by J. Thorn
In an instant, the headlights doubled from two to four. He saw the first set snap out into his lane and then wink as the car slid sideways, fishtailing on the slick roadway. The driver regained control and pulled the vehicle back into his lane. However, the maneuver sent the second set of headlights into a spin itself. They sped past the first vehicle and cut back into their lane. Samuel became so enamored with the scene that he did not notice that he had let his vehicle drift.
Samuel’s vehicle struck the oncoming car, creating an impact that crumpled the other car’s hood, sending it into an upside-down V, like a cheap accordion. He felt the brunt of the impact, which threw him toward the passenger side and then snapped him back, his head shattering the side window. He felt his car spin and strike three more times, unsure as to what he was hitting. The sound of crunching metal made him wince. All he wanted was for the car to stop moving, even if it meant slamming straight into a tractor-trailer. Samuel waited and waited, the seconds feeling like lifetimes. When it finally stopped, Samuel faced the opposite direction on the highway, his passenger-side door stuck to the guardrail.
The silence lasted for a few seconds. His ears rang and the adrenaline spiked his bloodstream. Samuel felt the warm, sticky blood flowing into his left ear, and he winced where the dashboard thrust backward into his right knee. He did a mental check and realized that he was alive and without serious injury. The euphoria of that revelation lasted until he looked out the other side of the car at the discarded mess of steel balled up next to the opposite guardrail.
Samuel climbed from his car and limped over the frozen roadway toward the other vehicle. He thought he remembered two sets of headlights, but either that vehicle had fled the scene or the whiskey had created the extra set of lights. He smelled gasoline and burning rubber, while drops of sizzling liquid pooled in the roadside ice. He looked both ways and saw nothing but the dead of winter. Somewhere beyond his vision, a distant siren purred.
A groan from inside the mangled metal brought his attention back to it. Samuel approached, unsure where the front of the vehicle could be. He saw twisted steel, dark plastic, and scraps of humanity thrown together inside the death cage. He walked toward the car and stepped over a hockey stick, followed by a a book. The closer he came, the more personal belongings he had to step over.
The car’s dinging door alarm was on but struggling to maintain sound, as if it was covered in thick foam. Samuel saw the steering wheel contorted like a pretzel, and he looked inside the gaping wound where the windshield used to be. He saw the small, delicate frame of a young woman, the seatbelt tight against her throat. Jet-black hair covered her face. Samuel shoved his face inside and heard the ragged, desperate sound of her lungs. He looked at her painted fingernails wrapped around the steering wheel. The smell of exhaust mingled with blood made him queasy.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
As soon as he spoke the words, he felt like a fool. He could not bear to ask the question he really wanted to ask.
“I’ll get help.”
He spun and remembered the Italian restaurant fifty yards up the highway. It was probably getting close to closing time, but an old phone booth stuck out near the guardrail like a beacon of hope. Samuel had just spun toward it when he felt the warm, weak grip on his hand. He jumped and let out a muffled cry.
The driver’s hand held his. He could feel her life slipping away, but he could not move. The grip squeezed his hand as if to say that all was forgiven, that accidents happen. Samuel felt the encompassing love, and he knelt low to see inside the remains of the car. He used his free hand to reach in and gently push the hair away from the driver’s face.
The memory advanced like a fluttering reel of film until Samuel sat at a glass pane, holding a corded phone to his ear.
Kim came into the visitation room and looked at him. She had not been able to apply her morning makeup over red, puffy eyes. Her face resembled the photograph hanging above the dresser, the one of her and Samuel in college. She loved that picture and the wispy memories of youth it represented. They both remembered the night that photograph was taken and always joked that Kim’s hold on her car keys was as strong as the one she had on Samuel’s heart.
“Kim, I thought I was fine.”
“There’s no point. After what we’ve been through, after what you’ve been through, I can’t . . .” Kim trailed off, fumbling through the conversation.
