Chapter One
Looking for the Light
“I’ll get it done on time Frank. Don’t freak out about it, I’ll get it done, I always do.” I sat hunched over in my chair trying to make as small a target as possible. I dreaded any time I had to spend talking to Frank. I was usually better at avoiding him.
“I’m just concerned that you don’t see the urgency in the rollout, that’s all I’m saying, Adam. These are extremely critical infrastructure machines.” Frank animated his words with his hands. When he spoke, he needed to conduct the conversation as if he were in front of some sort of symphony, carefully choosing each and every word then expecting the players to follow his lead.
I could see he wasn’t telling the truth, “Of course I understand how urgent it is. I’ll have the servers back to you before the end of the day. I’m just finishing up the final patching then one more quick security scan and after the reboot I’ll have the sign-off spreadsheet in your inbox. You will have them by the end of day today Frank, no later.”
“Okay, I just get concerned when these things come down to the wire. It seems like it happens every single time with this team. Upper management is always talking about cuts so it’s critical to me that my team looks good to them. You understand, don’t you?” he always wrapped his questions in a very patronizing tone.
I found myself thinking, “Are you sure it’s critical that your team looks good or are you a little more concerned about yourself, Frank?” Not that I could ever say those words out loud.
“Sure, Frank. I’ll try to get them to you faster next time. I have been working on a script to automate one of the more lengthy steps, it should be done for the next project.”
“Good deal.” He turned and headed back to his office without another word. I watched his Darkness walk away and silently wondered to myself how he managed to stay in the position he held for so long. I was starting to learn that it had more to do with who he hired to support him than it did with his own abilities. I had been playing with computers since about the same time the training wheels came off of my bicycle. They seemed as if they were a natural place for me to go, no Darkness rolled around the electronics and it didn’t take me long to realize I could create whatever world I wanted to by simply writing the proper code.
I sighed heavily and turned my monitor back on. My current game of solitaire was waiting patiently for me to play a three of clubs. I had learned very early in my job here that delivering early to Frank never ended well for me. He would take any extra time I gave him and either find a small missed item or, more often, create one. I mean seriously petty items. The last time he had sent an entire cluster back because the default log in desktop didn’t have the company logo on it. Anything to make himself stand out as the all-seeing-all-knowing engineer that he set himself up to be.
“I do not understand why he is so strict with you, Adam. You know these systems better than any engineer on the team and much better than Frank does,” my office mate said through a heavy Indian accent.
“Because, deep down inside, he wants nothing more than to control people that he sees as more intellectually powerful than himself. He gets his kicks out of seeing frustration from someone that could beat him in just about anything he chooses, but instead said person just sits back and takes it because he wants to put food on the table and not have to go interview for some other crap job in some other crap company. He is a narcissistic control freak that is in desperate need of a physical attitude adjustment but he knows he is safe from that in his little corporate bubble.”
He gave me a very perplexed look, “I do not understand what you are trying to say.”
“He’s an ass.”
“Ah, I know this word, ass,” he smiled as he looked down the hall to see if Frank was indeed out of earshot. “I think I would agree with you, Adam. He is not very good at doing the needful. He certainly should be more kind to you if he wishes for you to remain here. Outside of the development team I think you know this better than anyone else.”
I moved a few more pointless cards. I had one card remaining to be uncovered and it had to be the two of diamonds. Another dead-end game done and another nineteen minutes removed from my dark existence. I closed my eyes and rolled my neck as I thought about my current outlook on life. Where was I headed? Did I have any achievable goal in mind? I was alive but what was I doing to live? I was adrift.
I moved a few pointless cards before I swiveled in my chair to face my officemate in the other corner of our tiny cubicle, “Baskar, do you ever feel as if you want something more out of life?”
“More of what, Adam?” He tilted his head slightly as he tried to understand my question. He was at least a full foot shorter than I was and rail skinny but his dark skinned face always had a smile and his wire frame glasses emphasized his bright-blue eyes.
