Tear You Apart

By Patricia Chan

They shut me in an isolated room, away from all the other mad women. I am entrapped by four white walls and the blank canvas bed that I lay in. What surrounds me is completely devoid of life. It serves to remind me that the world wishes to torment me.  They are afraid of me. I am evil. I am wrong. I am bruised. I am alien. I was simply trying to love him…my beloved . Marriage wasn’t enough. I needed to be with him every waking hour and soon that wasn’t enough too, he took over all my thoughts. I needed to have all of him, I wanted his everything, I wanted to feel his bones on the inside of me, his organs combined with mine, I wanted to know how he tasted, I wanted to bite my teeth into his skin and chew on his flesh. They pried into the privacy of my writing. They found out my deepest desires and they sent me here, called me crazy then threw me in a room and locked away the key. Don’t you understand? I wanted it out of love. They told him what I had written. I will never forget the way his eyes had changed, his pupils had shrunk, his eyes were wide, and they looked at me in a way he never had before. For the first time in his life, he was afraid of me. He doesn’t understand me. He didn’t want my love. Why do you not want my love when we have promised each other our eternal devotion at the altar? 

Now, that altar has been deserted and the bride has been caged away. With so much love in her heart and a hunger for her groom, both will go to waste. 

It has been six full moons since I have been imprisoned here. They send a man to feed me and make sure I am well. With kind eyes and warm hands, He offers me my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have found myself looking longer into His eyes each time He makes the round. They feel inescapable once you start to notice them. They have a powerful pull that sucks you in. Whenever He comes over, I stare until he looks away, I think it is a game we like to play. He brings me meals and he brings me comfort. He has brought a sense of stability and fun in my deprived, joyless life. 

It seems a new day has started on the world of the free as he comes and brings me breakfast. I rise from my bed with more life than the last. When He walks inside to greet me I palm the food out of his grasp. I study every element of Him. I stare intensely at the Adams apple that sticks out from His delicate porcelain throat, at the strength that He carries in his strong firm arms, how His uniform slightly lifts exposing His soft navel. I want to press my fingers against His stomach and create a dent so deep that the feeling of my hand is imprinted not only in His mind, but on his physical form. I watch His wet tongue lick his lips…how it dampens with moisture from His saliva. I find myself imagining about the taste of His tongue intertwined with mine. We’d be met with a passion so intense that at the end we’re both short of breathing. Our hot steamy breaths blow into each other’s mouths and His dough-like cheeks are flushed with pink.

 I start the game. I gaze inside His dark brown eyes, I fixate so intently that I can make out the part where his irises stop, and his pupils start. I wonder what it would feel like to hold His eyeballs in my hand. Rotate them around with my fingertips, roll them around across the lines of my palms, squish and squeeze them and listen to the squelch, throw them in my mouth and chew on them, moving them from one side to another. I would wait until they completely dissolve then swallow and let them fill my stomach. Oh, to keep you inside me forever. Isn’t it romantic? Before I am taken away with my thoughts completely, He looks away.

He exits my bird cage and like the seasons turn into winter…all the warmth leaves. Except this time, the sound of his footsteps is off. He doesn’t just walk away. I can hear that his movements are faster than usual, with more direction and stride. He has a mission to achieve. As He marches farther from his usual departure, I gain more and more of a thirst to understand just what exactly he is attempting to do. Curious, so curious. I must fulfil this curiosity of mine. I press my entire body against the corner of the freezing white walls, feeling like a squished bug, I listen to his soft mumble of conversation that can be heard.

“Cassandra Petrova.” My name coming from His tongue, it’s electrifying. The smooth butter of His voice lingered in my mind. I never heard Him properly speak until now. Oh, to hear the intoxicating sound of His voice…and it’s being used to say my name. 

“Cassandra Petrova. Cassandra Petrova. Cassandra Petrova.” I repeat his voice in my mind over and over again.

A new voice enters the scene, “Cassandra Petrova. She is showing no sign of getting better.” He is cold and calculated in his speech, just like the men who sent me here.

What a silly man, there was nothing wrong with me in the first place.

 “What do you suggest we do next?” His honey-milk voice fills the air, like a bee to pollen, I am drawn to Him with an insatiable urge to fertilise. 

The man draws a deep breath. He slowly exhales like he is drawing a cigar from his mouth, “After careful consideration…”

“The best course of action is to put Petrova under a lobotomy…”

…A lobotomy? Is that what they think I need? Is that what they think will cure my ‘ills’? Is that what they think I am? That my mind is so twisted and evil that it must be torn apart. They are deluded and wrong! I am under no circumstance where such a procedure is needed. I am perfectly normal and sane. The only sickness that I have is the sickness of being in love! 

These fools do not know what it is like to truly love someone. 

Surely, He will be able to see through this deluded remedy. I await His reprimand.

He makes a low grunt that I can only make out to signify approval.

