by Rebecca Ponichtera
Two long weeks have passed since the young girl’s parents first admitted her to the crumbling hospital in the center of the city. Like her own waning heart, the sanitarium hopelessly continues to beat against the expanding reach of death as it captures one broken street at a time. Yellowing walls speckled with tiny dark-colored freckles of unknown origin are meant to keep her company for the rest of her stay. Two plump nurses and one irritated doctor who hovers around her bed like a vulture with his hooked nose periodically stop by to examine her.
They stationed her in the children’s ward, but kept her isolated from the other patients for her own protection. The dusty T.V. that shares her room died on the third day and by the fifth, she stopped sleeping at night. It was during that time when she first noticed him standing there across the street. Her mind has always been unreliable; the interchangeable combination of medication and insomnia has taken its toll on her for years. So, when she saw him, a silhouette surrounded by shadows, she did not think he was real. In the gloomy realm of dawn, from her view gazing out the second-story window, she had barely seen his towering figure lurking in the shallow space between two neglected buildings. But as gritty sunlight slowly crept over the corrosive corpses of lifeless businesses, she had clearly seen the outline of a man. From then on, hollow eyes continued to follow her under a hooded gaze whenever she sat at the large window. Curiosity brings her back to the dingy pane of glass day and night for hours on end.
Throughout the years, her parents have taken various special precautions when caring for her. Long ago, she learned it was best to keep certain things to herself, not to complain, and never talk back. She refrains from mentioning the shadow man’s presence and watches silently as his body shifts to fade with the ghostly shades. They tangle themselves around him, utilizing the darkness he wears like a cloak to shroud him. He doesn’t move from the spot at the mouth of the alley while pedestrians pass by without so much as a glance. Every day, more people come and go, none of them paying him any attention.
With little more to do than color and read books meant for children much younger than twelve, she finds herself completely engrossed in what she now calls the phantom. Her eyes consume every mysterious crevice and curve of the tangible shadow, attempting to find any discernable feature. She pays little attention to the daily functions of the stocky nurses or the doctor’s intrusive inspections. Her parents have yet to return. They called at one point during the first week of her confinement to notify her of their complicated schedules. Her mother works for the dwindling city as it rots away from the negligence of a failing country. She may see the woman in a few days while the man she calls father remains unavailable. Another government worker, he is rarely around and has barely spoken to his child since she was born.
For as long as the girl can remember, a rotation of nurses has taken care of her. Having never attended school, a private tutor provided her education. She has no friends, and no peers her own age. So, it is with some surprise that one day she finds herself in the presence of another child. A bright figure clothed in bubblegum pink suddenly appears in the doorframe of her room. Dahlia Knowles has snuck away from her mother while visiting her grandmother on the other side of the hospital and has found her way to the children’s ward. “Are you contagious?” she asks, but continues forward without an answer. Golden curls of sunshine bounce in perfect spiraled ringlets as she walks. It shines, unlike the tangled mess of ashen wires springing from the girl’s head. Dahlia’s skin is tan and smooth, appearing radiant next to the girl stained with bruises in black and blue splotches. Vibrant deep brown eyes quickly scan medical equipment as her high-pitched voice fills the once quiet space. Dahlia has no concern that a member of the staff might hear. “At first, I was playing in the other room with all those kids out there, but then this doctor kept coming by and started noticing I wasn’t dressed like the rest of them, so I knew I had to leave fast, but not without grabbing a pudding from some boy with no hair who looked almost as bad as you. Are you dying or something? You look awful, like a ghost or something.”
Pneumonia had instigated this particular hospital visit. However, a compromised immune system has sealed the girl’s fate from birth. She has spent most of her childhood in and out of the hospital. Twice she almost died, only to be resuscitated and returned to her glass prison. Each time the staff called her a miracle, remarking on her will to live. Each time, she had no idea what brought her back.
Dahlia continues to refer to her as a ghost instead of learning her name while pointing out the girl’s sunken eyes and frail body. Her words have no filter as she asks questions without waiting for a reply. “These nurses are such a pain, trying to tell me what to do, threatening to tell my mom. Like I care,” she says at one point when the noise of a squeaky cart draws both girls’ attention to the hallway. When no one passes by the door Dahlia left open, she walks over to the window and looks outside. In a moment of tense expectation, the girl waits, but disappointment once again sours her tongue as Dahlia quickly becomes disinterested and turns away. “What an ugly view.” She fails to see the shadow man lurking in the alley. Their time together ends shortly after that as a bloated nurse with a slightly hunched back discovers the intrusion. The old woman waves a pudgy finger at the children and scolds them while Dahlia pouts.
