One

by J. A. Laraque

  I awakened the next morning freezing. Ever since I awoke in the empty world it slowly grew colder and colder as if it were dying and the heat was slowly fading from within. That morning was the coldest. There was little light coming from the balcony, I believed I had slept till dusk until I heard the sound. Still wrapped in the bed sheets I stood before the balcony doors parting the curtain. It was raining and it looked as if it had rained all night. Mother Nature had given me hope; if its rain had doused the fires then perhaps Christine’s home was saved.

  As I quickly gathered my belongings, I noticed the power had gone out in my room. If logic still existed then it would have been only a matter of time until power would be lost to the entire city. The world can exist without people, but its technology could not. Thankfully what I needed to find was written down, as long as I had a light source I could continue on. I paused at the door and did consider the lack of animals, even insects. I wanted to question how the world could continue without them, however, my plan was to leave before I would have to experience the answer first hand.

  On the adjacent block to the Drake Hotel, I found a Dodge Ram pick-up truck. The keys were in the ignition and it had nearly a full tank of gas. I assumed the driver must have been waiting from someone and turned off the engine. It was a slow drive back to old town, but using the size and power of the truck I was able to push smaller cars from the road. I listened to music for the first time since everything began. Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House was the first song to play. It was one of Christine’s favorites. She first heard it while watching the movie version of The Stand by Stephen King.

  As I turned onto Sedgwick Street, I stopped the truck and looked out over the neighborhood. I had always kept up with world events, hearing about wars in countries far from my own. Devastated cities, homes, lives burned to the ground, but I had never seen it firsthand. Though I watched the buildings burn when I left Walgreen’s, to see the charred remains of my neighborhood did something to me. I knew even if I did free myself and everything I had seen was reversed, I would never forget the sight that I saw that morning.

  I arrived on Orleans Street, my hopes of finding Christine’s home untouched faded. Many of the buildings were gutted by fire; it had even spread to the elevated train tracks. I could see her house in the distance; it was clearly blackened by fire. I was prepared to find it in a similar state as the other buildings, but what I found I had not anticipated. Her home had been touched by the flames, but that was all it had received, a touch. The side of the building must have been the last to catch on fire before the rain.

  I left the truck in the center of the street and ran up the steps bursting into the house. The stench of smoke was strong, but the inside was intact. I did not hesitate, quickly entering her room I began my search when remembered I had done this before. After finding the e-mail I had searched her room for any clue to what she had meant in her letter to me and I found nothing. I stood there in the center of the room and pondered where she would keep such a diary.

  After the death of her grandmother Christine and her mother took on more of a sisterly relationship. Christine was always mature and I believed her mother needed someone to lean on and that could only be done in such a relationship. Christine told me she would share everything with her mother, which made the comment about her mother wanting her to stay away from me even more puzzling. The best way to keep a secret from someone is to tell them everything. What better place to hide her inner most thoughts than with her mother.

  Christine’s mother’s room was down the hall and unlocked. She collected figurines of horses; the room was filled with them. I had never been in the room until that day which made me wonder, if the world was nothing but a dream or spanning from my mind how could I create something I had never seen before. It was irrelevant, my purpose was clear.

  My first search of the room turned up nothing. A small heating vent sat near the foot of the bed. Shinning my light into it I could see a small metal strong box inside. I pried it open and recovered the box, but found it locked. The keyhole was extremely small which meant the key would be tiny. I rushed to Christine’s room. I remembered she often wore a bracelet, she told me it was given to her by her grandmother. After almost losing it she swore she would only wear it on special occasions. As I entered her room I hoped that the day she was to meet me was not one of them.

  On her dresser Christine kept a small jewelry box. I opened it and sighed in relief finding the bracelet there. I pulled the curtains off the window to her room letting in the sunlight and sat on her bed. I opened the strong box and found only a small book inside, but it was what I was looking for. As I scanned through the pages, I discovered that she began writing in it when she was thirteen, the first entry talked about how the diary was a gift for her birthday. While part of me wanted to read everything if nothing else to better understand her I began flipping past the pages until a date caught my eye.

  September 4th. Timothy pushed me to the side once again to go hang with those loser friends of his. They think they are hot shit, untouchable, riding around in the cars their daddies bought. They may be rich, but they are also stupid. Timothy was never like this when he was friends with Jonathan. I wish there was a way they could be friends again. I just fear something is going to happen with Timothy drinking and smoking so much. That Kyle guy is crazy. Last week he went racing downtown drunk. I don't care if Kyle kills himself, but I don't want him taking Timothy down with him.

  I had not thought about Kyle since… it was not clear when I last thought about Kyle. We had met not long after my final conversation with Jonathan. It was at a party; he was the son of an international banker. Normally I would not have spoken a word to him, but Kyle was different. While he was richer than my family fifty times over his attitude did not match his wealth. Logic was not his companion, that was for sure, but he did not care about what others thought of him. He did not care about his status or the status of others. For him his wealth was a means for him to enjoy himself and achieve happiness. It was something I grew to admire.

