Buried in Sunshine (4 page)

“It’s coming for you,” Alexis softly speaks in
such a calm demeanor it is almost as though she is delivering happy
news with muted tones. “But when it comes, you need to be whole
again.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” I plead as I
continue to be guided along the hallway. I place a hand out and
attempt to stop my forward movement—only to find this action
futile. It is as though there is more force than just my sister’s
propelling me along. Also, I do not like where we are headed. For
reasons I cannot completely comprehend, I am completely dreading
it.

“We’re almost there…”

Alexis’s room lies before me. The door that has
remained shut for so long, the old wood, the brass knob with a
layer of dust upon the top of it—I fear it. I do not wish to enter
the room. It is as though some force I do not wish to confront lies
on the other side. “Please don’t make me go in. I don’t, I can’t do
it.”

Alexis ignores my trepidations and places her
hand over mine. She controls me as though I am nothing more than a
puppet. I try to resist, I pull up whatever strength I can to stop
my hand from turning the doorknob—however, this too… is a pointless
act. I am powerless against her will. The door opens.

“You have seven days,” Alexis says as she pushes
me into the room. “Starting tomorrow—live your life as you once
did… before he died. When the time comes, don’t regret your
life.”

“Can I stop it?” I ask as I turn to face
Alexis.

“Why would you want to?” Alexis answers as she
begins to walk away. Outside the window, the light of the sun is
barely visible.

“I don’t want to die—I don’t want the world to
end,” I reply as I attempt to follow, but find that I cannot.
Inside of Alexis’s room, it appears some kind of force is keeping
me locked in here.

“As the sun fades away, so will I,” Alexis says
as she faces me one final time. “Time is short and… I have no
answers today. No more than you do.”

“Please just tell me what to do…”

“I already did.”

“I can’t live a normal life,” I say as I shake
my head. I am having a hard time holding back tears as the emotion
of the moment feels as though it will tear me into two. “If I only
have seven days until the end how can I even begin? What is the
point?”

“You wanted the sun, you called out for it. Part
of you wants this.”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

“Stay in the room, you’ll feel better,” Alexis
says as she raises her hand up. “You’ll understand. We will see
each other again before the end—although, we might not be the same
people.”

“Don’t go,” I plead as reach out a hand towards
my sister.

Without another word, or gesture—she begins to
tear apart and fill the air like burnt paper. Embers of glowing red
fly about in the air like streaking fireflies in the darkness of
the hallway. The embers sway about and turn to grey ash as they
expend their energy and fall to the floor. Eventually, there is
nothing left of Alexis.

Unable to hold back tears, I allow myself to
cry. I turn my attention back to Alexis’s room. I jump as the door
behind me slams shut. My heart beating like a rabbit’s in my chest,
I take a few steps into the dimly lit room. I find an old desk-lamp
and pull down on the silver chain illuminating the room in a faint
yellow glow. I see Alexis’s old bed, her dresser lined with
photographs, and her blank and bare walls. I take a few cautious
steps towards the dresser. One picture stands out amongst all the
others. I pick it up, clearing away a layer of dust with a section
of my towel. In the picture Alexis stands next to a guy, it looks
like some kind of dance—perhaps a prom. I find it strange that I
cannot remember the moment clearly.

As I look at the guy, he seems like he should be
familiar. There is some kind of connection or fragment of a memory
that my mind is having a difficult time piecing together. My head
begins to hurt once more. What did Alexis mean? The sun is coming
for me? None of it makes any amount of sense. Out of the corner of
my eye I catch a small flash of light. I swiftly turn to face a
full length mirror that hangs against the wall. I set down the
picture and begin to walk towards my own reflection—something is
off, something not exactly quite right.

I look at my eyes; they are clear and brilliant
blue. It is not the right color, not at all. These eyes… These are
my sister’s eyes. I reach my hand out and my fingertips come into
contact with the mirror. Another wave of pain comes from my head,
this time more fierce than before. It feels as though something is
trying to break out of my head. Wave after wave of pain overtakes
me as I am driven down to the floor and onto my knees. My towel
falls away. In the mirror I attempt to make out my reflection—it
begins to shudder and shake as though it is being shown to me by an
out of focus projector during an earthquake.

