Curse of Remorse

by Waggoner, Robert C.

  Chris said, while drinking his coffee, “What do you really make of this situation Doctor?”

  Dr. Choi muddled this question over in his mind and he didn’t know how to respond to the question both medically and as a friend. He realized Chris was looking for some hope to grab onto and he also knew it was not just a question about his daughter, but for all those affected, and of course, the future. Will all kids who are twelve now and when their birthday comes, succumb to the same affliction? How do I tell him and the others that we have, medically speaking, not an idea what it is or how to treat it, as nothing in the past or present time gives us a lead on this very puzzling phenomena.

  He took a deep breath and looked his friend in the eye and said, “You know Chris, I will be totally frank with you and say I have no idea what caused this affliction or how to treat it. If there were ever a time to say the expression, ‘We are in God’s hands’ now is the time it couldn’t be more true.”

  “Well, Doctor, I know my family will put our faith in the Almighty and come what may, live with the results.”

  “I wish I had some answers, but I guess it would be my advice is to counsel the patients to eventually live with the affliction. We need to alert the school board and tell them they need to make a class for Braille and probably bring in a person to teach our blind children. As you and I are both school board members, let’s call a school board meeting for Monday. Also, we should notify the mayor and give her a firsthand report.”

  “I agree Doctor and the sooner the better. I am not going to cancel church today and will hold a special service this afternoon early or evening in light of recent events. I am going to ask all who attend to come to the school board meeting and as a community we need to rally to the cause.” That seemed to Dr. Choi the end of the conversation and as he finished off his coffee, took his leave shaking hands with Chris.

  * * *

  Candice Canon lay in a motel bed wide awake. She had called Ed and they had arranged for a breakfast meeting at eight am at the local diner. Like most small towns, the residents hung out drinking coffee and gossiping at one café that catered to the locals. Remorse was not any different in that respect and one could usually hear the shaking of the dice to see who paid while sitting there for any length of time. Ed was a regular hanger outer and usually unlucky enough to be the one who paid. He didn’t regret it, and quite the contrary, he liked paying as it made the locals more relaxed and the gossip flowed more freely when he had to pay.

  Now as the time neared for his meeting with a New York Times reporter, that in itself would be a topic for a major discussion, and put a feather in his hat around town. He purposely got there early to let the cat out of the bag with his upcoming meeting with the Times reporter.

  The bell over the door jangled and all heads turned as a red eyed young woman came through the door obviously looking for someone. Ed quickly jumped up and walked towards the door from where he had been sitting with four other locals: all retired gents who met each Sunday for breakfast and then back home to take the wife to church if need be.

  Ed took Candice by the arm and led her to a booth by the window. Candice liked the looks of this small quaint town and she had walked the two blocks from her motel to the café that had a red neon light flashing: “Good Food.” Candice felt that it was probably the truth and when she opened the door, she was met with a breakfast smell of bacon and fresh brewed coffee, not to mention a near full house of early morning customers. Hunger pangs were felt as she sat down in the booth opposite Ed. The only thing she had to eat was a package of chips and coffee last night on the way to Massachusetts.

  A pleasant waitress placed two menus in front of them along with a pot of coffee saying she would be right back for their order. Candice couldn’t help but stare at Ed’s long red nose and he felt her looking at him no doubt. But she quickly looked down at the menu and asked him, “What do you recommend for breakfast Ed?”

  He said, “They make a killer crab omelet here.”

  “Now that sounds like the thing I need to set my day right. I missed dinner last night and I feel it might be a long day.” The weather had held and even though it was cloudy, no snow was falling. Her editor had suggested she take a SUV with four wheel drive as the forecast was for a winter blast coming down from the Arctic with the weather man saying that twelve inches was to be expected by Sunday night.

  Ed took stock of his new associate and he didn’t want to prejudge by appearances, but she looked like she had just taken off her graduation gown and hat. She looked kind of cute in a way with her short brown hair, and a round face with close set brown eyes. Her short stubby nose was red from the cold outside and she had sultry kind of pouty mouth that made her overall looks kind of pleasing. Ed broke the silence and said: “Candice, if I may call you by your first name, we had another case this early morning and now we have three blind thirteen year olds. The same affliction happened to our local reverends daughter as to the other two kids.”

  The omelet came and Candice dug into it like she had never heard him. His breakfast sat in front of him and he waited for her to respond, but instead he watched her spread homemade strawberry jam on her whole wheat toast and used the toast for a pusher on the omelet. Ed decided to eat and when he was about half finished she raised her eyes and said, “Have you checked to see how many kids in this town are about to or will in the next month or two, turn thirteen?”

  “Not yet,” he replied. “I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when the court house opens to see a list of ages of our townspeople. They have called for a town meeting at the school for tonight and the mayor is going to address the citizens. A Doctor Choice Sweet flew to New York City to meet some specialists and is due back on Monday. Other than that, I have nothing more to add to what I’ve already told you.”

