Ye Olde Scriblets

Assignment #3

Presented By: Isadora Porkpie

 

"You're nothing but a dirty lying cripple!"  Lexi's eyes opened abruptly, that voice still permeating everything in the room, those words still biting at her cold wet skin.  "Cold..."  Startled at the sound of her own voice, she lifted up her hand and looked at the tiny wrinkles upon wrinkles on her fingertips and shivered slightly.  The water was getting colder and colder.  She had fallen asleep again.  She reached over and pulled the plug out of the tub letting the cold water drain.  Then she turned on the hot water. 

 

"How long have I been in here?"  She thought.  Lexi looked around the tiny bathroom.  Dirty yellow walls stained by years of smoking, rusty fixtures, a broken toilet...one hundred sixty-eight filthy mold infested tiles.  "I wonder what color those were...originally." She pondered absentmindedly. 

 

She stared down at her life-less skinny hairy legs in the water.  She sunk deeper into the warming bath until only her face was above the water.  She drew in a deep breathe and then let out an anguished wail.  Feeling a tiny bit of relief she sat up, her head no longer submerged and repeatedly continued to scream.  "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry!  I'm sorry! SORRY!!" 

 

Lexi looked up at the ceiling.  "It's getting closer." She thought.  "I must get out before it's too late before it crushes me."  The puny room had no window so she had no idea how long she had been there.  Two days?  Two weeks?  How many times had she drained the tub and refilled it?  Fifty times?  Five hundred?  She looked back down at her stiff inanimate legs and started punching at them violently.  She deserved this.  She had manipulated the only person that had cared for her.  Now he left her here to rot away in this tub a little white porcelain coffin of her very own.  If she really tried she could probably get out but Lexi had no inclination to do so.  She wished to remain in the bath.  Maybe she would luckily drown the next time she fell asleep.  "I'm even too cowardly to die." She thought.  She started to feel as if she was becoming a permanent fixture in the room, her skin as pale as the porcelain tub.  Maybe she would slowly disappear and become a ghost. 

 

Lexi was starting to feel as if she were the only person in the world.  This room her entire reality.  She thought of her late husband Thomas.  It was as if those memories belonged to someone else as if she were recalling scenes from a film she had seen years ago.  She even had difficulty remembering the exact color of his eyes...his hair.  Soon after getting married Lexi realized that Thomas was not that good looking, not that smart, kind of boring and a paranoid schizophrenic.  Thomas had shot Lexi in the back then shot himself in the head.  Lexi now desired she had bled to death right there in the kitchen.  She now wished she had never met his brother Richard.  Richard visited her every day in the hospital while she was in a coma.  Richard was a nurse at the hospital.  He did not get along with Thomas and rarely saw him and had never met Lexi.  The doctor had informed him that Thomas was her only family because Lexi had grew up an orphan.  Richard looked at Lexi with such grief and guilt.

 

One morning Lexi opened her eyes and saw the most beautiful man sitting next to her smiling.  "Don't speak." She immediately thought.  "Hi Lexi, I'm Richard, Thomas's brother and I'm here to take you back home when you are ready." He said.  "I'm a nurse here at the hospital..." He trailed off.  "Listen, I'm so sorry about what Thomas did...I want to help you get better." He continued.  "Why would I need help?" Lexi thought.  She tried to move her legs and was petrified when she couldn't.  She stared down at her legs in horror.  It was then that the doctor came in.  "Hello Lexi.  I see you're awake!" he was smiling as well.  "There are few things I need to inform you about."  He said his smile slowly waning.  "You have lost complete motor function from your waist down and possibly partial use of your left arm."  His smile was completely absent now.  "I'm aware that you are alone but Richard here has happily agreed to take care of you and stay part-time at your home."  She looked over at Richard and smiled before falling back asleep.

 

"It's getting cold again..." Lexi thought while starting the process of draining the cold water and refilling the tub with hot water for what seemed the millionth time.  "I feel like a broken record...broken record...broken record...broken...broken...broken."

