by J. Thorn
“Okay,” replied Samuel.
“I’m dead,” said the man.
Samuel shifted his legs and stood to face the man. He detected a whiff of decay, which disappeared quickly. The flotsam from the marsh clung to the dead man’s frame like a cape hung from bony shoulders.
“The dead don’t speak. Or walk.”
“They do here.”
The dead man moved toward the stack of twigs. He sat on the ground with a wet plop. His hand, stripped of skin, motioned for Samuel to do the same.
“Let’s talk,” he said.
Samuel nodded and sat on the other side of the woodpile, never taking his eyes off the dead man. “What should I call you?” he asked.
“I cannot reveal my name yet,” replied the man. “You can call me whatever you want.”
Samuel nodded again, but did not christen him with an identity.
“It must have something to do with the changing form, you know. Wood, to fire, to ash. It’s like an energy tide that rolls the darkening cloud faster toward the opposite horizon.”
Samuel looked at the lighter in his hand and dropped it back into a pocket.
“Are you alone?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
Samuel sat there and decided to let the dead man have what he needed from their interaction. After a prolonged silence, the man spoke again.
“Do you know of the Jains?” he asked.
Samuel shook his head and thought about the sleep he craved. “No.”
The dead man rocked backward and placed both bony hands on his knees.
“They were the first, in your original locality, to come up with the idea of ahimsa. They called themselves ‘the defenders of all beings.’ Do you know why?”
Samuel did not reply, knowing the conversation would occur anyway.
“The Jains believed in conquering desire as a way of achieving enlightenment. Enlightenment, for them, was escaping the cycle of rebirth. Reincarnation was a curse to avoid, not some type of immortality.”
“Sounds Buddhist,” said Samuel.
“It is. Mahavira and Buddha were contemporaries. But they are not the same.” The dead man paused before continuing. “Because of their belief in the cycle of rebirth, Jains also believed that every living thing had a soul. Not just intelligent creatures, but the trees, birds, plants. Everything. So the pain man inflicts on other living creatures is really the pain he inflicts on himself. ‘Many times I have been drawn and quartered, torn apart, and skinned, helpless in snares and traps, a deer. An infinite number of times I have been felled, stripped of my bark, cut up, and sawn into planks’.”
“That’s not possible. You can’t exist without destroying something else that is living,” replied Samuel.
“You can if you are not of the living.”
Samuel raised his eyebrows.
The dead man stood. His bones cracked. He turned toward the marsh and took stilted steps to the water’s edge. When the black liquid crept up to his knees, he turned to face Samuel once more.
“Rest. Sleep. Dream. I hope you can find the peace I cannot.”
The dead man pushed forward until the water of the marsh converged over the top of his head. Samuel watched a single bubble arise and pop soundlessly in the darkness. He lay on his side and allowed the spell of sleep to arrive.
***
Samuel awoke tired and achy. He gathered his things and took one last look at the marsh before continuing on the path, heading east toward the Barren and his meeting with Major. The dark cloud pushed ever closer as it devoured the locality.
Samuel could not remember the point at which he had left the path. He recalled the coming of the snow, and the cold, and the continued silence, but he felt as though one moment he had stood on the worn ground and the next he was knee-deep in gray snow.
The cold, heavy flakes floated from the sky. They landed one on top of another and covered the ground within an hour. Samuel thought the snow could have been white, but without daylight and the reflection off the snowpack, the precipitation fell in waves of gray. Samuel could not see the dark cloud that came from the west, but he felt it. He knew it was there, above the winter storm in the place where winter did not exist.
He trudged onward, sensing east as best he could. The snow came in silent waves, covering the locality and burying the marsh, the path, and obscuring the mountain from view. Samuel realized his shirt and pants would not be enough for him to survive if this was indeed the onslaught of winter. The locality carried no warning, no shot across the bow with falling leaves of autumn.
