Apropos of nothing, a short psychological thriller: Am I Awake?

Am I awake?

She came at me. That’s it.

We were talking… or, I was talking; I was telling her about my day.

It had been an excedingly strange day to that point; all sorts of improbable things had been happening. My car stopped working in the middle of the freeway at 80 mph. That wasn’t too weird; it’s an old car and the engine just stopped. I put the clutch in and, cursing mildly, coasted; looking for a chance to merge into the right lane. Then this big ole’ Mac truck comes up behind me, and looks to clobber me right there in the middle lane. I mean, it was moving. I was pretty sure I was going to die. And it hit me. But instead of a crunch, I felt a slight jerk and all of a sudden I’m going as fast as the truck, because it's pushing me… and my engine is running again as well as it ever does. The trucker waves at me in my rear-view mirror and slows down, and I drive off.
I know. The details don’t add up. First, when was the last time you saw a semi going 110 mph? How did it hit me without damaging my car or sending me clean off the road? Why did my engine start back up? But what really gets me, is why did I then keep going as if nothing unusual had happened? I didn’t stop to check for damage, I didn’t take the next exit, I didn’t even end up changing lanes. I just waved happily to the trucker, who by all rights should have just killed me, and kept going.
I didn’t even get home late.
Okay, so you don’t know me. To you this probably sounds odd, a bit off, maybe even scary. But not to me; to me this is truly bizarre. There is a reason my car still runs after 340,000 miles. I take meticulous care of it; I would stop if I ran over a medium size rock on the freeway to make sure my tire is okay. I’m downright anal about my car. But not that day: that day, my engine stopped on the freeway, a huge truck slammed into me, and I didn’t stop, I just drove calmly home. I don’t even think I looked at the bumper when I got there. Who was I?
When I did get home, I took a nap. I wasn’t tired; I remember that I wasn’t tired because I said that out loud to her: “Theresa, I’m not at all tired. I’m just going to take a nap.” That’s what I said. I wasn’t upset… in fact, I can’t explain it at all. I just took out the milk and a glass for myself, and then laid down on the kitchen floor and took a nap.
When I woke up it was twilight, and Theresa was still there waiting expectantly. She saw me wake up, and said, “How are you?” She’s cute that way; I taught her to talk while she was just a chickling. So I start to tell her my day; the 15 minute phone call in the morning, where neither of us said a single word the whole time, the fact that I forgot to eat lunch, but still found that I had spilled ketchup on my shirt, and then the freeway incident.

That’s when she came at me. Don’t ask me to explain how; she was in her cage, with the doors latched. Then she was flying at me screeching in a way I’ve never heard before; as if a stranger had her and was pulling out her feathers by the fistful. I can tell you with complete sincerity that I have never been as freaked out in my life as when that little bird came streaking at me with that blood-curdling scream. It was as if Theresa was gone, and a demon from the mythic underworld… no, that’s not right; the reason I still live this moment over and over again, is because Theresa wasn’t gone. I could see it in her eyes; she was there. And it was her, my beloved pet, who was screaming in terrible agony, and hatred, and malice as she came at me. She came at me, and attacked my face… a very personal attack. I still feel like I am shaking all over (though I can’t be) when I remember it. Please don’t ask me about her anymore.

Then everything stopped. Then I was here.

That’s what I remember; here’s what I’ve been told: I was found in my house, on the kitchen floor. I was paralyzed from a broken neck. They tell me that whatever broke my neck severed the spinal cord immediately, so that I would have felt no pain from my shattered left leg, broken ribs, crushed pelvis and dislocated shoulder. They also tell me that the cuts on my face were not clean cuts, but ragged tears that seemed to have been caused by an exotic bird… but not Theresa, who was found safely locked up in her cage contentedly asking the paramedics, “How are you?” What they don’t tell me is how I ended up on the floor of my third-floor apartment, with a severely totaled car parked neatly in the garage… except for the rear axle which was blocking the flow of traffic ten miles away on I26. These seem like important details to me, but no one seems to hear when I ask.

It would all make more sense if I were dreaming. But how can I tell? I can’t pinch myself, but I’ve had dreams since where I could pinch myself. Each time I do, I wake up, and each time I wake up, I’m here in this world where nothing makes sense. How can I possibly prove to myself that this is real? How would I know the proof wasn’t a dream? What proof that I am awake could I possibly dream up… that I wouldn’t be able to dream of? Please tell me.

Am I awake?

Gender/Sex/Species Ambiguity and Incarceration.

The backstory:
Somehow I had infuriated people with power. The details of how I had done so were not very clear to me, but there was a lot going on in the country that offered ripe suggestions. Congress was trying to pass a series of terrible laws that had the potential to hurt a lot of innocent people, authorities all over the country were finding legal excuses to obliterate Constitutional rights, and the Senate wanted to contribute. In any case, whatever I had been fighting against had gotten the power brokers mad at me. So now Ann and I were going to jail. It wasn't fair that she was involved; but none of it was fair.

The story:
Ann and I were talking about the fact that we were going to jail. We discovered a number of things that might end up making our sentence bearable. Most importantly, we had been assigned the same cell (room really; it was awfully swanky as far as prisons go) in the women's prison. In fact we talked a whole lot about what prison would be like during our sentence. We were worried about the jailhouse culture of bullying and threats and sexual strong-arming. We had read that this was less of an issue in jails for women, but that it was still an occasional problem. We figured if we could keep to ourselves, we could weather the storm.

So, we were taken to jail and processed. During the processing of my transfer and the confiscation of my belongings, the head warden came by to greet me. Everyone was immediately aware of who he was, of course, because he was the only man in the whole complex. I have probably made his visit seem congenial, but no. It became clear very quickly that he walked the same circles as the people I had so mysteriously offended. He didn't hate me, but he had it in for me, and he made sure I knew it.

When Ann and I were finally deposited in our cell, we spent some time commiserating about our situation and the injustice of it all. I told her about my run in with the warden and how I was worried about what he would do to make my life hell. We talked about it and decided that he was limited in what he could do to me. We were all women being held against our will by this man; so Ann and I figured we could build up enough support amongst all the women, that he couldn't do anything too serious without invoking the ire of the whole jailhouse. Eventually our conversation came to an end. I went over to my cot on the other side of the room to lie down and Ann went to her tree to roost.

Shortly thereafter, an announcement was broadcast that I was to be escorted by the warden to another occupant's cell. This woman was known to us as the buffest of the sexual strong arms. The warden had wasted no time in exercising his power over me; I was to be soiled the very first night. Resigned to my inevitable fate as the only other man in the whole place, I went back across to tell Ann that I would probably be forced into a sexual encounter with the other woman; I was not thrilled. When I got to Ann (who was also my cat Sydney, and a dove) she told me she had come to the same conclusion and was hoping I would be okay.

Then I woke up.