Although she did not talk much during the brief visit, the encounter is not only a respite from the monotony of her life but also confirms her suspicion that no one else can see the phantom. For the next few days, she sits with this knowledge as she waits for her mother’s arrival. Once again, anticipation speeds up her heart and prickles her skin when she sees the woman, wrapped in royal blue, step out of the town car. For a moment, she stops in front of him and the girl almost shouts in warning. Sickly shades slide from their keeper, reaching for her mother, who turns toward the alley. The girl watches in horror as the woman stares down the bleak corridor, oblivious to the shadows snaking around her feet. The girl stops breathing, so certain this will be the last time she sees the woman, when the creatures finally recede, and her mother crosses the street into the hospital without a second glance. Relief and fear fight for dominance as the girl’s eyes latch on to the man whose attention never strayed from her, even when the twisted beings were snapping at her mother’s ankles.
“What are you doing over there?” The woman’s voice sounds far away as a hum slowly grows in the girl’s head, filling her ears with a sharp sound that threatens to spill out of her in a scream. She knows if she opens her mouth, the shrill cry will never stop, bringing with it the lunatic ramblings of a phantom man that haunts her day and night. The urge to tell her mother anything dies on her lips as sky-blue eyes, a mirror to her own, assess her through a heavy layer of mascara. The girl remains silent and after a quick visit, the woman leaves.
On her last day at the hospital, her mother returns with a town car waiting out front. The black sedan slightly blocks her view of the phantom from her seat in the wheelchair the nurses forced on her. But as the orderly helps her to stand, the sidewalk gives her just enough elevation to spot him. From the glorious rays of an unfiltered sun, she can see every detail leading up to the mouth of the alley. But when she looks into the dark space that has become the man’s home, her vision becomes blurry and her sight dims. For the first time in five weeks, only a few feet separate them, and yet, he might as well be miles away, forever from her reach. Even after she gets into the car, she cranes her neck to see him. He never moves from his spot, never says a word, or tries to stop her, but his hooded eyes continue to follow her even as they drive away.
In the weeks that ensued, the girl once again falls into the rigid routine created by her mother. Her life is a cycle of alternating isolation, this time surrounded by red bricks and faint pink walls. The crushing loneliness is overwhelming, making her feel even more alienated from the people around her. Her caretakers come and go signifying the passing of time by their interchanging shifts. Her mother brings her dresses and ribbons to wear that hardly anyone will see. When her tutor arrives, she has no interest in learning. Her eyes, which used to shine as brightly as the sun, now resemble the rest of her withered appearance, and reflect the melancholy clutching her heart. She longs for the hospital room, the window without an obstructed view, and the phantom who never moved. Until the day it comes.
A silent call that only she can hear pulls her from her bed and into the chilling grip of the night. She runs, not feeling the cold as she blindly navigates the neighborhood of sleeping townhomes. Brownstones line either side of the narrow street like identical sentinels, staring down at her with unlit eyes. Painful breaths escape her lungs as she continues to push herself harder, faster. Never has she moved like this; never has she had the strength to do so. And yet she cannot stop as an invisible magnet drags her through the concrete maze back to the man.
As she advances across the city, gloom shelters the looming titans made of glass and metal as the decaying bases at their foundations reveal reflective bones. Her path is dimly lit by yellow streetlamps that fight against the suffocating night. Shadows ebb and flow away from the weak glow and grasp at her feet like black tentacles only kept at bay by radiant bulbs. Her pale hair flows behind her like spider-woven silk threads that seem to shine transparently in the rising moonlight. Her skin radiates a surreal illumination as fireflies dance just below the surface and silver eyes of diamond sparkle by the luminosity of stars. Earlier in the day, she was drab and colorless, but on this night, when the rest of the world is draped in obscurity, the gentle white light of the moon makes her appear celestial.
Her pace is swift as she crosses the threshold into the center of the slumbering city. The slip she wears is nothing more than a thin piece of bleached cotton. As she slows, although her bare feet scarcely touch the cool cement, a chill suddenly seeps into her skin and travels through her bones. She knows the danger of being outside alone. She has been told all her life that she is delicate and weak. Day after day she walks in a mist of gray, hoping for some relief. Instead, she watches time pass by as she remains trapped in a dying prison made of tissue and bones. But tonight, she will break free and escape the bonds that have held her captive.
She comes to a halt in front of him. Her hair is a wild disarray of knotted threads, her face a flush of pink roses, and her breath nothing more than a haggard gasp. She confronts him and he matches her gaze, unwavering. The sickly streetlamp distorts his face, morphing his features when she steps closer. There is no denying he is real. She labors in the frigid air as the cold tries to penetrate her. After an eternity of waiting, the apparition who has haunted her moves for the first time. The surrounding lamp poles falter, and the full moon becomes the only source of illumination. Nightfall releases the shades from their cages as it overtakes the city. They swarm the young girl threatening to drag her into their murky depths. But just as light repels darkness, they cannot touch her.
The man opens his mouth, an endless black hole spiraling into oblivion. He towers over her, encircling her with shadows, closing in and yet never moving. Drawing a raspy breath, he finally speaks, “Welcome back, Amara.”