The Bubble Where Her Silence Lay
Shameka Erby
Drifting in and out of consciousness can be a good thing. It allows the mind to know the pleasure of freedom, moments of eternal silence, seconds one doesn’t have to waste trying to find something to think of. Drifting in and out of consciousness can be a good thing. Drifting in and out of reality was something altogether different though. Doing that implied that one was crazy. It took the meaning that one was striving not to see what was really there. Drifting in and out of consciousness means that one has seen it; one would just like to forget about it for a while. Jade Paula Daniels would love to forget about it. That was her very favorite thing. She was addicted to the peace, obsessed with the tranquility, fanatical about the silence. There was far too much noise in her life. Her husband’s needs were deafening, her mother’s complaints were thunderous, and her child’s cries pierced her very soul. The noise threatened to kill her on a daily basis. There was only one thing to do in a situation such as that: drift in and out of consciousness. The bubble she immersed herself in was delicate, but effective. It maintained shape and stamina though it was terrorized by the light of day, intimidated by her duties as daughter, wife, and mother. The bubble where her silence lay was tough; it withstood the test of time.
Jade Paula Daniels sat up straight at her computer, reality breaking up her cloudy haze. Oh how she wished she could remain in that bubble, in that silence, for the rest of her life. But the noise kept coming back to get her. She cleared her throat and flexed her fingers. It was that time again. It was time to give the world what they wanted. The world didn’t want silence; they wanted J.P. Daniels, author extraordinaire. The expectations of the public brought their own kind of noise, but this she didn’t mind, mostly because they financed her silence. Without them she could never afford the key to her quiet: Jack Daniels and Xanax. Jade didn’t think she could live, let alone write without these two. Jack, whom she thought of as a special friend because they had the same last name, had been in her life since she was twelve, when her mother’s insults had finally forced her to seek quiet and comfort the same way her father did: in a bottle. The pills came later, after Paulette was born. Jade was cursed with sudden and violent mood swings associated with postpartum depression, and the doctor had taken pity on her and prescribed the Xanax as a stabilizer. She’d loved it ever since. Nothing drowned out baby cries as effectively as they did. Her husband was angry because the pills meant that she couldn’t breastfeed, but she’d shut his mouth.
“What am I supposed to do? What if the mood swings get worse? I don’t want to take it out on the baby,” She’d said, squeezing a tear from her eye. He’d caved; what else could he do? She patted herself on the back for that performance. In truth, even if she hadn’t been on the pills, she drank too much before she got pregnant and after she had the baby to breastfeed Paulette. But like her father she was a pro, and her husband never knew she was more than a regular social drinker--or at the very least, he pretended. Besides that, who wanted to walk around with some kid hanging off her tit, sucking the life out of her? It was like the sun when she was sleeping off a hangover: totally annoying and unnecessary.
“Breastfeed? Are you people crazy? I’m an artist, damn it!” she said out loud now, in her empty office. She was angry at the thought of it. She stood up and went to the door, listening for her husband and/ or child. When all stayed quiet, she went back to her desk, opened her bottom drawer, and removed her fifth of Jack. She took three or four long swigs, and when she felt the liquor warming her chest, only then did she sit down to write.
When Jade was nine years old, she wrote an essay on how parents can shape their children’s lives with the words they say. Her teachers were impressed at how mature her words were, and they entered the essay in a statewide contest. Jade won second place. Her writing career was launched at that very moment. Her mother was only too thrilled, because she figured that Jade could become a famous writer, run in the most privileged of social circles, and thus meet her husband, for she was not so pretty that she could meet him any other way. It didn’t happen quite like that. She had a series of affairs with affluent, rich, older men starting when she was fifteen, searching for the father figure she’d never had, her therapist might say. Her own father had spent her entire life drowning out her mother. At first she blamed him, until she got married herself and realized how very necessary it was. By the time she was eighteen, she published her first novel, Natalie’s Music, about a woman who dares to become a musician after her abusive husband forbids her. The public ate it up, the critics loved it, and the agents came calling. One of them was Malcolm Daniels. Malcolm was 25 at the time, handsome, up-and-coming, and extremely intelligent. He praised her writing to the skies, and made such a big deal about her talent that when he asked to represent her, she signed over 15% of her earnings with the same ease that she opened her thighs that night. There was no turning back after that; J. P. Daniels was born. They were married a year later, when her second book made them both too rich to realize that their love was really the hazy afterglow of their many mutual orgasms. She was happy for a long time. She lived in a peach-colored fantasy where she was financially secure, sexually satisfied, and spoiled rotten. But best of all she had Jack (Daniels), who made her mother’s insults mute so easily it was as though Jade had a remote control. Two years later, Jade gave birth to Paulette, who everyone said was going to be her crowning achievement. Jade thought her crowning achievement was the book she wrote that year.
Paulette was born prematurely, a frail little thing, weak and shaky. Jade refused to spend any more time with her than was absolutely necessary; the child made her sad for some reason. Paulette was nine now, and needy. Jade could barely stand the little girl. Her mother was still trying to tell her that she wasn’t good enough for anything or anyone. Xanax was better for dealing with her; it provided a lift that kept a serene expression on her face, and her mother couldn’t smell it. As for her husband, she was still having sex with him as much as humanly possible; it kept her from confronting the sad fact that he was a very boring man. Jade was always on the verge of drifting out of reality; her life was that bad. But she didn’t want to give anyone cause to do more than they already did, which was ignore her. So she went to her dependable bubble and drifted out of consciousness instead.
Her hands flew across the keyboard, racing the part of her that wanted to drift, and trying to finish these pages for her editor. She finally finished her corrections and sat back. She licked her lips, imagining the pleasure of seeing another one of her books on the stands. After nine bestsellers Jade still got a rush of delight, almost orgasmic, when she realized that the world still wanted more of J.P. Daniels. She opened her top drawer, got out her bottle of happy pills, popped two, and chewed a handful of mints. As she waited for her bubble to arrive, she saved her work, and emailed it to her editor. By the time the bubble came to take her, she was smiling as sweetly as freshly cut sugar cane. She went into her bedroom and turned on the TV, for appearances more than anything else. Jade didn’t know how long she sat there before her husband peeked in the door.
“Hey,” He said.
“Hey,” She said back. He came in and sat next to her on the bed.
“Finished?” he asked.
“Finished,” She replied, smiling. He grinned. He laid her down on the bed and kissed her. Jade kissed him back thoroughly, knowing that her breath tasted like the mints she’d eaten earlier. They undressed each other, kissing and touching. Jade moaned. His hands felt as soft as the bubble she was in. She started kissing him everywhere, tasting the whiskey she’d digested all over his skin. When she slid him into her mouth, she moaned as the liquor warmed her entire body. When he finally entered her, she was screaming, feeling blissful, as if the pills had kicked into overtime. When he thrust over and over, she was lifting the bottle to her lips. When he kissed her mouth, she was swallowing the pills. They made love, hard and steady, and as she felt him release inside her, and splash her walls with his essence, she felt the warm liquor splash her throat as she swallowed it. Jade yelled out her climax, feeling the bubble take her again and the whiskey warming her chest.
When she woke up, Malcolm was gone. He’d probably gone to get Paulette from his mother’s house, but she didn’t really care. She was still blissfully sated, but unfortunately had slept off her buzz. She got up and trotted naked, to her office and sat down. After two more pills, and a few fortifying drinks, she opened to a new document and started typing. She was in such a zone that she almost didn’t hear her family come in. Her daughter came up behind her, kissed her cheek, and left the room without speaking. Jade smiled. Paulette was finally beginning to understand. When Mommy was in her bubble, it must be very, very quiet.
