A Warning from the Depths

You must train your intuition — you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide.

~Ingrid Bergman

A solid wood chest, like something you’d see in a pirate movie, rushes toward the near bank in the strong flow of the Mississippi River. It catches on some rocks in the shallows and settles in place. I’m standing near the shore with only a few flimsy reeds between me and the chest. My heart thuds and I can hardly breathe. I know people will see it. Dread washes over me. For I know that crammed inside the trunk is the body of my ex-boyfriend, murdered by me.

I woke up under a yellow-and-orange floral comforter beneath a window that looked out on the lake. I was in my family’s vacation cabin in the bed my grandma used to sleep in, and before that my Great-Aunt Rosemary. My mom and sisters were also in the cabin, and we were enjoying summer break. It was the summer after my first year away at college, and I felt very wise for deciding not to get a summer internship and instead laze away the days reading novels on the pier and getting crazy tan lines.

I got out of bed and put on a swimsuit because that’s what summers at the lake were all about. I had some sourdough bread and a mug of hot chocolate outside. The cabin was for sleeping. Living was done outside! At night, we would light a campfire and sit out under the wild northern stars with sweatshirts over our swimsuits. When the sky finally darkened around 10 p.m., we would listen for the haunting nighttime calls of the loons, my favorite sound.

I crawled back into bed to read a fantasy novel and dreamt again.

I walk through some brush and peer out toward the rushing waters of the Mississippi. I hold my breath in horror, and there I see—the chest. It’s bumping up against the shore, and I know somebody will find it. And then everyone will know that I murdered my ex-boyfriend.

As the summer came to a close, I had to admit that I was not excited to return to school. I had this background anxiety about it. It didn’t make sense to me at all. I had made more friends my freshman year at college than I had ever had in my life. Good friends. Also, I had straight A’s and had been enjoying band and choir and other groups I had joined. I had a fun, busy social life. Why was I dreading sophomore year? Also, why was I having such an awful recurring dream?

About a week before I was to hop in my Jeep Wrangler and return to school, the dreams became incessant, over and over every night. Finally, I had to look deep and ask why I kept seeing that image of the locked chest. Why was the dead body of my ex inside? Why was I the murderer?

About one week before finals, I had broken up with my first boyfriend. I tried not to think about it so I could get through studying and my tests. With exams finished and A’s achieved, I drove up to the lake house and didn’t give it a second thought. It was a great place to relax and forget about breaking up with him.

However, it seemed like my dreaming mind wouldn’t let me forget. It held a secret locked in a chest, and it was yelling at me every night—a warning from the depths of the Mississippi.

My college was located on the banks of the Mississippi River. My boyfriend and I had taken romantic walks along the river several times in an area that was dark, quiet and empty of people. This romantic setting was perverted by my boyfriend’s intentions to have me do things he knew I didn’t want to do.

I remembered the way he tried to manipulate me, and keep me feeling down and guilty. I remembered getting banged against the wall, his threats for displeasing things I’d said. I remembered him controlling where I went, his anger at who I talked to, his blame for all his problems. There was the coercion again and again, hits to emphasize his point, bloodstains on the carpet that embarrassed me, bloody scabs getting ripped open, and crying and pushing him off me whenever I was about to break.

That summer, I never thought about that part of freshman year— until the dream made me. Finals week had not just been about studying and testing. It had been about hiding from my stalker, running from him at night, fighting him off on a path under a lantern, and getting assaulted in a private library room I’d thought was safe. And finally, it was a struggle while locked in his dorm room where I held him in a chokehold, waiting for him to pass out so I could escape.

The meaning of my dream hit me strong. It was an epiphany; I sort of did want to kill him then! And worse, I couldn’t reconcile my perception of myself as a strong, fun, intelligent woman with the girl who had been mentally tortured by her first boyfriend.

I had an entire week to run through my options. I considered transferring schools. There were great majors I could pursue at even better schools. But I had to balance that against all the friends I’d made and all the groundwork I’d laid for an amazing college experience. I was angry! Should I let him scare me away from my new home? Ultimately, I decided to return on my own terms.

The first thing I did when I got back to school that fall was to arrange a meeting with him. I told him straight to his face, with a composed body and mind, “You abused me mentally, physically, and sexually. I will never talk to you or have anything to do with you ever again.” And I didn’t. I said what I needed to say, and I am so grateful that I realized I needed to do that, or I would probably not be the recovered person I am today.

When I think back to that day, I imagine that chest floating far out into the water and sinking deep, deep under the waves of the Mississippi to get covered by loads of silty muck, never to surface again.

— Addison Sorenson —