My mind flashes in pain blindingly as everything
grows black. I fear that I have become blind. I can feel myself
shaking, trembling—I feel as though I am being ripped apart.
Without warning, I suddenly remember everything.

Everything calms. The darkness remains. Like my
life flashing before my eyes, I can see fragments, parts of my life
that I have forgotten… well, not forgotten, perhaps, but—hidden. I
see myself with the young man from the picture. We are happy. It is
spring. We are running along the shoreline. He is chasing me and we
are both laughing. He catches me and is rewarded with a kiss. That
memory fades and in its place a new one appears. This one is dark.
The young man, Aaron Chase… that was his name, he is jogging with a
pair of headphones on. It is late; at least, I feel that it is late
at night. A pair of blinding headlights appears from behind him
belonging to a truck that is driving very erratically. It does not
slow down as it strikes him and sends him flying off of the road.
Everything fades to black. He reappears against the ground. His
breathing is very ragged. His body is contorted in a disturbing
way; blood covers the grass around him. He is not whole. As the
memory fades away, Aaron chase stops breathing. I am alone in the
darkness once more. I feel no sense of self, I can merely watch
what unfolds—I barely even have time to react. I feel an
overwhelming sense of sadness. I begin to understand.

A new memory lightens up the darkness. I can see
myself in bed. It is daytime. I look as though I have not slept at
all. I get out of bed and walk over to the full length mirror. I
place both hands against the mirror and stare vacantly at my own
reflection. I then rush out of the room and head down the spiral
staircase and into the basement. I search around the different
rooms until I find what I was looking for—a length of cord stripped
from an old lamp. In a hurry, I make my way to the upstairs
bathroom and balance myself against the edge of the tub, reaching
up to the metal bar above me. I tie a makeshift knot around the
cord and place my neck against the cord. I allow my feet to slip.
The memory fades. A new one replaces it. I awake on the floor to my
mother helping me up to my feet. She gets me into the car and
rushes me to the hospital. That memory fades.

It was me. It was always me.

A new memory breaks through the darkness. I sit
at a funeral. It is not for my sister—but for Aaron Chase, my…
love, my boyfriend. As they lower his body into the ground the
darkness follows swiftly behind. I now see myself living in the
attic. Time speeds up. I see myself day to day, hardly leaving. I
spend most of my days lying in the sun. This memory fades as well.
I then see myself at a therapist’s office. Then another, and
another… a series of men, women, I have no memory of them. They all
try and convince me that I did not have a sister—that my name, the
name my mother keeps trying to get me to accept is Emma Alexis
Corbeau. I see myself screaming at my mother, throwing things. I
repeat over and over that my name is Emma Hope Corbeau. This memory
fades. I find myself once again in the attic. Days pass by. People
stop trying to convince me. The door to my old room remains shut.
Time passes and I forget. I forced myself to forget. I slip into
depression. I have no motivation. I begin to describe myself as
talentless—never happy. I see no joy in life. I begin to compare
myself to a sister I never had—my former self. I even trick myself
into thinking my eyes are the only difference in our appearance.
They appear cloudy and grey as I look into the mirror. This is
false as well.

The darkness subsides as I find myself facing
the mirror once again. I look at my own reflection. I know who I
really am now. I was supposed to be the one that wanted something
out of life—the one that never tried to commit suicide. This was as
far from the truth as the earth to the moon. I was the girl that
used to always be happy. There was never an Alexis—at least, not a
sister, or a ghost—nothing more than a mere name.

I get to my feet and wrap the towel around my
cold body. Was it all a hallucination? Was this my mind’s way of
finally telling me the truth? About what she had said, about the
sun coming for me—that couldn’t have possibly been true, right?
Perhaps it was just part of some psychosis. It all felt real. Then
again, I had convinced myself so much fallacy was real that I had
built the last few years of my life around it. Who was I now?

I rushed downstairs to the telephone and dialed
a number on a corkboard next to the old fashioned phone.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Riley?” I ask, although I suspect that it
is judging by the familiar voice.