Samuel felt the snow suffocating his breath with the cold wind on his back. The ice kept his fingers numb, the fatigue pulling his eyelids down. The snowy blanket covered his body, the frozen earth stealing what little heat remained. He raised his head and noticed conforming lines standing out against the random, spiky branches of the leafless trees. He rubbed the snow from his eyes and looked again, pushing himself up until he was on his hands and knees. He stumbled forward until the outline turned into a cabin, much like the first one he had found.
The cabin stood in the snowstorm, its chimney a defiant, obscene gesture to the raging elements. One door and one window faced Samuel, like they had at the other cabin. However, this one seemed a bit larger. He held his hands out, hoping to reach the door before the storm claimed his soul. Samuel staggered forward and fell on the step. He reached up with one hand until he felt the brass knob, and the touch jolted him like a bolt of electricity, reminding him that failure to open this door meant a cold, slow death. His right hand seized. Samuel could not make his fingers grasp the knob with enough strength to turn it. He would not even consider what would happen if the door was locked. Samuel let his right hand fall, and lunged at the knob with his left. Snow caked his head, and his feet tingled with the itchy pain of frostbite. Samuel felt his fingers claw the knob. He grasped it and turned his wrist. Without the clinking sound of the opening strike plate, Samuel assumed he was dead: that the door was locked. However, Samuel’s left arm fell at an angle as the door to the cabin swung open. He raised his head and smiled. Samuel crawled across the threshold with a final lunge and rolled onto his back. He used an elbow to slam the door shut, and it shook the cabin without a sound. Samuel looked around and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed as relief and exhaustion pulled him into a state of unconsciousness.
***
It was the crackling fire that woke him. Samuel heard the hiss and pop of firewood before he smelled the rustic aroma of the hearth. He smiled with his eyes closed, savoring the sound and smell, senses he sometimes neglected in life and never would again, thanks to this locality. Samuel caught whiffs of scents, but again, nothing that lingered for more than a few moments before he lost it.
He debated whether or not he had perished. Maybe it was true. Maybe there was fire. Maybe he was in Hell.
Curiosity won the mental duel, and Samuel opened his eyes in the glare of the bright yellow and orange flame. He placed a hand over his forehead to shield himself from the unexpected light, blinked, and saw chasers, like an ascetic emerging from a cave after years of meditation. The warmth relaxed his muscles. As his vision returned, he noticed a fuzzy aura at the edges of it. He pushed up onto his elbows and looked around the cabin.
The hearth sat inside a black potbelly stove. A single iron pipe ran at an angle from the top and into the brick chimney, which extended up the wall and beyond the ceiling. A saucepan sizzled, with tendrils of enticing steam spiraling away from the stovetop. He turned to see a wooden table with two chairs, one at each end. A napkin holder, candles, and steins sat on top. His rucksack sat next to the door, along with a pair of suede boots that he did not recognize. Above the boots, and suspended by a single iron hook, was a long, black, leather trench coat. Samuel smiled, thinking of the futuristic sci-fi heroes laden with enormous weapons. A single leather reading chair sat in one corner, swirled sides with brass rivets holding the soft leather tight over the cushions. Samuel thought he
could become lost in that chair with the help of a good book and a glass of wine. His eyes moved through the cabin so quickly that he did not notice that a thick, plush sleeping bag held his body like a cocoon. He felt his feet. They did not tingle with the burning pain of extreme cold, but rather, his toes wiggled in warm comfort. He glanced at the window next to the door and saw nothing but a charcoal square, as if someone had painted the window to block the outside. Samuel drifted into a deep sleep while the potbelly stove kept him warm.
***
He felt the panicky flutter in his chest of awakening in a strange place until he saw the potbelly stove. Contentment chased away his anxiety until his hunger made itself known. He had eaten very little since being in this locality. Samuel sensed a cellular duty to push sustenance down his throat. He welcomed the hunger pangs and the feeling of being human again, though his brain cautioned him about his temporary euphoria. It reminded him that he was in a single-room cabin in the midst of a strange world that was slowly unraveling.