“More, well, I don’t know, something, anything. Do you ever feel a little hollow inside? Like something is missing? Like a huge piece of you is gone somewhere and you don’t know where to start looking?”
“I am trying to understand you but I cannot follow your words, Adam.”
I could see he was telling the truth. It flowed around him in ripples and colors. “Are you happy, Baskar? I mean happy with how your life has turned out?”
“Oh, yes. Life has been very generous to me. I could not ask for more from the life destiny has provided for me. God has shown me nothing but mercy.”
Not a ripple or curl disturbs the core. This was again a full truth.
I enjoyed working with Baskar. The language barrier made it difficult for him to communicate at times but it made it easy for me to see what his motives were when he would struggle as he searched for the right words. I could see the difficulty with the words in his Darkness and could often tell what he was really trying to say written in the colors and flows. He had far more formal training than I did but that same training kept him from ‘thinking outside of the box’, to use a term Frank really liked to throw around. His experience in a high-end college and my experience working in the trenches made for a nice matchup. Our skills complimented each other quite well.
“I’m sure Frank is really a good man if you could get to know him,” he looked away at the last second of his statement.
This was clearly not the truth.
I smiled as I looked at the change in energy around the short man, “I’m pretty sure that the last thing Frank and I will ever do is get to know each other. If he and I were lost on an island somewhere, I would eat him before I tore open the bag of potato chips I brought with me.”
Baskar smiled politely but I knew he didn’t understand what I had said, “Will you be joining the rest of us for lunch today, Adam?” Again I could see what he hoped the answer would be.
Light flickered delicately around the edges.
He did not want me there. Not out of spite but because with me there they are forced to speak English and that is not very relaxing for a few of them. “No. I’m going to take a pass today. I need to get down to the DMV for my car tabs before they expire and I get some massive ticket I can’t afford.”
“I will see you after lunch break then, Adam,” he said as he locked his machine and slipped his windbreaker over his narrow shoulders. Several of his friends from the group were waiting in the hallway and waved to me as they walked away.
I watched him walk down the hall and laugh as they greeted one another. With a sigh, I made the last available move and lost yet another game. With a click of the mouse I restarted another game of solitaire that, statistically speaking, would be yet another losing game.
By the time I finally passed the blue reflectors stuck to the side of our mailbox, it was dark. The seventeen-mile commute gave me time to think and for the most part allowed me to not have to look at people. My headlights washed over the house as I turned around in the small paved circle that took up the bulk of the front yard. I rolled my head around and massaged my neck as I build up the courage leave the solitude of my Ford and go inside. Part of me always quietly dreaded finally arriving at home. The same part, at the core of my being, that hated being around people. I could never identify with anyone, I always felt like an outsider, as if I didn’t belong anywhere. I didn’t have a place in any part of society, not an outcast, just not accepted. Not the same.
Erica and I got along well enough to get married and I think we were happy together at first but things slowly changed as I began to fall down the deep, dark well that was becoming my life. I found myself reading more and more into her Darkness and listening less and less to her words. The words she chose never matched what her life essence was saying. I can still never really understand what she is thinking. The fact that I couldn’t read her so well was one of the reasons I was so profoundly attracted to her when we first met. She was a freelance photographer and had won nearly a dozen awards for her work over the seven years we had been together and several more before that time. The simple fact that I did nothing but drag her into my own dark basement of life was reason enough for me to think she could do far better with someone else.
Our house was dark except for the single porch light and the strobe of a television in the living room window. I find myself flashing back to the day I met the most amazing woman I had ever set eyes on.
