Gas Lighting

Speaking with regret, abusive relationships are far from an anomaly. However, this abusive marriage is something you may have failed to remember or regonise as something very real and very damaging.

The TV screen glares, its light flickering through the darkened room. Isaac sits slumped on the old couch that’s nearly in tatters, with the springs beginning to show their forms through the material and the deep red it once was now faded and stained. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants, and his face is blank and wandering, no longer concentrating on the TV that’s been turned onto mute. It’s been like that for at least an hour now, surely, although Isaac can’t really remember that far back any more without doubting himself. He doesn’t remember why he turned the TV on in the first place, or whether he had done everything he needed to first. He barely even remembers what he had to do �" maybe that’s why he was watching TV. It’s been over three hours since his wife said she’d be home, and he’s been sitting in this darkness, silent and unmoving for at least two of them. He hasn’t checked his phone in a while, it’s not on silent, and there’s been no notifications lighting up the screen or sending a sound echoing around the room Nobody’s bothered to check up on him, or even have a somewhat uncomfortable and strained conversation with him �" so really, he has no idea whether it’s only been three hours or twelve.

 

What did he do wrong this time? Is it like last time? Why doesn’t she want to come home?

 

Maybe it was because of him. He wasn’t good enough for her. Not good enough for anyone. He let his thoughts wash over and encompass him, drowning out the darkness and the flickering light. He slumps further down into the sunken couch cushions, his bony legs stretching out onto the floor and his head tilted to the side, eyes drooping down until they’re closed completely and brain sliding into unconsciousness.

 

*

 

The door cracks open and Isaac is drawn sharply back to consciousness. It gets swung open the rest of the way and hits the adjacent wall with a thump. Macy staggers into the room, heels in one hand and clutching her disheveled hair with the other. She’s drunk, definitely, but seemingly not enough so to keep her from noticing the slight disarray the room is in. The coffee table has letters strewn over it, and magazines lay open on the empty side of the couch. The floor hasn’t been vacuumed and it’s littered with ripped up paper from failed quarterly report attempts. Who cares if she’s the one who left it that way, it wasn’t supposed to be like this when she got back; it was meant to be spotless, the way that Macy likes it. She looks around the room a few times, tilting her head from side to side and pursing her smudged red lips in distaste. She looks at Isaac, who’s looking back at her, his pupils heavily dilated and open wide. He’s chewing on the corner of his lip and twiddling his thumbs in his lap, moving them around each other with increasing pace, mimicking his pulse. Macy gives a quiet ‘hmm’ before turning shakily on her heel and walking out into the hall. Isaac listens to her footsteps as she climbs the stairs and shuffles around in his seat, pushing himself back into an upright position. He begins to bounce his knee in time with his thumbs �" a nervous tick he’d picked up, subconsciously, over the past few months �" in stuttered, broken motions.

 

Isaac sits silently, apart from the sounds of his feet tapping on the floor as he continues to listen to her footsteps, moving clumsily around the upstairs of the house; into the bathroom and back out again, around the bedroom, into the hall and onto the first step then retracting into the bedroom again. Isaac doesn’t dare move while she’s away. He can’t get in Macy’s way again. He always used to do that, and it made her feel uncomfortable, harassed, when he would be around her all the time, just waiting and following like a dog. Getting in the way was bad. He couldn’t be bad anymore, he needed to be good enough for her to stay, for her to want him; he couldn’t do anything to make her unhappy or she wouldn’t want him anymore. That would ruin everything. He would ruin everything. It would be his fault and he couldn’t even face entertaining it anymore. So he stays still, sitting on the old couch with his knee bouncing up and down, waiting for Macy to come back.

He sits for a few minutes - maybe an hour �" in silence, listening to the stop and start of footsteps upstairs before he hears his wife’s voice.

 

“Isaac! Come upstairs, darling. Please! I’ve missed you.” Macy’s voice is soft and beckoning and Isaac follows it without a thought, into the hall and up the stairs, into their bedroom where Macy sits under the duvet at the head of the bed. He shucks off his sweatpants and slides into the other side of the bed and into Macy’s awaiting arms, sinking into her warm side. He feels cold from sitting still for so long, and everything about her feels warm to him.

They stay pressed against each other for a minute at most before Macy pats Isaac’s shoulder and pushes him back up onto his pillow.

