Checkmate, p.11
Checkmate, page 11
"I'm not taking any personal essay courses and that's all well and good because I'm a shit writer anyway."
She smiled again. "Fair enough."
I wondered to myself how many personal assistants Mellanie had been through and how many of them had written clever essays about how tough she had it.
"So do you have any questions for me?" she asked.
"Well, Mike sent me along but he didn't really explain how it all worked. I attend the classes with you?"
"Yeah," Mellanie said, "You attend the classes with me and then we can spend an hour afterwards going through the stuff and your notes. I can put them into my computer if you want to hand write them and you can get paid for hanging out with me basically. And then if I need some hours to study you can get some time on that."
I frowned slightly thinking that-
"And don't worry, I don't have to pay everyone to hang out with me," she said, "I do have friends. Although I'm pretty much too busy with my med classes and taking art electives is pretty much all I have time for... still. You don't need to worry about it. Any other questions?"
"Not anything I can think of at the moment. I'm already taking Western Art, so it should match up pretty well, I'm thinking."
"Good. Well, as long as you don't want to ask me how I ended up this way or how I can tell when I'm done wiping, we're pretty much done here?"
"Do people seriously ask you that?"
"Let me ask you something. What work do you do? Or have you done? Outside of being a charitable aide I mean," she said grinning.
"I'm helping out at the Art Gallery and hopefully going to quit a watering gig I have-"
"Okay, so you waitress, right?"
"Yeah."
"You waitress and you don't believe that people really ask me stupid questions."
I sat on that for a moment.
"Touché," I said.
She picked up her stick and nodded. "I think we'll get along well... erm.. Wait what was your name? Sorry."
"Ambrosia," I said.
"Brilliant. Don't worry. I'll remember it now. I never forget a face," she said, "and it's okay, you can laugh. That was meant to be a joke."
I smiled to myself. "I don't do a lot of laughing, but I do a lot of sly grins, like you do."
"I sly grin?"
"You sly grin."
"Shit. I'll have to work on that," she said, grinning slyly. "Well, Ambrosia. I'll let Mike know that you're a promising candidate and I'll see you next Tuesday then, yeah?"
"Yeah."
I tried not to think too much about what had happened in Phyllis' office the rest of the day, but the flying buttresses that usually made me laugh didn't hold my attention in the exact same way they usually did. I couldn't figure out how I had ended up there in the first place. I could have sworn that I had intended on not going.
Out of the corner of my eye as I lay down with my textbook draped across my lap, I noticed a smidge of white. When I turned around, the white Queen looked at me intensely, her face almost to close to mine.
"Geeze!" I shouted, jumping up and sending my book flying, nearly falling out of my chair.” You all are visiting far more often now, aren't you?"
"You need our help far more often," the white Queen said, examining my face. She looked like she had to tell me something terrible. Her usually slightly shallow bubbly-ness had disappeared and replaced itself with depression. Even her usually dense but somehow flowing marble robes looked a bit lankier.
"What's wrong?"
I'll never understand how a marble statue looked so close to bursting into tears. "We're doing our best, but this is not what we were designed for. I don't know if there's anything we can really do. And I don't think you're in a situation where you can solve this yourself."
"Solve what? What are you talking about?"
"Oh Ambrosia," she said, wringing her hands, "Don't you see it's getting worse? Maybe it's our fault. Maybe we pushed you too fast."
"What's getting worse?" Was this hallucination starting to become self-aware? Could hallucinations even do that? I mean, supposing they could, the white Queen could just decide to vanish into nothing and I'd never see her again. Something about that made me sad because I knew I kind of wanted them to stay. It felt good to have someone, even your own hallucination to talk to about problems, even if they were pushy and guilt trippy sometimes.
"Ever since the counting came back, and we didn't see it at first because we weren't assigned to you yet, but you've always had that problem haven't you? You've always thought about things a little bit more than other people have, haven't you?"
I stood silent for a moment. When I looked back at it, I did look at things a lot more intensely than some people seemed to. Whenever we learned about something new in school that scared me, instead of running away from it, I'd run straight towards it. Picturing myself sitting in my second grade classroom, I saw myself learning about the dangers of home fires, of the importance of fire escapes, of sinking low to the ground because the smoke would rise to the top, of touching door handles before opening them so you could be sure a fire wouldn't burn you on the other end. Everyone else in class seemed to haphazardly draw an overview of their house and a rough fire escape plan on it, but I took it seriously.
I had drawn out a floor plan of my house in the best and most accurate way my little fingers could manage. My mother sighed when I asked her again and again about potential fire escapes, what she would do if her door became blocked by falling fiery debris, how I would get out of my own window without breaking my legs on the ground, thinking about the possibility of us buying one of those rope ladders for emergencies which I knew we couldn't afford but didn't bother to ask for, all consumed with the thought that I would die just because I didn't have it.
