I imagine that Barbara Braun* would have sharpened her husband Sylvester’s blades before each of their knife throwing acts, and then she’d let him strap her to a plank of wood, buckling her wrists and ankles before blindfolding her.

I didn’t know what coercive control was when I was married, or that it was a criminal offence in Ireland and that emotional abuse by a partner or ex-partner fell within its parameters. Six years after I left H, my pain management consultant told me that chronic pelvic pain is often a symptom of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. The body remembers even if the mind wants to forget.

Perhaps Barbara, when she was ready and knowing that she’d survive his onslaught, and trusting his skill, would tell Sylvester to do what he had to do, no matter how bloody that might be.

I remember the one time H raised his hand during an argument about him going to the pub so often. I stepped closer and goaded him to hit me. But his hand stopped mid-flight. We both knew that if his fist connected with my eye, I would leave, now that I would be wearing a visible sign of his abuse.

I imagine Sylvester holding each knife by its steel blade and with a flick of his wrist let it fly in a half-spin towards his wife. And Barbara, eyes closed, waiting for the thud of steel hitting wood and hoping that steel wouldn’t hit flesh.

Instead of his hand or fist, H bombarded me with words that impaled my body in a way a knife never could.

Ass, bitch, tyrant. There’s nothing wrong with our marriage, it’s all in your head, you’re depressed.

The bombardments grew in intensity towards the end of the marriage and in the months after I left him, it turned into a Blitzkrieg. I was more afraid of what he might do then than anything he ever did when I lived with him.

Something terrible is going to happen if you don’t come back. You are destroying us all.

I inputted the phone number of the local police station on my speed dial list.

Barbara wouldn’t have flinched when a knife landed millimetres from the tip of her right ear or another grazed her left thumbnail. “More,” she would say, until Sylvester had nothing left to throw.

My body remained unscathed, not even a graze or a scratch on my skin, but my heart was bled dry of blood until it dried into a shrivelled prune. Little by little, his words wore me down, like waves erode rock. How even the hardest rock eventually crumbles into grit and grains, and is swept out to sea.

After Sylvester had thrown his last knife, unblindfolded and unfastened his wife, he would bow while the crowd stood, cheering and clapping. Meanwhile, Barbara would pull each knife from the plank, lock them in their wooden case until they were needed again.

After H had thrown his last word, he would grab his keys, bang the door behind him and spend the evening in the pub with his drinking mates. Meanwhile, on my own in our kitchen, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t extract his words. They had hit their target and were embedded in my body. He never needed to pull those words out because he had plenty left in his armoury to throw at me again. Their extraction wouldn’t occur until years later in therapy.

*Sylvester & Barbara Braun were a professional knife throwing act in the 1940s.

Our house is crooked, the way old houses often are. One corner has settled and dragged everything else along with it. We grew up walking with a slight tilt, the way sailors might. When my father finally got around to levelling the upstairs floor, we all thought we were going to fall over the banister.

One of the first funhouses to appear was at Coney Island in the 1900s. The house was named SUSANNA. If our house had a name, it would be called DEN OF INIQUITY.

We go to God’s House every Sunday. My father roughly holds my chin, a cigarette wedged between his fingers, as he rakes the comb through my hair. The smoke makes my eyes water. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

We rarely turned the lights on. He didn’t like the brightness. Instead, we navigated like moles, using all of our senses to find safe passage. In the darkness of the kitchen two red dots bob and flare as they take a drag from their cigarettes. I hear her imitating me in a high, squeaky voice, “Stop it! Stop it!” They both laugh and the dots look like comets in the night sky. I turn around, climb the fifteen creaky stairs and crawl back into my bed that is levelled by a stack of books under one corner.

Most funhouses employ the same features: sections of floor that undulate up and down or side to side, an array of distorting mirrors, jets of compressed air that shoot randomly, a ‘barrel of love’ that dares you to walk through it without falling down, and a viewing area where patrons can watch and laugh at new arrivals as they attempt to navigate the house.

In my Father’s house there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. John 14:2

I am walking through the kitchen on my way outside to meet a friend on a sunny afternoon. Her face is pressed against the screen door, smiling. My father is sitting at the table when he asks me to cut the grass. I said, “Sure. I’ll do it later.” And I meant it. His fist strikes like lightening. The kitchen fills with watery shooting stars. I look toward the screen door and my friend has vanished.

The church ladies sit in pews, their apple doll faces floury with peach powder. Old men move stiffly in their suits and shiny, squeaky shoes. The Sanctuary stinks of sulphur, of rotting carnations, leftovers from a funeral earlier in the week. We learn all the ways we are unworthy. I am an excellent student.

Funhouses seek to distort conventional perceptions and startle people with unpredictable physical circumstances within an atmosphere of whacky whimsicality.

The Renfrew Fall Fair was the most anticipated event of the season. The midway boasted The Scrambler, The Octopus, the Tilt-a-Whirl and a Fun House. Too nauseous from the spinning rides, I decide to explore the fun house. In the dim light, I watch my distorted reflection move along tilted corridors. I enter a darkened room that appears to have no exit. Suddenly, I am awash with sweat, hot tears prickling my eyes. I want to call for help but my voice refuses to work. I hear laughter all around me and sparks race up my arms, down my legs, while I stand frozen in place, a clenched fist where my heart should be. A group of teens burst through a panel that was a hidden door. I follow their laughing bodies out into the autumn night air. My ears are ringing. I feel the earth tilt and spin.