 

It had been two weeks since Lexi had returned home from the hospital and she still hadn't said a word to Richard who spent most of his personal time caring for her.  The doctor said it was probably the result of the shock of going through such a traumatic experience.  Every day Lexi thought, "Today is the day I open my mouth and speak."  But she never did.  It was getting harder and harder to do so.  She wrote simple little notes here and there.  She also quickly found that she had full function of both her arms but for some reason she acted as if she had extreme difficulty using either.  Richard fed her, bathed her, put her to bed, read her stories until she fell asleep.  It was too late.  She was hopelessly in love.  Lexi hoped that Richard would learn to love her one day.  She could never ever let him know that she could speak and wave her arms as wildly as she wished.  Little did Lexi know but Richard was slowly starting to regret taking on such responsibility.  He was a young handsome man who since taking care of her hadn't done much regarding his own personal life.  He started to feel strange about her, the way she stared longingly at him...into him.  He felt uncomfortable helping her bathe.  He didn't dislike her.  Actually, he felt that she was practically a stranger.

 

"How could he have ever loved me?" She thought while water started to overflow over the top of the tub.  She reached over and turned off the water.  "Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!" she cried at the top of her lungs.  She banged her head on the side of bathtub, a thin stream of blood flowing from the bone white edge of the tub into the water.  "A new color." She thought.

 

It had been almost a year since Richard had become Lexi's voluntary caretaker.  She still hadn't spoken and he secretly resented her but still felt undeniably guilty and wholly responsible for her.  When Richard wasn't around Lexi listened to records and sang along loudly.  She read the newspaper aloud in different accents.  She started going through the phone book and when she found a strange name that she liked she would call them and say it was the wrong number just to speak to someone.  Sometimes she would yell obscenities at them and hang up.  Richard had started dating a pretty woman named Betty and brought her with him to the house frequently.  Lexi was heart-broken.  She would do everything in her power to prevent him from leaving.  She once fell out of her chair and purposely hit her head on the hard floor right before they were to go on a date.  Lexi knew it was a childish thing to do but she couldn't let this relationship continue!  While Richard was bandaging Lexi's head she leaned in and tried to kiss him.  "What are you doing?!" He yelled backing away.

 

"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Lexi repeated over and over, the gash in her head almost identical to the one from her recollection.  The blood was now trickling from her head down into the lukewarm water.  Her skin was beginning to not feel like her own.  She felt like a corpse, a plastic doll left in the tub, moldy, alone.  Everyone's moved away.

 

Lexi was oblivious sitting watching television when Richard had received the phone call in the other room.  "Hello? Yes, there is a woman who lives here...that's impossible she's unable to speak...this wasn't the first time?  I see...well, I apologize...she's not completely with it...I will have a talk with her...thank you for letting me know..."  Richard then remembered Betty telling him before she had left him that she received some strange phone calls a few times from a woman.  Confusing threats and cursing followed by the dial tone.

 

"Lexi, it's time for your bath c'mon." Richard interrupted Lexi's TV show and wheeled her towards the bathroom.  This time Richard was not so gentle as he always was with getting her into the tub.  He grabbed her arm and viciously lifted her out of her chair.  As he helped take her clothing off he accidentally scratched her stomach.  "Ow!" Lexi yelped.  "What? What was that?! Did you SAY something?!"  Richard yelled.  Lexi shook her head.  "OH!  I thought I heard you say ow!"  Richard said loudly sounding a bit crazy.  He put her into the tub and started filling it with water.  "Just TELL me if it's too cold!"  Richard said.  He was filling it with only cold water.  "Oops!  Could you hold this?"  Richard said as he handed her the bar of soap.  She took it quickly without thinking with her left hand.  "OH MY GOD, it's a miracle!  Your left arm works!"  Richard screamed.  "So, we've learned you can talk and your arms work...but what about your legs?!"  Richard then lifted Lexi up and out of the water and stood her up and backed away.  She instantly fell back down into the bathtub, water splashing wildly out of the tub.  Richard covered his face in revulsion and embarrassment mainly.  Lexi cried out in terror and started sobbing uncontrollably.  After what seemed a lifetime she finally opened her mouth and said, "I love you...I was afraid you would leave me...alone."  "So, you decided to manipulate me?  How could I develop feelings for you if you never communicated with me?  You MADE me stay by acting helpless.  All those times you'd mess yourself so that I would bathe you.  You're creepy and I don't want to know you anymore.  I'm sick of feeling guilty!  I want my life back!"  Richard screamed.  "If you leave me I'll call the cops and say you molested me, please we can be happy together, you'll learn to love me I promise!"  Lexi pleaded.  "You're nothing but a dirty lying cripple!"  Richard yelled red-faced with rage.  He stormed out slamming the door.

 

"Just one more time..." Lexi said as she drained the cold water from the tub and started refilling it with hot water.  "Cripple."  She mouthed as she closed her eyes and sunk deeper into bath.