“I’m so sorry. I’m going to make this right,” he said.
Kim sat, her bottom lip trembling.
“The kids?”
“My mother’s,” she replied.
“Now what?”
“Now you figure out how you’re going to live with this, Samuel. Now you have to ask God, or whatever demonic force that commands you, for forgiveness and hope he doesn’t strike you down.”
“What should I do about—”
“I don’t give a fuck, Samuel! You do whatever it is you need to do.”
He could hear the pain in her voice.
“I’ll deal with it.”
Kim laughed. “I’m sure you will.”
***
Samuel opened his eyes, returning to the cave where Mara lay at the mercy of the Reversion.
“I’m so sorry.”
Mara squeezed Samuel’s hand just as she had on that cold night. She smiled, and the worry lines in her face loosened.
“I can’t believe that all this time you, you knew that . . .” Samuel shook his head, tears clouding his vision. “I’m the reason you’re here, stuck in this prison.”
“Come closer,” Mara whispered. Her eyes closed, and the life drained from her voice.
Samuel moved closer and bent down, taking her hand in both of his.
“I let you see what I thought you needed to see while you were here.”
He nodded, setting at least some of his guilt free. “Mara, I . . . I can’t believe I did that to you, and—”
She squeezed his hand again and shook her head as much as possible. “Life did that to me, not you.”
Samuel started to speak but Mara squeezed his hand, stopping him.
“There isn’t much time. Please listen,” she said.
Samuel dropped his head and waited for her to continue.
“I didn’t see your face at the scene. I passed before you came over to the wreck. But when you arrived in this locality, I argued with Kole.”
A memory sparked in Samuel’s head. He remembered seeing the disagreement at a distance.
“We didn’t so much argue about you, although he claimed you were someone from his past. I guess you could have passed through both of our lives, but I don’t really know. I told him that you were here for me, for him, for all of us. I explained that you had a purpose and a mission to release us from this.”
“But he didn’t agree. Major didn’t agree either, did he?” asked Samuel.
She shook her head.
“They could very well have been here for other reasons,” she said, a wet cough thundering through her chest. “But I knew why you were here and what that meant for me.”
“What does it mean for me?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I wish I could say, but I can’t. You’ll have to figure that out.”
Samuel looked up. Their bodies appeared to float in pure darkness. The Reversion had begun to peck at their feet. Samuel could feel the power trying to dissolve the very molecules in his body. The cave and the rest of the dead locality attached to it were gone, swallowed and consumed by the inevitable force of the Reversion.
“How? When? Where?”
Mara let the single-word questions hang in the air without attempting to answer any of them.
“If you can figure out why you’re here, the answers to those questions might show themselves to you.”
“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked her.
Mara nodded. “Yes,” was all she said about it.
Mara’s eyelids fluttered, and Samuel felt her breath hitch in he
r chest. He wiped her forehead with the back of his hand and felt the cool, clammy touch of death descending upon her, challenging the Reversion for the last spark of life left.
“This is my time,” Mara said.
Samuel closed his eyes and felt the oppressive force of nothingness closing in on him.
“How will I know? How will I know how I got here and what to do about it?”
Mara opened her eyes and looked at Samuel for the last time. He saw the forgiveness and sadness inside, the emotional turmoil simmering in the deep recesses. She bit her lip and spoke again, her words barely audible this time.
“I will show you.”
***
Samuel saw the inky blackness, like oil-slicked surf, the silent waves pulsing over her body. He felt weightless as the power of the Reversion disassembled the atoms left in the locality. He screamed in helpless futility as he watched the darkness creep over Mara. It slid over her foot, and when it retreated it left nothing but empty blackness behind. He watched as the forces nibbled and bit at her essence like fish feeding on a floating corpse.
He knew that whatever was happening to her physical body was a different experience than what was happening to her spirit. Samuel smiled, seeing Mara’s angelic face from the coffee shop in his mind’s eye, rather than the pasty, sickly face of her lying in the cold dirt of the cave and waiting for death.