  October 5th. Timothy and I had another fight today because I criticized his friends. He just doesn't get it. Those guys are not his friends. They are a bunch of spoiled rich kids with too much time on their hands. I've heard them talk about him. Make fun of him because his family is not rich enough. Jonathan would never have treated him like that. I don't understand how Timothy can defend them. I know I was the cause of Jonathan and Timothy no longer speaking. I didn't want to get in the way of his new friends, but I had to let him know how I felt. But I think I may have pushed him even farther away. Lola told me she saw Timothy and Kyle at some party downtown. She said they were completely smashed. I want to go to his parents about this, but I know that if I do it would be the end of us. I don't know what to do. I'm just afraid if I don't do something Timothy could end up in serious trouble, or worse.

  Something was wrong. October fifth, that was the day of the accident. Christine wrote that I was at a party with Kyle but that was not possible. The morning of October fifth I had gotten the final details for the trip and was going to talk to my mother about it. There was no way I was at a party or drunk if I was with my mother when the hospital called. Lola must have been mistaken or the date was incorrect. There was something, I remember the fight. Christine did make those accusations about my friends. I remember the anger I felt, but nothing else she wrote matched up.

  October 6th. I tried to call Timothy's cell phone before going to bed, but it just went to voice mail. I fell asleep, upset at him and myself for not knowing what I could do. When the phone rang and woke me up, I had a feeling inside that something was wrong. It was Ashley. Before she even spoke I knew something terrible had happened. As she began to tell me what happened, I couldn't believe it. Everything I feared had...

  It had happened again. Just as I was near an answer the story stopped. The next two pages were ripped out. The headings on the previous pages of the diary matched the ones I found i
n the yellow envelope. It could only mean that Christine gave the pages to my mother, there was no other way she would have them. Again what was written did not make sense. October sixth I was in the hospital with my father. I would have answered her call… I had to stop. The night in the hospital… I never called Christine. Thinking back I could not remember when I told Christine about my father.

  I had more pieces, but the picture did not reveal itself. There was nothing else in the diary. I had no other means of getting to the truth. My mother had pages from my girlfriend’s diary. My sister supposedly called Christine the night my father died and yet I did not call Christine and could not get hold of Ashley. My aunt assisted with freeing the man who killed my father and everyone has been worried about my wellbeing. There had to be more information, without power I would not be able to look up the information on the internet and searching for files would be pointless.

  Christine was going to tell me something when we were to meet at the library; that was where I had to go next. If she was going to tell me what my mother was keeping from me then she would know that I would need to see proof and she would have the proof on her. With the diary in hand I left Christine’s home and returned to the truck; it would be a long drive to the Herald Washington Library.

  Revelations Edge

  It took nearly an hour but finally I arrived at the steps of the building. As I stood in its lobby, it was clear the library was also without power. After almost thirty minutes of searching I found what I was looking for. Christine’s purse and phone, they were both on a long wooden table, which held the microfilm machines. It was what she was going to show me, it made sense. The microfilm machines would have copies of all the newspaper headlines including the headline I found in the yellow envelope. Unfortunately, without electrical power I would not be able to view them and the machines were bolted to the tables.

  Then I took notice of the emergency lights, there must have been a generator running. The lights were dim, but they ran along the walls and had outlets connected to them. I followed the power cord from the microfilm machine and unplugged the one closest to the emergency light. It just reached the plug. The section of the library became bright, illuminated by the machines display. I sat down in the same chair Christine had. Her phone had long since lost power, I wondered if she ever tried to call me. I searched through her purse, but there was nothing there. Whatever she had to show me was on the machine.

  I spun the dial looking for the headlines for October the seventh, the date of the article. It was on page thirteen of that day’s paper. I found myself staring at the headline; Drunk driving accident claims more than a life. My hands were shaking, before me was my answer, my salvation, my freedom. Slowly I began reading; I did not want to miss anything.

  At eleven minuets past midnight at the intersection of Superior Street and Michigan Ave, Alexander Hayden, forty-one, was struck by a drunk driver, which sent his car crashing into a street lamp. Mr. Hayden had to be removed from the damaged vehicle using emergency extrication procedures. He was taken to Northwestern Hospital where he died later that night from injuries sustained in the accident. In a bizarre twist, the drunk driver who only received minor injuries in the crash was Mr. Hayden's son...Timothy.

  My life shattered. Within the shards I saw the truth. Not only of what I had done, but what led me to that point, what I had become. I stood up from the scanner slowly backing away from it as if it were a dead body. Christine’s phone fell to the floor, my body gave out, and I crumpled to the ground. With my back against the wall I could do nothing but stare at the screen. My mind was flooded, with images and memories, which were not there before. Everything I had seen, experienced, I had to question. What was real, what was first hand, second hand, what was false. The empty world I was in became home because all the other worlds were destroyed.

  “I…killed him.” I whispered pitifully.