 

“Just going to the bathroom, back in a moment.” Isaac nods as she gets up and pads into the ensuite. It’s quiet for a few seconds, and then he hears a burst of noise, flying from Macy’s mouth and stabbing his entire body.

 

“What is this?! You f*****g useless b*****d! How dare you think I’m stupid enough not to notice this. It’s everywhere, I’m not blind! That cologne I bought you, the nice, expensive one that I picked out and bought just for you, spilled all over the floor with the bottle smashed on the toilet seat. You ignorant, ungrateful swine. Hah, you’re lucky I still even consider letting you stay. If I didn’t think about wanting you, if I decided I didn’t want to keep your piece of s**t a*s, then who would? No one. Nobody wants someone who doesn’t appreciate or do anything for them, Isaac! You don’t do anything, you act like you can’t do anything! I have to do everything for both of us; you can’t even do anything I ask you to do.  The living room is still a f*****g tip! You left it like that and I asked to clean it up. And did you? No! You just sat there watching your crap TV all evening while I was out.” Macy peers around the door indignantly and looks at Isaac, who has pulled his sharp knees up to his chin and has tears spilling down his cheeks, heart rate increasing with every short, desperate breath. His knee bounces violently next to his chin and Macy looks down on the man she married, like he’s the sorriest sight she’s ever seen and rolls her eyes at him, sighing loudly.

 

She waits until he musters the courage to look up at her to see the waiting, disappointed expression on her face.

 

“Come on then, don’t just sit there like a waste. Come and clean it up, then we can go to bed, okay?  I’m really tired and I just want to sleep.” Isaac gets up, legs shaking under his wiry frame as he walks to the bathroom. He tries to sidle past Macy without getting in her way, because he’s already done that tonight, he’s already been bad tonight. Without trying to make excuses �" because Macy stopped believing them a long time ago �" Isaac doesn’t remember knocking the cologne bottle over. He had used the downstairs bathroom for most of the day, so he hadn’t been into the ensuite more than a couple of times, and that was his favourite cologne. The gifts that Macy gets him are rare, but when he does get something from her, it feels precious. The cologne was his favourite present from her, and he treated it like it was sacred. He never would have smashed it on purpose, and he would have noticed if it has happened accidentally.

The last time he had seen it was yesterday �" it was in the medicine cupboard on wall adjacent to the sink, behind a bottle of painkillers. He hadn’t taken it out today �" he hadn’t been out so he didn’t need it. He must be wrong though. He must have taken it out and knocked it over at some point, like the forgetful, useless husband he is. No wonder Macy kept threatening to leave him, almost every day. There was no reason for anyone to want him.

 

Isaac kneels on the floor next to the spillage and pulls sheets of toilet paper from the holder. He mops the overwhelming fragrance up sloppily, going over it again and again until it finally disappears, but leaving the smell lingering heavily in the air. Tears track over his face as he picks up shards of glass one by one and drops them into the bin by the toilet. He almost cuts himself twice, but manages to get the bathroom back in order in a few minutes. Hopefully Macy doesn’t think he’s taking too long. Only once he’s made sure everything is dry and free of glass, Isaac pushes himself up to his feet and mutters sorry repeatedly to Macy who leans against the door frame, watching him with an unsympathetic face. She pulls him into a weak, loose hug and rests her chin on his rigid shoulder.

 

“I didn’t mean to make you cry, I just want you to be good to me, I love you,” She says into his ear, her voice soft but unfeeling. She pulls away from him and smiles tightly before using her sleeve to dry his face and eyes.
Macy wraps her fingers around his wrist and takes him over to the bed and pulls the duvet over them once they’re both lying down. She rolls over and wraps her arm around his waist, grasping onto his side with ribs protruding under the skin.

 

“Go to sleep, darling. Don’t worry, you’re not leaving.”

 

*

 

Isaac wakes with pressure on his hips, and blinks through the light streaming through the window to see Macy on top of him, straddling his hips with a smirk gracing her lips that are still tinted red from the night before. She presses herself down on her hips and falls forward onto his chest, working her hand up into his hair and wrapping a fist around a large chunk of it. She yanks the hair in her hand sharply, making him jerk his head to the side with a wince.

 

“What are you wincing for? I know you like it when I do that, baby.” Isaac nods quickly, trying to cover up his discomfort for Macy’s advances. He had to do this for her, otherwise he wouldn’t be good once again, and after last night that was dangerous. He lets her kiss his neck and bite him, letting out quiet moans of false approval, lying still on the bed. She moves down his body, leaving small marks on his bony frame and without looking at him, pulls his boxer briefs down from his hips and off, leaving them on the floor next to the bed.

