by Mark Tufo
“You saw more than the ghost?”
Mike wasn’t convinced that what he was seeing was a ghost, but that seemed like the least benign of all the possibilities, so he went with that.
“I did.”
“And?”
“Are you kidding me? Are there messages flashing on my forehead or something?”
“Your transparency is one of the things I love about you.”
“Great, I’m the glass man.”
“Mike.”
“Sorry. Jandilyn, there was something around you, too.”
Now she sat up. The last time Mike had seen something around her, Roger had meant her a great deal of bodily harm. “Like the time at the library?” she asked.
“No, it was different. There were all your colors like normal, but right on the edges were these little flecks of black, almost like ash from a fire.”
“Do you know what it means?”
“I don’t, Jandilyn, and that’s why I’m so afraid. If something were to happen to you, I would cease to exist.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Besides, I’m fine.”
“And what would you have said the morning you left to go to the library?”
“Michael!” she shouted. “We cannot live our lives like that. Always looking over our shoulders.”
“Are you sorry you married me?”
“Are you insane?”
“According to the US Government.”
“What?” she asked, completely stopped in her tracks.
“If you’ve tripped more than ten times the government considers you clinically insane.”
“What?” she asked again, shaking her head, trying to make the cobwebs Mike was throwing at her go away.
“It’s true.”
“Fine. Whatever, but it was more of a rhetorical question. I think I’ve been in love with you since that time on the football field and it has done nothing except grow each and every day, you bonehead.”
“Bonehead? Does that mean today we’ve had a slight downturn in our love growth?” Mike asked smiling.
“What do you see now?”
“I see the most beautiful woman I could ever imagine, smiling back at me and her eyes say she’s really horny and wants to go back to our hotel room and ruin the bed springs.”
“You see all that, huh? Now how about without your contact.”
“Jandilyn?”
“Mike, are you precognitive?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then you don’t really know what you’re seeing, do you,” she said more as a statement.
“No, just feelings.”
“Take your contact out.”
“I’d rather get a root canal.”
“I think I’m going to go for a swim,” Jandilyn said, getting up and heading for the surf where ten foot high waves crested over the shoreline.
“Fine-fine, hold on,” Mike said as he placed his finger into his left eye. He slowly eased the contact out of position and then grasped it between his thumb and forefinger. The light that flooded in overwhelmed his senses. For a brief second his eyeball seared in the Pacific Isle sun.
Jandilyn was looking down on him. “Well?”
“You’re still gorgeous,” he said, blinking rapidly, hoping his eye would adjust to the blinding light soon.
She placed her hands on her hips.
Inexplicably, the light brightened even more, a burst occurred deep in Mike’s head. His eyes rolled back as he fought to stay conscious.
“Mike?” Jandilyn screamed from across the universe.
“Jandilyn, I’m dead!” Mike screamed as his head slumped down to the towel covered sand.
***
Mike awoke seven hours later, although he didn’t know how much time had passed. The bed he was laying in was cool, the sheets itchy, and the monitor next to his head beeped quietly. Jandilyn was sitting in a chair barely designed for human use, it looked entirely too stiff and uncomfortable. Her back was ramrod straight her head to the side as she tried to sleep.
“How you doing?” she asked, her eyes twinkling by the glow of the monitors.
“What’s going on?”
“The Dole consortium decided you knew too much and tried to take you out.”
“This is bad,” Mike said, agreeing with her. If she was trying to cover it with humor it had to be bad.
“Mike, the doctor’s say you’re blind in your left eye,” she said taking his hand.
“I think I’d rather have it that way,” he told her, but the loss of function of any part of him, no matter how suspect its actually workings, disturbed him.
“There’s more.”
“I hate ‘more’, Jandilyn.”
“They said you’ve been blind probably since the accident.”
“What?”
“That’s good news, right? They said that anything you saw out of there were residual images probably—ghost imagery, they said.”
That makes more sense, Mike thought. The ghost imagery, not the blindness.
“So anything you thought you had seen surrounding me wasn’t really there,” she said.
Mike thought she was trying to be convincing but was falling flat.
“I know what I saw, Jandilyn.”
Mike spent the remainder of the night in the hospital, Jandilyn crawled into the small bed with him. It was not the most comfortable set up, but it beat the torture chair by a mile.
“I think the police use that thing to interrogate terrorists,” she said, pointing over to the salmon-colored misery device that somewhat resembled a chair.
“I’d like to get a Dole representative or two in that thing. I’d find out what was going on with the world’s supply of pineapple.”
Jandilyn snuggled up close, resting her head on Mike’s chest. She took comfort in the strong beat of his heart. Mike absently stroked her hair as she fell asleep. His left eye itched under the patch the hospital had applied, even without ‘seeing it’ he knew they were not alone in the room.
“I know you’re here,” he said softly so as not to disturb his wife. “I don’t know what you are or what you want, but I’m going to find out. When I do…you’ll be sorry.” He hoped the visitor could see the truth in his words as easily as his wife.
