The Other Side

by Daniel Willcocks

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “So many questions…” she trails off without answering any of yours.

  “Where are we going?”

  This time, she answers. “East. To Canal.”

  You nod as if the answer makes complete sense. It makes none.

  “Are you coming with me?”

  “It depends on how far you’re going.”

  An answer. The first. Something to build on. You try harder.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Yes.”

  Another terse answer, a frustrating itch originating beneath the skin—impossible to scratch.

  “Then, what should I call you?”

  “Noe.”

  You glance in the mirror perched near the driver-side door where you see, what you think is, a flash of light. But when you blink, the mirror is back to reflecting the enormity of the darkness.

  “Am I being punished or rewarded? This is my favorite car of all time.”

  “Well, then,” Noe responds. But she doesn’t.

  You feel a queasiness in your stomach, a sour, roiling mash of nerves and anxiety. You want to vomit, and in the next moment, it passes.

  Noe notices. “It’s coming.”

  “What is coming?”

  “You’ll see.”

  An artist of evasion, a mistress of ambiguity.

  “What will happen if I try crashing this thing? I could drive it off the road and right into a big rock, or a guardrail, or a tractor trailer, or something.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  You don’t understand what she means. You are the one driving. Noe is in the passenger seat. Her life is in your hands.

  “Try it.”

  You yank the leather-wrapped steering wheel to the right. The headlights cut across the unfolding highway and into the vast stretch of desert—but only for a split second. The highway returns beneath the Corvette. You veer to the other side. It happens again.

  “See.”

  Her smugness weighs on you as heavily as the dark night.

  “I guess I can’t slam on the brakes either. Should I try that and see what happens?”

  Noe smiles and shakes her head as if it doesn’t matter. You know it won’t, but you do it anyway. The Corvette doesn’t stop, doesn’t even slow down.

  “How much do you remember?”

  A boy? A fire? The thoughts dissipate before you can grab at them.

  Now she is asking you questions. You want to ignore her, to punish her for not being direct with you. But you can’t withhold. You answer her.

  “Nothing.”

  Your father owned a 1977 Corvette when you were a teenager. He’d let you drive it sometimes. He’d sold the Corvette. He’d died. Maybe your response isn’t entirely true.

  “You won’t remember circumstances. Only snippets of images, fragments of conversations, fractals of dreams.”

  Now she is answering questions that you are not asking.

  “Why?”

  Noe chuckles—the sound of crushed gravel inside a glass jar. “Why what?”

  “Why is that all I can remember? I know I had a father. I know he’s passed, but I can’t see his face. Why can’t I see his face?”

  “Because you’re not looking at it.”

  You finally shift the 350, 180-horsepower engine into fifth gear. The car rumbles, the wind now whipping through and yet, Noe’s hair remains perfectly bound by her hair wrap.

  “You’re going to have to decide.”

  “Decide what?” you ask, your mouth turning dry and your palms sweating. “What do I have to decide?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Fighting her won’t enlighten you. You don’t think acquiescing will either. She’s been in this car before, driving down this highway many times. You don’t know how you know that, but you do.

  “I’m tired.” You yawn, your eyes burning. “Can I stop to rest?”

  “Not possible.”

  “Why not?”

  Another smile. Another shrug. Another avoided question.

  “Are we related?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “How?”

  “The universe.”

  Her answer makes sense, and, it doesn’t. You gratefully accept it because you know Noe doesn’t often offer answers.

  “How will I know?”

  “Know what?”

  You scoff, tiring of the verbal jousting. “How far I must drive? How will I know when to stop?”

  “The fork.”

  “When will I see the fork?”

  “When you arrive at it.”

  A rumble begins beneath your feet, on the floorboard. The energy moves up through the soles of your shoes, into your ankles, and it is vibrating up your leg. You shiver. Your hands shake.

  “Ah, yes,” Noe says. “Here it comes.”

  “Here comes what? What are you expecting to happen?”

  Noe reaches over and twists the knob on the radio. The station locks onto a song—a long-forgotten guitar solo from a tune you barely remember in a time you can’t recall.

  “I don’t like that song. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.”

  “It’s not for you.”

  Noe turns up the volume.

  “What do you mean? Music belongs to everyone. It’s not yours.”

  “The song is mine.”

  With that, Noe leans back into her seat, stretches her legs, and closes her eyes. She’s smiling and mouthing the lyrics to a song without vocals.

  “You won’t be able to choose nothing. Nope. You’re being forced to the fork and you’ll have to decide which way to go.”

  “How do you know all this? How do you know what’s happening?”

  “East. To Canal.” She says it again as if she’s said it a billion times. Maybe she has. You have no way of knowing.

  “And I’m looking for the fork?”

  “The fork will find you, provided you can outrun it.”

  Outrun what? This time, you swallow your question because you know Noe’s answer won’t possibly satisfy you.

  You feel the car’s engine straining. The pop-up headlights illuminate a rust-colored haze settling on the dark highway. You smell dry dirt or sand, ancient earth. When Noe looks at you, you instinctively look in the mirror and that’s when you see it.