Samuel watched as the last remnants of Mara’s body disappeared beneath the relentless pursuit of the Reversion. With her body gone, he became a drifting ship amidst a horrific ocean of darkness and silence. The Reversion began the same process on him, albeit at a much slower pace. He reached down to touch his knee and became queasy, uncertain of his bearings and feeling, like an astronaut tumbling through deep space, carried into oblivion without the slightest friction to stop it. He closed his eyes and opened them to try to stabilize his mind, but the attempt failed. Samuel had opened his mouth to scream when a voice entered his head. He knew it was Mara before she even spoke.
I must show you what you can no longer access from your own memory. If I don’t do it now, the Reversion will claim you forever.
Samuel cried, ready to follow her, ready to do anything to escape the fate perched on the threshold of his humanity.
Your final moments, those inaccessible to you since you arrived here. Those moments will enlighten you, provide answers to questions you have not asked. They will also explain your presence here, and once you have that knowledge, you will know what you must do.
“What if I don’t?” he asked.
All you can do is trust in what I have to share.
Samuel felt Mara’s essence dissipate. The energy in his body shifted, and he felt his mind snap back into the physical realm. The blackness of the Reversion retreated until the fuzzy hole of a dream reality filled the middle, like viewing it through a telescope. The blackness surrounding the edges of his vision reminded Samuel that this was something for him to witness, but that the Reversion still held him in its clutches. The objects swam through his vision until they began to settle and form within the frame. A burning knowledge began in his stomach, and the pain blossomed outward as the scene materialized. When the objects stopped and the lens on the vision focused, Samuel cried. He remembered the scene, he remembered the cast, and even though the pain tore through his psyche, he also remembered his lines. Samuel was not sure he could manage to sit through the clip until he felt the inner strength of Mara, speaking to him from beyond the physical.
You must. And from your suffering will come your salvation.
***
Samuel slid the triskele from underneath the thin mattress that smelled of piss and disinfectant. He smiled and held the item in his hand, pleased to have been able to smuggle the talisman into his cell without hiding it within one of his body’s orifices.
The cinder-block wall stared at him from all angles, disguising up from down and inside from out. The stainless-steel sink sat next to the basin that functioned as a toilet. Both fixtures faced the bars of the open cell and anyone that happened to be walking the corridor of his ward. A black marker sat in the corner of the room, while a simple calendar hung from the wall above it. The air inside the prison hung as if it too was sentenced to a life of pure, dead boredom.
“I’m cold,” Samuel yelled.
He shuffled to the front of the cell, placing a hand on each bar and shoving his unshaven face through. Samuel managed to cast an eye down the corridor and saw nobody. He turned his head at the other end of the hallway. It was empty, too.
“I need a fucking blanket!”
The sound of scraping metal preceded the methodical tapping of boots on the polished floor.
“‘Bout time.”
Samuel stepped back and waited as the guard approached with a thin blanket folded down to the size of a postcard. He looked at Samuel and sniffed, turning his nose up at the stench.
“Flush the damn toilet, you animal.”
The guard tossed the blanket through the bars. It landed at Samuel’s feet. He bent down and picked up the linen. Samuel listened as the boots clicked their way back to the front desk, sealed off with the massive, steel door shrieking back into place.
Samuel unfolded the sheet masquerading as a blanket and did the mental calculations in his head. He looked up at the heating duct burrowing through the cinder-block walls and hoped the sheet was long enough. He took the thin, felt slippers from his feet and knotted the end of the sheet around both until the ball of cloth outweighed the rest of the fabric. He looked up at the three-inch gap between the ductwork and the ceiling, and then visually measured the ball in his hand.