Jandilyn listened to Mike’s soft words, his hammering heart had awoken her, she shivered as he spoke. Even the tropical air could not keep her warm, she didn’t know if it was the power of suggestion but she felt a presence as well.
***
“Hello, Michael,” a thin-lipped Japanese man said as he peered down at Mike’s chart attempting to see through his glasses. “Damn bifocals, I’ve had them for six months and I still haven’t got used to them. Piece of advice, son, don’t grow old,” he said smiling, his eyes nearly vanishing as he did so. Mike instantly liked the man.
“Can we leave today?” Mike asked.
“Well, she can leave whenever she likes,” the doctor said, pointing to Jandilyn. The smile returned. “And yes, I just need to sign your discharge papers.”
“What happened to me?”
“We think it was sunstroke, it happens to a lot of vacationers. They don’t realize how intense the sun is out here, especially when they lay in it all day.”
“Did the Dole consortium send you?”
“What? Are you still having residual effects?” The doctor took out a small penlight from his breast pocket and focused it into Mike’s right eye. The pupil contracted. The doctor lifted the patch and Mike shied away as the intense beam seemed to scrape against the back of his head.
“You do realize there is no activity in that eye, yes?” the doctor asked. “Your pupil does not dilate and the loss of pigmentation most likely is associated with the loss of blood to the eye.”
“Doc, I’m telling you I can see that light.”
Mike said it with such conviction the doctor peered into the eye again. “Mike, I think you should see a specialist, possibly get an MRI—that should
come up with conclusive evidence to the devastation the accident you were in caused, then possibly a therapist so that you can deal with the loss of vision on this side.”
“Doc, I’m not making this up.”
“Oh, I never thought that, Michael. I just believe that your brain is overcompensating for the loss, I believe that you are seeing echoes of things you remember seeing.”
Don’t ever recall seeing a smoke clad thin man before the accident, Mike thought sourly.
“What time is it?” Jandilyn asked, stretching.
“About time to go,” Mike said, smiling at her.
“You’re alright?”
“Heat stroke apparently brought on by evil Dole hit men—how bad off could I be?”
“Doctor, is there any chance you can give him something for this?” Jandilyn asked jokingly.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “A nurse will be right back with your discharge papers. I hope you two enjoy the rest of your stay in our fair state.”
“Thank you,” Jandilyn said.
Mike was staring out the window.
“Did you ‘see’ anything yesterday before you screamed?”
“I screamed?”
She nodded.
“Was it girlie?”
“No, honey, it was one of the manliest screams I’ve ever heard,” she said, stroking his cheek.
“Did I just scream or did I say something?”
“You told me that you were dead, Mike. But the doctors say people with heat stroke say crazy stuff all the time, something about their thoughts getting fried.”
“I don’t have heat stroke, Jandilyn.”
“I know, baby.”
“And no, I didn’t see anything except the sun. It was so intensely bright I couldn’t make anything else out.
‘Right back’ for the nurse was forty-five minutes. Mike was seconds from walking out the door. “What’s the worst they could do, extradite us back from the mainland?” Mike quipped with Jandilyn urging him to stay for just a few minutes longer.
Mike was glad he had stayed the extra time. The doctor advised that he spend the majority of his time in his hotel room, limiting his exposure to the Hawaiian sun. It was something Mike had been advocating all along with Jandilyn. The downside was that Jandilyn decided that if they couldn’t go out during the day they would have to check out the nightlife. And who knew what ghouls that would bring out of the wood work.
Except for some minor speed bumps the vacation had been more than either one could have imagined, so Mike figured the plane was going to go down on their way home.
He turned to Jandilyn. “Would you rather the plane crash during takeoff or landing?” he asked.
“You tell me. You’ve obviously been thinking about it.” She put her book down to look at him.
“Take off. Definitely take off.”
“I’m waiting.”
“For what?” Mike asked.
“Your explanation of why.”
“That’s easy. Nobody likes plane travel so I’d rather go down at the beginning than have to sit in this damn tube for six hours and then crash and burn.”
“You’re scaring my children,” a scarecrow thin woman said, covering her three-year-old son’s ears with her claw-like hands.
“I don’t even think he heard me because he seems to be minding his own business,” he told Mrs. Strawman. She got the point.
She turned her child’s head as he was still smiling his gap-toothed grin at Mike.
“Michael!” Jandilyn said as she smacked him. “You need to be nice to people.”
He didn’t think he hadn’t been.
CHAPTER ELEVEN – Life Changes
Mike went back to the coffee warehouse, the security firm he worked for had decided to not replace Jed. From this point forward, all shifts would be manned by one individual. It meant he was on call seven days a week in the event of a person calling in sick. He didn’t mind, it meant he had more time to write. He did miss the additional income he had made playing cards with Jed, but life rolled on.
“I miss you, old man,” he said as every shift started. He even took the cards out of the pack and would lay two hands out, ‘just in case’.
