by Scott Baron
Gluttony—he’s done quite well in America, she thought. Certainly keeps me busy, that’s for sure.
The sterilized floors and walls cast a slightly greenish glow from the fluorescent lights above, making the whole scene feel a bit surreal to her as she tried to further gather her wits.
She slowly turned her head, still fighting the fuzziness wrapping her senses, watching quietly as Angela talked to a man in a white coat. Her doctor, apparently. The haze was lifting, and she found that if she focused, she could just make out what they were saying.
“She woke for a moment, but was totally disoriented,” the doctor said. “Then she passed out again.”
“She’s okay, Doctor. I’m sure she just misread the label is all. I should have clarified when I told her she could have a couple for her back pain.”
“Well, she’s lucky she threw them up. Only a few too many and she could have been a goner.”
“Oh, believe me, I know. It was a foolish accident, totally my fault. I’m so sorry I washed them down the drain. I didn’t realize you’d want to see them. I mean, it was only a couple of pills. The bottle was almost empty anyway… but don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her. It won’t happen again.”
The doctor looked at Angela, trying to decide if he believed her. She didn’t seem like the compulsive liar type, nor a junkie. Acting on his gut, he decided to cut her a bit of slack.
“All right, I’ll release her to your care, but I have to warn you, if she comes back like this again, we’ll have to place an involuntary hold on her for an evaluation. Clear?”
“Crystal. Thank you, Doctor.”
The doctor stepped out into the hallway to continue his rounds, leaving Angie to fret over her overdosed couch surfer.
“And you. What the hell kind of crap was that?” she fumed, spinning to stare hard at the girl in the hospital bed. The drowsy girl just weakly met her gaze with exhausted and bloodshot eyes. Pissed as she was, Angie felt a pang of sympathy well up in her chest, and found her anger quickly fading. She had taken in a stray but left her alone without really getting to know her, and look what happened.
Studying the girl as she lay there, Angie thought back to her own somewhat troubled youth and came to a crossroads. This one gets a second chance, she decided, something she herself could have used on more than one occasion. And besides, it’s building good Karma, right? she thought as she approached the bed.
“Oh, come on then,” she grumbled to her new ward. “Get up.”
Still a little unsteady on her feet, the weakened young woman relied on Angie’s support to make it through the door of the apartment. Angie guided her back to the comfort of the couch.
Sinking into its cushioned embrace, the worn-out girl really did start to feel a little better.
Angie let her settle in for a moment before fixing her with an upset, yet understanding gaze.
“Look, I’m trying to help you out here. I covered for you, but you’ve got to promise me there’ll be no more stupid stunts like that, okay? I want to help, but if you pull that crap again it’ll come back on me, and that shit will not fly. So, can you manage that, or is it back on the street?”
The girl felt her cheeks get warm.
“I’m sorry I got you in trouble. I just wanted to get back where I belong.”
“I told you I’d help if I could.”
But you can’t.
Angela might have been fed up, but her anger was rapidly fading, along with her energy. Helping people can be tiring, and this girl had just made her spend hours in a hospital, and had cost her half a shift to boot.
“It’s been a long day. Let’s get some sleep, we can continue this in the morning.” And with that she headed to her room, falling into a deep slumber the moment she lay down, letting the stress of the day flush from her mind and body and become a thing of the past.
Tomorrow would be a fresh start.
“Rise and shine! Who wants a waffle?” Angela called out as she emerged from her bedroom.
Morning light warmed the living room, but as Angie scanned her abode, she discovered her couch empty, a pile of folded sheets and a blanket neatly off to one side. She checked the rest of the apartment, just in case, but the strange young girl was gone.
CHAPTER 5
The morning air was brisk, and the girl who thought she was Death walked with purpose in her stride. The clop-clop of her boots as she moved along at a rapid pace echoed off the buildings and alleys as the sounds and smells of the morning swirled around her.
She paid them no heed.
Though she could see her breath in the chilly air, it wasn’t really all that cold, and on top of that, the walk had warmed her considerably. She had briefly considered stopping and having a cup of coffee, having decided she was fond of the hot and bitter drink, but she then realized that she had no money with which to buy said coffee. More importantly, she would have no need of coffee where she was going.
Just get home, she thought.
Pushing her pace as she continued on down the street, she steered out of the more residential area and toward a mixed-use business district. One with a great deal of new construction going up.
Occasional slivers of sunlight shone through gaps between buildings as she strode among the increasingly tall structures. At last she caught sight of what she’d been looking for. Just down the road was a construction site with an unlocked and unattended gate. She increased her pace as she headed toward it with purpose.
That should do just fine.
She barely took the time to look to see if anyone was watching as she ducked through the chain-link. Even if someone had been, she really didn’t much care, but by a twist of good fortune, her entrance had gone unnoticed. She had the run of the area to herself, at least for the moment.
Leaning up against a half-finished wall was a twelve-step ladder, and nearby lay a discarded coil of old rope.
Yes, that’ll be perfect.