  “What is that? What’s behind us?”

  “Firestorm.”

  Now you smell burning wood, charred and black and strong enough to make your eyes water. It’s all so surreal—Biblical. Flames. Hellfire. Burning. You decide not to ask the obvious because you don’t want to hear the answer.

  “Where is it coming from?”

  Noe chuckles. “The question you should be asking is where is it taking you.”

  The physics don’t make sense. It’s night, black as deep space. And yet, you can see the smoke rising in the west and chasing you east toward the horizon. Flames and heat—utter destruction.

  “I can outrun it. This car is fast.”

  “Confidence.”

  You wonder if each word causes Noe pain and that’s why she chooses to use so few of them.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  You move your ear closer to the open window, but you still hear nothing but the wind whipping by as you push the needle of the speedometer past 125 mph. You’re in fifth gear, but the Corvette’s accelerator still has plenty of cushion. Your foot is applying slight pressure and yet, you’re barreling down the highway faster than you’ve ever driven before.

  But the fire is getting closer. Somehow, the storm is moving faster.

  “Okay. I can’t outrun it, can I? You knew that, but you had to let me figure it out on my own.”

  “We all figure everything out on our own.”

  “How far do I have to get before we’re safe? Will we be safe?”

  “It needs you to get to the fork.”

  You nod and put a bit more pressure on the gas pedal. Noe hasn’t e
xplained what the fork is or why the firestorm needs you to get there. Even so, you feel pressured to drive faster. There’s something about the flames that unnerves Noe. You’ve seen her glance into the side mirror several times since the firestorm appeared. She doesn’t want you to notice her watching it. But you do.

  “What if I just stop? Take my foot off the gas, kill the engine, let the car drift onto the shoulder.”

  Noe pauses and for the first time you can see her confidence is shaken—for just a moment. She grins widely, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The wind hadn’t touched her ponytail until now. Until the smell of burning came closer.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not? Why can’t I pull over and let the firestorm go past? We can roll up the windows and wait for it to blow by.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. We are below, at the root of the flames and we cannot outrun or outwit it.”

  “What? I don’t know what you mean. Please explain it to me.”

  “We’ve made this run before. You and I.”

  You nod, feeling as though Noe is going to have to tell you more. You’ve seen a chink in her armor, a crack in her granite façade that means she’s either worried or in unchartered territory—dealing with a situation she hasn’t seen before.

  You push the pedal down harder, the Corvette now approaching 150 mph. When you look in the rearview mirror, it appears as though the firestorm is gaining on you. The faster you drive, the faster it moves, unfurling tongues of orange and red flames into the sky like a demonic version of the aurora borealis.

  “Yes. You should do that.”

  Noe seems relieved by your decision to drive faster, not frightened by it. She’s concerned about the firestorm. She doesn’t want to make this drive again, although you have no memory of making it with her before.

  “How much longer until we make it to the fork? Five miles? Ten miles?”

  She squints as if she’s doing the calculations in her head. But she knows exactly how far it is. You know she knows that.

  “It’s not far. But we can’t drive inside of the firestorm. It’ll melt the tires, stall the engine.”

  “So, I have to stay ahead of it.”

  “Yes.”

  And then it hits you. A glimmer of memory. Not much more than a tickle in your stomach, a tingle at the base of your spine. You feel heat. The smell of smoke intensifies so much that you start coughing and you can’t stop. You hear crying. And yet, it is just you, the highway, Noe, and the firestorm on your trail.

  “What’s burning? What’s on fire?”

  “Just stay ahead of the firestorm.”

  Noe leans back and closes her eyes. For the first time, she appears tired and worn. She’s made this drive hundreds, possibly thousands of times. You know this, even though she won’t disclose it.

  “Was I in the fire?” You don’t know why you ask the question, but it feels right, so you wait for Noe’s reply.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  She must be stalling, hoping you’ll make it to the fork before she has to answer your question. Noe uses her right hand to rub her forehead. She turns and looks at you, holding your gaze for an uncomfortably long time.

  “Because you chose to enter it.”

  “I chose to enter the fire? Why? What does that mean?”

  “It means you were willing to make a sacrifice.”

  “Like, to a god or something? A sacrifice to appease a supreme being?”

  Noe’s smile is wide, warm, genuine. “No, not like that.”

  “Then like what? Tell me.”

  The firestorm is now two or three car lengths behind you. You can’t see the sky any longer, the headlights turning the air in front of the Corvette into an orange soup. You don’t think you’re in the flames but they’re close. The burning stench makes your eyes water.

  She stares out the windshield and you think she’s in a trance. You need answers.

  “Like what? I need you to explain or I’m stopping.”

  Noe raises one hand and lets it fall to her lap. She shakes her head before continuing.

  “You sacrificed yourself, so you get to drive the highway again. Some don’t ever get behind the wheel, let alone multiple times.”

