False Memory

For all her twenty-eight years, Martie’s world had been largely free of panic, rich instead with a serene sense of belonging, peace, purpose, and connection with creation, because her dad had brought her up to believe that every life had meaning. Smilin’ Bob said that if you were always guided by courage, honor, self-respect, honesty, and compassion, and if you kept your mind and your heart open to the lessons that this world teaches you, then you would eventually understand the meaning of your existence, perhaps even in this world, but certainly in the next. Such a philosophy virtually guaranteed a brighter life, less shadowed by fear than the lives of those who were convinced of meaninglessness. Yet here, at last, inexplicably, Johnny Panic came into Martie’s life, too, somehow snared her in his controlling strings, and was now jerking her through this demented performance.

In the trash enclosure alongside the house, Martie removed the clamp-on lid from the third of three hard-plastic cans, the only one that was empty. She dropped the tape-encased box of knives into the can, jammed the lid on, and fumbled the steel-wire clamp into place.

She should have felt relieved.

Instead, her anxiety grew.

Fundamentally, nothing had changed. She knew where the knives were. She could retrieve them if she was determined. They would not be beyond her reach until the trash collector tossed them into his truck and drove away with them in the morning.

Worse, these knives weren’t the only instruments with which she could give expression to the new violent thoughts that terrified her. Her brightly painted house, with its charming gingerbread millwork, might appear to be a place of peace, but it was in fact a well-equipped abattoir, an armory bulging with weapons; if you had a mind for mayhem, many apparently innocent items could be used as blades or bludgeons.

Frustrated, Martie clasped her hands to her temples as though she could physically suppress the riot of frightful thoughts that churned and shrieked through the dark, twisted streets of her mind. Her head throbbed against her palms and fingers; her skull suddenly seemed elastic. The harder she pressed, the greater her inner tumult became.

Action. Smilin’ Bob always said that action was the answer to most problems. Fear, despair, depression, and even a lot of anger result from a sense that we’re powerless, helpless. Taking action to resolve our problems is healthy, but we must apply some intelligence and a moral perspective if we have any hope of doing the right and most effective thing.

Martie didn’t have a clue as to whether she was doing either the right thing or the most effective thing when she pulled the big, wheeled trash can out of the enclosure and hurriedly rolled it along the walkway toward the back of the house. Applying intelligence and sound moral principles required a calm mind, but she was swept up in a mental tempest, and those inner storm winds were gaining power by the second.

Here, now, Martie knew not what she ought to do, only what she must do. She couldn’t wait for the serenity required to logically assess her options; she must act, do something, do anything, because when she remained still, even for a moment, a hard gale of spinning-tumbling dark thoughts battered her more fiercely than when she kept moving. If she dared to sit or even to pause for a few deep breaths, she would be torn asunder, scattered, blown away; however, if she kept moving, maybe she would do more things wrong than not, maybe she would take one stupid action after another, but there was always the chance, no matter how slim, that by sheer instinct she would do something right and thereby earn some relief, at least a small measure of peace.

Besides, on a gut level, where thought and reflection were not valued, where only feelings mattered, she knew that somehow she must alleviate her anxiety and regain control of herself before nightfall. The primitive in each of us climbs closer to the surface during the night, for the moon sings to it, and the cold void between the stars speaks its language. To that savage self, evil can look lovely in too little light. With darkness, a panic attack might degenerate into something worse, even into gibbering madness.

Although the rain had stopped, an ocean of black thunderheads remained overhead, from horizon to horizon, and a premature twilight drowned the day.

True twilight wasn’t far off, either. When it arrived, the cloud-throttled sky would seem as black as night.

Already, fat night crawlers squirmed out of the lawn, onto the walkway. Snails had come forth, too, oozing silvery trails behind them.

A fecund odor arose from the wet grass, from the mulch and the rotting leaves in the flower beds, from the darkly glistening shrubbery, and from the dripping trees.