Eating Worm
Page 4 of 6
When she came to, she was in a hospital. It was dark, but she could easily make out several other beds and the nurses’ station that was central to this room. She was covered in just a hospital gown and a starchy sheet. A tube was stuck in her nose and in her arm. Her throat was horribly sore and she could taste charcoal. She looked at the bandages wrapped around her arm that covered the abscesses that were forming. She was thin and wrecked and in a strange hospital and not at all thrilled with life. She was considering ripping out the IV and storming out of there, but she wasn’t sure if she really had the strength. Throwing her head against the pillow, Gravy began to weep. Why was she here? she cried to herself. What did she do to deserve this?
As tears filled her eyes, her vision blurred. It made no difference to her, all there was to see above her was the curtain rod that separated her bed from those next to her and the ceiling tile that held patterns of dots. In her tears the dots began to swirl and form into a watery shape. She squinted to squish the tears out of her eyes, because the shape strongly resembled her dead father. But even after she wiped her eyes dry, she couldn’t avoid seeing the pattern that shaped her father’s face. A trick of her mind, she thought, of her goddamned mind.
“Grace,” she heard. She could still hear his voice after all these years, the slurring voice of fear. “Grace, I have something for you.” She groaned with the memory. Why now? Why here? Leave me alone, she thought.
“Look at me then, Grace,” her father said. “I wasn’t much older than you are now, when I made some awful decisions.” The voice was clear; although, she knew it must be a memory, but she didn’t know from when the words were. Her father continued, “With a small bottle, I destroyed three lives. Look at me, Grace.”
In her mind, she was eight years old, wet, and naked. She shivered in front of her father. She couldn’t look at him, but she forced herself to say, “Don't blame the booze, daddy.”
There was silence as she looked at her small feet. Then she heard her father chuckle. There wasn’t evil or malice or perversion in the small laugh, and it surprised her. She looked up at him as he said, “You’re right, Gracie. I can’t blame the booze.” What she saw was a sad, weak man, a little taller than she was, and with a splotchy five-o’clock shadow. He continued, “Everyone makes choices Gracie. It is the only wisdom that was allowed to me in death. Call it my little hell.”
“You deserve more than that, you asshole,” Gravy said. She was no longer eight. She was no longer naked in front of him. She was twenty-five and shivering in rage. Her hands clenched, and she wanted to swing at him, but she knew that, only in thoughts, this would do nothing
“Hell is a subtle thing, Grace. Consider that I want so desperately to blame something, anything, for what I did.”
She snarled, “There is only one person you can blame, daddy.” The word was spit like acid towards him.
How was she ever scared of this man? He was almost comical in his appearance, with his greasy hair and potbelly and red, bulbous nose. He gave a sad smile and said, “You’re right again, Grace. There is only one person to blame.”