I took a good look around and noticed that everyone in the park resembled Randy in some way. A deep and hot panic clamped on my throat. Breaths came to me in short choppy patterns and my heartbeat pounded harder in my temples and throat. Pain from the knife wound jabbed at my side. Sorrow ran free within my veins and drugged me with its flow. Gloom lingered everywhere and it was sickly sweet. The more I consented to the dulcet feelings, the more I felt sorrow sway me. If this was the commiseration that was going to be forced on me, I wasn't going to lie down and take it without a fight. I checked every soul I came upon to see if they were Randy. My eyes quickly grew tired from the constant scrutinizing and I couldn't stop from shaking. The possibility that Randy could still be alive quickly became the only important notion.
"George?"
I was shocked. Could it be? A person ran to me from the distance. I could see Randy again.
He dropped the two coffees he was holding and charged at me.
"George!" The voice said again. My name sounded so strange.
"Randy?" I muttered, ready to cry.
I fell to my knees on the cool cement, ranting and reaching up for the heavens, thankful to have Randy back. My head filled with things to tell him. I wanted to say how much I missed him and that I was losing my mind without his help. I was in way over my head and I needed his guidance.
I was embraced into warm arms as I cried onto a woolen shoulder.
"Oh God I'm so happy," I ranted, "I can't do this alone, I just can't ..."
"George, are you all right?"
"I am now."
"Oh God, what happened to you George?"
"Since you left?" My teeth chattered. "Everything, but it's fine now. I'm safe now with you here, Randy."
"Oh God you poor man. You're delusional," a familiar voice said. "It's me, Jessica."
I looked up into her face and watched the features morph into her soft cheeks. Randy's short black hair blossomed into resplendent, beautiful hair. Tears cleared from my eyes and locked with hers. She gleamed into my soul and reminded me of all my past regrets. All my misjudgments from when we dated in college flooded back.
"Good God, what has happened to you?" she repeated.
Fear possessed my tongue, blockading my words off the back of my teeth. I felt powerless and washed up; nothing made sense.
"The ...the ..." I muttered up at her, still tasting my tears and holding her tightly as if I would sink without her. "The rest of my life happened."
"It's okay, George, it'll be all right," she held me and stroked my hair. She kissed my greasy locks and whispered assurances in my ear. "I came the second I heard about Randy. I've been looking for you."
I absorbed her sentence, but didn't pay attention. Just as long as she was there, in the flesh, and not some hallucination; that was all I needed. She stared at me with a pressing look that made me realize I was crying in a heap in the middle of a crowded park. I nodded and she hoisted me up.
"Lets get you home, George."
The hallucination stayed in my mind. I felt like an assassin of all life. All it took was one invidious touch and I would rob anything of its life. A killer paid in full with the curse of near immortality. The thought of God entered my mind. I wanted to rationalize how I could be what I am under His eyes, but every idea I discovered felt hollow and lacked the fear of His wrath. And lacked the warmth of love. I was cut off, freezing, and alone.
It all seemed so entirely terrestrial now. Everything holy and unholy felt thrust down to Earth and on my shoulders. In that moment, life was so clear through the eyes of Death.
A snort of a laugh blew out my nose.
"What's so funny?" Jessica asked.
"Life," I muttered as my laugh veered into a convulsion.
Jessica held me tight with one arm while the other hailed a cab.
Chapter 50
We returned to our old roots and renewed our friendship while we talked at my apartment. For the life of me I couldn't remember a thing we spoke about, though. All I could do was live in her eyes and never break away. It was difficult to maintain an extended conversation with her that day; I'd often break into a quick and uncontrollable convulsion. I hadn't the control over them initially - that I had gained with time, and that passed like it always does. In two months we renewed our love. More time passed and she didn't renew her lease in Chicago. She transferred to Boston and we began anew.
The next years I spent with Jessica were the happiest and the quickest I would ever have, no matter how dark times got. Strange though, that in recalling the most enamored time of my life, only bits and pieces come to mind. The five years we spent together had the most joyful climate, but no individual instances cried out to be noticed. I was just plain happy, immersed in a feeling that couldn't be wrapped up into a neat little ball.
We began where we let college leave off. Trying to start our lives together, we settled down and I secured a job. A sort of normal life. Jessica, in all her soothing insight, instilled constant reminders in me that there was a life for me, out in the real world. She reinforced me with steel supports of hope with her caring, even though my constant Death trips were as common as breathing. I convinced myself, based off her help, that the gift was just a job and I couldn't stress over it. If it did I would be consumed and become the convict. But that only dulled the pain enough to go to work.
My daily commute brought me to a high-rise, where I played the droning number cruncher in an office prison. The strangest aspect of it all was that if I didn't have the gift, I would have gone mad with the boring monotony of my career.
