Inch by Inch

Author: tinhutlady

Mark Twain once said, "All emotion is involuntary when genuine." I believe I know what he meant. You can’t try to fall in love, you just do. You don’t want to be in a rage, you just are. It’s kind of the way I feel about this room. As I sit here I try to stay neutral about it but, deep inside, I know I fear what it represents. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, I’m sure.

I’ve always known I was headed for trouble. My brother never seemed to do anything wrong and I never seemed to do anything right. It’s ironic that, because I actually tried to do something right for a change, he got to do the worst thing he had ever done. Or was it? Now that I think back, maybe I’ve been looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope the whole time.

I thought that saving that old man was the turning point to the worst part of my life. I never would have been caught on that job if I hadn’t stopped to give him CPR when he had that heart attack. But a thief, a good one, really shouldn’t have a conscience, so I guess I never did that right, either. It was my third strike and prison was waiting. Then along came a thread of hope woven by an unlikely spider: my brother. I have a fear of spiders; now I know why.

In exchange for a pardon, I got myself into one hell of a mess. Brain surgery, a deadly gland, chemical imbalances, uncontrollable descents into the darker aspects of humanity, and indentured servitude to a secret agency; I had traded in one prison for another. Now that I think about it I helped make it that way with my attitude and my fear.

After a while I caught on. They weren’t totally interested in me only as the gland host. These people really did care about me, in an odd sort of way, and really did want to make some kind of difference in the world with their strange little piece of the government. This room, though, came to represent what I would become without them.

First the madness came when I least expected it. Then Claire came up with a way to track the quicksilver buildup so I knew when it would strike. I’m not sure that knowing made the insanity any easier to deal with when it came. Treatments were the only thing that held the red-eyed monster at bay and, as the time between those shots grew shorter and shorter, it spelled certain doom for my sanity. This room was going to become my final resting place; I was sure of it. It’s still hard to believe that last shot, the one Claire fought so hard to get for me, brought an end to it all. No more walking a tightrope, no more wondering if I’d wake up in a padded cell.

The freedom was incredible and I let it go to my head. Or tried to. I found my old life, as a thief, was gone. I’d been swallowed by the rhetoric these people kept spouting. Maybe there is a good side to me, I don’t know. I guess so. All I know is that there is a side of me that keeps me here. With them. With the rhetoric. With this room.

I’ve walked the line between madness and lucidity for so long, I can’t help but wonder: can the nightmare really be over? Will I be allowed to live a normal life? Or will I wake up one morning only to find myself in this room again?

My fear of that is very real and is as involuntary as my desire to stay with this agency. Have I really changed that much? Was the potential to be a better person always hidden within me? Did my brother try to give me the only chance he could for my sake? Or am I kidding myself and he did it for the sake of science? I can’t ask him now but I’d like to believe he did it for me.

I guess I could look on the bright side: I’m still heading for trouble. The difference is I’m trying to stop it now, not be the cause of it. Maybe I really can put this room behind me and shove all those demons back in that mental closet the gland unlocked in the first place. Maybe.

"Fawkes? You okay, big guy?"

I look up and realize Hobbes and Claire are standing in the doorway, their expressions mirroring the concern they must feel. In a way, they’re the best family I could ever hope to have. They know what I fear and they have always helped me to stay on this side of a straitjacket.

I stand and dust myself off reflexively. It’s useless, I know. This room stays with you, no matter how hard you try to brush it away. Clean, white, and impersonal, it stands at the ready. A padded room, built for the raging madness the gland unleashed, used to unleash, I suppose, in me. It still serves as a reminder of just how much I was fooling myself when I thought I was in control of my own destiny so long ago.

I’ve taken a far different path than the one I thought I would end up on, thanks to that old man and my brother. It was hell, but maybe, in the end, it was worth it. My mouth tightens as I feel a small grin stretch across it. Things are so different now.

"I’m fine," I reply. "I was just thinking."

"Come on, Darien. We all need some sort of relaxation. It’s been a tough week…I, for one, need a distraction." Claire always knows what to say and I watch as she removes her lab coat with quick, sure movements.

"Yeah, I know this great little place where we can grab a bite before we go do something." Hobbes doesn’t. Any place he thinks has great food usually has a condemned notice from the Board of Health posted on it. "Come on, partner. Let’s get some grub in you."

I take a breath and hold onto it before letting it out with a nod. Little by little, that’s how I’ll deal with this fear. The shot has been working. My sanity is staying. My life has been changing. Maybe that old coaching axiom Hobbes quoted last week is true: the game is not won by yards, but by inches. Of course, he was talking about a football game, but the analogy can go deeper. So as I turn off the lights and close the door to this room, I make my decision to leave it behind me and move forward with my life. While I can. Inch by inch. I’ll take inches over padded cells any day.

End