Macy leaves him lying exposed on the bed while she moves her body back over him. She refuses to look him in the eye, only inflicting small doses of pain on him as she sinks down onto him, while he’s barely semi-hard. She rolls her hips on him, finally looking into his blank eyes with a vexed look on her face, and lets out a low moan.

 

“I know you like this, Isaac. You love it when I want you, so don’t you want to give it to me? I’ll make you feel so good, baby. Let me do this.” Macy’s smirk returns to her face, wide and verging on menacing as she begins to f**k herself on Isaac. She doesn’t say another word until she’s done. She doesn’t look at him until he’s done, until he’s come inside her, feeling disgusted with himself, not for what he did, but for what he didn’t do. He wasn’t good enough �" he didn’t want it, and he should. He wasn’t worth anyone wanting him, and it was ungrateful and ridiculous for him not to want them if they wasted their time. On him. A useless piece of junk.

 

*

 

Isaac climbs into bed, a loose jumper hanging off his body, and a long pair of pyjama bottoms on. The clothes are bigger on him than they were six months ago �" he has to pull the drawstrings tighter on his trousers and buy an extra small instead of a small if he wants his jumpers to come close to fitting him. His shoulder blades stick out more than they used to and if he lifts his shirt up in front of the mirror, he can see his skin pulled taught around each of his ribs.

He won’t go to bed without his jumper and his trousers anymore, he knows it’s a long shot Macy will pay enough attention to him to notice, but he doesn’t want her to pull up his shirt and see the fresh cuts and scabbed lines among old and new scars on the sides of his chest and on the undersides of his upper arms. Macy’s been paying less and less attention to him now: she’s been going out more, sometimes she won’t come back from work until the next evening; she won’t take time to talk to him softly like she used to, all her words are sharp and cold like knives and she’ll barely ever say anything that’s not insulting to her anymore.
She’s taken him again, like she did before - more times than he can count - while he just lies there trying to hide his face and his disgust at himself.

 

In bed, Isaac fidgets next to Macy’s sleeping figure, sprawled over her side of the bed. She’s stopped waiting on him to come to bed with her, and just disappears without a word. Isaac looks over at her, tears spilling over the dams of his eyes and coating his cheeks before they fall from his jaw to his collar bones and soak into the hem of his jumper. A small patch of gauze is taped to the underside of his left arm, hidden under the yards of wool woven into a jumper that’s at least a couple of sizes too big for him. The skin under the gauze was tonight’s victim of Isaac’s hidden razor blade. Its snarling blade makes the skin weep and pour blood out of its forced opening, only to have its screams absorbed by a piece of bandage applied messily to the skin around it.

 

Isaac’s head pounds as thoughts flood his mind and leave again just as quickly. He hasn’t been doing much lately �" the days have been slow and empty. He’s tried applying for jobs but they all come back promptly with rejection letters, and some don’t bother to reply at all. So he spends every day curled up on the battered couch with the TV either blaring or on mute, his laptop or a book in his lap, thinking of ways to make Macy come back to him or ways to disappear. Practicalities of staying out of Macy’s way or leaving to let her find someone better (anyone else, in that case) turn into elaborate fantasies of disappearing into thin air, the erasure of his entire existence and all his wife’s memories and wasted time gone along with him. He tries to turn them into stories sometimes �" opening up a word document and splurging his thoughts down onto the page. Sometimes it’s more of a fictional diary, and other times he transforms his ideas into a complicated plethora of characters and plot, with deepening mysteries and tales of heartbreak. It never gets further than a thousand words. He’ll never get that far without realising that he’s wasting his time, that even if he tried for years upon end, he’d never come out with something that’s worth showing to anyone. If he’s not worth showing to anyone, then nothing he creates would be either. That much seemed to be certain to Isaac.

 

It always ends in the same muted, darkened nights alone, the only light source the flickering images of the TV. It’s always the same shows. The same cycle of sloppy outfits. The same websites. The same words on a screen. The same thoughts. The same blades. The same outcome. The same sadness. The same person. Always the same person �" useless and worthless and never enough and increasingly alone.