Seven years ago, when I had been on a hike up near the Snoqualmie Pass, my life was changed. I like to hike because it is the one place I can comfortably walk and look around without the fear of seeing other people. I had just come around a long blind curve when I saw her setting her camera equipment up on a small wooden bridge. She had several tripods with lights and a camera with the largest lens I had ever seen already set up. I smiled to myself as I watched her struggle with a mass of cables in a separate small bag. It didn’t take her long to have everything sorted out and plugged in where it needed to be. She was taking time-lapse photographs of the small creek and I found myself drawn to her. The Darkness around her was that soft smoky silver-gray I had come to associate with good people. We talked for so long on that small bridge that the passage of time wasn’t apparent until the sun finally set on us and the air became noticeably colder. We laughed and stumbled our way down the trail and wound up getting dinner at a small steak house on the highway. I spoke to her every day after that until she finally agreed to go out on a real date with me. Being persistent wasn’t a trait I had ever shown before so it was strange, and scary, territory for me.
Lately something has changed and I haven’t been able to figure out what it is. I can see there is something wrong between us, something flickering in the tides of the Darkness but I am unable to read what it is. I feel as if I am standing on a myriad of train tracks but cannot tell which rail the light ahead of me is coming down. I fight with my nearly constant desire to withdraw from her, it’s the main safety mechanism I have used my entire life and over time it is something that comes to me easily if not naturally. I want to pull into my own world and deny everything around me, to be by myself and truly alone. I have been saddled with this curse for as long as I can recall. The older I get the deeper I fall into this pit of despair. I just want to be normal. I want to be able to look at the world around me and pretend it isn’t the dark place I know it is.
I close the door of my truck with a sigh and single out the house key on the ring. With a familiar sounding solid click, the deadbolt slides open and I walk through the door. The air inside the house comforts me both with its aroma of fresh bread and pasta, and the warmth of a safe home. Closing the door behind me locks the rest of the world out and I feel my body relax slightly. Dinner is ready and she is curled up in her favorite chair with a book. The TV is on with the sound down to just a whisper.
“Hey, Hon, how was your day?” I call out as I hang my coat on the rack by the door. Laptop bag goes on the footstool, keys on the key ring, wallet on the small shelf. I tend to be fairly methodical in my workings. It isn’t some kind of disorder or anything, I just really like things to have their place and know they will always be in the first place I look.
A soft flicker of white with a hint of silver in the edges of her Darkness as we make eye contact.
“Quiet, it’s been nice and quiet. No calls but that’s not a bad thing today. I’m really not in the mood to deal with my agent anyway. How about you? Any need to have Frank hauled off in a small box?”
I smile at her, “Same as usual. Nothing ever really changes down at the ranch. Get turd, polish turd, return shiny turd only to have Frank complain about the quality of my turds.” I kiss her and we embrace briefly, “Something sure smells good in here.”
“I made your favorite, linguine pasta with that Andouille sausage you like so much, the one that the Smith Butcher makes himself. I simmered the sauce all day, I think you will find it has exactly the right amount of spice for you.”
The flicker recedes then flares again with a dark gray light when she looks at me. Minor flashes of blues and greens barely visible at the edges.
I make my way through the living room and into the kitchen, “Did you get down to the river at all today?” I call out over my shoulder, “It looked as if we had some good light outside. At least the few times I actually passed by a window anyway. The cave doesn’t let me see the outside world too much.”
She puts her electronic reader on the coffee table and walks into the kitchen across the stovetop island from me, “It was pretty cloudy here nearly all day. Have to love living in the foothills. All the clouds just bunch up over our heads. I guarantee the light out on the coast was phenomenal though and I’ll bet that wind made for some great breaker shots.”
I smile to myself as I think about the clouds bunching over our heads adding to the overall darkness. My sense of humor understandably tends to border on the darker side of life. She kisses me lightly and gives me another hug. Even in what should be a tender moment, part of me can’t help but think there is someone else. I see her forced smile and I know she would be so much happier with another man but deep down inside I won’t let go and I don’t know why. She should be with someone that could let themselves be happy with everything that life has to offer. Someone that could openly laugh at the crazy things in life and not be constantly reminded of the seedy underbelly that I can’t seem to look away from.
