The Ghost Years

Copyright (2018) Mutch Katsonga

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Chapter/scene excerpt:

In the weeks and months that followed it became more and more plain. The wounds that the accident had inflicted were raw and ran very deep.

In Elsie’s eyes the outside world became a place of great peril, a strange and sinister place, and this, coupled with the internal conflicts that she had not been able to resolve from her earlier years, morphed into paranoia, grief and fear. She withdrew into herself completely.

She would shut herself in her room for days at a time. She would barely eat or drink. Whenever she felt compelled, particularly at night, she would paint. But she now only painted frightening scenes. Gone were the bucolic landscapes and heavenly colours. She now painted pictures that captured the corrosive fear and guilt that festered within her. Images that seemed to manifest The Devil himself, complete with horns, sinuous pointed tail and flowing crimson cape. She painted images of apocalyptic worlds, images of brimstone and death. Her paintings scared me.

One particular painting stood out from all the others. It was an image of a woman on a barren plain, running with arms upraised as she is beset by some hellish variety of night bird. I would stare at this painting for ages. I would envision the feathered monstrosities coming to life. I could almost hear their hideous squawking as they swooped and hurtled earthward to terrorize the poor woman. I could see them fly out of the canvas and into our home. I could see them fly at the windows, at the doors; their powerful wing beats

stirring the still air. I wanted to throw rocks at them. I wanted to burn that painting.

I wanted to save the woman that was the target of their insane, torrent of winged fury.

Gone was sweet bird-song that once greeted our mornings. Now there were only ravens on our rooftop; standing in the doorways, and underneath the beds.

Many overwhelming complex feelings theretofore buried deep within her, were finding release after she survived that traumatic accident. Fear became ever present. Fear was a threatening, shapeless, amorphous thing in her life.

It began to shroud her soul. I prayed she would find herself again. I prayed she would come back to reality no matter how challenging that reality might be. I prayed she would conquer the fear, for as long as the fear remained her master, her life would remain an unbearable parody, ruled by emotional tempests. Until she rid herself of this crippling fear and guilt, she would remain a wretched puppet, leaping this way and that as fear jerked the strings. She allowed her imagination to create a special unhealthy world for her.

I began reading all her philosophy books, in a bid to try and understand her better. I wanted to connect with her in some way. She had stopped reading her treasured books since the accident and they now stood neglected, side by side on the shelf, collecting dust.

From these books I learned many new theories, concepts and reflections on life. I learned the fancy words but still felt the loss of the mother I once knew.

After the accident everything that happened to her throughout her life took on new meaning. Everything became symbolic. Everything had a special meaning that only she understood. I don’t know if this made her feel more secure or less so.

I once heard her emotionally talking to Dad and weeping on his shoulder; “It’s like being in a nightmare, when something terrifying is chasing you but you can’t run, even though you try very hard. It’s as though you’re crippled with fear. You don’t even know why you’re being chased. Even when you realise that it’s only a

nightmare you still can’t wake up. Then, eventually, the awful thing catches up with you, and you realise you haven’t been sleeping the whole time. You’ve only been semi-conscious, like on drugs, so you decide never to take those drugs again, but the terrifying thing is still after you when you close your eyes. So without the drugs you’re confused and you don’t know for certain what’s real and what isn’t. You start to become sure of only one thing: it’s better to be anything than frightened.”

I listened by the door, unobserved. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.

My mother, Elsie, would sadly spend many more endless days in bed, her body growing thinner, her face; more sunken, her pallor; paler. She was slowly becoming a sad caricature of her former vibrant self. Her eyes took an air of permanent sadness. Dad continued to work long hours.

Sometimes I would watch her sleep. I would watch her breathing. I would watch her face, now composed and relaxed, the stressed expression, the lines of worry, the physical suffering; briefly erased.

She was eventually “committed.” That was the most heart-breaking day of my life. Seeing her be wheeled off to a psychiatric facility in the back of that white van was too much to bear. There was a gaping void in our lives after they took her away. The house felt so cold and empty. Dad and I began to drift apart. He continued to work long hours. We would visit mother often but it was always a solemn experience. Occasionally traces of her old self would attempt to break through, but to no avail. She was put on heavy doses of psychotropic medication and SSRIs. She developed many debilitating side-effects. She was barely recognizable. Sometimes I wanted to clasp her by the shoulders, shake her and yell at the top of my lungs, “Just snap out of it!” I wanted my mother back. I wanted things to go back to how they used to be before the accident.

They never did.

Other titles by the author:

Beyond The Spiral Gates

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