 

*

 

The bathroom light is on when Macy staggers up the garden path that night, heels from work in hand after a few too many drinks at the bar that night after her shift. She wasn’t with anyone that night, for the first time in weeks. She sat at the bar, skirt hitched up near the top of her thighs, drinking a rum and coke, hoping someone would notice her and come over to buy her another. She didn’t want to go home Isaac yet, she needed someone better �" not like that was hard. She had tried to make him better but it didn’t work and so she found other people. In a few sleazy bars across town, she found other people that would give her what she wanted and treat her how she deserved; they bought her things if she stayed for them a few nights in a row, and best of all, gave her an excuse not to have to deal with the sorry mess at her own house.

Tonight hadn’t gone to plan, obviously. The man she was meant to meet tonight had cancelled last minute (about half an hour after they were supposed to meet up), and Macy couldn’t find anyone else that seemed to be interested in her that night. It was dead, and filled with couples. So she caught a taxi home after downing her last drink, spiteful thoughts of her husband filling her head.

 

She opens the front door, slamming it against the wall as always, and only just managing to fit her key in the lock after fumbling with it for almost a minute to lock the door behind her. The bathroom light was still on, and Macy stumbled over to it, dragging her feet and gritting her teeth, insulting thoughts almost making their way out of her mouth already. The lock on the bathroom door wasn’t turned closed, and so Macy yanked the handle down and pulled the door open. The vision she came across made her laugh, the sight of Isaac cowering in the corner from fright and �"

Macy stopped laughing abruptly when she saw deep red stains all over the crumpled tissue Isaac was grasping in his fist, and blood trickling steadily down from under the baggy sleeve of his t-shirt down the crease of his elbow.

 

“What the f**k, Isaac?! I leave you for a couple of hours and you do this to me? Why can’t you look after yourself? I told you. I. Will. Not. Be. Responsible. For. You. You piece of s**t, I’ve already had a crap night and I come home to this? Why do I keep you? You’re worthless �" if you’re going to do this to me then you may as well do it properly.

 

DO IT. You f*****g coward! I hate you, you’ve ruined EVERYTHING for me �" my job, my home, my friends �" EVERYTHING! Why are you so far up, huh? Move down, move your f*****g blade down further, Isaac. You’re useless, you’re a coward �" why don’t you prove me wrong for once? MOVE. IT. DOWN.”

 

Isaac smashes his teeth together, repeatedly, rapidly, rough and ragged breaths tearing out of his lungs and cutting his lungs on the way back in. His entire body is shaking, the stained razor blade in his hand slick with sweat and almost slipping out from between his fingers. He grasps the tissue in his other hand tighter, his nails digging into his chest and scratching as the paper tears in his palm. He can’t stop the tears that burst out of his eyes, and splash down to his t-shirt like waves of a tsunami. His head feels light and he can’t think of anything �" his mind is black, with bright flashes, like the TV screen and everything else feels empty. Macy’s words echo around him, egging him on forcefully, taking him, just like she does. The words drag his hand down his arm with the blade only millimetres away from the skin, almost grazing it. They drag it down to his wrist, the artery pumping blood through his body at a deadly rate, the vein showing blue under his skin. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want it when Macy tells him he does, when she decides to have him. He doesn’t want it when her words force him to move the blade to his wrist.

 

He lets her words kill him �" he lets them turn the blade in his hand and press it down vertically, directly over his pulse, onto the skin until the pressure alone cuts in. Her words don’t stop, they repeat over again in his mind, and his hand shakes while the words steadily push the blade down deeper. They drag it up his arm, a few inches up, and mock him as blood spills out in lashings while Macy doesn’t move.

She stands there, in the doorway, heels still in hand and face snarling as she lets her words, all of them �" from years ago until the ones she’s spitting out of her mouth now - do their work.
The blade stops dragging up and Isaac pulls it away from his skin, his hands shaking and his entire body convulsing. His breathing is shallow, and the air barely stops to be absorbed by his lungs before its being expelled again. His heart rate has elevated to levels far above safety, and threatens to stop, suddenly, all together. It pumps the blood out of his body, faster, his pulse replaced by the pints needed to keep him awake, to keep him alive.

 

Isaac breaks the silence over his sharp intakes of air with an agonising scream, throaty and tremulous as he drops the razor blade and grapples with his arm, desperately struggling to pull the skin together. His screams don’t stop as he pulls at himself, his actions becoming weaker with each attempt until he’s doing nothing more than fumbling with the edges of the deep incision.

