Mayfly Melodies

Five

Caroline

Just as the body goes into shock after a physical trauma, so does the human psyche go into shock after the impact of a major loss—Anne Grant

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The seconds of the clock on the wall ticked by tediously. It was a never-ending stream of clicks and clacks, sixty seconds in a minute, thirty-six-hundred in an hour, eighty-six-thousand-four-hundred in a day.

Caroline knew that. She knew the number of seconds in an hour or a day because she'd counted them personally. There were better ways to determine the number of seconds in an hour than to sit there and count them personally, but what else was there for her to do besides count?

She could stare, and she did that plenty, but even staring got tedious. There was only so much for her to think about when she stared. Counting, at least, provided something for her to do. Something to keep her mind busy and prevent her from thinking about the awful thing. The thing that made her stare and count and walk.

Caroline liked to walk. It was something she'd come to enjoy. Though enjoy was a loose term. Walking was something she did to fill the empty time. The time that she normally spent counting or staring. Now, she spent it walking.

She'd found a particular kinship to the forest. It was easy to get lost in the trees, easy to forget who she was and where she was from and why she was there. Easy to forget the awful thing. Easy to forget about Noah and the pain she caused him.

That was what she thought about the most. Noah. Her brother. Her brother who had given up everything. Her brother who had changed his life to make hers better. Her brother who was kind and caring...and deserved better than to deal with her all the time.

This was something that Caroline recognized. She could tell that she was selfish and sullen and that in her grief she had only caused him pain; pain because Noah didn't get to grieve. Not really. He was too busy dealing with her and her crap and she knew that but she couldn't do anything about it because her mind wouldn't let her. She couldn't find the way to get out of her head. She was stuck in there, in the endless abyss, and she just couldn't find the way out.

There were days that she got lost in her head. Honestly and truly lost. It was like she was Alice, fallen down a rabbit hole into a dark and dangerously twisted place where she couldn't hope to survive. Her Wonderland didn't have an evil Queen of Hearts that was out for her head. No, her Wonderland was just a wild mass of wilderness where she spent her time chasing after a White Rabbit that was always just a little out of reach.

Those days were the worst days. When she couldn't find her way out of her head and Noah tried to talk to her but she just couldn't find the will to respond. He did his best, she recognized that. He cooked for her, made sure she slept and showered, and bought her new clothes when her old ones wore through. And he never complained. Never yelled at her or got frustrated with her lack response. He was a good brother.

But no matter how good of a brother Noah was, he couldn't help her. Nobody could help her because she didn't know what kind of help she needed. Especially on those days when she got lost in her head. Nobody could help her then. Nobody at all.

Sometimes, she listened to music but she never really heard the words that were sung. It wasn't like they were important anyways. None of it was important. Music was supposed to mean something. It wasn't supposed to be empty lyrics full of empty promises but that's what it was.

Nevertheless, it provided another distraction for her when she wasn't staring or counting or walking. And Noah had gotten her a new iPod. He'd filled it with music he thought she'd like, though she knew that he'd probably never listened to any of it himself. She'd become particularly partial to a few of the artists on the device and it was them she turned to when she felt particularly lost. The music made her feel human and normal. Like there was no awful thing lingering in the confines of her brain that refused to go away. It was always there, replaying in the back of her mind, like a loop of film.

Sometimes, it overwhelmed her. The awful thing. Sometimes, Caroline felt as if it were the only thing she'd ever experienced. Like it was all that defined her. It was almost as if she were nothing before it happened. She could remember a time before it, could remember a time when she was happy and loved and everything was good.

But that was a long time ago.

Caroline sat on the edge of her bed and stared out the window. She'd been sitting there for the past three hours. The sky was dark now, a blanket of black that covered the normally blue sky. She could see the edge of the forest where the cowboy had followed her home earlier. She could see the cattle in the field on the other side of the property. She could even see the edge of the small rundown barn that housed the ranch's two horses. But what was absent was Noah's beat-up truck.

He'd gone to the rodeo today. She was glad to see him go. He spent too much time with her, too much time worrying about her. He needed time for himself, even if that time consisted of him getting bucked off of a bull. Sometimes she worried about her brother, worried about him the way she knew that he worried about her. Caroline worried that she would never be able to find the way out of her head, be stuck there forever in that Wonderland-like maze, and that she would take Noah down with her. She didn't want him to forget about himself because he was dealing with her. But, she didn't know him how to tell him any of that.

And so she sat and stared out the window in silence.

Always in silence.

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Music suggestion: Secondhand Smoke by Kelsey Ballerini