was, that it would take like an hour or something, Lisa felt she could do with a shower. She'd opted out on the way home, and then again on the way back, because it wasn't like she had clothes or shit. But she could chill in her underwear or whatever and wash her shit there at Grandma's house and deal with her headache inducing confusion later.
The tattoo on her side worries her. Because it's cool, yeah, but she totally does not remember getting it. Her mom is gonna flip. She was meant to wait until she was eighteen to get another one. And then she goes looking for towels, and finds...well...her room.
Something is totally muffed up, but there it is, all her shit, all her belongings, her metal work, her instruments, her console and movies, all of it. There's something in the corner of her eye, it looks like another dog but the minute Lisa turns to try and see it, it's gone.
She's ready to pull her hair out, but she goes for the shower instead, ignoring the presence of all her cosmetics and shower stuff in there too. It's like twilight zone, because when the hell did she move to Lima to live with her Grandma? She has another break down in the shower, staying in the stall under the water runs cold and she physically can't cry anymore.
Her mom doesn't appear until Friday morning, Lisa's curled up on the sofa with the dogs, Coco and Chanel she discovers from their name tags, watching crappy television at noon, when her mom just strolls in, spares her one look and then vanishes like nothing is going on.
Lisa's sure she's either dead, in a coma, or fucking nuts.