And it call came back to that. No matter what I studied, no matter what I looked at, no matter what I was worried about it always boiled down to a picture of myself lying dead somewhere, forgotten, alone, and rotting. And that picture wouldn't remove itself from my head no matter how much I tried and tried to shove it out. I started practicing to help. I ran through the steps of the fire escape over and over again, walking back through the carpets until I left a solid trail and my mother yelled at me for walking the same route for the 10th time. If she interrupted me, I threw a tantrum until she threatened to hit me if I didn't keep quiet. But all the while, I kept thinking about how I had to practice or I wouldn't get it right, I wouldn't make it out of the fire I knew we'd have, I wouldn't be alive any more. I'd spend so much time trying to stay alive that I'd forget how to live.
The white Queen was right. The squares were just one out of a million instances where I focused on something so much I became consumed by it, where I assumed my personal safety relied on these things that I knew were meaningless. I looked back up toward her, still looking on the verge of bursting into tears. She seemed so genuinely sorry for me that even her flat eyes conveyed an overwhelming amount of sympathy. My voice shook as I tried to speak.
"I... I do tend to worry about things, yes."
"That voice is always there, isn't it? Telling you that you have to do things. Or horrible things might happen."
I nodded. Somehow saying it out loud gave it so much power and I didn't want to give it any more power than it already had.
"This is a problem Ambrosia. A problem that we can only help you with so much. The white King has a few programs on this, but neither one of us are really prepared for this type of problem. This isn't what we usually help with."
"Phyllis is supposed to help me with all of this," I said, desperate to get out how I felt about the session, now that I'd had it cooped up in me all day. I guess I could have told Mellanie about it, but I really didn't want to creep her out or worry her.
"Phyllis is a lie," the white Queen said blankly, "She will not help you with this. She's making it worse."
I couldn't really argue with that, but here I also couldn't ignore the situation. My hallucination told me that my therapist was a lie, that my therapist was making everything worse. And though that, yeah, physically I felt like everything about that was true, how could I sit here and listen to my hallucination tell me that my therapist made everything worse? Even more, how I could I sit here and believe my hallucination when they said that my therapist made everything worse?
"She's supposed to help me with this," I urged, "It's her job. I know that her methods might seem a little... unconventional and yeah, I don't like the but that doesn't mean that she's making things worse or that she's not helping."
"It's so much more than that Ambrosia. Don't you see? Don't you realize how she's connected to all of this? What she means for you and what she represents? She's supposed to help you but really all she's doing is trying to hold you back."
"I know it looks like that but... when the white King helped me clear off those chess sets. I didn't want to do it. I was scared, but he helped me through it and I'm a bit better now. I'm getting better. Sometimes it seems like it's not helping when it is."
"Come on, Ambrosia," the white Queen said, balling her fists, "think about this for a second. What has Phyllis always told you? What has she encouraged you to do? We both know this."
"She didn't want me to take on the new job," I said.
"Right, and you have and what's happened?"
"Well, apparently according to you, I've got worse!"
The white Queen shook her head and cupped it in one of her marble hands. "That's not because of the job, Ambrosia. It's because you're finally breaking free from her. She doesn't want you to be free because she's scared. Because she's never not been around you and been there for you to tell you what to do and she doesn't like it. You're abandoning your safety nets, which is good. We're designed to help you do that. But she's your safety net and she doesn't want to be abandoned so she's fighting for her life."
"What do you mean designed to do?" I said, trying to change the subject, "What do you keep talking about? Why do you keep saying things like that? Am I just imagining that you two were designed specifically for me, or what? Why do you keep saying that?"
"We weren't designed specifically for you, but we were designed to help. And that's what we're trying to do. Don't change the subject."
"No, I want to change the subject because I don't understand what it is exactly you're designed for, and I want to know. I've been taking your advice for a long time now and I've been chastised for not being grateful enough, for not being polite enough, and for not being thankful - when I am, I really am. But I need to know what's going on. Why are you all here? What do you mean 'designed to do'? Why do you keep saying that?"
The white Queen stood completely straight, clapping her arms to her sides like a solider at attention. "Well, I've never come across this much resistance in my life-"
"You don't have a life!" I shouted. Part of me knew this wasn't fair, and maybe I actually told this to myself and that didn't exactly help matters, but I felt like the white Queen tugged at one end of my body while Phyllis tugged at the other. I didn't know who to run to or what to think and I felt sick and tired of being so lost.