She gathered the items and started dragging them toward the exposed beams overhead.
It only took her a few moments to position herself and set things in place. In no time at all she was gingerly perched atop the wobbling ladder, a blatant violation of OSHA safety guidelines. Balancing precariously, but nevertheless fearless and determined, she worked her hands quickly, then swung the length of rope over the beam. The rope flew true, the looped end dangling right in front of her as she’d planned, leaving the hastily tied noose hanging at roughly neck-height.
Content with her calculations, she climbed down the ladder and secured the tail end to an exposed beam. That accomplished, she surveyed the apparatus. Finding it adequate, the girl began climbing back up. She made quick time on the shaky a-frame, and upon reaching the top, the girl who thought she was Death quickly grabbed the noose with her outstretched hand.
With no hesitation or fear, she slipped the rope over her head, slid the loop tight, and immediately jumped off the ladder, which tumbled off to the side with a crash.
This is it. I’m coming back! she thought as she fell.
The rope, which had seemed sound enough moments before, snapped the moment it went taut, barely scuffing her neck as gravity sent the girl straight to the ground with a thud. A small puff of dust rose from her body’s impact. The wind had been knocked out of her from the unexpected landing, but she was otherwise unscathed.
Struggling for breath, it took her a moment to get to her knees, but she eventually managed to do so. The girl examined the split rope with frustration. Anger tinged her voice as she looked up to the sky.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she lamented.
She received no reply.
The clatter of the falling ladder, along with a woman’s distraught voice, had brought several construction workers running. They were rather surprised to see a beautiful young woman dusting herself off, throwing what looked like a noose into the nearby trash bin.
“Hey, are you all right?” one of the men asked.
I am far
from all right, she thought as she silently shouldered past him and back out onto the sidewalk.
She had been walking for a bit, and the sun had gradually risen higher in the sky, which, even in her disgruntled and distraught state, she couldn’t help but notice was an impressive shade of blue. As people joined together in their daily commutes, traffic had increased noticeably. People rushed to and fro in their own little bubbles of urgency, oblivious to the lovely morning as they worried about their day-to-day.
The girl who thought she was Death at first walked aimlessly around the neighborhood after her failed hanging, mulling things over, trying to make sense of her situation. Finally, she stopped for a rest in a quaint little park, bordered by a somewhat busy stretch of road.
Sitting alone in a sunny spot, quietly pondering her troubles and quite lost in thought, she didn’t even notice the homeless man who had sat down next to her on the bench. In fact, only after he had started feeding the pigeons crumbs from the half loaf of bread tucked in his grimy jacket did she even take note of his presence. To her surprise, she found that it felt kind of nice having someone to share space with, even if it was a total stranger.
He was fairly clean, for a hobo, she noted. A scraggly beard clung stubbornly to his cheeks, and he could have been forty just as easily as he could have been sixty, depending on how long he’d been out on the streets. He had that look that so many vagrants possessed, the sunburned cheeks and wind-blown hair, which would have fit in just fine with the well-off snowboarding crowd if he were in different environs.
The man had an air of regal confidence that belied his lowly station, and held himself like he was king of the park, overseeing his domain, entitled to sit wheresoever he pleased.
She didn’t mind. He could sit next to her if he wanted. Of course the fact that he didn’t smell like he had just crawled out of a sewer filled with burning garbage also helped make his presence acceptable.
It wasn’t long before the two struck up a conversation, and with just a little prying, he managed to learn the details of her unusual plight.
“That is quite a story,” he mused. “So after all she did, you just up and left, without even saying goodbye?”
“There was no reason to,” she replied. “The important thing is to return where I belong. I just don’t understand why I can’t.”
“Well, it’s too nice a morning to be sad about it,” he said with a cheerful grin. “I mean, sure, you’re stuck here, but it ain’t all that bad, right?”
“I just have to get back,” she replied. “You get it, right? I simply need to cross over. It should not be such an ordeal. It should be easy.”
“Well, nothing’s ever easy in my experience. And besides, even if you really are Death, why would you want to leave? I mean, look at how gorgeous it is today. Plus, this city is great. I mean, look at all the nice people, the clean air. Hell, look at this beautiful park, free for everyone to use. It’s just so nice here.” He reached into one of the pockets of his oversize coat and produced a small silver flask. He took a long swig, belched a high-octane cloud of booze, then offered her a taste.
She turned it down.
“Being hot, cold, hungry, sad—who wants to exist like this?” she griped.
“Not to be presumptuous, but have you ever considered that maybe those are parts of what makes life worth living?” the man said, sliding the flask back in his pocket.
“Well, aren’t you the insightful one?” she replied, with an unintentionally snarky tone. She realized she was unnecessarily harsh with the man, even for her mood.
“Hey, I’m just trying to help. Seemed like you were a little lost, is all.”
She pondered what he said in spite of herself.
Maybe he has a point.
The thought quickly left her head as she again turned to the important task of getting back to the other side.
