Ella
"The realist and the dreamer are both damned--the dreamer to live in ignorance and the realist to live in pain."
ELLA
“You are a vile bit of scum; a poison to the mind,” she proclaimed, taking a long draw from her polished mahogany hand pipe.
He stared at her in awed silence. He had never heard such attractive words used to describe his wretchedness. The way she wrapped her lips around each insult; the way her tongue clicked delicately against the roof of her mouth with each frozen consonant; was enough to make him grateful that her feelings toward him were so powerful. Daunted so greatly by her beauty, a single tear rolled tortuously out of his left eye.
“Please,” he whispered. “I swear to you, I know what I saw. Please believe me.”
She took another draw from the pipe and glanced at him in disinterest. “I don’t want you here.”
“Please! Please, let me prove it! Let me show you!”
“You may go,” she muttered. Though her words were harsh, her tone was oddly delicate.
He refused to break his stare, although she was too preoccupied with her pipe and her book. He envied her for her nonchalant, detached nature. He hated that she knew so much about him, yet she cared so little. He continued to gaze mournfully at the slender figure in the large, dusty red velour chair while sauntering hopelessly toward the door. She glanced up at him and nodded her approval as he turned the doorknob.
He gulped. “You know,” he started nervously, “smoking is quite unladylike. In fact, it’s very unhealthy.”
She looked at him intently. He became uneasy attempting to predict her next comment. He longed for her to speak; for her to utter one word that contradicted the previous conversation; one word that would bring him to turn around and return to her side.
Instead, much to his dissatisfaction but rather not to his surprise, she sighed and gestured toward the door. “Thank you for your advice. I will keep that in mind. Now, please—leave me alone.” She resumed her reading.
He slowly opened the door and stepped onto the veranda, still visualizing her painfully in his mind. He watched in desolation as she shut off the lamp and dragged the thick, embroidered drapes across the windowpane. It was obvious she was trying with painstaking effort to avoid eye contact, but her blasé persistence made this quite possible.
He turned his back to her sickeningly mesmerizing abode and treaded home down a path thick with meditation and unease.
The house was as striking as ever, he thought as he shuffled up the stone walk and beamed proudly upon the freshly cut grass, handsomely overgrown trees, and overwhelming array of beautifully landscaped flowers and shrubbery. He sighed and grinned as he opened the front door, stepped into the parlor, and his every uncertainty melted out of him with a tingling sensation. The walls in the parlor room were a pale yellow; reminiscent of spring and joy and life. The ivory lace curtains hung daintily over the great French windows, and the room seeped with the fragrance of morning dew and fresh blooms. He fell lifelessly onto the settee, overtaken with relief and gratitude to be once again home. He lay with his eyes shut and let the young day’s sun pour onto his face through the petite ivory curtains, dreaming hazily of his previous interaction.
“I know what I saw,” he whispered to himself. “I know Ella was here. She is here.”
He sat up and glanced lazily around the summer-filled room. “You’re always here, Ella! How else would the house be so meticulously cleaned—so attractively orchestrated— each time I set foot in it? Ella, this house is a sanctuary! A holiday for the mind! How else does she think it is so stunning?” He stood, taking in a large gasp of the crisp, dewy air. Staring wistfully at Ella’s photograph on the sofa table, a recurring and haunting remembrance leapt into his mind, turning the entire room a shade darker. He trembled as he clutched the photograph.
“She tells me you aren’t real, Ella. She tries to remove you from my mind. She says: ‘dearest, you’re too preoccupied with the death of your wife. I love you, but you need to move on.’ That’s what she says, every time, Ella. ‘I love you, but you need to move on. Ella is dead. She isn’t coming to see you, because she’s dead. You need to move on!’
“But I won’t move on! I can’t move on, Ella! You won’t let me! You saw me, you saw me begin to love her, Ella, and you came back for me! Why can’t she see that? Oh, Ella! Why must you make things so difficult for me? Why must you tear me away from the woman who started to love me? You’re gone, Ella! You left me, yet you want me to remain alone! Why would you do this to me? She hates me, Ella!”
He set the photograph back down upon the sofa table and glanced up at the large, upholstered velvet parlor chair that often held Ella’s frail body in her fleeting lifetime. His eyes began to fill with tears.
“Ella…please speak to me. Please, come back. Prove that you’re really here, Ella!