  Another jolt. You look out your window across the barren landscape and, this time, you see a child standing among flames. It’s a boy. That boy. He’s yelling for his mother. The fire has singed his clothes and burned the hair from his head. He’s moments from death. You know this. You feel it.

  “What have I done?”

  “Your actions are not things to regret, but to cherish.”

  Pain. It sears the left side of your body and blinds your left eye. You can feel your skin bubbling, burning off your bones. You look down and you see nothing out of the ordinary, but the pain is eviscerating, stealing the air from your lungs.

  “There isn’t much time. You need to get to the fork before the firestorm overtakes us or you’ll be forced to drive again.”

  Now you’re outside of the Corvette, standing inside a building on a shaking platform that is so hot that it’s melting the tips of your boots. You can no longer see out of your left eye and you’ve lost control of your left hand. The boy—nothing more than a child—wails. He’s shouting at you, waving his arms and yet you’re stuck, unable to retreat or approach. You see the open window framed by flames and you want to walk toward it, but you can’t. You’re stuck. And so is the boy. You try to ask Noe another question, but the pain paralyzes your mouth and steals your words before they can escape from your lips.

  “Faster. We’re almost to the fork.”

  Back inside the Corvette.

  You don’t reply. You can’t nod. Instead, you use every ounce of strength you have to slam the accelerator to the floor. The fire seeps into the car and you can hear the pistons misfiring underneath the hood.

  “There!”

  You lift your head as high as you can, and through the open window, which is hovering just beyond the windshield, you see it. There’s a fork in the road. You’ll have to go left or right, and you won’t have much time to decide.

  You feel the fire licking at the car’s undercarriage. Even in the dark you can see waves of heat coming off the highway. It’s getting hotter the closer you get to the fork. You’re certain of it.

  “Why am I getting so hot? Why is the temperature going up?”

  “There’s something you need to do before you decide at the fork.”

  “What?”

  Noe drops her voice to almost a whisper. “Reversion.”

  “Reversion? What is that? What does that mean? It sounds odd.”

  “It’s not good or bad. It just is.”

  You nod as if you understand. You don’t.

  “I’m here to facilitate the reversion.”

  “Okay.” You want to ask more questions, but you’re not even sure of what you don’t know.

  “Do you remember the flames and the boy?”

  It’s an odd question and you start to ask her what she means when the intensity of the visualization increases. You can see it in your head, like a lucid dream. Someone stands near a window, their back to you. All around the person a fire rages. An inferno.

  “What does this mean? Is this reversion some kind of message or something?”

  “No. It’s more like an intentional recollection but untainted by the imperfections of memory.”

  It’s getting too hot for you to focus on the esoteric and nebulous words spoken by Noe. Instead, you nod and allow her to continue.

  “Do you recognize him?”

  “No,” you respond before you can see his face. Somehow, you doubt you’ll recognize him even if he turns around, which he doesn’t.

  “That’s okay. I didn’t think you would. You would have had no reason to.”

  Noe pauses, then continues, “Do you know why you’re there?”

  “It’s a fire.
Why would I be at a fire? What am I doing there?”

  “I can’t say for certain. But I know that you made your own decision. You were not forced to walk into the flames.”

  “But I did? I walked into something that was burning?”

  “Yes.” Noe winces. “Yes, you did so completely voluntarily.”

  “Who is the person at the window?”

  “A boy. Someone you don’t know.”

  “Does he need help?”

  “Yes. If he isn’t rescued, he’ll die. There’s a good chance he’ll die even if he is rescued. And you know this.”

  Your head hurts. You can’t imagine how Noe can possibly know what you were thinking inside of a memory you can’t quite recall. A reversion, as she calls it.

  “I have to save him. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  “Yes. That is true.”

  You glance down at the speedometer and notice that you’re driving faster. The heat is so intense that some of the plastic on the dashboard is beginning to melt. It wilts and droops like warm taffy.

  Noe is waiting for something from you, but you don’t know what.

  “Okay. So…”

  “Allow the reversion to unfold the way it is meant to.”

  You don’t know what a reversion is, let alone how it’s supposed to unfold, but what choice do you have? You’ll wait for Noe to tell you what to do because there isn’t anything else you can do.

  “Allow yourself to go to him.”

  You do. You walk—in your vision—up to the boy. You put a hand on his shoulder. A hand with an enormous glove, the other wrapped around an ax. You can hear your own breathing inside of a helmet with a face shield.

  “I’m a fireman.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m on a call and I’ve found a boy. He’s trapped by the fire.”

  “Yes.”

  You turn the boy around and his eyes are wide but watery. Tears streak clean lines down his ash-covered face. He’s trying to say something, but you hear nothing except the roar of the fire.

  “I must save him. He’s just a kid.”

  “Let the reversion unfold.”

  You’re now aware of Noe’s presence but only on the periphery of your vision. The Corvette tears down the highway with you behind the wheel, but your mind is somewhere else—in a reversion, fighting a fire, and attempting to rescue an innocent child.