Whimsical: capricious, fickle, inconstant, changeable, variable, unstable, mercurial, volatile, erratic, impulsive, temperamental, quirky, unpredictable.

My body is reflected back to me, Picasso pieces from the wall of mirror tiles in the bathroom. Installed in the 1970s, they have an ochre pattern that looks like lichen. At a certain angle according to the mirror on the wall, I have three breasts and a chunk missing from my right thigh. There are no full-length mirrors in the house. My body image is informed by these tiles.

Some funhouses feature a spinning disc in the floor. When someone wanders onto it, it spins faster and faster until the centrifugal force hurls the patron into the padded walls.

I keep having this dream. I am walking through a new home and I discover rooms I didn’t know about. There is always something terribly wrong with these new spaces. Sometimes water is pouring through the ceiling and I am desperate to repair the leaks before more damage occurs. In another version of the dream, dread slides through my body like quicksilver and the doors slam, the beds levitate and I am flung into the wall like a ragdoll.

Five days after the fire, on a borrowed pillow, in a borrowed bed, in a borrowed house, I roll onto my side and blink at the clock.

Slow to wake, my body sluggish, a bladder full, I sit my butt on the edge of the bed, plant my feet on the floor, slog to the toilet.

Then back to bed.

Awake now, I lean against two pillows. Set the timer on my cellphone for a twenty-minute meditation. Close my eyes, transcend thoughts, sink into stillness. The quiet engulfs me for ten minutes.

Then thoughts percolate.

Tormenting thoughts—mental invaders. My mind a pitcher of these thoughts pouring into my lap—The neighborhood leveled. Blackened rubble and ash for miles. My beloved cat. Gone. Forty-five years of artwork. Gone. Clothes. Gone. Twenty-plus years of manuscript drafts. Burned.

Let myself snivel over loss for as long as it takes.

Dry my eyes, blow my nose, inhale a deep breath, re-enter the silence.

My mantra shifts: Let go of the fire. Let those thoughts swim away. They’re no good to you anymore. You can build a new house, make new paintings, write new manuscripts, sew new clothes, buy new furniture, get another cat.

The evacuation memory clings tight—a dystopian spectacle: orange-singed air, seething with smoke and ash, fire storming guardrail supports, scattering debris onto the highway, reliving the heart-pounding panic as you drive faster, scared stiff your car will catch fire.

When the timer chimes, I open my eyes. My heart still racing. Mind swirling, dizzying, scanning the yellow walls of the big, borrowed master bedroom. A fireplace on the far wall. To me, it’s a wall of fire.

Get up. There’s work to do.

Brush my teeth. Scan my face in the mirror. Check for new wrinkles. Scrutinize the after-fire stress in my jowls.

There’s water. Take a shower. Cleanse the soot from my brain—the fire frenzy image of firefighters trying hard to fight the inferno, to squelch the dragon’s exploding breath. Without water.

News Report: City of Talent [Oregon] “During the events of the Almeda Fire that began on September 8^th [2020], the City of Talent water system was depressurized due to loss of power ...”

Power outage by early afternoon. By 11:00 p.m. fire breached our neighborhood. No power—no water to fight the flames.

I dress in borrowed sweats. Sweats from the walk-in closet filled with clothes just for me if I want them.

There’s work to do.

We need blueprints for a new house. A contractor. Permits. But first we make lists of our losses for insurance. Lists of contents lost in the fire, down to every fork, every spoon. These lists of our losses keep me chained to the ash. Keep me from moving on.

Entering my borrowed office, I write about the fire while my memory is fresh, the vivid recollections of ravenous feral flames spreading in unpredictable ways due to high wind blasts. Write through burning tears about the many lost homes and displaced people, like my partner and me, but we’re lucky—we’ve borrowed this furnished house to live in during the re-build of our home.

We don’t know how long we’ll be here. Day after day in this borrowed house. Day after day cooking meals in this borrowed kitchen. Day after day with displaced sensations.

Wearing masks going out—masks from the smoke, masks from the pandemic. Day after day—masks. For months.

For months after the insurance lists have been submitted, I busy myself with new lists. Lists of items for the new house, down to every fork, every spoon.

It’s been seven months since the Almeda fire. My partner and I finish our dinner and drive to the fire site. The blackened wound where our home burned down is scabbed over now with new footings and floor joists. Our contractor tells us ten more months before our house is built.

This evening in the borrowed kitchen, I make popcorn. Not one kernel burns. In the living room, we eat our popcorn, watch a utopian movie on the borrowed big-screen TV. After stuffing ourselves, my partner rubs my feet.

Upstairs in the borrowed bed, we lay our heads on the borrowed pillows, and I wrap my body in his. Snuggle. Feel his warmth.

Then I roll onto my side and fall asleep into the settled ashes of another borrowed day.