Dinner is filled with the sounds of silverware on dishes with few words spoken. I have never been good at small talk. That is actually kind of a lie. It isn’t that I am bad at small talk; it’s the fact that I am utterly and completely incapable of making small talk. I find that when people engage in meaningless conversation, their minds wander elsewhere. Their shadows will flash and wink as they visit random thoughts making it nearly impossible for me to concentrate on what they are saying. On one hand we are discussing the weather but their Darkness is screaming about some hidden fear, or dreading work the next day, or fantasizing about the waitress that just refilled our sodas. Ultimately I just stand there like a confused child that has lost his ability to speak. It’s like trying to understand someone that is mixing two different languages, and you don’t know either of them.
I can tell she wants to talk about something but I am scared of what she has to say. I get so conflicted inside when I think about us and where our future may be. Some days I feel as if we are as happy as a couple can be. We laugh and love like nothing matters. Other times it feels like terminal cancer and we should just let it die instead of hopelessly continuing the pain.
I see slight flickers of light around the edges with ripples to the middle of her shadow. The ripples flow out toward the edges and fade into nothing.
We hand wash the last of the dishes in relative silence. I wash, she dries. With the final pan placed in the rack, she hugs me uncomfortably. I kiss her forehead, “Would you like to go for a walk with me tonight? You are always more than welcome along you know.”
“Not tonight dear, thanks though. I’m going to finish my book, I’m so close to the end, and then head up to bed early. Feeling kind of tired lately and I know Nancy will call tomorrow about a few new projects. She always sucks the energy out of me. I don’t think she understands one thing about photography.”
“Nancy does look out for you, though. She has been your agent since before you were famous.”
“There you go using that word again.”
“But you are, you have how many awards now?”
“Remind me again of anyone that actually knows what the name of those awards are or where they came from? I do all right, but I wouldn’t go so far as to use the word famous.”
More confusing flashes and ripples, “Okay, I won’t be long. I’m just going down by the river trail, my usual to the lake and back.”
I step out through the rear sliding door and stand on our low deck. The night is slightly overcast now but the air still holds a little warmth. I can hear a dog barking several blocks away but otherwise it is dead quiet. I pull my hoodie over my head, tuck my hands in my pockets and take the one step down to the brick path leading to the back gate.
I watch the white tops of my tennis shoes flash in the porch light as I make my way across the lawn of our backyard. Looking down always makes moving around easier as I try to tune out as much of the world as I can. There is a certain part of me that I can never seem to turn off. I think it comes from the same place that sees the Darkness. It’s like I’m always aware of things. Not some sort of superpower or anything neat like that. I’m just really aware of details and differences. It seems to take a lot out of me by the end of the day. I get tired very easily. I get annoyed and angry. Eventually, I just get depressed. This cycle continues endlessly and I can’t seem to break out of it. Every time I start back through the chain, I come out just a hair lower than the last time. I wonder if one of these times through the cycle I won’t have the will to face another round.
With the creak of rusty hinges, I push open the gate at the back of our property and hop a small ditch to a dirt trail. The narrow path winds down a fairly steep hill then meets a nicely paved trail that follows the river down to a nearby lake. I have been on a fairly regular routine of walking this path after dinner every night when the weather isn’t too nasty. Aside from the few street lights where the trail comes close to the highway, the path is dark. I am all right with this; the exercise is almost as nice as being able to turn off the Darkness around me for a short while.
I feel my feet leave the soft dirt of the patch and hit the hard pavement of the bicycle path. I can’t see anyone to the left or right on the path so with a feeling of lonely relief I turn to the right and begin quietly walking down the path. I know from the many times I have been here that it is one and a half miles to the bench by the lake from this point. After walking nearly a mile, I find my deep thoughts about Erica disturbed by angry words ahead and just off the trail to my right.
