Oatmeal Cookies

I gently pull the tray out of the oven, and set it down onto the counter. The smell of perfectly baked oatmeal cookies rushes every single one of my senses and the tip of my tongue starts to tingle. Maybe I can have just one, I think to myself, but I pull my hand back down to my side. They’re for Lisa, not for me. I instinctively stare across the hallway to the closed door; our bedroom. Her soft snoring seems soothing this morning. Any other morning I would have whipped a pillow at her, but today the sound is relaxing.
The snow fell last night, for the first time in weeks. She’ll like that, maybe she can go and watch the skating down at the river. My eyes graze over the two pairs of skates hanging by the back door, mine are black and hers are white, but both have a look like they’ve never been worn. On the hanger beside them is a tired looking blue jacket, with a badge tightly woven onto the chest pocket. The house seems a little bit colder.
I turn out of the kitchen, and start to head down the ramp to the basement. It’s a complete mess, and I think of how I promised Lisa I would clean it. I grab at some of the beer cans on the floor, and toss them into the blue recycling bin near the laundry machine, then I pull the pizza boxes off the table. I’d had some last night, while I was installing the hook for the ceiling. The rope waits patiently on the arm of the sofa, so I pick it up and start wrapping it around the hook. I catch a glimpse of a crack in the ceiling’s paint, and it frustrates me. I painted it only a few weeks ago, how is it already ruined?
The rope now hangs down just above my head, and I take a step up onto the table. The wood on my bare feet feels oddly comforting. Upstairs Lisa’s snores became restless, and I think for a moment she’s going to wake up, but then they diminish back to their steady rhythm. I put on the makeshift collar, and close my eyes.
I wait. It feels like something is supposed to happen. I’m supposed to cry, or punch something. The alarm clock beside the TV ticks loudly at me. My shift starts in an hour. Stephen and Harrison will be getting up around this time, and making themselves bacon and eggs. Maybe they’ll have coffee, if either one of them knows how to work the machine. This thought bothers me, how do I not know whether my best friends know how to make coffee? Is it because I only ever see them buy the coffee at the vender’s stand outside of the precinct? Or is it because I never spend any time with either of them off the clock?
The collar suddenly feels tight against my neck, and the clock makes a louder tick as it hits 6:00. It seems like a good time. A good, even number.
I step off the table.
My body spasms in a hundred different directions, my eyes scramble to every point of the room, my feet dangle helplessly. I choke and stutter, as my neck starts to feel like it’s being tightened by searing restraints. I’m suddenly swimming in a sea of blackness, an ocean of shadows, and as I claw away at it I start to feel the thick texture of silk. I rip and tear, and breach through the curtain.
It’s me, age four. I’m sitting in front of the TV, between my mom’s legs, playing with a Batman action figure. I fly it through the air, and flip it around my hands. Batman lands on my mother’s knee, and she looks down at me from her show. She smiles, and kisses the top of my head, as I decide that Batman now wants to fly somewhere else.
Blackness.
It’s me, age twelve. A girl gets pushed against the wall, and she drops her lunch box. It rattles loudly on the floor, and lands between the legs of a big guy in a dark green sweater. He has his hood pulled over his face, and is staring at the girl with his finger shaking between her eyes. He hisses something to her and she lets out a whimper. I storm out from behind my locker and put a hand firmly on his shoulder. He spins around, and grabs at my wrist, twisting it painfully out of its natural rotation. The girl stares at me terrified, but takes her moment of freedom, and runs to the door.
Blackness.
It’s me, age seventeen. I stand at the foot of the stairs, a bouquet of flowers looking oddly out of place in my hands. Her father gives me the up-and-down look, and grunts. From the top of the stairs the girl shyly enters down into the main foyer. I smile at her, and she smiles back, accepting the lilies.
Blackness.
It’s me, age twenty-one. We walk hand in hand down the street after dinner. She laughs a tingly laugh at one of my jokes, and I move my hand gently out from her grasp to rest it on her shoulders. She snuggles in closer to me. We cross over an alley way and she gestures for us to go through it. I stare down it, concerned, but she stubbornly insists that it’s faster, so I follow. I hear the disturbance first, and push her behind me so that she’s protected. She lets out an ear-piercing scream as one of the dark figures lunges at her, and tears at her dress. The fabric rips down the center and I desperately throw myself at her attacker. My eyes are filled with fury, so blinded that I don’t see the other figure behind me who’s moving towards her. She’s too terrified to yell again, and the accomplice grabs at her shoulders and shoves her against a garbage bin. My eyes are steered away from my own opponent and straight to her face – she looks pleadingly at me, sobbing. I move to rescue her, but I’m suddenly being weighed down by the man’s grip on my shoulders. The entire scene is frozen at the sound of gunfire.