His eyes are wide and unfocused, staring vaguely at Macy, the details of her face becoming more unclear between fading vision and tears fogging his eyes. The blood has soaked his clothes, beginning to drip down onto the floor from the ankle of his trousers, and he sinks down to the floor, scraping his back down the wall.

 

He screams at Macy between the breaths he can muster, while she still doesn’t move, just stands against the door frame, her skin peaky and beads of sweat rolling down the side of her face.

 

“Please, Macy. Call… Call. I can’t remember �" I don’t know why I �" please call. Please call them.” 

 

*

 

There are tubes and wires attached all over Isaac’s body when he wakes up, his head feeling cloudy and his eyes weak. There is a cannula inserted into the inside crease of his left elbow, liquid flowing into his vein through it, and a clear tube threaded out through his nostril, leading to a device Isaac’s never seen before, with digits constantly changing on the analogue screen and a steady, quiet beep plaguing his eardrums.  He clenches his right fist, and groans through gritted teeth when he fails to do the same with his other hand, not managing to do more than curl his fingers at the second knuckle. Down from the cannula, the incision in his arm is eminently different from the last time he saw it. The skin that felt as if it was miles apart when Isaac was despondently grappling at it the night before is now held closed tautly with thick stitches. It’s all been covered up by layered gauze held down with medical tape, to stop the sutures catching on anything and to stop rubbing; it’s covered to stop Isaac from ripping them out at any given opportunity.

He decides to try moving off the bed, shuffling to the side cautiously. Some of the wires connected to his body tug and he shuffles back into the centre of the bed. He pushes his body to the other side of the bed, and the rest of the cables tug him back to the middle. He’s trapped by drips and machines surrounding both sides of his bed. His voice has disintegrated from the dryness in his throat. It feels scratchy and swollen from screaming. The screams still reverberate in his ears like an alarm, shrill and desperate; they want him to remember, and he does. He remembers Macy’s words, her figure, just standing there, a silhouette in the door frame. Uncaring and unmoving until it was almost becoming too late. He doesn’t remember where she went after she left his sight �" he doesn’t know what she’s doing or have a single clue where she could be now.

 

Head twisting from side to side, eyes skimming the walls and the area around the bed for the call button. His throat is so dry he feels like he’ll never be able to speak again, and he needs to find out where Macy is. She must be beyond worried.

Isaac finds a large orange button on the wall behind him, just to the right of his shoulder. ‘CALL’ is written across it in black writing, and Isaac stretches his hand over his shoulder to press the button in for a few seconds before releasing it.

He stares at the wall directly opposite of him, trying to align his thoughts with the emptiness of it to divert himself from trying to rip his stitches out.

 

When someone arrives, quickly, or finally �" Isaac doesn’t know, he’s lost track of time again, which he guesses is good for his stitches �" they’re holding a plastic tray in their hands.

 

“Good afternoon, Isaac. My name is Katrina, I’ll be taking care of you for as long as you need to stay in the ward. If you need anything, like you gotta go to the bathroom or you want to get up or want something to eat or drink then just press the call button �" I’ll come as quickly as I can. I’ll also be in charge of your drips and checking your wounds, cleaning them up and reapplying your dressings.

 

 As far as I know, you should be discharged tomorrow, with some aftercare �" I’m not in charge of any of that so I don’t know much, but you’ll be updated by someone very soon. Anyway, here’s some lunch for you. Let me just put your table over and I’ll put the tray down.” Katrina lays the tray on the visitor chair and sidles past the machines to slide up the safety bars on the bed. She crouches down to lift up a wooden board up from under the bed and lay it over both sets of safety bars, securing it onto the tops bar at either side with a plastic latch.

 

“I �" uhm… Do… Do you know where my wife is? Her name is Macy �" Macy Ashworth.” Katrina picks up the tray of food and places it down on the ‘table’, not watching while Isaac eyes it up with distaste, instead opting to flick through his file to find out about Macy.

 

“I don’t have any recent information on your wife, Mr Ashworth. She’s noted down here as the one who called the emergency services to your home, and she gave in her contact details, but she hasn’t been to visit yet. In fact… I heard the receptionist earlier, talking to my colleague; he said that your wife wasn’t responding to any contact we have attempted to make with her. I’m really sorry �" we will update you as soon as we can get in contact with her, I assure you. I am sorry that we’ve not managed to reach her.” Katrina doesn’t say anymore, and busies herself with doing mandatory checks.