What? He cannot be serious. I do not deserve this treatment. How can He not see the truth? We have played the same game day after day as many moons have passed by us. He was the only person in this mad house that I believed truly saw me. I thought that we had a mutual understanding. But here He is, playing along with the sick game that the authorities of this asylum force me to be a pawn in. There is no other word to describe this. This is betrayal. 

The next day He comes into my chamber once more. Except this time, He does not have any food in His hands. They must assume that I am unaware of what they are trying to force onto me. They prove once again to me just how foolish they are. He crosses His arms and opens His mouth to speak. But, none of His words go through my head. 

I focus on His pearl white teeth. They glisten like they have just been freshly brushed. I want to glide my fingers against them and feel their grooves. If they were in my possession, I would keep them in my pockets to carry them where ever I went-

“Cassandra, we are going to take you out of your room now. We will guide you to another one.”

I am in full understanding of what their intentions are. I refuse to be treated like a lab rat and succumb my mind to dissection. 

I feel the weight of my body lifted off the ground like a ghost floating through a graveyard. My feet drag against the floor and soon I have made my way out of the door. 

Him and I walk down the halls of the sickly asylum. The harsh lights glare against my eyes and they produce a sting like a scorpion has pricked my skin. As we make our way down, I observe His hands. They are wrapped in gloves. I want to rip those gloves off him with my teeth. They prevent me from reaching out and holding them and absorbing all his internal body heat. I have the opportunity to finally feel His flesh with mine, but His damned gloves act as a barrier between us. The swing and rhythm of His arms like a pendulum, inch closer and closer to me each time. But, they never get close enough for me to take. I only want to have them in my possession for a split second. His arms swing with a quicker pace this time, they move even further back. They are about to brush against me. That is my chance! My body leans forward, and my grip tightens, I sense the friction of the rubber of His glove and then…

“We are here.” Damn it! 

I am led inside a pure blank slate of a room. Where the only decorations are that of incomprehensible machinery, surgical tools, lights that sprawl out like spider legs above the ‘bed’ they have made for me. The bed they intend to use to bury me and be rid of my destructive mind. A group of strangers surrounds the operating table. They huddle around with disembodied voices that come from their masked mouths. What ever words they are trying to communicate with me are indecipherable. Their cloaked hands usher me to the operating table where I am to be prepared for the post-mortem. They yank on my arms and legs as they pin me down to the table as if I were a butterfly trapped behind glass in a museum.  Their bodies hover over me, examining every inch of me with their squinted eyes. Their flashlights, scalpels and syringes circle me like a shark does to their prey. This intrusion is sickening. They have stripped me of my clothes, poked at every wound, tugged my hair and stuck their fingers down my throat. The lights blind me and everything around me becomes blurry. There is an ear-piercing ringing coming from my right. I tilt my heavy head to the side and look away letting the unknown bodies take over my eyesight. That is when I see it. I see His chest leaning over mine. His body coming forward to take a better look at me. I see His navel, slightly exposed as he reaches for the nearest tool to slice my mind with. 

There He is. He is so close to me… I can see how His stomach rises in and out as he takes breath after breath. I can nearly feel the warmth of his body. I can point out every single hair on His arm, every tiny bump on His skin, every piece of lining on His figure. Now, the moment I have wished for, for so long is finally coming true. 

But, when the time has come when I have gotten everything I want. He is going to dissect me. 

How could He?   

I put my trust in Him. 

After all the moments we shared, the food He gave me, the greetings every morning, the game we played of longing stares. I felt something. I know He felt it too. Yet, here He is. A traitor like the rest. 

I want to tear his flesh apart.  

All the strength within my body courses through my veins. My pinned down legs start kicking with fury in an attempt to break free. Despite the efforts of the unfamiliar hands grasping at my arms to keep me down, they are unable to secure me. Their tight hold feels like their nails are clawing into my skin. I can hear a distant muffling of my scream. The scream seems to cloud the air like it is coming from the walls. I start tearing at anything I can get a hold on. My hair becomes wild and unkempt like a forest beast. 

THUD

I crash onto the solid ground. My back aches feeling like a rock has been pummelled into me. My nails scrape at the floor, they dig their way in creating tears into the boards. As I re-emerge with my dishevelled hair in way of my face and my back arched like a wolf hunting for its prey. Through the locks of black hair, I spot Him.

There is that same look that I’ve seen before. The slight, slow, startled movements of footsteps going backward. The contracted pupils with a filling of white. The shaky hands, unsure of what to do with nothing to grab onto. Terror. Terror that has been stricken by me. 

My hands lunge forward, with the sluggish movement of my numb legs dragging after. 

He takes moves further back until His body is stuck against the wall. Nowhere for Him to run. He is attached to the wall like He a portrait in a royal’s castle. I can see his fear-stricken expression and his screeching mouth. 

I throw my arm out forward and grapple at His leg. He tries to escape me, but my grasp is unyieliding. 

The price i have to pay for eternal devotion is in a cruel twist of fate, eternal damnation.