Blackness.
It’s me, same night. I’m raging through the streets, fire in my eyes, and hatred in my gut. I’m searching. She’s lying on the operating table, a bullet straight through her ribs and lodged in her spine. My hand is firmly locked onto the gun, and I cross the road to the alleyway. One of them has come back to pick up the purse we’d left on the ground. I rush him, pin him against the wall, and raise my gun to his forehead.
Blackness.
It’s me, age twenty six. The dad pushes her wheelchair down the aisle. I stand, smiling at her underneath the canopy of white roses, and the minister holds his book up in hands.
Blackness.
It’s me, age thirty-one. I’m sitting in my office at the station, and my lieutenant walks in. I immediately stand up, and give him a firm nod of acknowledgement, he does the same. There’s a rapist on the streets. Two girls dead, one girl in critical condition. I see the images of that night, years and years, ago flitter in my eyes. He tells me they know who it is, and that they’re looking for more evidence. I watch my hand flutter cautiously to the side of my belt with my gun. The lieutenant doesn’t notice. I’m going on the prowl tonight.
Blackness.
It’s me, age thirty-seven. We’re standing in the break room, and I’m eating oatmeal cookies that Lisa and I made the night before. Stephen suddenly asks me if they ever caught the guy who killed Lisa’s shooter. I blank out for a moment. He doesn’t seem to notice, so I compose myself quickly, and shake my head. They found new evidence that’s being checked out right now. They found a fingerprint on the bullet that hadn’t been looked at beforehand.
Blackness.
It’s me, age thirty-eight. Stephen is standing with his hands over his mouth, glaring at me in my office. He shakes his head in disbelief, but I do nothing to comfort him. I feel no regret for what I did. I glance over at the small Batman figurine on my table, and smile at it. Stephen says that he needs to tell. I nod my head. He tells me I’ll lose my job. I nod my head.
Blackness.
It’s me, an hour ago. I climb out of bed. I haven’t slept. Lisa rolls gently onto my hand, and I press my lips against her cheek, then slide it out from under her. I stare at the room. I stare at her. She looks happy. She looks like the type of person who would be happy if she knew what I had done for her. She would be grateful, and understanding. I blink, and look at her again. No, she doesn’t look like the type of person who would be happy. My face doesn’t show any sign of emotion, I just watch her. Then I open the door, and walk out of the room. I’m wearing the Batman pyjamas she bought me as a joke this Christmas. They fit loosely around my waist – she hadn’t noticed that I’d lost weight over the past few months, waiting for her to hate me, to find out. Waiting for her to see the evil thing that I am. I’m thinking back on the time that I saved her from the bully in grade school. At the end of that day she’d pulled me aside and thanked me. I’d told her I would beat him up for her – she’d slapped me and yelled at me for saying such a thing. Two wrongs never make a right! She’d yelled at me. And now I know what will happen when she finds out. I can see the look of hurt and hatred on her face. So, to make her happy, I’ll make her cookies. She can have one small bit of happiness before I ruin everything, again. I pull out the ingredients, tossing eggs and flour and oats into the bowl, mixing them, scraping them, then I shove them into the oven. They only take ten minutes, so I stand and watch the minutes flip by on the microwave timer. I press the button just before it hits zero so it doesn’t make a beeping sound and wake her up. The cookies are a perfect brown. The oven light blinks at me. Then again. And again.
Blackness. Then all I see is the oven light. The cookies are on the counter, out of the oven, but why is the oven light on? It hits me.
My body is shocked with an electric jolt at my horror, and my limp legs try to search for the table. I claw at the rope around my neck, but I can’t feel anything. My finger tips are numb. My mouth opens to call out, but no sound comes. I feel the tears on my face now, I feel the freezing pain racing up from my toes, and I fight. The rope cuts into my skin, but I fight.
I left the oven on. I left it on, and she’s sleeping. The dry dishcloth is lying near the oven. The oven that’s on. The hot oven that’s on. My wife is sleeping, and the hot oven is on. I can see the towel catch flame now.