The white Queen's blank eyes widened exponentially and she draped her long marble fingers over her chest. "Just because I'm not alive in the same way you are, doesn't mean I don't have feelings. I've told you that you weren't grateful and that you were impolite, Ambrosia Gunnar, because that is true. You are ungrateful for all of the things the white King and I have done for you. And you are impolite. And still we help you. Still I am stood here trying to warn you and you continue to insult me."
"Warn me?"
"Yes," the white Queen shouted, so loud I nearly fell down onto the seat behind me, "Warn you. You won't believe it but I'm counting on it happening again, just like this morning. She's going to come and find you again. And when she does, it's not going to be very pretty. She's going to keep coming and there's nothing we can do about this because we aren't programmed to handle this. You need to find someone or something that is. That's what I'm trying to tell you."
"Phyllis? Phyllis is coming for me. So now Phyllis is my stalker and she knows where I live and work."
"She knows where you work, doesn't she? Haven't you told her?"
She had a point there.
"I have, but... she's not going to know exactly where I am at all periods of the day."
"She doesn't have to," the white Queen said, crossing her arms, "She's going to find you again. And we won't be able to stop it. The white King barely got you out last time and tonight you've got the gallery opening. She's going to ruin it."
My hallucination now told me that my therapist not only made everything worse, but also intended on stalking me at work and ruining my job prospects. I felt a bit ridiculous continuing to listen. I knew the white Queen and King have been helpful, but I don't know how far this could eventually go.
"Thank you for your help," I said flatly, "But this really can't go on any longer. Seriously. I mean, you both have been a huge help but this is getting out of hand. And I really have to confront this instead of allowing it to go on and on."
"What?" the white Queen narrowed her eyes.
"You are a figment of my imagination," I said, looking straight at her, "You don't really exist. You're part of my anxious subconscious. And I realize that I've needed you for a long time, but now I can't let this continue. You're going to have to stop appearing to me now. I appreciate what you and the white King have done, but you both have to stop it now. I can't hallucinate any more. I've got an important job now and I thank you for helping me with that. But the work here is done."
I can't really convey the mix of emotions that crossed the white Queen's face. She went from shock, to pity, to horror, to affront, and circled all the way back around to pity and disgust combined.
"Oh Ambrosia," she said, "You really do have it on it's head. There isn't anything the white King and I can do from here. So if you wish to terminate your service, we can do that. But we will come back if you require our services again, in the same way as before. Understand?"
"I understand."
"So you do wish to terminate your service? Is that correct?"
"Yes, fine. Whatever. Terminate my service. Just... you can't appear anymore. I need to fix things on my own from now on."
The white Queen took one last look in my eyes with her own flat ones, examining me like a lost prisoner on death row. "I sincerely hope you can, Ambrosia Gunnar."
A puff of air came from her face, shooting in my eye and making me blink. When I opened them again, the white Queen had vanished, leaving behind on the ground in the floor of my flat two marble chess pieces, a King and a Queen, both with Tupperware faces.
I held onto the piece for a moment as I sunk back into my chair, looking at the clock and realizing I had about an hour and a half to get ready for the gallery opening. An unmistakable wave of regret washed over me as I shut my textbook and bunched my knees under my shoulders, staring still at the pieces. I had no idea how they had got there or if they were just another hallucination.
Shoving my face into my needs and holding the pieces tightly in my hands, I started to cry as softly as I could.
My alarm went off a few hours later, after I managed to sober up from my tears. I had very little time to actually get myself presentable, but I managed to shove myself into a blouse and dress pants, the same blouse and dress pants I wore to almost anything where I had to look presentable, and I slathered some makeup quickly onto my face. I slid the two marble chess pieces into my pocket, glancing them over one more time. It felt a little ridiculous, but I thought I could give myself one tiny safety blanket amongst all of this ridiculous crap I'd been going through. That certainly wouldn't kill me.
Thoughts scrambled themselves in my head as I made my way towards the campus. The lights highlighting the white arches in front of the gallery framed their contours, but no guests stood in the courtyard. I went through the front doors and greeted Mrs. Oakley, whose manner toward me hadn't improved since we last spoke. She directed me toward the Curator's office, passing me all of the folded up programs I had spent the previous day doing - or so I had thought I did any way. I didn't really want to think about all of that now.
"Ah," the Curator said, far more in a rush than he had been on previous nights, "I'm glad you're here. We've just got to get you run through the policy on greeting guests and showing them where to they can do certain things. I know all of this is going to be dreadfully boring, but it's a necessity at the moment."
"It's really not that boring," I assured him. And I was right honestly. Rolling up napkins bored me a lot more than the idea of giving people a few programs. At least none of those people would ask me to refill their drinks or call me "sweet cheeks" - at least, I hope.
