Naked
Creative Nonfiction
By Cassandra Crossing
They’ll find my bare body in the bathtub.
I’m not prepared for anyone to rummage through my things. Not ready for them to look at journals of my deepest secrets. My half-written stories. Stories I’d only share under a pen name.
I’m not ready to be found dead, naked.
I haven’t lost the weight I gained a year ago since I stopped vaping nicotine—I only started it because of the sexual harassment by the contractor remodeling my bathroom. It reminded me of the trauma I experienced as a young child and teenager. I open the shower curtain, shivering.
*
Over three years ago, someone hit my car. The ambulance took me to the hospital with a concussion. My memory isn’t as perfect as in the past since then.
Mayo Clinic says, “Alzheimer’s is a progressive disorder that causes brain cells to waste away (degenerate) and die.”
I never wanted to lose my mind. My body had seemed expendable, but not my logic, reasoning, ability to remember. “An early sign of the disease is usually difficulty recalling recent events or conversations.” I could never cut myself on purpose. The coppery stench and the sight of blood nauseate me. I’m allergic to copper.
*
Why are there no windows here? So I could see the morning sun’s light streaming in one last time? The last things I’ll see are these strawberry-pink walls, the porcelain toilet, floor-to-ceiling mirrored-cabinet by the door. No counter. No sink. More than three years, and I haven’t yet trusted men to come in to install them. The bathroom could use some cleaning, organizing. The whole apartment could.
Why am I concerned with what anyone will think, find? Are these the typical thoughts, regrets of the dying?
*
In my youth, I’d taken pills twice—attempting to kill myself. The second time, I left a note. I wanted them to know it wasn’t an accidental overdose. I made sure they were aware of my choice of ending it all. Now, I want to shout, “Stop bleeding! This shouldn’t be my end!” Do I value life more now that I have lived?
Still, why do I care what people think once I’m gone, and how they will discover me? It makes sense I wouldn’t want this burden on my son—he’d be devastated—but anyone else? Who cares?
This could be a puzzle. Unsolvable. “Why did she do it?” They’d ask. “Wasn’t she happy?” I love puzzles. They’re functional exercises for the brain. My father brought home a puzzle-filled magazine every week. I’ve been solving them since childhood. Later, I learned that blueberries and puzzles are the best ways to try to prevent Alzheimer’s.
*
The contractor asked me to hold the two-by-four in place. He grabbed me.
I jumped away.
He laughed.
My memory was still perfect.
As a child, I had been molested.
*
My older son—who often comes across as an all-knowing sage, although not always accurate—he’d probably squint at my teenage son and proclaim, “This was a long time coming. She had a terrible life. For so long. That kind of stuff messes with you, and one day, you can’t shut your eyes anymore. Plus, she never got over losing our sister.”
No, I’m not thinking of what my eldest would say, but maybe in my subconscious, those words are present, embedded. Sometimes, we’re not aware of these thoughts at the moment. Only that nagging feeling: This is wrong. They can’t find me like this!
*
“Risk factors: Genetics, head injuries, depression, hypertension.”
Mom, my sister, and I had struggled with our fair share of depression throughout the years. Not without cause. Anyone in our place probably would have. My sister and I grew up with an alcoholic father—physical abuse was one of his ways to keep us down.
When the kids were small, I worked as a caretaker, part-time. The lady had dementia. She needed help getting out of bed, walking to the bathroom, taking pills. I spoon-fed her like a baby. Answered her repeating questions—a recording on a loop—as if she’d just asked for the first time.
“Alzheimer’s is the cause of 60-70% of cases of dementia,” according to Wikipedia. The lady wanted to go home every day, leaving her house, wandering the streets, thinking her daughter was her niece.
*
The blade is sharp, brand-new, but in a hurry, I ran it up over my left calf without caution. Then the right. A small consolation to think that at least I’m not standing here half-shaven on one leg, pressing a wad of toilet paper on the wound—at least two inches long, running down in the back toward my heel, 3-5 millimeters wide.
Crimson colors the bottom of the white tub, the side. Piercing pain. How much blood can one lose without fainting? Why won’t it stop? Is this the end? Movies depict how some broken souls slice near their ankles, not the usual place, the wrists.
At sixteen, I was raped. At nineteen, I was raped. I’ll bleed to death.
My teenage son will find me upon awakening. A harrowing situation that will stamp him with a kind of sorrow he’ll never forget. Will he ever be okay? My sons will think I committed suicide! Everyone will believe I committed suicide! What a stupid mistake! They won’t know I only carved myself shaving.
*
The contractor said, “Check, the toilet is leaking.” He grabbed me again.
I ran.
He chased me.
*
“As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation, mood swings, loss of motivation, not managing self-care, and behavioral issues.”
I’ve been watching for symptoms when I visit Mom; when calling her to talk—myself, too, since the accident. She’s over sixty-five, the usual time of onset. Even if I diagnose her and blame the moodiness and her harsh treatment on this neurological disease, what else could I do? How could I help her? She lives thousands of miles away, and here I stand in a pool of blood, naked.
First Published by WOW! Women on Writing as a Contest Winner in 2020.
The Author
Cassandra Crossing immigrated to the US in hopes of a better life, yet she found heartaches and pain. She changed her name to fit in, yet even after many years, she's viewed as a foreigner. But as in the movie, "The Cassandra Crossing," as they survived a catastrophe, she's a survivor and she finds joy in nature and the little things.
She writes from personal experience about love, despair, loss, and hope. Her work includes short stories, creative non-fiction essays, flash fiction, plays, and poetry. She’s also working on a few novels and novellas.
Her creative nonfiction essay "Naked" won 2nd place, April 2020, in a WOW! Women on Writing contest and was published online. "Why Are You Here?" won Runner Up status and was published online in 2019, while "Sorrow" (2019), "A Future Bright and Free" (2020), "Empowered (2020), "Paying Attention" (2020), and her flash fictions "Allure (2017), "The Cabin (2019), and "The Scent of White Chrysanthemums" (2019) were finalists at contests by WOW! Woman on Writing. "The Cabin" received an Honorable Mention in 2020. An interview was published by them on January 5th, 2020, and one in April 2021 after "A Future Bright and Free" also won Runner Up statues and was published online.
Cassandra's creative nonfiction essay "Things That Matter", her fiction "Parenting Advice" and plays “The Chair” and “Three Tickets for the Show” had been selected as finalists by the college she attended to represent them in several literary competitions in recent years.
Her work appeared in online literary journals and magazines like The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Illinois State Poetry Society, 2019, 2020, WOW! Women on Writing, 2019, and forthcoming in Spark Literary Journal, Unlimited Literature Magazine (UL-Mag), and Ariel's Dream Literary Journal in print, in Beautiful Words by Ariel Publishing, The Bookends Review, 2020, and more.
You can also find some of Cassandra’s work on her website: ccrossing888.wixsite.com/cassandra and on Patron: www.patreon.com/CassandraCrossing.
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