For two more months the world traveled in this fashion, but if there is one thing the planet abhors, it is stagnation. The world thrives on change; it is the agent upon which all life revolves, for good or bad.
“You sitting, Mike?” Jandilyn asked as he walked in the door.
“Do I look like I am?” he asked her, clearly confused.
“You should then.”
There was something clearly wrong, Mike thought. Her brow was beaded in sweat and she looked flushed, like she sometimes did after a go around on the treadmill at the gym.
“Jandilyn?”
“Relax you baby, I’ve got some news.”
“I hate the news, I never watch it. It’s always about missing people, murder, and drugs—”
“Shush, I’ve got good news and good news. Which do you want first?”
“Jandilyn, my heart is going to come out of my throat—could you just tell me?”
“Which one?” she said, almost dancing back and forth from foot to foot.
“The good news,” he said, half rising.
She pushed him back down. “Touch my belly, do you feel anything?”
“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that Mexican restaurant? You always feel like crap when you go there for lunch with your work mates? Maybe el gato doesn’t agree with you.”
“It is not cat! And the food there is delicious, but yes it does tend to hurt my belly afterwards.”
“And then I’m the recipient. I bet you don’t let go of those stinkers while you’re at work. No, you save them all up for me and I’ve been meaning to tell you, you’re burning out my olfactory—”
“I’m pregnant, you shit!” She laughed.
“Is it mine?” Mike asked, standing up. “Sorry, knee-jerk reaction. That’s awesome.” His grin matched hers.
He twirled her a couple of times around their tiny kitchen.
“You’d better put me down or you are going to see what I had for breakfast.”
Mike gently placed her down.
“This is more than I could have ever hoped for, Jandilyn!”
“Are you sure?” she asked, biting her bottom lip.
“What the hell do you think all that practice was for?” he asked, pointing to their bedroom.
“I guess practice makes perfect.”
“I’ll ask for some more shifts at the warehouse. With Lou on vacation and Jeff always calling in sick it shouldn’t be a problem and then there’s holiday pay…” Mike was going on calculating all the different ways he could earn more money.
“Mike, stop for a sec. Now don’t get mad.”
“Mad at you? For what? Does this go back to the whole ‘is it mine’ thing? Do I need to get a DNA test?”
“Stop, will you? I opened your mail.”
“What!” Mike bellowed. “That is a federal offense!” he said, stomping around. “You know I like to open up all my bill notices when I’m on the john, it relaxes me.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t open up anything that might take away from your man time. I needed to open this up.”
Mike was intrigued. “Well, go ahead woman, your flare for the dramatic is killing me. Do I have a long lost uncle who just died and left me untold fortunes?”
“Sort of. It’s from Random.”
“Who’s Random?”
“The book publishing house.”
“What about them?” Mike asked, still not putting the whole equation together yet.
“Mike, they loved your book. They want the rights to it. They offered a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar advance.”
Mike sat down so hard, he thought he might have broken his butt. “This is a joke, right? And it’s not really funny, Jandilyn…not even a little bit. You know how many years I’d have to work at the warehouse to get tha
t kind of money.”
“Mike, I like a good practical joke from time to time, but I’m not cruel.”
“Devious, maybe,” Mike said, looking up at her. “But no, definitely not cruel.”
“Look,” she said excitedly, pushing the papers almost into his nose.
“And this is real, not one of your friends pulling a prank and sending this to us?” Mike asked as he quickly looked over the acceptance letter and the contract.
“I didn’t tell anyone except you that I sent it.”
“What do I tell—” he almost said Jed. If the old man were still there he thought he’d stay, but with his friend gone he saw no reason to. “Do I give two weeks’ notice?”
“It’s the right thing to do. They’ve treated us fairly.”
“Holy shit, Jandilyn, I’m an author! And you’re pregnant, I think I need to go have some man time, I’m so happy I could—”
“Don’t you dare say it.”
***
“Everything looks great,” the doctor said with a smile as she showed Mike and Jandilyn the ultrasound monitor. “There’s the heart and the hands. Do you want to know the sex?”
Mike absolutely did and did not.
“Mike?” Jandilyn asked, looking over at him.
“Up to you,” he said grinning like the village idiot.
“Okay,” Jandilyn said.
The doctor began to move her ultrasound device around. “And there.”
“I’m going to get a sandwich—anyone want anything?” Mike said, standing quickly and rapidly heading for the door.
“Chicken,” Jandilyn called to his retreating back.
“With mayo?” Mike yelled back, trying his best to get out of earshot from the doctor.
Her minor insult now sounded like good eats. “With pickles!”
Mike threw his hand up over his shoulder in acknowledgement of getting her order.
“So do you want to know?” Jandilyn asked him that night as they sat on their new couch in their new apartment.
“If it’s mine, you mean?” Mike asked back.
“You’re lucky I’m as big as a house or I’d waddle after you and squish you under my bulk.
