He stood. It howled. Clawed at him, trying to clutch. Trying to drag him down, down into helplessness. Frantic. He watched. Emotionless.
I am the storm, he said to himself.
He awoke, opening his eyes. He stared at the ceiling above his bed. He had never noticed the unique patterns each tile contained. Now, he tried to draw patterns in the lines and dashes, connecting the dots in their constellations. The sun glazed his face with warmth and calm. Slowly, he folded back the blanket from his partially clothed body, standing from the bed before reorganizing the quilt to a flat position. He smiled at it. He walked slowly through the living room. The door was closed. He made his way to the kitchen, grabbing the green bottle off of the counter and placing it in the freezer where it accompanied another half bottle resting in the plastic sleeve of the door. He would do the dishes today he thought. He took a fresh glass out of the cupboard and filled it with warm water twice over drinking slowly each time. In the bathroom, he examined his face, staring at it. It was tired, dark bags under each eye, but free of blemishes and wounds save for a red scratch just above his beard on his left cheek and a scar just below his hairline. He ran his finger over it, feeling the depression it left. He turned the nob, placing his hands under the tap and collecting water before splashing it on his face, clearing away the ash and sleep. He didn’t dry away the water on his face, letting it drip onto his shoulders and chest and the floor. He retrieved the box and sat on the couch, emptying its contents on the table beside his charging phone. A pistol and some bullets lay on the table. As did a bible, a small gold cross, both belonging to his grandfather many years ago, and photos. He thought about reading the book again, perhaps restarting where he gave up when he was a child. He remembered where he had stopped. He placed the chain beside the page as a bookmark and closed it. He fingered through the stack, stopping at one of two children, a ten-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy, holding hands on a rocky beach. The both wore brightly coloured swimsuits, the girl holding her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun and the boy missing a sandal that was never found. He turned the photo over. Pen in his mother’s handwriting. Crystal, 10 & Jack, 9, Sliver Lake. He smiled at his sister. He wondered if she was dreaming. He returned the photo to the stack and thumbed through more. A Polaroid. A couple. His arms wrapped around his wife on their wedding day, both truly happy, her belly big, his tie untied and hanging lazily around his neck, her eyes winged by lines from laughter. A long time ago, it seemed. Kelly and Jack, happy once. He wondered what she was doing then, who she was with and whether she was happy. He hoped she was happy. He hoped she forgave him. A photo of a little boy sitting on his mother’s lap at Christmas, clutching a stuffed pig named Sizzle, a few feet in front of a tree brightly decorated above scattered paper and little notes from Santa Claus. It was his favorite photo. The caption was his. Kelly and Jackson, first Christmas in new home. He began to cry just as he had when he took the photo, he smiled through the tears. He stared at the boy whose eyes and hair matched his, whose nose and mouth his mother’s.
I’m sorry. He said.
He would be a young man now he thought. He imagined that the man he would have become would be better than he was. That they would have agreed and not fought. He sighed, wiping away the tears.
He opened the pistol and took out the bullets, careful to replace them in their box, before returning the gun to its home inside the shoe box. He placed the book and the cross wrapped within it on top. He picked up the stack of photos. His family, friends, his sister, all there underneath the photo of his son taken on his front lawn what seemed like a lifetime ago. He placed them on top of the book, taking one last look at his the boy before smiling and placing the lid on it. He knelt and pushed the box under the bed, not afraid of what might be waiting for him there, and stood back up and left the room. He looked around the place that had been his home. Ash and regret and filth. I should clean this place, he thought before heading towards the open door. As he walked, he didn’t bother to pick up his phone from the table. He didn’t think of the green bottles that occupied his freezer. Just stepped outside onto the concrete step. He didn’t light a cigarette. The sky was less grey today. Less grey and less ash was falling on him. He wondered how far away the fire must be, raging out in the wilderness and causing the light ash to snow down upon him. A car drove by the gap in the alley and there was no one staring at him from the windows beyond it. A rat bobbed out from behind the dumpster to his left. It was jet black with only one red eye staring directly at him. Above him, he noticed the garage outside light was on. A faint ray of sunlight broke through the haze overhead and hit him. Something landed in his eye. Then his shoulders and hair. It was rain. Rain that he thought he had forgotten the feeling of. Covering his eyes with the canopy of his hand, he looked upwards and smiled. He could see a wedge of blue above him and in that moment, he knew. He knew that he didn’t have to stay in this place. He knew that he could leave the demons that had haunted him so intensely behind. The rain mixed with the ash and mudded his hair as it began the long task of washing away the blackness of the ashes that had made this place unliveable. He walked down the steps, down the alley, towards the street, unsure of where he was going but knowing he’d find whatever it was he was looking for. The blue light, the warmth, the rain on his face felt nice.
It was a Friday.
Dreams Page 11
