Rebirth

by Michael Poeltl

  “Listen to me, Joel is still here, okay? He’s still our leader, by vote! It’s his call whether we send people to track down the flags, not yours.” I pointed at Earl.

  “I’m allowed to have an opinion aren’t I, Sara? It may not be the same country anymore, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s still free.” He glared at me.

  I readdressed the group. “All I’m saying is not to get caught up in Earl’s hype. We don’t need to throw away our lives. Connor wouldn’t want to be avenged.”

  “Says you!” Earl may have respected Joel’s leadership, but he would not concede the point. “Connor was a good man and a good soldier. And he went to the grave for all of us! All he needed to do was say the word and we’d have all died that day in defiance. But he knew that, and he died for us!” He sat down on a stool by the west windows, exhausted. “And it’s eating me up inside…” His words were not falling on deaf ears. Freddy, Sonny and Kevin approached Earl and stood next to him.

  Seth and Sidney did not move, positioned at the east wall, guns dangling from their uncertain grips. I approached Seth and knelt beside him. We exchanged looks. He was no more ready to go to war with the flags than I was. I recognized indecision in Sidney’s face. Admittedly, a small part of me cherished the idea of going to war with the flags. I was still reeling from the events that lead to Connor’s death.

  I turned to watch as Kevin stood and stared out the west windows. The forest still resembled something from a children’s Halloween picture book. Stripped bare of their leaves, the trees stood as dark silhouettes against a grey-black background. It had been raining on and off since Joel had returned from the woods, after having left us at Connor’s graveside.

  It was approaching 8:30 pm when I heard a door shut. Joel was moving. I rushed out of Skylab and across the hall. His bedroom door was open and the bathroom door now closed. I pressed my ear up against the door and listened. In my peripheral vision I could see the group gathered by the addition entrance.

  There was a murmuring inside the bathroom, followed by a hard thump. Something broke. I jumped back. Looking for encouragement from the others, I slowly approached the bathroom door again. They were frozen in place, unable or perhaps unwilling to move.

  I pressed my ear to the door and heard Joel inside rustling around. I knocked lightly and tried to speak but nothing made it past the lump in my throat. He was ignoring me. How long would this continue? How long could I let it continue? Seth was behind me, gently pulling me away from the door. I held up a restraining hand.

  “I’ll be all right,” I smiled, although I felt like I was in a dream at that moment. My head swam with emotions and memories, making me dizzy. “I need to be alone right now.” Seth nodded and released his delicate grip. I walked into Joel’s bedroom and sat on the bed. A low rumble of thunder rolled through the clouds overhead.

  I wanted to pray, but felt there was no longer anyone listening. My faith had been shaken by the return of the flags, and the devastation they left in their wake. I couldn’t bring myself to pray at Connor’s funeral. Should I have felt I’d let him down by foregoing a prayer? Will his soul not rest now? Crossing my heart I bowed my head in prayer. “Amen,” I muttered aloud after completing my appeal.

  As I panned the room, I felt alienated and lonely. The foreign feeling I got from this place, where I first told Joel I loved him, where we shared so much of ourselves, hurt me deeply.

  I stood and walked towards his desk, where three pages of stationary rested. The top page had been filled top to bottom with Joel’s handwriting. He’d never had a very attractive script. But this scrawl was especially hectic. This writing was done in haste, by a hand that wanted to write as much as possible as fast as possible and move on.

  I sat down to read.

  Chapter Two

  Blank Page, Blank Mind, Blank Brain, Blank man.

  Blink and Blank man disappears, blink and Blank man disappears.

  Blink, and nobody cares. Blink blinky, blink blinky, blink Bitch!

  If I could, I’d blink, if only I could blink. I’d be Blinky, blinking.

  Blank man would disappear.

  I frowned as I struggled to understand. Was he Blank man? No, he wished he were Blank man. Or was it Blinky he wished he was? Was Blank man the angel? He wanted Blank man to disappear. He wanted to erase something, a memory, an action… a person.

  I read on.

  “I know now that a single action can put in motion a series of repercussions. Should that action be positive, the repercussions are rewarding, but when that action is negative, so too are the events to follow. A single action can change you forever. Sometimes, if the deed is large enough, if the intent evil enough, the results can be disastrous.”

  This verse was well thought out and easily understood, but I was still confused. What action was he referring to? Was this written to express his view on what the Reaper had unleashed on humanity, or was this something more personal?

  “What did you do, Joel?” I whispered, my hands covering my mouth as tears flowed down my cheeks. I looked back at the poem. Was Blank man Connor? Could he really have thought Connor and I had been…? Of course he could. He was capable of believing anything. He had confronted Connor on the subject before hitting him. The memory of that moment would never leave me. “Please, no. Please tell me you didn’t, Joel.” But the more I thought it through, the more likely it was that he had somehow orchestrated the execution of his best friend, and if he did, how could I ever love him again?

  I read and reread the poem. I broke it down line by line on the stationary while writing my insights down on another sheet of paper.