I can hear what sounds as if two men are arguing loudly with each other in the small clearing ahead and just out of view behind the heavy brush and trees. My first instinct has always been to hide in the face of danger so I quietly push through the hedges to my right and make my way through the brush to get a better view but still remain unseen by the men.
Both men are yelling loudly back and forth and gesturing wildly at each other as they argue. I push just far enough through the hedges to view the two in the partial moonlight as they argue. The taller of the two is well groomed and dressed very smart in a sport jacket and partially open white shirt. He has several thick gold chains that reflect brightly in the moonlight. His bright-white button up shirt is so clean it nearly glows. He looks to be in his mid-thirties and has a small soul patch on his otherwise clean shaven face. His black dress shoes have a few scuffs but otherwise look new. He is wearing jeans but they have been pressed and even in the small amount of light there, I could clearly see the pleats. The second man is disheveled with mismatched clothing. Every thread on his body is filthy and both his jeans and shirt have holes in them. His long tangled hair is topped off with a well-worn baseball cap. I can see a fairly well crushed package of cigarettes in the front pocket of his flannel shirt. He has well-worn dirty white high-top tennis shoes, one of which has several strips of duct tape wrapped around it to hold the sole in place. They are at polar opposites of the economic spectrum.
The well-dressed man rolls his head as if he is growing bored with the continued arguing from the shorter man. He sighs loudly as he adjusts the cuffs of his sport jacket and flicks several flecks of invisible dirt from his forearm. He speaks in a patronizing tone, “I gave you that shipment with the specific instructions of what to sell it for. You should have three times the amount you just gave me. Do I look like a fool to you? Do I look like someone that will just shrug his shoulders and walk away from a loss like this?”
The shorter man holds his hands up in what looks like a surrendering motion, “I know man, but I just couldn’t get that much. That’s crazy money the way things are for people today! The people I sell to just don’t have that kind of coin to drop on the good stuff anymore. You know my block. Half the guys there don’t even have jobs! If they could afford that price, they wouldn’t be living in that trailer park to begin with and sure as hell wouldn’t be buying trash rock.”
Both shadows wink and sparkle as their emotions run rampant. Multiple flashes and ripples. Reds and flashes of deep greens.
“I absolutely don’t care what you think it was worth, at all. Not one single ounce of my being gives a single crap about what you think. And as far as the quality goes, I take it as a personal offense that you would find the quality of my goods lacking.” He pulls a cigarette out of a silver flip-lid container and lights it with the familiar sound of a matching silver lighter, “I told you what I would expect for the merchandise, you agreed, and you don’t have it now! Either give me the money, all of it, or give me back my product, all of it. Those are your only options, Willy!”
Several bright flashes around the cores of the Darkness. The edges curl red with sprites of green. At the center, a brown smear begins to appear in the ripples.
I haven’t seen Darkness like this before. I don’t like it at all and realize that I really should not be here, in fact I should not be anywhere near here at all. This is feeling like a very bad place that is about to get much worse, much more violent. I can see it clearly. If it was possible for me to hide any more than I already was, I would do it.
The well-dressed man takes several long drags of his cigarette as Willy paces around with a concerned look on his face. He flicks the half-burnt cigarette into the bushes where it lands several feet in front of me.
“Listen. What are the rest of my employees going to think if word gets around that you took my product, sold it, and gave me back thirty percent of what it was worth? Not only that but in direct defiance of the requirements and expectations I had set out? I have an extremely important image to maintain, both in business and in life.”
“Hey man, I gave you every dime of what I made off that! If you think I’m rippin’ you off just say it dude! You want to call me a thief than you best have the balls to do it to my face!”
Willy flashes greens and reds with curls of black-mercury from the core.
I know Willy is lying. I can also see his hand is flexing with a fair bit of anxious twitching near his right pocket. I’m guessing he has a knife of some sort.