  Candice finished off her breakfast and sat back thinking while sipping her coffee. She noticed the café being a little quiet and she supposed it was because of her being here upsetting the local routine. However, she felt rather comfortable in this little café as the people seemed very friendly, nodding to her when they left the café. Raising her head to look into Ed’s beady red eyes she said, “Sorry I was thinking about what it might have been like living here over three hundred years ago when the witch hunts were in vogue. On the way here last night I plugged into my lap top and listened to an audio book about witchcraft back in late sixteen hundreds. As we know now, most of it was just hysterical drama brought on by religious sects and greedy land grabbers. However, Ed, we know that all folk lore or supposition has a base of some facts mixed in somewhere. I wonder would it be so farfetched to think maybe behind all of this, how shall we call it, phenomena, a curse lurks somewhere?”

  A big smile crossed his face showing off nicotine stained teeth with one eye tooth missing. Ed realized he had hit the jackpot and before Candice could continue, said, “My thoughts exactly Candice. Medical science notwithstanding, but it sure looks like we have the makings of a story that should sell many copies. If you have finished up your breakfast, let’s go to my office and pound out a story sharing the byline?”

  “All right, but let me make a call to my editor to inform him of what’s transpired since we last talked.” Candice dug out her cell and rang her editor’s office. She did most of the talking and while Ed paid the bill, she heard her boss tell her to stay with it and send him a firsthand report by six pm for the early morning paper edition on Monday. She promised a story sent in via her lap top and hung up. Candice left a nice tip for the waitress and caught up with Ed at the door.

  As they walked down the street, Ed made a right turn and half a block down on the left, was his office. Ed unlocked the door and stepped back to let Candice precede him into the sparse office. As Ed shut the door Candice took a look around. A counter of sorts blocked any way to the back part of the office area and to reach his office a raise up counter board was needed to pass through. Behind the counter a small back shelf area held a variety of items stuffed in
to them. To Candice it looked like a place for junk mail and supermarket flyers added color to an otherwise drab pale green paint that showed white through the flakes than its original color. An office sat behind the short wall of shelves and the door, if there were ever a door, was missing showing an old wooden desk with a high back chair that looked reasonably new. Ed adjusted the thermostat and raised the counter board for Candice to follow him into his office. Just to the left of his door, a large double door, she guessed, was where he did his printing. However, she could detect no discernable printing smell like she was accustomed to where she worked and always relished the visits to the printing warehouse. The only smells she recognized were a musty moldy smell and a stale tobacco odor.

  Ed offered her a chair that sat in front of his paper cluttered desk and she brushed it off before sitting down. She wondered when the last time someone sat in it as the dust layer was fairly thick. He apologized for the dirty mess, but busied himself making a little room for a new legal pad he’d just picked up last night. Candice opened up her large shoulder bag and took out a new notebook. She crossed her legs and settled into what appeared a long session of hashing over the story.

  Candice started to speak when his phone rang. Ed identified himself and listened while someone was telling him something important as Ed looked serious and was furiously writing on his new legal pad. After a long three minutes he told the caller he would get back to her later and that was the only clue Candice got of the conversation that it was a woman caller but seemed important.

  Ed said, “As you started to say something Candice before the phone rang?”

  “Yes, let’s begin by getting some basics of the story, like names and ages, social position and any relevant history to catch the reader’s eye. Ed flipped over a new page in his legal pad and outlined the story from beginning to end. An hour later they had the nuts and bolts of a story and what wasn’t said, was something about maybe having a supernatural twist to the story.

  Candice silently suspected that something sure was out of the ordinary and Ed was sitting on the edge of his chair hoping she caught his drift. What Ed didn’t know was Candice was way ahead of him and for a speculation at the end of the story; she was going to leave the reader with a thought of what might be something paranormal.

  Both were deep in thought when the phone rang again. Ed picked it up and unlike before said hello. This time Ed did most of the talking and Candice had to put a one-sided conversation into the two sided one by what Ed had to say to the caller. Essentially he was being a big evasive in that she thought he was talking to another newspaper about the story. This was certainly not something she wanted another paper to get before her so she was going to remind Ed that she was here at the express desire of a senior editor of the New York Times and not some smut rag offering few bucks to spin a story that most would realize was bunk at best.

  Ed hung up and Candice seized the moment by saying, “Look Ed, if you are totally convinced that we have a winner here, let’s not be greedy and sell to the highest bidder. If what we see and vision for the future of this phenomena, many articles will follow as more and more kids come under the spell of not being able to raise their eye lids. I’m going back to the motel now and run a rough draft up on my laptop and let’s meet back here this afternoon?”

  “Sounds good and I give you my word I will keep this story between your paper and my paper. Is that fair enough?”

  Candice stood and stuck her hand out and it met a cold bony hand that reminded her of a time back in Wisconsin during the winter taking her grandmother’s hand helping her into the car from the house.