  Blank Page, Blank Mind, Blank Brain, Blank man. What was he trying to say here? He saw a blank page, nothing yet written, he had a blank mind again repeated in blank brain, suggesting he himself either couldn’t remember something or didn’t want to remember. Finally he mentioned Blank man. This character could be one of three people I decided. The angel, Connor, or himself. I read on.

  Blink and Blank man disappears, blink and Blank man disappears. With an action he was able to block out the Blank man, making him disappear. Should this have been taken literally? If so, perhaps the Blank man was Connor. But it also might better describe Joel separating himself from something.

  Blink, and nobody cares. Blink blinky, blink blinky, blink Bitch! No one cares… He felt no one would care if Blank man went away, no one would notice, or that the Blank man is worthless. He became repetitive now. He was hell-bent on snuffing out the Blank man. He became frustrated. He couldn’t do it. His inner turmoil was surfacing.

  If I could, I’d blink, if only I could blink. I’d be Blinky, blinking. He knew he needed to do this thing, to erase the Blank man, but felt powerless to do so. He would go to extremes to make Blank man disappear.

  Blank man would disappear. He needed Blank man to disappear.

  I summarized everything I’d been writing down. The conclusion was more revealing, and upsetting than I could have imagined.

  Blank man was Joel. He was deeply disturbed. He felt worthless. He’d done something that he couldn’t forgive himself for. He needed to stop the Blank man. He needed to stop himself. The question was, could he? Could he change? No, nothing in this spoke of change. He wanted to disappear…

  The writing started with Blank page, he wanted to start again.

  I suddenly noticed how silent it was. Had water been running in the bathroom? I looked automatically at my watch. 10:30pm. I’d been toiling over the poem for nearly two hours. I placed my hands at my lower back and stretched, tilting my head back, rolling my neck.

  “What is he doing in there?” I wondered aloud.

  A muffled cry rang through the bathroom wall as Joel thrashed in the tub. Alarmed, I jumped up from the desk and ran into the hall. I pressed my ear against the bathroom door but all was again silent. “Joel,” I said tentatively. “Joel?” I knocked again. Nothing.

  Sidney rounded the corner out of the addition. I waved
him over.

  “Something’s wrong, Sid. He’s not answering. Something’s wrong.”

  “Joel?” he yelled. I looked at him with my best pained expression.

  “Please Sid, kick it in.” I pleaded. Sidney nodded and kicked the bathroom door in.

  Chapter Three

  Nothing could have prepared us for the scene inside. I pushed past Sidney and stopped cold when I spotted the bright red water in the tub. I lived a thousand different scenarios in that moment. As the seconds passed the picture became more and more surreal.

  “No.” I muttered. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” My head shook from side to side, my face tightened and my throat went dry. “NO!” I shouted. I screamed. “NO! JOEL! NO!” I fell hard on my knees to the tiled floor and thrust my arms into the cold water. Pulling Joel free of the icy wetness, I gasped as I saw the life drain from his face.

  “Jesus Christ!” Sid cried from behind me. “What the fuck!” I looked up at him and suppressed my own urge to lose it. I needed to be smart here. I needed to save Joel.

  “Sid,” I said. He didn’t respond. “SID!” I shouted. His eyes focused on mine.

  “Yeah?”

  “Help me move Joel to the floor.”

  He snapped into action and grabbed Joel’s feet. We struggled to move the dead weight over the side and onto the floor. Blood trickled from his forearm, soaking the floor mat.

  “Sid, take off your belt.” He reacted without as much as a pause. “Now wrap it around his forearm, above the wound, and pull it as tight as you can.” Oh God, the wound. What had he used, a skill saw? I checked his pulse. The heartbeat was barely there, but there was hope. Had he been submerged for long? I listened at his nose for breath. How much blood had he lost? How would we ever replace it? How was I going to close this wound? He’d cut things I was sure I couldn’t mend. We would have to resort to amputation.

  “Sara?” I could hear the panic in Sid’s voice. “Sara, is he alive?”

  “Yes.” I could barely think now. I tried to remember the minuscule training I’d been given at the clinic and my stints at the hospital during my co-op.

  “Will he be okay?” His eyebrows threaded together over his frightened stare.

  That depended on the amount of time he had to bleed out, I thought. “Joel can’t have been like this for long. I only just heard the bath water shut off.” The makeshift tourniquet was doing its job: the blood had stopped flowing from Joel’s forearm. Sid held his ground, hovering over Joel’s pale body, applying pressure to the arm with his right knee while pulling up on the belt.

  “So, what now, what do we do now?”

  I was working on that. What next? Shit I’d never done this. I’d never even seen this done. Would he slip into a coma? It depended on the blood loss.

  “Talk to him, Sid. Slap his face, try to wake him up.” I got to my feet and realized just how weak I had become. I found support on the counter and collected myself. “Stay with him while I get my books.”

  When I charged out of the bathroom, I nearly ran into the others. They were speechless. Watching. I moved past them frantically on my way to the bedroom. I dug around the couch until I found my medical textbooks under a pile of papers.

  “Can we help?” Seth hovered in the doorway. “Can I help?”