 

Isaac eats his lunch only once the nurse has checked his vitals and the various pieces of equipment, then left the room, leaving him on his own again. He screws the cap off the bottle of still water on his tray and lifts it to his already open mouth, pouring its contents down his throat needily, until half the bottle has diminished. The sandwich is next, egg and cress. He manages to eat half of it before he gives up and pushes the tray to the side, letting his thoughts occupy every inch of his brain instead of the hunger lingering in the background.

 

*

 

A psychiatric examiner had talked to him for a while, with a doctor following up with a physical examination �" checking over him at least five times before they agreed that he was okay to go home. They had asked him too many question for anyone to answer without veering towards the edge of panic. Without second thought, he had put himself in the position of blame, leaving Macy to be seen as the most innocent being in the universe. He had self-deprecated and stayed away from any positive comments about himself. While the psychiatric examiner had cleared him to go home �" assured enough that Isaac wasn’t inclined to hurt himself again. Despite the fact that he seemed unlikely to harm himself again, his reasoning was deeply rooted in self-contempt. The examiner had put him on a fast-track waiting list for therapy, desperate to get started as soon as possible.

 

Macy still hasn’t responded to the hospital by the time that Isaac is discharged, late afternoon a day later. They let him go with a sheet of numbers to call if he felt in danger at home or needed to talk to someone. They put him on the waiting list for therapy. They gave him a huge wad of gauze and tape to change his dressing once a day for the next ten days, until he came back in to have his wound checked and the sutures removed.

 

With a bag of dirty clothes, dressings and information sheets, Isaac gets out of the taxi the hospital payed for �" since he didn’t have his wallet with him, and no one was there to pick him up. He walks up the uneven garden path, stumbling over the cement tiles and rogue stones lying on them. Fishing his door key out of his bag, he unlocks the front door and steps in.

 

The hall is cleaner than usual, with none of Macy’s shoes on the floor or jackets strewn over the banister. The cupboard door has managed to be properly shut for the first time in months and it feels unhomely. Isaac walks forward and dumps his bag next to the stairs. He turns full circle on the spot, looking for any sign of normalcy and anything that Macy would normally leave lying around. With nothing catching his eye, he decides to retire to the living room, more than exhausted from being at the hospital and travelling back. He walks in tentatively, scanning the room, which is at least something familiar, with everything exactly like he left it.

 

“Macy?” Isaac’s voice floats away into the air, his question unheard by anyone else. “Macy, are you here?” He lets his question linger this time, feeling the wavelengths ripple through the room and bounce off the walls. There’s no reply, and Isaac’s knee starts to twitch and his breathing picks up.

He takes his usual seat in the couch, figuring that if he just waited patiently for a while �" maybe a few hours �" then Macy would turn up. She’s probably at work or out with her friends again �" there was no reason for Isaac to hold her back; that would be unfair of him to do after the unforgivable trouble he just caused her. It seems to be all he successfully manages to do.

Too tired to process his own thoughts into anything coherent, Isaac reaches blindly for the TV remote and presses the ‘on’ button a few times before the light at the bottom left of the TV screen flashes to let him know it’s loading up. Once the screen has lit up and a programme Isaac’s never seen before blares out into the room, he picks the remote up and slouches back into the cushions, his legs scrambling for a comfortable position. He flicks through channels, and despite the hundreds of channels they �" well Macy, since Isaac’s been out of a job for two years �" pay for each month, Isaac fails to find anything that sparks his interest.

After a few more minutes of channel surfing, he settles on a re-run of ‘Deadliest Catch’. Macy’s always heavily shunned him for it, but there’s something mildly intriguing about shows like this �" the achievement of doing something that you can see in someone else’s life when you have none yourself.

 

*

The room is pitch black when Isaac wakes up, the TV has turned itself off after hours of the same image on the screen, telling him that the channel has gone offline for the night.
He wakes up hungry, his stomach grumbling underneath his shirt, and Isaac lays his hand over it, the heel of his hand resting just on the steep dip in underneath his ribs. He throws the remote to the side and stretches, spreading out across the couch to straighten the cricks in his back and knees.

Deciding that it would be a good idea to feed himself �" the information sheets told him he needs to stay well fed and watered to let his body recover, and he wanted to, for Macy �" he plants his feet on the floor and gets up unsteadily.