Noted, he thought.
Samuel climbed from the warmth of the sleeping bag, standing naked in front of the fire. He let the heat warm his skin until it hurt, and then a little bit more. His clothes lay draped over the back of one of the chairs, and he decided a meal would take precedence over modesty.
As if the cabin had suspended time while he slept, the pan on the stove continued to sizzle.
“That can only be bacon,” Samuel said as he rubbed his hands together and licked his upper lip.
He saw the familiar, reddish strips bubbling, crispy at the ends, and he inhaled the aroma until he could almost taste it. Samuel grabbed his shirt and slid it over his head. With his right arm retracted, he used the sleeve to lift the pan off the stove and onto the brick pedestal supporting it. Without waiting for the grease to stop dancing, he grabbed a slice of the bacon and held it in the air in front of his face, blowing on it until he could take a bite. He felt the warm, salty sensation flood his mouth, and he closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall and chewing like a junkie with the needle still protruding from a vein. At first Samuel’s stomach lurched. He felt a rumble and heard a gurgle. He paused, and then he devoured the other three strips lying in the grease.
Samuel looked up and noticed a steel decanter hanging from an iron hook just above the stove. It spouted a line of steam into the room, and he cocked his head sideways, trying to remember if it had been there a moment ago. When the heady aroma of coffee beans filled the room, he no longer cared. He stood and grabbed a stein from the small table, pouring the dark coffee from the decanter and watching as the liquid formed a black center within the silver mug. He brought it to his lips and let the bitter tang flood his mouth. When he was convinced it would not scald his tongue and ruin the taste, Samuel drew the coffee into his mouth and let it warm his chest like a shot of whiskey.
The window remained unchanged. Samuel cupped both hands around the stein to help insulate the beverage and keep it hot as he walked over, expecting to see a brilliant sunrise creeping over the trees like the ones in the movies. But the window remained an opaque, dark hole in the wall. Samuel could almost feel the ominous cloud flowing to the east, toward him, devouring the rest of this broken world in its path.
He frowned and set the stein on the table before looking at it and picking it up again, draining the last remnants of the coffee before setting it back down. He noticed that the fire did not seem as bright or as warm as it had when he fell asleep the night before. Had it been the night before? How long had he slept? Before Samuel could consider the answers to those questions, he saw it on the floor, and it almost stopped his heart.
Chapter 8
It was impossible. Even in a place where the clouds ate reality and the dead spoke, this was impossible. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. It remained.
Samuel crouched down to take a closer look, resisting the urge to pick it up, as if it might shock him or something worse. He closed his eyes, counted to five, and opened them. It remained.
He remembered the mother-of-pearl inlay on the narrow handle. He could smell the oil his dad had used to protect the blade and keep rust from forming where fingers touched it, and he saw the thin, black indentations used for drawing the blades out with the edge of a fingernail. He grasped the pocketknife in his palm and squeezed until he was sure it was real. That was when it flooded his head with memories of that day.
“For three hits?”
“That’s right.”
“I can do that. We play Penn Hills next week.”
“No. Not in the season: in one game.”
Samuel looked at his dad and shook his head back and forth.
“Not even Tommy Malone gets three hits in one game.”
“Then you’ll have to be better than Tommy if you want the pocketknife, son.”
Samuel shrugged. He pushed the ball cap back on his head and whistled. He checked the Little League schedule on the fridge, and ran his finger down the Under-10 league games until it stopped on April 14, 1979.
“Alpine Village. On my birthday. That’s the one.”
His dad raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“Danny Cranston plays for Alpine Village. Word has it that the kid has a mean curveball.”
“C’mon, Dad,” Samuel said with a smirk. “He’s a lefty! I’ll see that pitch coming from a mile away. I’m behind on the fastballs, but if he throws that curve I can pull it to left field. That corner is shallow at Hawkeye Park.”
