Backwards

Bright-red tulips blooming — that’s the first thing I remember. Only they weren’t tulips. Their petals were drops of crimson, sinking into bathwater. It hit me that the drops must be coming from somewhere. Then I saw his wrists, and I realized that the red was blood. I didn’t feel any revulsion or sadness. Instead, I was struck by how bright the drops swirling in the water looked. I wanted him to move his arms so there could be more pretty blossoms — a whole tub full of tulips, flashy as springtime — but he merely let his arms fall beneath the surface, coming to rest on his legs and turning the water pink. So much for art.

He wasn’t naked. That seemed strange to me. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, and sneakers, all of which were soaked. It didn’t look very comfortable — wearing wet jeans and shoes in a tub like that. He let his head rest on the porcelain edge, which also didn’t look comfortable, and a small, rectangular blade slipped from his hand. Then he shifted, knocking several shampoo bottles over. His brow creased. Perhaps he wondered if he should pick up the mess, but he must have realized that his hands would drip blood onto the floor, so he left the bottles where they lay and closed his eyes.

Once he did that, I was able to get a little distance from him and hover above his body. If he was aware of my presence, he gave no sign of it. He was tall and gawky — too big for the tub, so his legs peaked like a child’s drawing of mountains and his shoulders hunched. Pink water lapped halfway up his shirt, but his hair and face were still dry, and the knees of his jeans looked dry as well. I thought it must frustrate him not to be able to submerge his whole body in the warmth of the water. He seemed young — seventeen or eighteen — so it probably hadn’t been that long ago when he’d been able to stretch out fully in the bathtub. I wondered if it surprised him when he discovered he didn’t fit anymore.

An open bottle of aspirin lay beside the tub, and a few white pills had spilled across the floor, dissolving in a puddle near the shampoo bottles. I pictured him downing a handful of aspirin before opening the package of razor blades. His sweatshirt was draped over the toilet seat like a tablecloth with two car keys resting in the center on a yellow sticky note.
FOR TEAGAN
the note said in blocky letters, slightly smeared.

He stirred and I felt a tug, as if I were a kite being jerked back to earth. He glanced through heavy lids at the pen on the edge of the sink. I didn’t have much trouble guessing his thoughts — he wanted to write more on the note or write another, longer note. That’s what he was supposed to do, right? Leave a note? But it was too late now because his shoes and jeans and shirt were already wet, and if he got out of the tub to get the pen and more paper, he’d drip pink puddles everywhere.

With a frustrated sigh, he lay back. Maybe he was crying, although I didn’t see any tears. I had a hard time feeling sympathy for him. After all, what sort of person only leaves behind a sticky note with two smudged words and a set of keys? The whole scene really started to depress me. I tried to pull away and escape from the room, but I was yanked back again.

“What the hell, Dan!” called a girl’s voice. The doorknob rattled. “Are you taking a bath? It’s almost noon.”

So the guy in the tub was named Dan. He struggled to lift one arm, but it flopped back into the water. His face looked as pale as the tile walls.

“I need to take my contacts out,” continued the girl. “They itch.”

Dan rolled his head from side to side and muttered a faint protest.

“Fine. Have it your way.” The girl left, only to return a minute later to rattle the doorknob again. “You better not be naked,” she warned.

After several seconds of rattling, the lock clicked and the door swung open. The girl stood in the doorway, holding the screwdriver she must have used to jimmy the lock.

Despite her dyed-black hair, slight frame, and pierced nose and eyebrow, the resemblance between her and Dan was striking. They both had high cheekbones and hazel eyes. Seeing his sister, I realized that Dan might be considered handsome, although right now he looked about as appealing as curdled milk.

The girl’s expression darkened as she took in the scene. Dan’s eyes had closed. If he was still conscious, he was doing his best not to look it.

“Very funny,” muttered the girl. She must have thought Dan was pulling a prank on her. “If Mom saw you, she’d lose her shit.” The girl shoved his shoulder, but he didn’t respond.
“Dan?”
she said, faintly at first. “Dan. Dan!”

Her toughness came apart like tissue paper as it dawned on her that he wasn’t faking. Then her face creased and her mouth twitched. I hated seeing her break down, but I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t even look away while she collapsed, uttering a fragmented prayer of “God” and “Mom” and “Please.”

My sense of things got blurry after that. I saw Dan’s mom arrive. She fought back her initial horror and attempted to pull her gawky son out of the tub, but she couldn’t lift him. She finally settled for raising his arms out of the water and wrapping his wrists in towels. Her face looked brittle. In a way, her choked reaction bothered me more than the sister’s cries.

“Call an ambulance,” said the mom, but the girl didn’t move. “Teagan, call an ambulance!” she repeated.

The girl still wouldn’t move, so the mom went to get a phone herself. Her voice sounded strangely detached, as if she refused to accept what she was saying.

After stating the necessary details, the mom returned with yellow dish towels. Dan’s wrists had slipped back into the water in her absence, and the bath towels were soaking wet. She wrapped the new towels around the old ones, but it did little to keep the blood in. Still, she held the wet towels tight to Dan’s wrists until the ambulance arrived.

The paramedics rang the doorbell several times before the mom went to let them in. Teagan stayed in the bathroom, frozen. One of the paramedics, a tall guy with a shaved head, had to physically drag her out so they’d have room to work in the cramped space.

I watched them step into the tub and hoist up Dan’s body. The tall paramedic banged his knee on the tub spout and cursed. Pink water splashed onto the bath rug and spilled across the floor into the white-carpeted hall. The mess was tremendous now. I felt myself growing angry at Dan for causing it. It wasn’t simply the stains on the floor that upset me, but the way his actions would affect his mom and sister, staining their lives, too.

The paramedics lay his body on the floor. Then the shorter one jogged to the truck, tracking bloody water everywhere, while the tall one put tourniquets on Dan’s arms, cut through his jeans, and attempted to insert an IV. He asked how many aspirin Dan had taken. No one knew the answer.

By this point, I had to struggle to stay focused, but I kept watching because of the mom and the sister. I wished I could do something for them.

The tall paramedic pushed a gurney into the hall, but he couldn’t get it through the bathroom door. They had to drag Dan’s body out to load him up. Then they strapped him on. I doubted he had much of a pulse anymore. His pale limbs jiggled as they rushed to wheel him to the ambulance.

Once outside, I tried to drift away. I wanted to float into the overcast sky and be free of this whole mess, but the images of what I’d seen became tight and heavy, tugging me back toward Dan. No matter how much I fought, I kept getting dragged closer to his pale, limp body. His bloodless lips neared, and he drew in a last feeble breath, drawing me in as well. Darkness surrounded me. I struggled, but there was no escape. When his breathing stopped, it felt like the door to a windowless room had slammed shut.

It was Saturday, November 15, but I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t understand the strange countdown of days that formed my existence until later. All I knew then was that I was alive, alone, and trapped in the body of a dead person.

The first night was long — a gray, indefinite expanse of time. I couldn’t see, hear, or feel anything. So I huddled, not moving, if a bodiless entity can be said to huddle. In my imagination at least, that’s how I saw myself, my nonexistent arms wrapped around my nonexistent legs — a genie trapped in a jar for who knows how long.

There was no way to judge the passing of time. No change or differentiation between one moment and the next. No forwards or backwards. Just a vast gray nothingness. Until a scream broke in.