I turned down the sound on the TV as I heard a clawing, scratching sound on my front door. My small apartment easily gives away my movements so I stayed on the couch and instead opened the Ring app on my phone to view outside.
Frida! It's fricking Frida. She looks awful. Look at her hair sticking out everywhere, like she's been pulling on it for days. She's sliding down on her knees...crap, she's twisting the door knob!
Luckily, I keep the door locked at all times. But she was not letting up.
"Let me in! My blood! My blood is poisoned..."
Her fingernails kept trying to dig into the hardwood door but to no avail. Her voice was raspy and ragged as if she'd been screeching for hours. I hadn't seen her in ages. I thought she hated my guts like when all my relationships end. Of all people, she turns to me. Is there significance in that? Or maybe I was just the closest port in a storm.
"Mad dogs are coming. You've got to help me! My poisoned blood dripping. They'll eat me alive!"
Hard to imagine anything more horrific than being eaten alive by mad dogs. Yet it has to be. Happens every day and I'm left helplessly witnessing and waiting.
"I can't hide. I've got nowhere to go. I don't want to die like this. I'm sorry I lied."
Lied - to me?? She never lied to me. I was the liar. I ran away like always.
"Pleeeease! I want to share with you. Come be with me. I'm nothing without you."
She really started clawing and scratching even harder, like a desperate animal trying to get out of a cage. I was frozen immobile on the couch, watching on my phone this crazed creature I barely recognized. Would it kill me if I let it in? I certainly got that impression.
"Do it, damn you! My insides are burning. There's nothing left, just rot and stench - rot and stench everywhere! You have to know what's happening."
I felt the pressure growing. She's going to die at my front door. Everyone will know I didn't let her in. I looked at the floor where the 5 o'clock sun seeped in through the blinds as if it were a sign of life. I needed to live. Was that my future outside the door? She had turned on herself. Frida had done so many wrong things she'd driven herself beyond the ragged edge. The hounds of revelation were upon her. There was a time we could have been something, I know. Does she think that time still exists?
Next I heard wails I'll never forget as the hounds caught up to her and everything she denied could no longer be evaded. It was savage hearing her eaten alive. I too have no way of sharing. My love sits on an empty shelf gathering dust, withering in the dark, praying for hope. But I always thought Frida had her shit together and was better off without the likes of me. I have my own hounds on my trail, just further away.
Then, in a sudden flash of horror, I realized I needed to get off the couch and check the mirror - and this is what I found:
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