The Cobbe house iv Aftermath

I didn't  see Tony again for nearly twenty  years.  On better days, I recall our friendship, for we were more like brother's that friends. His eyes and his smile bring back happier memories. Memories that are not bound to that damn house or hideous thing that resided there. 
What followed has
           never left me.  It led me to meeting Tony at The Arkham aslylum for the mentally insane, led me back to my old home town of Bridgeton and that damned house that has haunted my life from that day to this. I think of Cerci  with such fondness, for she was my first real love. Though I never shared it with her. I should have done, and for that I will always feel like half a man. Unable to be
honest with my feelings.   There was a moment, just after the van left that morning, when once again we held our hands tightly. We both saw it and felt it.  For the words were shared between us in our minds.  Yet, it never went further than that tender touch of hands between us.

It was later that day, when Tony had been taken away we found out what had happened.  Tony had entered his  baby brother's room and smothered him with a pillow. His mother tried to pull him off, but he was too strong.  He was shouting in a language that might have been French or something similar, and attacked his mother scratching at her neck and then trying to bite her. she screamed and defended herself, but found he had the strength of a fully grown man, not the 12-year-old boy that he was.  It took Mr Sables an age to hold him down and tie up his wrists and legs to stop him from hurting anyone else, even himself.  while his mother then ran into the street to get both the sheriff and the doctor.  

The doctor on examining him said that he had no idea what had happened in the night, and considered calling the local Catholic priest as he was so changed, he felt that he might provide some solace. In the end the call was made to Arkham Asylum and the van was called. 

Tony was taken away and put into the care of the Asylum indefinitely; as
he was seen as a danger to himself and other's about him.  Mr. Sables said later that day and officially in the public record of the event later, written down in the Bridgeton Chronicle relating to the court case over the death of the little baby
boy.  That it was clear that his son had changed forever, into someone or something unrecognisable.

It was not long after the incident that Mr and Mrs Sables moved away and the
incident itself, though not forgotten became part of the history of the town. it was hard to hear of "Crazy Sables" spoken in the same breath as "Mad Alice" especially as I had known Tony before what had happened, seen that carefree, smile and the sideways grin that always touched the border of cynicism... The reality was nobody, other than Nell Cerci and I knew how or or perhaps why it happened; even though the toy soldier was hard to accept as a catalyst.  I know better now... though I wish, to my heart that I did not.  For those dreams haunt me still; they have led me to become a coward and not face fears that rise and oppress me, for in the dark, and in the half light, when I awake, I always see that odd little furtive deformed creature slow slink from my bedroom  around the corner and disappear into the mists of twilight.  An inhabitant both of the dream world and the dark, it waits to prey upon me, dragging me through my darkest fears to feed upon my anxiety.

Within a year of Tony leaving for the asylum Cerci had left town too. Her father had been given a promotion to a larger bank in New York and that meant a move.  Nell’s parent’s had also moved, though where I didn't know.  Though we vowed to stay in touch with each other, the letters became fewer and fewer, less informal and more dry in their content.  in a year and a half I heard nothing from either of them.   Armed with their last letter's I decided to trace down my friends and see if perhaps we could end this once and for all. But first I thought to visit
Tony at Arkham.

Places are like batteries. They absorb what happens inside them.  Churches where there has been a lot of peace,and prayer are peaceful; Places that have experienced pain and sorrow, like the  Cobbe  house, and Arkham are negatively charged. This charge has an impact upon the building for all time.

Arkham with its looming towers and gothic walls, was such a place. Inside, its greasy white tiles and dirt floor, said more about how the world tolerates the
mentally unwell than anything else. I went from corridor after corridor room
after room, each filled with men or women strapped to beds, or tied in jackets.
The smell, of too many people, unwashed and uncared for, living in their own
faecal matter was both disheartening and disturbing. If this was the age of
enlightenment in mental health treatment, then that age had yet to come to this
terrible place.

The moment I entered the room, I sensed an oppression that I couldn’t put my finger on.

 Tony was in a narrow white greasy tied room. Blinds or shutters were pulled on the right hand wall making the room more of a dark grey than a  white. The linen on the bed hadn’t been changed. It stank. Lice and other vermin crawled over the sheets, while cockroaches scurried in the corners of the room.

I saw Tony lying on his bed.   His white hair was long and unkempt, his face under his heavy beard, podgy his teeth yellow stained and broken.

‘Of course he has to be sedated…’ began the orderly, a large bald headed, heavy joweled   man in a white suit. ‘…in the last week he punched another inmate almost to death.’

‘I see.’ my reply was cold, distant. I disliked the awe in the orderly's voice. it was as if he enjoyed the suffering too much.

‘Doctor Jarvis will see you…if you would like… he knows the case well.’

I shook my head.

Tony stared up at the ceiling. Saying nothing. His eyes glazed.  His fist clenched.

‘He cannot feed himself…both his hands are tight fists.’ He has something in his hand, but we cannot pry it open. ‘

I sat down next to Tony,  I felt a lump in
my throat. Guilt had kept me away. Guilt and fear. I hated myself as I sat
there.  How many times should I have visited, how many times had I justified myself to stay away?  I loved the boy I knew, and felt shame and guilt for what he had become.

‘Both his parents are dead now.’  the orderly continued. his dry rasping voice was beginning to annoy me.

‘I..I’m sorry. Dear friend… I am so sorry…’

Memories of Mr. Sables went through my mind.  A youth now lost, as it is with time. Then thoughts of the two of us playing.

I put my hand on top of Tony’s fist.

Then, from within the room, a light came on. The orderly suddenly turned and I too looked towards the entrance of the room where the light switch was located. To note that the switch had, without any physical influences,  somehow turned itself on. Then the sense of oppression slowly  began to lift and the room became somehow brighter all round.

The Orderly stepped towards the door, preferring the dark than the light the room seemed to be filling with.

Tony then sighed and in a moment  slipped from this world, opening his hands for the first time
in twenty  long years.

​I turned the hand over and gazed at the puncture wounds, where his over long nails had cut deep into his  palms. Then Looked at what he held
in his hand.  The flesh in the palm was white and sweaty, it stank oppressively,  Yet I could just make out something that  had been so tightly squeezed for so long the thing itself was almost embedded into the palm itself. I managed to pull it out, and it fell into my hand with a slurping sound.

For the first time in thirty years I held that damned toy soldier in my hand.