He notes that Macy hasn’t returned yet when he has to go and switch the living room light on, and starts biting the edge of his thumb, his hand shaking, becoming visibly anxious about when she’ll come back. He makes his way into the kitchen and flicks the light switch on to brighten the room, the yellowish light reflecting off the tiles. The kitchen looks bare. Half of the few mugs that usually stand on the counter are gone. The magazines and pull-out recipe booklets have been cleared from the oak table and all the magnets have been removed, leaving the fridge-freezer doors looking bare.

 

The only thing left lying out in the room is an index card sitting squint on the edge of the table, with of blotchy writing scrawled all over it in black pen. It catches Isaac’s eye as he looks around the room for the fourth time, looking for anything that shows his wife has even been living here while he’s been gone.

Maybe she’s gone to stay with someone for a few days, to get away from everything and to recover from the pain that Isaac has inflicted on her with his own selfishness. Maybe that’s why she’s not been answering any calls or emails. She’ll come back when she’s ready, it won’t be long. She needs time to get through this.

Isaac walks over to the table to see what’s written on the index card, wondering if it’s just something Macy left there from a while ago, or if it’s something that was left there for him. His heart rate picks up slightly, from anticipation, an inkling of excitement rising up to his throat at the thought of having some form of communication from his wife. He reaches the piece of card and picks it up, bringing up close to his face to read it.

He squints his eyes, reading glasses still squished somewhere at the bottom of his bag. He can just make out the words, reading them slowly and taking them in, one by one.

 

Isaac,

The hospital won’t have been able to contact me. I cancelled my sim card and got a new one. I changed my email address too, so don’t try and reach me. All my stuff is gone, you don’t have to worry about moving it. I took it with me when I left. I left, and I’ve filed for divorce. I won’t have to see you �" I’ve arranged that with the lawyer. You did this to us, Isaac. You drove me away from you for so long, for years. You’re a f*****g b*****d, Isaac. This is all your fault. That was the last straw �" I never believed that you’d ever do something like that to me. You tried to blame it on me, I heard you. But it wasn’t my fault, it was yours. I don’t want you anymore Isaac, you’ve fucked me up so I’m throwing you away. Don’t ever try to see me again. You don’t deserve anything after what you did.

 

*

 

Isaac throws his empty polystyrene box to the side and wipes the grease from the sides of his mouth. He gets up off the couch for only the fourth time that day, and slumps to the bathroom. His clothes are stained and dull, a strong stench sticking to them from the fifth day of wear in a row. Isaac can’t bring himself to get changed, he can barely get off the couch anymore. His clothes are even bigger on him than they were before- the drawstrings are tied tighter and he’s gathered the excess material of his t-shirt hem into one of Macy’s old bobbles at the side of his stomach.

He tries to convince himself that he needs to shower, but he hasn’t managed yet. He can’t do anything.

He still hasn’t found a job. After checking his bank balance the last time he left the house (it seems so long ago, he can barely remember it), he applied for a few jobs, using a burst of unsustainable motivation to redo his CV and send it in to a few vacancies. He stopped after the first eight rejections. No one would ever bother to hire someone so useless, there was no point in trying anymore.

 

It’s been weeks since he’s left the house. He missed his first therapy session a week ago, convincing himself that he doesn’t deserve the opportunity to get better. He drove away the love of his life, he forced her to leave him. He doesn’t deserve anything after what he did to her. He hasn’t been shopping for two weeks, and barely eats more than one meal a day. Tonight is the first time he’s had a large meal in too long. Scared to run out of money, Isaac has mainly been living on the non-perishables that no one used to eat before, and the few things that are left from his last shop. Weight has been leaving his body more quickly than is healthy, and Isaac doesn’t do anything to stop it �" he doesn’t care.

He hasn’t cared about anything since Macy left �" left him with nothing to care about, making it clear he’s not worth caring for, and so he hasn’t.

 

The therapist has called a few times, to make sure he’s been doing okay after he missed his appointment. Isaac tells him he’s fine �" that he’s sorry he missed the appointment and made another one for the week coming up. He’s not sorry. He wants to be better but he knows he doesn’t deserve it. And he knows that Macy would be disappointed in him for going �" for being so weak.

