Coat of Despair
It won’t be easy
Muddy smears stretched from one end of the hallway to the other. Down the center, I spied dirty shoe marks. Someone had slunk into my house, and I knew who. I pinched my lips together. “Ginny,” I called, “Ginny, where are you?”
I stepped from the bathroom and followed the muddy streaks up the hallway into the kitchen. Dressed in a brown coat, Ginny stood leaning up against the wall, a vacant expression on her face. Her hair hung in greasy clumps and a spattering of white capped pimples protruded from her forehead.
“Hello,” she said. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer, so I let myself in.”
“I was showering.” My eyes narrowed and I jerked my thumb towards the hallway. “Are you responsible for that muddy mess?”
Ginny looked down at her coat. “Yeah, guilty as charged.” She gripped the garment and pulled upwards, revealing a grubby, sopping wet hemline. “I trod in a puddle on the way here, it shouldn’t take long to clean.”
“Well you better get to it then?”
She rolled her eyes. “No you mop it Miss Bossy. It’s not like you have anything better to do.”
The gull! I slammed my fist on the bench. Too bad it wasn’t her head. That would give her a shock, wipe that silly vacant expression off her face. Ginny and I had been friends since high school. We didn’t always adhere to niceties. “Why are you wearing that ugly coat?” I reached out and fingered the material. “It’s spiky, and the fluorescent pink and yellow stitching is beyond disgusting.”
“Ahh, thanks Einstein. Do you think I’m stupid or something? Of course, I know it’s bloody revolting.” She pulled the coat tighter around her thin body.
Here we go again, I thought, another Ginny sulking fit. Three months ago, she’d caught her fiancé in bed with her cousin. Her facial expression, thereafter, had been one of gloom. I glared at her.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“At you. What’s that red blotchy rash on your neck?”
“Umm, it’s the coat.” She slumped into a nearby chair. “The spiky material has caused a skin irritation. That’s only the beginning.” She held up red, blood-stained fingers, then pointed to one of the brown-jagged buttons. “The buttons are made from broken glass. Every time I touch them, I cut my fingers.”
“Can I ask a stupid question? If the coat is physically hurting you, why not take it off? I leaned forward for a closer inspection, but stopped mid-act and screwed up my nose. Something stank. “What’s that foul smell?”
Ginny stood up and pushed me away. “I’ve been wearing the coat for the last three months, non-stop, even to bed, now it stinks of body odor.”
“For the love of God, Ginny, take the it off.” I grabbed the collar and yanked downwards. “You need to take it off and have a shower.”
“I can’t,” Ginny screamed, twisting out of my grasp. “I can’t, I am not ready to take it off. Stop telling me what to do.” She stomped her foot.
“Okay.” I flung my hands over my head, and backed away from her. “Gee whiz, I was only trying to help.”
“Well, don’t. If I needed help. I’d ask,” she yelled. “Anyway, instead of worrying about me, why don’t you focus on your own problems?”
“Problems,” why would you say that? I am fine, I, I,” my voice trailed off.
She broke into peels of giggles. “Are you kidding?” Then she spun around and pointed to six empty wine bottles stacked side by side on the sink. “I’ve caught you unawares haven’t I? You would have tossed them in the trash if you’d known I was going to drop by.”
Oh God, she knew. I tensed my legs ready to flee. A year ago, Troy, my long-term boyfriend had died in a car accident. My happy, sunny Troy, who lit up my world and made me laugh was now a distant memory. I cleared my throat, resisting the desire to break into hysterical crying. “Ginny,” I whispered, “it’s only the occasional glass.”
“No it’s not. How much wine did you drink last night, four glasses, six, the entire bottle?”
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. I’d knocked back two bottles. She stood there eyeballing me, waiting for me to reply. My body began to tremble under her watchful eye, still I didn’t speak. Three minutes passed, then five, and she still stared at me. I turned away.
“You don’t understand. The alcohol takes away the pain. I can’t stop.”
She came up behind me and together we stood opposite the oven. In the glass reflection my image wobbled from side to side, then exploded with a loud pop into a cloud of black smoke. I crossed my arms over my stomach, and backed up, putting space between me and the oven. “What,” I gasped, “what the hell?”
“You’ll see,” Ginny said. “In a second your reflection will reappear, watch, wait and see what your wearing.”
I waited, and then slowly my image took form, fuzzy at fist, then after several seconds, clearer. I gasped. A coat, an exact replica of Ginny’s took shape around my body. My eyes bulged in their sockets and I leaned toward the glass for a closer inspection. I noticed three problems straight off, a red rash on my neck, bleeding fingers, and the coat’s wet and muddy hemline.
A prickly sensation engulfed my entire body, and I glanced downward to investigate. The coat! It wasn’t just the reflection I was wearing it, in real life. “Help Ginny,” I called. “Get it off me,” I yanked the collar, I clawed and pulled at the sleeves, but as though glued on, the coat remained stuck. “Get it off, get it off.” My breaths became faster and louder, I clutched my neck, gasping for breath. The coat pressed tighter and tighter around me. Then I smelt it, the stench of body odor wafting up from my underarms. God, I flung my hand over my mouth and gagged. How long had I been wearing this monstrosity? My vision spun, and dizzy I wobbled about as though I might faint, I hoped I would, anything to end this nightmare. Then smack, a cold puff of air hit my face and when I focused on the oven mirror again, the coat had vanished. With shaky hand I patted myself up and down. “It’s disappeared,” I uttered.
“Not really,” Ginny replied. She circled her arms around my tummy. “You can’t see it, but it’s still there, your invisible coat of depression.”
“I hate it,” my hands gripped hers. “Can you help me take it off?”
She borrowed her head into my shoulder. “I wish I could, but I can’t take off my own.”
“What should we do then?”
As though her head weighed a ton, she lifted it. It won’t be easy, she said, but there is one thing. Reach out to someone who can help us. The Depression Hotline perhaps.”
“Yes,” I murmured. ‘It’s a start, and for today a start is all we need.”