She thinks I’m crazy! Come back and show me I’m not crazy!”
Much to his shock and unmanageable eagerness, a pale, oddly gorgeous ethereal figure suddenly began to take form in the chair.
His eyes widened and the tears seemed to halt dead in their path. “Ella! Ella, you’re back! You’re here!”
Ella’s ghost stared at him softly with unearthly white eyes as he ran to her side.
“Ella! Oh, Ella, I knew you would come!” He once again began to weep.
The ghost said nothing, but placed a weightless, transparent hand on his shoulder. He gingerly reached for the hand and held it in his own for a passing moment before standing up.
“Ella,” he whispered. “Come with me. I am going up to the bedroom to use the telephone. It will only be a moment. Please, follow me.”
To his splendor, the ghost gradually rose and clutched his wrist with her fragile, spectral hand. He gently led her up the narrow oak staircase and into the bedroom.
He pulled out a chair and Ella fell gracefully into it as he reached for the telephone.
“Now, Ella,” he murmured. “Wait right there. Do not move. I am going to call her, and tell her that you are here! I’m going to prove to her that you are real!” The spirit continued to gaze in muteness.
He suddenly set the telephone down and closed the bedroom door. “Now, you really cannot leave, Ella!” He smiled, seeming proud of himself, and resumed the telephone call.
It was an eternity of tension before she answered the phone.
“Hello,” she cooed.
He sighed. Her tone was so breathtakingly serene; so ignorantly detached.
“Hello, darling,” he whispered.
She was silent for a moment, and then cleared her throat. “I told you to leave me alone.”
“I know, I know, you did. But you need to come see me right away!” “For what purpose?” Her voice became suddenly stern.
He paused, and then clenched his fists in anticipation. “Ella. She’s here, darling. She’s right here! Please, believe me! Hurry! You must come and see her!” He beamed at Ella’s motionless ghostly figure.
He looked quizzically at the phone, suddenly noticing the piercing silence ringing out from the other end.
“Alright, dearest. Sure, I believe you,” she whispered.
“You do? Oh, wonderful! Did you hear that, Ella? She believes me!”
The phone again became silent, and Ella continued to gaze blankly.
“Alright, well, splendid!” he chimed. “I will see you soon, darling!”
He placed the telephone on the receiver and began to spin whimsically around the room. He reached out to Ella, who slowly clutched his index finger and pulled herself out of the seat. He led her weightless figure in a sort of improvised waltz, and finished by spinning her toward the chair and helping her back into it with a careful gesture.
He then reached for a bottle of liquor and two small glasses on the night table.
“Ella, she believes me! She really believes me, Ella!” he laughed, opening the bottle.
“This calls for a drink! Have a drink with me, won’t you, Ella?”
He filled the small glasses and swallowed his share of the bitter bliss immediately, holding out the second glass toward Ella’s ghost. The specter looked vacuously at the glass and didn’t move.
“Oh, my!” he bellowed. “You’re a ghost, you can’t drink!” He laughed strangely, and swallowed Ella’s drink. “I beg your pardon! I’ll drink on your behalf!” He again filled the two glasses—one for himself to enjoy, and one to drink on behalf of Ella.
He continued to fill the glasses and drink until the bottle was nearly empty, and he could no longer remain clearheaded enough to hold it. He toppled onto the bed, and glanced blurredly at Ella’s chair. The ghost was still frozen in the chair, staring at him vacantly with stunning ethereal eyes.
“E—ella…” he mumbled. “She’s coming, Ella…”
His voice trailed off as the room became black and he descended quickly into a distorted slumber.
She gaped at his home as she approached it. The yard, unruly and overgrown, seemed to be a barricade of warning to the house itself, which was horrifying and decrepit and seemed to leer menacingly at each passing pedestrian.
“I must be misled…surely he doesn’t live here…” she muttered to herself. She examined the exterior of the house, hoping desperately to find that she had been deceived. She knew with a sort of dissatisfied certainty, however, that this grotesque place of dwelling most certainly was his.