“Nice thought for mortals maybe, but not for me. No, I’ve got to get back.” She rose, agitated, and saw a bus round the corner, heading down the street.
Oh yeah. Now THAT should do it.
She took off running, scattering the pigeons before her and nearly bowling over a man walking his teacup Chihuahua.
“Hey, watch it!”
On a mission, and moving at a full run, she ignored him. Her pace increased even more, and she soon found herself in a flat-out sprint.
The bum watched her speed off, a sad but slightly amused look on his face as his gaze followed her dash toward the street. Still over a block away, but approaching fast, he saw what had caught her attention.
The silver-and-blue bus surged forward in the heavy morning traffic, swerving between cars like a powerful fish knifing through a river’s flow as it forced its way ahead.
Packed with a shuffling throng of morning commuters, the air, as is often the case in small spaces packed with fast food-eating office drones, was rapidly becoming quite stale, the unappealing reek of hastily eaten breakfasts and strong coffee forming a noxious stench wafting from peoples’ mouths with every breath.
As a super-duper extra bonus, riders were also occasionally treated to an equally offensive emission from another orifice entirely.
Bad as that was, just as unpleasant was the musky odor of human sweat from those who had skipped deodorant that morning. Unfortunately, there was really no way to avoid the smell, as it was down to standing room only on board.
The driver grumbled to himself in frustration, his displeasure evident in the form of a lead-foot liberally applied to the gas pedal as he accelerated a bit too quickly, rapidly bringing the several-ton vehicle above normal cruising speed. There had been an “issue” with an aggressive and rather pungent vagrant several stops back, and after a delay of several minutes spent removing the man from his bus, the driver found himself forced to try to make up time from the delay.
Sunday drivers clogged the road, though it wasn’t even Sunday, and it looked as though he likely wouldn’t be able to get back on schedule, despite his best efforts.
“Come on, merge, you idiots,” he muttered as an indecisive driver timidly changed lanes a few car-lengths ahead. “Oh, come on, turn signals are there for a reason, dumb-ass,” he hissed, then violently stepped on the gas as he swerved around the slow-moving car, making several passengers lose their balance, the unexpected burst of acceleration taking them by surprise.
If you asked the bystanders on the street that morning if any of them had anything of note to say about the young woman dressed in black as she sprinted past them, they’d say they hadn’t noticed anything in particular. At least nothing that stood out. She just looked like anyone else running to catch a bus, a not-uncommon occurrence at that time of day as people rushed to work.
That was the observation most people shared as she ran past them, her long, black coattails flapping behind her.
The young woman had a far different motive, however. One made quite clear when she reached the curb at full stride just moments before the bus arrived.
Rather than stopping and flagging it down, she took one final, powerful, step, and leapt high in the air, flinging herself in front of the speeding vehicle.
Naturally, this elicited a chorus of screams, which accompanied the squealing brakes, and the high-pitched tinkling of breaking glass as the young woman impacted the windshield.
“Shit!” was the only thing the startled bus driver managed to blurt out as he stomped on the brakes with all his might, hoping the extra force applied by his foot would somehow make the vehicle stop faster.
It didn’t.
As the girl in black flew, tumbling through the air, a smile formed on her face.
This time it’ll work, she thought. I’m going home.
She felt her body become light, and before she even hit the pavement, an all-encompassing darkness closed in, slowly engulfing her in its embrace as her rag-doll body rapidly approached the unforgiving ground. While the impact from the bus had started the process, it was her impact with the pavement that abrupt
ly turned out the lights for real.
CHAPTER 6
The girl who thought she was Death felt something tickling the edges of her awareness. Consciousness wavered in and out as the most basic of her senses returned. Slowly, she found herself becoming alert, though surrounded by an encompassing darkness.
Sounds registered, but everything was strangely muffled, as if she were listening to the world through great big balls of cotton. She was vaguely aware of her body, but connecting the dots from her brain to her limbs was not quite working, much like when she first woke in that strange little hotel room. But also not.
What was different this time, was that her body was being jarred, and every once in a while, a bright flash of red or white light or a burst of a shrill noise would thrust its way into sharp focus, but only for a moment.
Floating in the dark like that, she didn’t have the awareness to really contemplate and analyze those sensations fully.
That changed in an instant when, without warning, she was violently yanked back to full consciousness, wide awake, and much to her consternation, in excruciating pain.
Her eyes slammed into focus, her gaze laser-sighting on a man in blue gloves as he pulled a now-empty syringe from her arm.
The flood of agony that washed over her was intense.
Words failed as her primal brain kicked in. Without knowing what she was doing, the girl let loose a piercing scream. Coherent speech was simply not an option. All she could do was cry out, her mind and body so overwhelmed by the horrible sensations that hit her, like pummeling waves of hammers and nails cascading and piercing every inch of her body, leaving her unable to articulate a single word. All she could do was scream until she ran out of breath.
It was too much for her senses. The agony engulfing her body, the antiseptic smell of the ambulance, which she somehow had the presence of mind to realize she was in as it bumped its way to the nearest trauma center.