 

*

 

It’s the day that Isaac’s due to go to his rescheduled appointment. It’s in two hours, and he’s still lying in bed, still wearing the same clothes. His hair is matted and slick with grease, the style grown out too far, and unkempt facial hair has lined his gaunt face. He wants to cancel again, to cancel all of it. He doesn’t deserve this and there’s no point in going because he’s just wasting time and money that could be spend on other things and other people. But they don’t know that �" they don’t know anything about him apart from a slither of what happened on the night he was admitted to the hospital just over a month ago. They don’t know what’s changed since then. They don’t know that he’s even more worthless than before, with no one there that wants him anymore �" the only validating thing in his life gone.

 

Still lying in bed half an hour later, Isaac comes to the decision that he has to show them that there’s no reason for them to help him �" if they realise what Macy did, then they’d leave him alone too.

 

He gets out of bed, peeling the sheets off his body, and walks to the ensuite, dragging his feet along the ground. Leaving his dirty clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor, Isaac switches the shower on and steps in a few seconds later, letting the too hot spray soak his hair and body.

The shower isn’t a long one, but it’s deathly and rejuvenating in one.

He comes out with a clean shaven face and hair that’s clean but still too long and disarrayed. His skin is red and blotchy from the heat but at least he’s clean. He glimpses into the mirror to make sure that he’s gotten all of the hair off his face �" which it is, with the added extra of a few bloody nicks.

His reflection looks vaguely familiar �" verging on resemblance from the times where Macy was still here. Before he started being an inconvenience all the time. He pulls away from his reflection, sure that if he was going to make it to the appointment on time then he would have to stay away from any thought of his (ex) wife and her snarling truths.

 

Isaac leaves the house twenty minutes later with his jacket half twisted around his arm and the laces of his shoes shabbily tied up and threatening to come undone with every movement. He slams the door behind him and tries to lock it, the key repeatedly hitting the metal around the lock before going in. Isaac shoves his keys into the pocket of the jacket he’s only just managed to writhe into. He bolts out of the garden, tripping over his feet as he runs to the bus stop. He’s already a minute late for the bus, and with his luck, this would be the one occurrence that it would have arrived dead on time.

By time he reaches the bus stop, panting with sweat rolling down his face and staining his first fresh clothes in weeks, the number fifty two bus is only just rolling up to the stop, opening its doors to him. He yanks his wallet out of his pocket, getting his keys twisted around it and having to push them back in while digging out the right change for a return.

 

*

 

The phone rings again, for the third time that day. Isaac sits on the bed with a book in his lap �" one he’s already read three times before. He looks at the phone on the bedside table, deliberating whether to answer it or not. He’s back in his sweatpants, with a relatively clean blue t-shirt on, and his facial hair is beginning to take shape again. His hair is greasy again. With a reluctant sigh, Isaac leans over the bed to grab the phone from the hook, and presses the accept button on the fifth ring.

 

“Hello? Yes, this is Isaac. I- I’m sorry, I won’t be able attend next week �" I’m busy with prior arrangements. Sorry. Yes. The week after that will be fine. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, sure. Okay. Bye.” He drops the phone on the bed next to him and closes over his book, the front cover creased and dull.

He know that he shouldn’t have lied, but he didn’t want to go and there wasn’t any point in him going. The last appointment was abysmal. His psychiatrist decided that they’d start by profiling him. He had to talk about himself, his life; everything. What was there to say? ‘I’m a worthless (ex) husband who can’t do anything for myself. Everything that goes wrong is my fault. I don’t leave the house and I don’t have any money because no one will hire me’. There wasn’t anything worth talking about. There was nothing he wanted to talk about.

The next night Isaac lies in bed, just like the day and night before that. He’s only made a chapter’s progress in the book he’s reading. His laptop is booted up and the credits are rolling for the movie he’s just finished, and another empty polystyrene box is lying next to the keyboard. He was going to make something to eat, maybe some beans and spaghetti, but none of the dishes were done so he gave up that idea and ordered in. Wasting money.

He still hasn’t washed since the day of his last appointment. He can barely remember when that was. His dirty clothes are damp and hanging limply off his skinny body, leaving him constantly shivering from never-quite-dry cold sweat.

Isaac throws his takeaway box to the side and lays back with his shoulders propped up by the pillows. He pulls his laptop up onto him along with the duvet, and moves his finger around the track pad for a moment before the screen flickers back to life. He opens up a new tab and lays his fingers over the keys, ready to type the first movie title that comes to his head. He’s not sure what time it is, but there’s not enough energy in his body to care. It’s not like he’s got anything on tomorrow anyway.