My office was my outlet of retreat, my enclosed space away from prying eyes, yet over the time I worked, coworkers often steered clear from me. I tried to pass off my tremors as a minor medical condition, yet they knew there was something else they couldn't put their finger on.
I enjoyed the solitude in any case. Out my window I could watch a vast rippling sea of glass and swimming cars press through the constant flow of traffic. The ocean of windows was as inviting as a cool dip in still waters. I watched people walking on rooftops and cleaning windows. I could see tiny figurines walk the sidewalks and then do lunch. I often stared at the top of the shorter building across the street, wondering if I could make the leap, busting through my window, dozens of stories up, to splash into the glass of the buildings across the street. It was so oddly enticing that I found myself standing on my desk, after closing my door and kicking my stapler aside, ready to leap into the gray abyss of a rainy afternoon.
"It doesn't look too far, and hell, I can't die. I'm Death."
I gazed over the leaden clouds and bleak city with tears welled in my eyes and was stopped by a convulsion. Visions of fires and debris spanned my sight. I watched droves of rescue workers rush futilely to the bodies that I had already visited. I watched a young girl cry, hugging a blanket, as she looked for her mommy. A tear streaked down my face and stopped in the gutter of my mouth. It sat there and waited for me to react but I couldn't. At that moment I realized that I had nothing left in me. I didn't harbor pity in my heart and soul any longer. I realized I had become a spectator to my own life, no more than a shell of a man. Everyone I loved was so far from my heart.
But I had to keep them at a distance so I could survive the trauma when it came time to take their life. I would stay aloof and just deal with it or risk becoming something much worse.
Chapter 51
What I wouldn't have given to have those days with Jessica drag on forever. A moment in her arms was Heaven on Earth. But still, time flew by like a movie montage. Not all the times were happy though, nothing was worse than a slow day when all I could feel were the tight grips on my throat and heart. My time with Jessica was all highs and lows with no in-betweens.
Within the first six months, her patience could no longer stand idly by and watch my condition. On a cool and breezy night over dinner, she finally managed to ask the question that had been disturbing her.
"George, what's the
matter with you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"In college, Randy would disappear and twitch like you," she said dryly.
The time had come. It was only a matter of seconds until she would come out and ask me about my convulsions, which had dulled down over time into small tremors. It had been only a matter of time and I was amazed she was able to wait to ask me. I feared her reaction. Would she run?
But what do I have to fear any more? No longer did I have to obey the common rules of life for I had little fear of bodily harm as a result of my actions. But I still feared the unknown. Though I may know what it was like to leave this world, I was clueless to the paths afterward. Paths without her.
Having to explain my terrible condition would surely raise scores of more questions. She was too curious and intelligent to let things lie.
"Well, what is it?" She continued with genuine concern that, for some reason, peaked shame within me.
I contemplated and chewed my food. My degradation, as I understood it at that instant, started after the hospital and slowly filled me with the thought that I had something godly inside me. I figured gods are a tortured lot, always having to make grandiose decisions with far-reaching consequences. Most gods, in the midst of being so hard on the general public, had a soft spot for someone or something that allowed them to flounder in judgment. Whether the soft spot was for man or woman, peace or war, love or hate, the fact is, that moment weakened the chain. I, on the other hand, do my job without that weakness because the gift made its decisions on its own, never involving human emotions. And those emotions were what I had to be concerned of when I answered Jessica.
I continued to chew. I began to believe that there were no deities in existence and never had been. They were just guys like me that had found some piece of mysterious knowledge and had to keep it. These figureheads discovered some part of the great scheme that should not have been allowed to them. Let's face it; people want to know it all.
Jessica stared at me from across the table, loving the old me she knew in college and struggling with the new me that had grown like a tumor. If I could've thought of a better method of leading a somewhat normal life, I would have implemented it.
"I think you've gained an invincibility complex by surviving the attack," she said, irritated by my silence.
"I've done no such thing."
"Yeah, you have," she yelled and stood with her palms flat on the table.
Curbing her anger, she settled and sat back down, "Look, I'm just worried about you."
The grips around my heart and throat grew unbearably tight. The gift knew I wanted to expose it, so it tried to hold me in check.
"I'm fine," I choked and the grips within me softened.
So many times have I wanted to tell her about it, but the timing was never right. Plus she'd only worry once I told her. So often I wanted to sit her down and calm her fears so she wouldn't leave me. But a convulsion would always impede and delay me, making Jessica more frustrated. I loved her and wanted to tell her everything, but I was scared.
"Goddammit, George."
"I don't know how ..." the grips clamped down again and my breath wheezed out.