  I could feel myself being drawn away. There was no chance to fight it even if I wanted to. My mind demanded the truth and searched its depths until it was found. The world before me faded as my eyes rolled to the back of my head. From the darkness I could see a new reality being created. It was my past, the one I had forgotten, the day I killed my father.

  The Road to Hell is Paved…

  It was already evening. Christine and I had been in the middle of the fight she described in her diary. That night I truly felt I was going to leave her. I wanted to tell her how I never loved her and she was just an experiment, a test for my own logic and reasoning. A call kept me from that, it was Kyle. Truthfully I liked him because I did not need to worry about him. There was no attachment that I could not easily overcome. He invited me to a party, I was more than willing, anything to get away from Christine.

  “I'm not coming out there if they won't let me in. Alright...yeah...I'll be there...later.”

  Even though the party was not for hours I wanted to leave. As I stood and walked toward the door Christine walked in and blocked my exit.

  “I don’t have time for you.” I said coldly.

  She knew I chose those worlds specifically because they were what Jonathan said to her. I could see in her eyes that I hurt her and I did not care.

  “Don’t you care about yourself anymore, Timothy? You talk all this shit about feelings and what people do, but look at yourself now. You don’t even know what pain is and yet because of what happened with Jonathan you’ve turned into this. What are you going to do now? Get drunk? The last time you went drinking with Kyle you couldn’t even stand. They laughed at you and it was I who had to pick you up and you call those friends.”

  I had absorbed her words and thought I could leave without saying anything. My hand tightly gripped the doorknob. All I had to do was keep walking. The part of me that grew out of my experiences with Jonathan and Christine had taken control. The part of me that would not keep things in or think things through, it was the person I wanted to be.

  “Do you think I care about Kyle or you? If either of you were to die today I would have forgotten you by tomorrow. This was never about Jonathan, he was nothing but a burden, but you are worse than he ever was. I don’t need you, or Kyle or Jonathan or anyone. You think about that as you sit her crying about me. I guarantee I won’t be thinking about you.”

  There was a release that felt so good. Even as she fell onto the bed crying just as I knew she would I felt no pity, no shame. That feeling lasted five hours, my lack of thinking led to an emotional outburst reinforced with true feelings. Part of what I said was true, but I should not have expressed in that way, not all at once. These were the thoughts occupying my mind most of the night at the party. Kyle and his friends attempted to drown them with alcohol, but it only seemed to intensify them.

  By eleven thirty, Kyle’s friends had abandoned him, but he stood with me trying to cheer me up in his own way. All I could do was sit at the bar nursing my drink staring at my cell phone. I was hoping she would call me, but I was too much of a coward to call her. Kyle took a seat next to me. He looked at me for several minutes before he spoke.

  “I want you to know you have killed my party. Even after all you had, you are still sulking about Christine. What you told her was epic and now you are crying about it. Man, this is so not like you, what the hell happened?”

  “You wouldn’t understand… you don’t care…”

  I expected Kyle to be upset about what I said. He wasn’t, that was the kind of man Kyle was. He would spell himself out to you long before you even knew what word he was. His expression was still a look of disappointment, disappointment in me. He knew of Jonathan and Christine and my various beliefs. He called them a crock of shit. He said he could see who I really was and it was not what came out of my mouth.

  “So you had a fight… You said something that while awesome was something you did not mean to say. I would ask then why did you say it, but I digress. It happens and the truth is, by what you have told me about Christine, it will not matter. You can spin this and if you
play it right she will apologize to you. Shit, Clara and I fight all the time, she slapped me tonight because I told her there was a good chance I was going to have sex here, but do I care? No. Why? Because I am me and she is her and I can find another, her, but she will never find another me.”

  It was arrogance to be sure, but it was confidence as well. He meant what he said, he believed it.

  “Maybe you are right about me, Kyle. Maybe what is in my mind and what the real me is are totally different. You cannot act out what is in your mind; the world doesn’t work like that. Some of what I said was true, but to say it like that was just stupid. I don’t want to get someone else, not yet. I need her.”

  Kyle scoffed at me, but it was my turn not to care. I did need Christine no matter how much I did not want to admit it. I was willing to go back on what I said. I was willing to admit I was wrong and do whatever it would take to fix my mistake. I pulled myself up from the bar and slowly walked toward the door when I remembered that Christine had taken my keys away. I had one of Kyle’s friends bring me to the club.

  “Shit, Kyle, I need to borrow your car.”

  “You must be kidding me. You are kidding, right? There is no way I am letting your drunken ass drive my Seven Series. Catch a cab if you want to go crawling back to Christine.”

  I tried to think of other means to get to Christine. Thinking back there were other options I could have chosen, but at that moment they all eluded me. I found myself doing something I despised, begging for the help of another.

  “Please, I swear to you I am not drunk. I know you think I have gone back on everything I said, but you don’t understand. I need to fix this with her, now. Christine claims you are not my friend, that you have me around as a joke. I told her you weren’t like that, that you were different than the people in my building. I need your help Kyle.”