He walked toward the sink and splashed his face with water. The pungent stench of chlorine invaded his mouth, and Samuel remembered the inmates telling him to never drink the water from the sink inside the cell. Samuel laughed at that advice and its absurdity in his current situation. He looked at the calendar and the mangled, wrinkled photo tucked under the corner. It would not matter for Samuel. He would never see his family again.
He punched the wall and felt the skin on his knuckles pull back until the warm blood flowed over them. Samuel punched the cinder block again until the bones in his hand succumbed to the power of the cement.
The lights in the corridor buzzed. Samuel looked up to see the overhead fluorescent bulbs wink and extinguish as the electricity retreated from the wires. Several wire-encased sconces flickered to life where they were mounted between cells. The curfew buzzer sounded, followed by a sighing symphony of incarcerated souls. Samuel did not feel tired, but then again, he had lost track of day and night long ago. He slept when the lights went out and woke when they came back to life.
Samuel waited for his eyes to adjust, staring at the battered photograph. He kissed two fingers on his right hand and touched them to Kim’s face, one from another time and place. Samuel would give anything to be standing in that frame, his hand on her back as they smiled at the optimistic future awaiting them. He sat on the edge of the bunk and put his face in his hands.
There could be an appeal.
He swore at himself as soon as the thought appeared. His attorney had taken him through those permutations, and an appeal was as likely as the guard opening the door and setting him free.
Then stop stalling and get to it, you fucking coward.
Samuel stood and nodded his head, shaking the last bit of doubt from it. He took the end of the sheet containing the slippers and balled it in his right hand. Samuel stepped back and lobbed the sheet toward the duct. The first two tries bounced off the wall and fell back to him. The third toss landed on top before sliding across it and out the other side. Samuel stopped, hoping the guards would not have heard it strike the duct.
It’ll never hold you.
He cursed the voice trying to keep him from ending the pain once and for all.
“Got steel straps tied into the block to reinforce the duct. It’ll hold.”
He winced at the sound of his voice. It soun
ded foreign to his ears.
Samuel pulled the loose end until the knot held between the top of the heating duct and the wall. He clutched the sheet with both hands and pulled his feet off the floor. Samuel dangled a few inches in the air, neither the sheet nor the duct giving any indication that they would not be able to finish the job.
He climbed on the bunk and stood on the edge of it. Samuel took the loose end and tied it around his neck several times, taking all of the slack from the fabric. He reached up and tied a knot behind his head. Sweat poured from his skin, causing a shiver in the cold chill of the cell. Samuel’s mouth went dry, and his palms became moist. He slid the triskele out of the waistband of his underwear and held it in his right hand. Samuel did not pray. He did not ask forgiveness from the all-powerful forces of the universe. If the talisman did not serve him as he crossed over, nothing would.
His bare toes extended over the edge of the bunk that sat two feet from the floor. Samuel looked up again to verify that the knot held at the top before reaching around to check that his noose held firm. He took shallow, rapid breaths, trying to exhale the last remnants of hesitation.
Samuel closed his eyes and thought of the suicide forest he had seen on television a long time ago. He imagined proud Japanese men trudging through the forest and hanging themselves to avoid the shame of the modern world, swinging together at the base of the sacred mountain and sparing their families the pain. He could almost feel the hovering trees, along with the unnatural solitude of the haunted forest.
When Samuel stepped off the bed, his last sensation was the distant aroma of moldy bark.
Chapter 17
Samuel pushed the twisted sheet from his shoulder and let the makeshift noose coil on the ground like a dead snake. He stepped out of the rope and looked up at the decaying branch overhead. Samuel shook his head, his eyes darting about the empty forest as his heart raced in his chest.
He drew a breath, exhaling slowly and wincing at the pain in his throat as his lungs tried to pull in more oxygen. He smiled from the joy of being alive until the memory of his prison cell wiped it from his face. Like a leaf at the mercy of the wind, the image of the bars floated from Samuel’s reach. Worry rushed back in to fill his mind as he struggled to find a connection, a reason for being here.
