Sway

A Story by Nny

A work in progress.

     There is nothing quite so intoxicating as waking up to the scent of freshly spilled gasoline. The aroma wafts into your nostrils as romantically as the fragrance of a flowery perfume. Your eyes flutter and a very delicate moan pushes past your loosely clasped lips. You twist your chin and rest it in the niche between your shoulder and neck as you stretch your arms above your head and list your torso from beneath your starch-white sheets made from pure Egyptian cotton. This is all what occurs before the information on the smell reaches your olfactory bulb, where your brain will discern the source of the odor. And trust me, if your brain had already processed the situation yet, you'd most likely be screaming. Oh, but don't worry – in less a minute your bed will go up in flames and then you can assess the threat. But at this moment you don't yet realize your loving husband of ten years and the father of your two precious children is currently dousing every room of your two story Tudor home – the one you so carefully picked out together. It seemed like the perfect place to grow old with its pitched roof and dormer windows. Except now it's soaked in the gasoline your husband siphoned out of your neighbors 2002 Ford Explorer last night while you were dreaming of your wonderful future with your perfect family. The perfect family that will be dead in about five minutes.

    This is what your life has become. This is what your love has amounted to.
    That is, if your name is Elizabeth Belmont.

Poor Elizabeth is just now receiving the warning about the pungent olfaction that has invaded her nose. What's unfortunate is that she's also receiving warnings from her cerebral cortex about the flames licking the flesh on her legs. Right about now Elizabeth rolls out of bed, only to find herself now engulfed in the flames that had already spread to her bedside. And the sweet smell of gasoline is overpowered by the harsh scent of smoke and something she doesn't recognize: crisped flesh. As her adrenaline spikes, unsure of what else to do, Elizabeth crashes through the nearby dormer window – the one they had just repainted the frame of – and begins to roll around on the grass, still wet with morning dew. This is when poor Elizabeth blacks out.

    I bet right now a sense of pity is creeping into your psyche.
    Maybe even a pinch of empathy.
    But no matter, either way you're going to be disappointed by the end of this.
    Elizabeth isn't going to spring back from this.
    She isn't going to be the heroine you need.
    If it's a happy ending you're looking for, you should probably just stop reading here.

    Elizabeth's eyes flutter. A delicate moan escapes her loosely clasped lips. Only this time no aroma wafts into her nostrils. This time she doesn't stretch and lift herself off the bed. She wants to, only she can't. Huge patches of flesh have been burned away from her body and her hair is only present in small patches. If this were a Halloween costume, her two precious children might call her “Elizabeth the Walking Dead.” Only they can't because now they're just piles of ash and bone piled under the remnants of that pitched Tudor roof. Except you don't know that yet.
    The nurse walks in and checks your chart. She shines a small flashlight into your eyes, only you barely notice because everything was already much brighter as your retina was attempting to focus for the first time in two days. She asks you something, but you don't hear it.
    “Mrs. Belmont?” she repeats.
    This time you heard it.
    “Mrs. Belmont do you remember what happened?” she asks again.
    All you can do in response is groan due to the amount of morphine in your system.
    “Mrs. Belmont, your children, your husband... they didn't make it.”
    “Elizabeth the Walking Dead” seems even more fitting now. Only Elizabeth doesn't know what she looks like yet. The mirror that usually is placed across the room from the edge of the bed was removed from the wall. You can still see the line where the paint is as white as those Egyptian cotton sheets were beneath where the mirror once hung. The rest of the wall looks dirty and dull in comparison. This is where most people would cry. This is where a mother should mourn the loss of her precious children and her wonderful husband. Except, Elizabeth is too busy staring at the white rectangle on the wall, trying to figure out the exact name for that shade of white. She thinks it might look nice in a bathroom, offset with a spearmint shade of green.

    Are you still sympathizing? Do you still want this woman to be your heroine?
    I told you you'd be disappointed. You should have stopped reading when I warned you.

    Elizabeth spends the next week in those same white sheets. Everyone is afraid to change them for fear of having to touch her burnt, melted flesh. Nobody will give her a mirror. Not that she asked for one. Family and friends flow in and out for the first day since she woke up. After that, no one came back. No matter how much you love someone, you don't want to sit by their bedside with that charred flesh smell lingering in the air. Even the nurses were reluctant to check in on her – in a small town like Melody, these kinds of burns weren't something they saw often. In fact, this was the first time in 30 years they even had a victim with burn wounds. In Melody, everyone and everything always looked perfect and sparkling and new. Nobody wanted to have to see someone like Elizabeth. Proof that not everything was as perfect as their perfect bubble they kept themselves inside of.
    In fact, the debris from the burnt dormer windows and the crème-colored sofa and the perfect life that was one Elizabeth Belmont's were scooped up and disposed of within two days of the occurrence. That's what the town called it. “The occurrence.” Everything in Melody was a euphemism. That way even their conversations were cheerful and sparkling and without any hint of what the real world was like.

    This is what your life has become.
    Nothing but a euphemism in a long line of euphemisms.
    That is, if your name is Elizabeth Belmont.