  She stopped by a small market on the way back to the motel and picked up some snacks to make it to dinner time. She felt good about the story and when she had the rough draft she would E-mail it to her boss. By the time she was back to her room, it had started to spit some light snow and she hurried to her door.

  Ed meanwhile called Mrs. Gorn back to pick up some more details of what the local gossip around town was. When she answered his call, he sat back and lit a smoke as he knew it would be sometime before he could hang up from her.

  She began in her gravelly voice to tell him that the good Reverend Chris had changed his mind and was going ahead with his service today. Also, he was going to bring his daughter to church so all could see in front of God that she would need all the prayers she could get to heal her. From that piece of news, she went on to say that she had a call earlier from a friend who said her friend’s son was going to have a birthday on Tuesday. She was a bit cautious when she told him a friend of a friend and suggested Ed take her along with him for an interview and photo session if he so desired.

  Ed told her he so desired, and they made a one o’clock time for him to pick her up as the friend of a friend lived just outside of town. Ed was excited and was thinking he was having the luck of a lifetime with this story. He put out his smoke in the ashtray and reached for the bottom drawer of his desk for a morning bracer.

  * * *

  While Ed the Nose was pouring his first of the day around ten am, Glen was back at the computer hacking his way into the state library system. He was not sure hacking was the right word or not. His best bud was a nephew of an aunt who was a librarian at the state library in Salem. She thought no harm was done to give her nephew the user name and password of a public library.

  Earlier Glen had slipped downstairs to the basement and found all the girls sleeping soundly with the TV on a music video channel. Glen went back to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl, a spoon, a box of Cheerios, a carton of milk, some sugar and went back to his room.

  While Glen ate his cereal, he surfed through the library for some historical books that could not be checked out, but could be read over the computer. After some time he came across a book written by a missionary who had lived sometime as a captive of a tribe of Indians. It was written in long hand and of old English. For a kid who was only twelve and not privy to cursive writing it was slow going. After an hour of struggling he gave up but had come across a few words that piqued his attention. There was mention of another captive who was white and young along with some black slaves being among the tribe. Glen was not sure if captive was the right word or not, but now he needed someone to translate this book for him. A book was probably not the right description and a diary might be more the right word to describe the small book.

  Glen emailed his friend and told him to ask his aunt if there were anybody who could translate the diary? He gave him the name of the book and author as best he could as it was not easy to even read the man’s name.

  While Glen was finishing up his cereal his friend mailed him back telling him he would get on it Monday morning as soon as his aunt got to work.

  Glen called his friend as his friend asked him why and so forth did he need this weird stuff from his aunt. Glen told his friend Larry the entire story as he knew it about what was going on and his suspicions of some witchcraft being involved in his sisters stuck eyelids. His friend Larry was intrigued and wanted to be part of the research, so he asked him if he could come over and hangout for awhile. Glen said he would ask his mother, but thought it would be no problem. His parents were going to church and he was going to stay home so he would tell them what his plan was.

  Glen took his breakfast stuff back downstairs and heard his mother working in the kitchen. Like a good boy he put the milk back and the cereal box in the cupboard. His mother took his bowl and spoon and washed them up while he made some toast. He asked his mother if his friend Larry could come over and she thought that would be no problem. She said: “Glen, would you go down and wake the girls up? It’s time for them to get ready and go home.”

  Glen did as he was told and found Ann and her friend Alice sleeping next to each other. He found the remote and turned off the TV. Then he slowly shook his sister to wake her up. Finally she opened her mouth and said, “Glen, what time is it?”

  He told her it was time to wake up as mother would like the
girls to go home soon. He watched her, as she raised her hands to her eyes, as if to rub the sleep out of them, but saw she only gingerly touched her eyelids and then let out a big sigh, as if to acknowledge the fact nothing had changed since last night. Ann reached out to where she knew by feel where Alice was and gave her a shake. It was plain to see, thought Glen, that it was going to be a hard job to get these sleepy girls up and dressed to go home.

  Ann said: “Have you anything new to report on your research?”

  Glen replied: “I am making some progress and hopefully by tomorrow night I will have some information to give you. Terry is coming over and we will spend the day doing more research.” He went on to tell her about the diary he found and about the state library where he hoped Terry’s aunt could help him interpret the diary.

  Ann said: “I need to go to the bathroom. Will you lead me to the door and make sure Alice wakes up and the other girls need some shaking I’m sure. We were still going strong around four am and no doubt all will be a bit cranky. Glen took her by the arm and led her to the bathroom and without thinking turned the light on for her.

  It was lucky for Glen that his mother came down and roused the girls out of their sleeping bags and in no time the girls were up and packed their things for the trip back home.

  Glen hot footed it back up to his room and with new vigor plunged into the diary once more. He found a website that showed old cursive English and began his word by word translation. By the time his family had left for church. As Terry arrived he had completed only a few pages of the diary, but he was catching on quickly. Encouraged, he plodded on and when Terry walked in he had an idea or two about what this guy was writing about.