Samuel’s dad squinted at the schedule.
“Didn’t notice that. Looks like you play those guys at home.”
Samuel nodded and crossed his arms.
“I think you should tell Mom now. I’m getting that knife.”
Samuel kept his eyes closed and his hands wrapped around the pocketknife. He felt the memory lurch ahead.
“Let’s go, batter,” said the umpire, standing behind the catcher.
Samuel winked at Tony as he crouched low and raised the catcher’s mitt into the strike zone.
“You ain’t hittin’ Danny’s curve,” Tony said.
“Watch me,” Samuel replied.
The umpire dropped into position. Samuel placed his left foot back inside the batter’s box and dug the toes on his right cleat into the dirt. He drew the bat back behind his ear, just like his dad had drilled into his head during all of those trips to the batter’s cages. Samuel noted the runners on second and third, and heard the moms cheering. He did his best to block it out and stared hard at Danny Cranston, perched on the mound.
The first pitch came faster than Samuel expected. It blew past his nose and dropped into Tony’s mitt with a snap, followed by the umpire’s declaration of a strike.
Samuel stepped out of the box and closed his eyes. He thought about his other at-bats. This was his fourth time at the plate and probably his last chance at that third hit of the game. Two singles. Fine. Those were still hits, even if they didn’t count as RBIs. A third single was still a hit, too.
He moved through the circular practice swing that batters individualize over the course of their baseball careers. Samuel drew the back bat again, and again, Danny brought the heat.
“Strike two!”
Tony snickered from behind his catcher’s mask and shook his head at Samuel.
“You’re chasin’ the count now, Sammy. You know he’s coming with his curve. Might as well strike out right now.”
Samuel ignored the comment and moved back into the batter’s box. He had Danny Cranston in the palm of his hand.
He could tell from Danny’s side-arm pitch that the ball was coming from the outside in. Samuel saw the ball rotate in slow motion, the red laces spinning overtop of the white rawhide. As it came closer, Samuel gripped the bat. He brought it a tad higher over his shoulder and then started the swing forward. The contact felt so good it almost made Samuel cry. The baseball shot from the meat of the bat with a satisfying thud.
Samuel’s eyes drifted up to follow the
ball into the summer sky of 1979. He knew he should have been running, but it didn’t matter. This swing was a textbook, left-field pull, and he knew the ball was headed to the fence, probably over it. Samuel took a stride toward first and dropped the bat into the dirt. He smiled as the ball became a white dot doing its best to escape the atmosphere. The noise of the moment froze into silence, and Samuel imagined the ball whistling through the air like a space rocket.
But then it started to drop. That space-bound projectile lost its booster fuel and turned back toward the green outfield at Hawkeye Park. Samuel pushed his walk into a slight jog around first base. The coach was screaming at him to run, but Samuel could not hear him. He jogged toward second base, watching as the left fielder ran to the fence underneath the baseball. The outfielder stopped and raised his mitt over his head. Samuel saw the glove eat the ball a split second before it cracked the leather and snapped him back into real time.
“Out!”
Before he had made it to the second-base bag, Samuel was sobbing. He felt the demeaning glare of every player on the field, every kid on the bench, and every parent watching from just beyond the foul lines. When he reached the bench, he could not even look at his dad. Samuel’s chest hitched and heaved as he ended the afternoon going 2-4 and coming up one fly ball shy of a homerun and a third hit in the game.
Samuel shifted again, sweat building in his palm as he held the artifact from his youth. Those feelings from so long ago had returned.
“I know, but it was really close. I think it was the only fly ball that kid caught all season.”
Samuel looked out the window at the suburban world fluttering by at thirty-five miles per hour. He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth with his front teeth.
“So where we goin’, Dad?”
Samuel’s father looked up at his son through the rearview mirror of the 1976 El Camino.
“Ralph’s Army Surplus. I need some things for deer season,” he replied with a smirk.
“It’s April.”