"Just tell me."
"I'm ..." I gurgled and choked. "I'm ..." Air deserted my lungs. "...I'm Death."
Torrents of freezing motions roared beneath my skin yet no convulsion came on. Goosebumps speckled my flesh and my hair stood on end as my fork plummeted to my plate. The frozen gust ran through my entire body, whirling about in a barrage of sharp stabs to my chest. I was breathless and my heart pounded harder and harder, pitching my torso forwards with every beat. Icy pain seethed into every joint in my body, cutting through all the spaces between my bones. In the last second before I was almost overcome by vertigo, all the painful sensations ceased.
"You're what?"
"Death," I repeated.
I had never seen anyone looked so stunned. Not even the people whose souls I've taken had ever looked as surprised as she did. Her face cringed like I had punched her. Her shoulders scrunched up so high that they melded with her earlobes and her eyes lit up like she heard the biggest lie ever told. Jessica glared at me in distrust for being the one to tell it to her.
"Did I miss something? Was that supposed to be a joke?" She finally retorted.
"No."
"And I'm supposed to believe that?"
"I'm telling the truth."
"Hey, if you wanted to break up again, at least tell me the truth instead of making up some bullshit story that you know I would never believe," she said, shaking with tears.
"No, no, no. I wouldn't do that. I will tell you the whole story."
So I did. Anything about everything she wanted to know, about Randy and the convict. She was skeptical, but she knew I was telling the truth, as I perceived it. Or thought I was nuts. She didn't know which was better.
"If you stay awhile longer I'll probably be able to prove it to you, it has been awhile since I last used the gift," I said, trying to keep her near.
"The gift?" Her anger peaked. "Oh that's just great, what the Hell? Ya know I've seen this already, I saw Randy do it ...and I'm not sure why you're mimicking him like this, but it's no good George. He's dead, get over it!"
She stormed into the living room.
"It's not like that Jessica," I said following her with both our wineglasses clanking in my hands. I turned out the lights and sat next to Jessica. I watched her intently, remembering Randy's blood flowing out onto the street, remembering that Randy gave his life to give me the gift and safeguard it. I wanted to show her somehow but had to wonder if another person knowing would only create more peril.
Was she in any more danger knowing the truth, than not knowing? No. The only person in danger was me.
I told her about the theory I had, about how the gift freezes and preserves me. Knowing the touch of my skin, she nodded silently in agreement. I was so frigid at times that she wouldn't snuggle too close. After a half an hour, I began explaining to her without using words.
"George, are you all right," she checked as I clutched the chair's arms so tightly my knuckles turned white.
"This is it," I muttered.
She watched me convulse and gasped when she saw the blue light stealthily shoot from my face. Then, within a moment, I was back again and awoke to an astonished Jessica as she fumbled with her words.
"I almost had a heart attack," she stuttered, "Your skin went pale, almost blue ...I thought you died."
Stunned and worried, a thousand thoughts must have run through her head. She raised an eyebrow with a contemplative look like she was reviewing medical conditions that she knew that could explain what I did.
"You know ...I," she said, "I've gotta go."
"Jessica wait," I stood and followed her towards the door.
"No I can't, just, just lemme go."
"So much has already gone. I can't bear the thought that you are yet another."
We stood in the dark, with the wan light of the moon mixing among the shadows. We gazed into each other's eyes. Mine trembled watching the effects of my condition on the woman I love. My legs lost their strength and turned to rubber as my neck swiveled, no longer capable of carrying my head and the anguish within. The rest of my body was bogged down with an impalpable pressure that rested on my back, pulsing tediously against my lungs.
"I need time," she said and closed the door.
And she was gone. The door blew a rush of air in my face that smelled like her. The bulk on my back grew heavier. A throbbing emanated from it that I recognized. All my failures incessantly pounded against my heart.
The fresh night air, crisp as it was, was hard to breathe. The gift had sloppily eviscerated everything decent out from me and replaced it with an empty sorrow. My forearm crashed against the door and my head followed as I cried in the blue moonlight.
Chapter 52
Two awkward weeks passed in which we didn't speak, time I spent staring at my hands and
convulsing. I sat nervously impious, cross-legged in the middle of my living room, only moving to eat. Each flash of a life I had to take flogged me. The souls I stole were on a constant march across my mind and I did nothing to divert my attention away from it. I spent that week watching and dwelling on death. I let myself be overexposed to it so I could desensitize myself. I had to keep away from my own race to retain reverence for it. But I yearned for some kind of tribute to life to remind me that it all isn't bad. I found I hadn't the will or ability to ostracize myself from humanity. The answer to all my dilemmas was
Jessica.
God, I wish I could believe in something again.
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