“Did you? How do I know you gave me every dime from the sale, huh? How do I know you aren’t keeping product on the side? Maybe for yourself or that pack of losers you move with? Or even more likely, you have cut my product down until it was double what you had, but is now that ‘crap rock’ you claim I try to sell. Tell me Willy, if we are to move forward through this, issue, how can I ever trust you?”
The fold I so often see when someone tells a lie rolls around the smaller man’s shadow again.
“Yeah! Sure! You know I sold it man! You want to search me? I ain’t got it man! I sold what you told me to sell and gave you every damn penny!”
The man rolls his neck again as if he is in need of a massage. Such an odd posture that it seems out of place yet frightening at the same time.
Another strange ripple across the shadow. I see the second man’s shadow respond in kind.
For several moments, there is a silent pause in their argument. The finely dressed man is staring intently at the smaller man. The smaller man fidgeting as he attempts to stare back. I can see Willy is trying to decide if he wants to take a chance with his still hidden knife or simply turn and run away into the darkness.
His Darkness flares brightly in a sea of the black mercury. I even see shades of a bright green deep in the center mixing with browns and reds!
“Willy, the potential for this looking bad is simply not worth the risk. You simply are not worth having on my payroll any longer.”
The well-dressed man reaches to the small of his back and pulls out a small, black automatic pistol. Willy fumbles with the knife in his pocket but is far too slow and clumsy to beat the other man. With three loud pops, the argument is over. Willy looks down at his chest as he feebly pulls a green handled knife out of his pocket. Blood is pumping furiously out of one of the holes in his dirty T-shirt. He drops the knife and tries in vain to staunch the flow with his hands. With an angry look at the well-dressed man, Willy falls to the ground.
The well-dressed man returned his pistol in the small of his back and searched Willy for any extra money. He slid the duct taped shoe off and pulled out a small wad of poorly folded bills, “You really shouldn’t have held out on me Willy, you could have gone far in my organization. You could have been powerful.”
He turns his back and walks away from the man bleeding out in the packed-down dirt. His Darkness continued to ripple and pulse with an evil blackness as he hopped down a narrow dirt trail toward the highway where he probably parked. I could see the sense of accomplishment and pride in killing another human swirling in the ripples and folds. Even now, this close on the heels of killing another human, Willy was nothing but a notch in his virtual ladder to the top. He didn’t even view the person he just killed as human. He was fodder in the way of a future with more money and power for the well-dressed man. The smaller man was nothing more than a stepping-stone to be planted in the soil, both figuratively and physically. Willy was dead the first time he had spoken to the well-dressed man, he just didn’t know it.
I am fifteen feet away kneeling in the darkness. I can see the bleeding man’s eyes turned toward me. He sees me and reaches out a weak hand for help I can’t give. His mouth moves as if to speak but no words come out. I can see the blood pumping out of three small holes in his chest. I can’t save him. No one can. His future was sealed when the second bullet punched a hole through the middle of the man’s heart, the other two neatly punched holes through his lungs, even if his heart had continued to pump he would have drowned in his own blood.
The Darkness swirls around him like an angry sea. Blacks, silvers, blues, greens, even purples and violets race in confusion. Colors I have never seen in a Darkness before. Slowly the storm begins to subside. The ripples and folds begin to slow and the edges turn in and roll slowly toward the middle of the black mercury. Greens and blues begin to push out from the center in flashes of colored light. His Darkness is slowing, fading, leaving. Returning to wherever it came.
His eyes stare at me with no light, no spark. Simply a dead stare. His hand has fallen limp into the pool of blood surrounding his body. His chest no longer rises in labored breaths.