She cringed and timidly made her way down the crumbling stone pathway, glancing constantly about the yard and clutching her pipe in a nervous grasp. The front door was attached by only two feeble hinges, and so greatly decayed she was afraid to knock on it. She tapped it, and upon hearing no response, called to him. When still she heard or saw no sign of a resident, she turned the knob and was fearfully delighted when the door fell open. She stepped warily into the parlor room, and immediately winced upon seeing the disturbing state of the room. The walls, appearing once to have been a pastel yellow, were abused with holes, scratches, and carvings of strange letters and indecipherable drawings. The ivory lace curtains were tattered and stained, and the entire room had a horrid, malicious grey ambience. Nearly all the furniture was torn, shattered, or lying lifelessly in a strange position as if it had been thrown, and one furnishing in particular, an upholstered velvet chair in the corner, was damaged far beyond the others.
She called to him again, this time considerably more frantically, but still received no response. She stepped timorously around the corner, noticing the battered, slim oak staircase. As she crept closer toward it, she began to notice shallow, foot-shaped indentations in each stair, indicating an immense amount of running or pacing. She frowned curiously at the staircase, and slowly began to ascend it, carefully ensuring to avoid stepping in the indents.
His bedroom was the first room on the left and the only room in the dark, narrow hallway with a closed door. The enigmatic possibilities of the closed door became instant curiosities, and she cautiously turned the doorknob.
The bedroom was in a state of macabre disarray. The curtains had been completely torn from the window, leaving a crumpled pile of fabric on the floor and several jagged remains on the curtain-rod. One of his bed-posts had been snapped crudely off of the bed and stabbed into the wall near the door, and the walls around the bed were chillingly adorned with scratches, carvings, and additional illegible drawings and words. His liquor bottle was lying helplessly on its side, the last of its contents spilled out onto the night-table and among remains of two shattered glasses, and he lay comatose in an odd, contorted position, his hand frozen in a point toward an empty chair.
She dropped her pipe in a moment of silent alarm, and crept noiselessly to his bedside.
“I knew something was odd about you,” she whispered to his unconscious body as she knelt down next to the bed. She rolled his lifeless figure into a more comfortable position, and opened the drawer of the night-table. She was astounded to find a pen and paper, and wrote a swiftly eloquent note:
DEAREST,
YOU WERE ASLEEP WHEN I CAME TO VISIT YOU, BUT DON’T WORRY—I AM COMING BACK A BIT LATER TO SEE YOU AGAIN. I BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU TOLD ME.
She laid the expectant note on the bed next to the drunken body, and silently exited the room. She trotted anxiously down the dilapidated staircase, forgetting the melancholy crevices in the stairs, and for once in her life too preoccupied to realize she’d forgotten to retrieve her pipe.
He awoke to a jovial spilling of daylight. The bedroom was full of an almost unnaturally hearty glow, despite the opaqueness of the tufted curtains. He grinned at the afternoon sun as he lethargically sat up, stretched, and tugged sleepily on his hair. He started to fall wearily back onto the pillow, when he noticed the note sitting on the bed next to him. His laziness instantly turned to frantic excitement as he snagged the note and read it aloud.
“She was here!” he shouted to himself. “I missed her! Ella, you made me miss her!
You made me drink on your behalf so I would fall asleep and miss her!”
He squinted dejectedly and laid the note beside him. “At least she believes me, though. She believes me now, Ella! You can’t stop her from believing me!” His voice escalated to a playful taunt.
He stood and stumbled out of bed, smiling as he glanced around at the newly wallpapered room.
The pale floral scent of the sunlit, white wooden hallway splashed him like a mist of perfume as he stepped out of the bedroom. He stretched again and grinned as he descended the polished oak stairs and swanned into the charming clutter of the kitchen. He beamed proudly at the small bouquet of fresh lavenders set out on the dining table in Ella’s finest porcelain vase.
He heated a pot of soup over the stove and scooped it into a glass bowl, carrying it gingerly to the dining table. As he sat down and began to eat, he was interrupted by a firm knock on the front door.
“She’s here, Ella!” he whispered, rising quickly out of his chair. “Come in!” he shouted to the door.
The door groaned open. He saw her petite silhouette transform into a majestically living figure as she entered the front door.
“You made it, darling!” he bellowed.
She smiled distractedly. “Hello, dearest. I’m sorry I missed you earlier.” She suddenly frowned. “My goodness, dear! You haven’t even changed out of that wrinkled clothing!”
He gasped as he glanced down at his attire. “Oh, how embarrassing! Excuse me for a moment, darling!” He ran out of the room and up the stairs.