  “Boil some water and find me some clean linens.” Flipping through the pages, I came to a section on amputation. Scanning the technical illustrations and brief explanations, I gave him another order. “Find something metal, wide but thin, maybe 6 inches square. We’ll need a saw, a couple of gloves, alcohol and fire as well.” Just scanning the steps to a successful modern day amputation told me I had no chance. I would have to amputate like a field surgeon in the Civil War.

  Seth ran out into the hall and communicated my orders to the others. I was scared to death. Maybe one of the boys - possibly Earl- could do the cutting while I supervised. “It needs to be able to cut through bone,” I shouted out to them. “The saw.” My hand rose to my mouth, shaking uncontrollably. “Be strong,” I whispered to myself. “He needs you.”

  Back in the bathroom, Sid had worked some color back into Joel’s face with all the slapping. “Nothing,” he reported. “Nothing’s happening, Sara. Shouldn’t he have woken up by now?”

  “It’s just as well, Sid. We’re taking the arm off below the elbow.” A look of horror struck him. My chin began to tremble but I forced myself to stay coherent. “It’s the only way we can save him. The damage is too severe. I don’t have the tools or the training to fix that.” I pointed at the ruined arm. The soft flesh I so prized, the flesh of the arm I would rest my head upon while we drifted off to sleep. The skin I would put my lips to and swear was softer. And now, I was going to remove it.

  The group returned with the requested items, Seth leading the way. “Where would you like everything?” he asked.

  “Let’s just do it here, on the floor,” I answered. They placed everything on the counter. I poured the boiling water on Joel’s arm and open wound. If ever he would wake up, surely that would have caused it. The alcohol was next. Then I sterilized the saw: a small saw with a thin cutting surface.

  “It’s a bone saw,” said Earl. “For hunting.”

  “That should work.”

  I positioned the saw and closed my eyes. One quick push should make it through the muscle, I thought. Then four or five hard pulls through the bone and then more muscle. Less than ten strokes should do it. I felt sick at the thought. Could I have ever been a surgeon? “Fuck it,” I said, as I wiped my forehead with my forearm and mouthed a prayer.

  Chapter Four

  “Sid,” I ordered, “hold his arm down at the bicep and don’t let it shift around as I cut.” Earl circled round me, took Joel’s hand and pushed down hard. With Sid at my left and Earl at my right, I wiped the sweat from my eyes and pushed the blade into Joel’s lean muscled forearm.

  “Jesus,” whispered someone above us.

  I dared not stall for long. I continued the grisly work on Joel’s arm and upon hitting the bone, slowed considerably. I struggled for a moment. The blade warped as I realized it was stuck in the bone. I pulled at it roughly, wishing desperately for the job to be done. A scraping sound made everyone wince.

  Suddenly Joel’s eyelids sprang back, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets. His back arched violently and a scream burst from his mouth. He looked down at his arm, the saw in my hand and his friends gathered around, their faces white as ghosts at this unexpected turn. He wailed once more. Then his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slipped into a comatose state.

  I was frozen in place, too shocked and sickened to move.

  “Let me, Sara.” Earl took the saw from me. His right hand still holding down Joel’s, he used his left to free the blade and continue the cut. In four short tugs he had separated Joel’s forearm from the rest of his body.

  Earl looked to me for further instructions. “Uh, heat the plate,” I remembered, feeling my composure return. The metal plate was set up on the sink and a fire lit beneath it. Joel’s severed hand twitched on the floor and I moved away from it, pulling myself up to the counter. “When its red hot, use the gloves to carry it over to the open wound and press it against his arm.” When Freddy complied I turned my head and shook.

  “It’s really smoking, Sara.” The stench of burnt flesh had permeated the room. Sid and Earl were literally waving the smoke away from their faces as Freddy continued to push the plate to Joel’s stump.

  “Dump some of the alcohol on it and remove the metal.” Skin pulled away along with the plate as Fred removed it, but it was working. “More alcohol and heat the plate again.”

  We repeated the process a few more times until the flesh and muscle and bone were charred at the stump. “Apply the antibiotic cream and wrap it in the linens.” It was my final order of the day. I was exhausted, and nauseated. The heat of so many bodies in that small bathroom, and the smell sent me into the hall and then into Joel’s bedroom, wh
ere I gave myself permission to go to pieces.

  “Would you like us to place him on the bed, Sara?” asked Caroline, leaning in through the doorway.

  I looked up from Joel’s desk, tears streaming down my cheeks. Caroline knelt down beside me.

  “Look at my hands, Caroline.” I said, shaking. “We... I just took off Joel’s arm.” My hands were stained red, leaving gory marks on everything I touched.

  Caroline gently pulled me up from the desk chair. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  We walked down to the bathroom on the main floor, passing the scene as our friends cleaned up the mess on the second floor. I caught a glimpse of Earl through the haze of smoke and bodies, gripping Joel’s disembodied hand in his. He was hitting Kevin with it, as though it were a prop. I hadn’t the energy to confront him, but what an asshole! I stared them both up and down- Kevin and Earl. They must have felt the burn of my gaze as their eyes met mine. “Assholes,” I mouthed. Earl quickly put the hand in a bag and sent Kevin to the yard with it.