“Emma?’ The voice says in a rather confused
tone. “Sorry… You’ve never actually called me, is everything
alright…? I know that today is a tough day for you—have you had any
issues?”

“I didn’t have a sister.”

I am answered by silence on the other end of the
phone. Moments pass by. I allow some more time to pass until I add,
“I am Emma Alexis Corbeau…”

“How did you come to this?” Julie Riley finally
whispers as she attempts to compose herself. Her voice is audibly
shaken.

“It’s a long story,” I answer as I attempt to
piece together the right words.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“I think I need to.”

“If you feel like you’d be okay driving at
night,” Julie says as she pauses to allow me to object—when I do
not she continues, “I’d be willing to meet you at the office as
soon as you can get here.”

“I would like that,” I reply. “Thank you.”

“See you soon—be safe Emma.”

Day Zero

Chapter 1: Acceptance

Emma walks into the familiar office. She sets
her purse down on the mosaic stone table and rushes into Dr. Julie
Riley’s open door. She has an uncertain look upon her face as she
greets Emma with a handshake. Emma notices that the notepad is
nowhere to be found, she is somewhat confused by this as it seems
as though this would be one of those moments that Dr. Riley would
want
to document. Emma plops down onto the couch; she lets
out a short sigh and holds her hands out before her as if to ask
‘now what?’

“So…” Dr. Riley begins as she leans forward and
places a hand upon her chin. A dour look is worn upon her face like
one of those unhappy masquerade masks. “What happened today? What
triggered…”

“I slipped and fell in the bathroom,” Emma says
a she places her hand to the spot on the back of her head.

“Are you alright?” Dr. Riley asks as she gets to
feet and inspects the wound. She is no doctor—at least in the most
commonly accepted vernacular.

“I think so,” Emma says as she lets out a short
laugh. Julie is no doctor—at least in the most commonly accept
vernacular. The irony is not lost on her that a ‘head’ doctor
cannot properly tell if a head wound is something to be concerned
about or not. “It doesn’t really seem to be bothering me at all,
actually…”

“Maybe you should go the ER, at least to have
it…”

“I don’t do hospitals,” Emma interrupts as she
sits back down and shakes her head at the very idea. “You should
know that.”

“Of course,” Dr. Riley says as she nods once and
takes her seat. She folds her hands in her lap and looks over Emma
as though she is attempting to evaluate the situation that she has
before her.

“So I slipped and fell in the bathroom,” Emma
repeats as she looks away. Her eyes wander to the wood grain of a
nearby bookshelf. Through the brunneous and beige patterns she
discerns what looks like a slightly abstract symbol of the sun—the
kind that you would have drawn as a kid, an imperfect circle with a
few swathes of flame extruding from the center.

“Then you just… remembered?” Julie quietly says,
breaking the uneasy silence.

“What?” Emma replies as she is brought back to
reality. “Yes… I remembered. I saw myself—I went into my old room,
there the memories came back. It was like watching someone else’s
dream. Once it was over, I realized it wasn’t Alexis’s funeral—it
was my boyfriend’s. It was not Alexis’s suicide attempt, it was my
own. I realized that these were my memories.”

“This is a huge step,” Dr. Riley says as she
finally allows a smile to cross her wide features. “I don’t think
you realize how big this is. I mean, in terms of progress this kind
of realization is amazing—and you’re taking it so well. Do you even
remember that you refuse to go out at night?”

“And here I am…”

“Yes,” Dr. Riley says as she nods reassuringly.
“Here you are—the real and whole you. You must feel some sense of
accomplishment. It has been a very long time since you assumed this
‘older sister’ role.”

“I don’t feel very accomplished. After all, that
means I was the one that tried to kill myself. I was always so
proud that I was the only one in my family that had not attempted
it—instead, I find out that I was just like
them
,” Emma says
as she looks away once more. “Also I don’t know how I should feel
about this. It’s like someone has forced me out of my own mind—like
another personality has taken residence in an already crowded
apartment. I have my own memories, and now I have these new
memories and feelings.”