She silently watched him leave the room, and then stepped outside onto the porch. “Come in, Doctor,” she whispered. A tall, burly man in a white coat and pants nodded and entered the house.
“Look at this house!” She covered her face in disgust. “He’s crazy, Doctor! Just look!” The doctor looked attentively around the room, but said nothing.
“Doctor, look at this!” she exclaimed, pointing to the torn furniture and ghastly wall carvings. “Look what he has done to this house!”
The doctor nodded, but remained silent.
She squinted, frustrated. “Doctor! Do you not understand? Look at this disaster! He’s destroyed all his furniture! Doctor, he thinks his wife’s ghost comes to visit him! He’s crazy, Doctor! Just undeniably crazy!”
The doctor looked at her quizzically, and pursed his lips. “How long has she been dead?”
“I’m not sure, two or three years, I believe.”
“Did she love him greatly?”
“Well, I suppose so…but that isn’t the point, Doctor! The point is—well, quite frankly, he’s lost his mind! He thinks Ella has come back from the grave!”
The doctor nodded. “Did he say why she came back from the grave?”
“No, not that I can remember. Well—actually, one time, he said he believes she wants to keep him from loving another woman. Me.”
The conversation came to a halt when the sound of footsteps was heard coming toward the staircase.
“Darling, come here!” his voice called from the upstairs hallway.
The doctor looked at her, and motioned toward the stairs.
She stepped toward the stairs. “What is it, dearest?”
“Come here, darling!”
She turned around and motioned for the doctor to follow her at a distance. She then began to ascend the stairs.
He stood at the top of the staircase, dressed quite exquisitely in his finest suit. His gloved hand was clutching a small object she couldn’t quite distinguish.
“Do you like my suit, darling? Ella chose it for me.”
She nodded with great discomfort. “It’s—very nice, dear.”
He held out his clenched hand and smiled, motioning for her to extend her arm. “And, look! You left this here earlier! Ella found it! She polished it up for you, it looks nicer than ever!” He dropped the object in her small, shaking palm.
She looked down at her hand in great apprehension to see she was holding her prized mahogany pipe, and it had been horribly disfigured. It was atrociously cracked, as if it had been thrown or stepped on repeatedly, and was one delicate touch away from shattering.
Her eyes widened as she looked up at his innocent, confused grin. She screamed, dropping the pipe hysterically, and fled down the stairs. The doctor rushed her to the dining table and calmly set her in a chair before hurrying upstairs.
She sat trembling at the dining room table, her breathing doused in paranoia, as she stared in abhorrence at the bowl of lukewarm soup lying next to a broken vase of hideous dead lavenders. She listened intently to the drone of the doctor’s voice upstairs, but was unable to make out many of his words.
The doctor soon descended the stairs and entered the dining room. He smiled at her, perplexed, and patted her on the shoulder.
“I told him to stay in his room,” the doctor whispered. “He is comfortable; resting in his bed. I am going to fetch the help of another doctor. Please wait here.”
She stood and clutched the doctor’s arm to protest, but he insisted with gentle strictness. After several moments of weeping objection, she finally forced herself to sit down as the doctor walked out of the house.
She clawed at her neck and glanced obsessively around the room, feeling as though awaiting a morbid fate. After a few moments, she began to hear the low murmur of a male voice upstairs. She tried to ignore it, but it seemed only to rise unbearably louder. It became the only sound in the house; the only sound in the world. She stood and clenched her quivering fists, then began to creep toward the staircase slowly; distantly; as if hypnotized.
Her entranced saunter carried her up the stairs and to the door of his bedroom. The voice was now insufferably audible, but she no longer tried to disregard it. She turned the doorknob.
He was sitting up in bed, looking into the closet. He hastily stopped talking upon hearing the door open, and looked at her.
“Hello, darling! Wonderful timing!” he shouted, motioning for her to come in. “Ella is here! You finally get to meet her!” He motioned at the closet. “Ella, come here for a moment!
There you go! Come meet—”
His sentence was interrupted by a blunt thump. He quickly turned toward the doorway of the bedroom.
She was lying unconscious on the ground, pale with what could have been shock, or fear, or sudden revelation.
He gazed at her in blank astonishment, and then slowly began to smile. “You were right, Ella. You’re always right. I’m glad you kept her away from me, Ella. She’s crazy— undeniably crazy.”
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