The Darkness pulses now, probably matching his struggling heartbeat. The storm of confused lights and flashes continues for several helpless moments. Random bright splashes of light appear and disappear with no warning. With a single, final beat the Darkness goes still around him. Over several moments it appears to solidify, turn from the liquid black-mercury I am used to into something akin to black steel. Slowly the mercury begins to spin as if drawn into his core by some great unseen force. Faster and faster it spins with a sound like a rushing, raging windstorm. Smaller and smaller the Darkness becomes until it is nothing but a bright pinpoint of light in his chest. With a final flash of brilliant white light, all of his shadow is gone.
I see nothing. He is lifeless. He is dead, a hallow shell of a once human. His life force returned to wherever it is the power of life comes from.
I stare at his lifeless eyes for what feels like hours. I failed you, Willy. Another light, another soul and I failed you. Whether or not I could have done anything doesn’t matter now. I feel as if I just let the entire world down, as if I just watched my best friend die. I cry quietly as I kneel, hidden in the bushes like a coward. This isn’t the life I was destined for. I know I was never meant to cower, afraid to make a difference, afraid to put it on the line for another human being.
I had always wondered, in this dark part of my mind, what it would be like to see a person without their Darkness pulsing and flowing around them. Now I have. I found it beyond disturbing. I was reminded of the people I see on television but he was there, in front of me. It terrified me. Tears continue to flow down my face as I stared into the open eyes of the scraggly man. What could I have done had I found you earlier in life? Would you still be alive? Would you be somewhere smiling and enjoying those around you? I will never have the chance to know.
I know what I must do but it takes nearly five minutes for me to find the courage to start it. Finally, I stand and walk out into the clearing over the dead man. I call the police and wait patiently for them to arrive. Something was awoken today. I feel a purpose I didn’t feel before. The shame of having done nothing and seeing the consequences at my feet has made something in me different. The days of hiding under the piles of dirty clothes in my closet are gone. A door has been opened and I am choosing to walk through it. The door isn’t real, but the change in me is. I have no idea what is waiting for me as I pass through the threshold.
~2~
“And you are sure you are okay, you didn’t get hurt at all?” I could hear the genuine concern in her voice.
“Yes, Erica, I’m fine. They just want to ask a few more questions then I’ll be home.” I wish I could see her to know what was she was really thinking. Another part of me dreaded to see the reality of her words.
“I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, Adam.”
“You aren’t going to lose me.” Does she really mean what she is saying? “I will be there as soon as I can honey, don’t worry.”
“I’ll wait up for you. I love you.”
“Love you too. See you in a few.” The line went quiet. I held the phone to my head and pretended that I was still on a call. I knew she would fall asleep with her book on the couch while the television silently strobed away the evening news but I was okay with that. For some reason, it felt good that she was actually worried about me. I wonder if I would feel the same way if I were standing in front of her when I told her what I had seen. I wouldn’t be able to tell her even half of the story. I have never mentioned what my curse was to her, never even hinted. Why would I drive that wedge of insanity into our relationship?
I finally put the phone in my pocket and walked back over to the small group of officers. I get several nods as I approach. I try not to notice their shadows as it makes it difficult to concentrate. I find figures in positions of authority often have a very obvious kind of Darkness swirling around them. Sometimes their Darkness doesn’t tell a very good story. In some cases I find it nearly impossible to tell the good from the bad. I had read once that the difference between an officer and a criminal in a brain scan is almost unnoticeable. I would back that up with the Darkness.
The coroner walks by us with the empty shell of the scruffy looking man named Willy under a clean bright-white sheet. His body wrapped in a zippered heavy black plastic bag. The powerful police lights bathe the area in an unnatural bluish glow. Several photographers move around taking pictures of the scene. Their overly large cameras flashing over every square inch around the crime scene. Small yellow cards mark the three shell casings and a white outline marks the resting position of a once living and breathing person. I can’t take my eyes away from the large pool of drying blood.
Two of the officers walk away to the waiting coroner while two remain to speak to me. One of the officers coughs.
“Mr. Carter, can you hear me?” The taller of the two says impatiently.
“Sorry. I’m a just a little overwhelmed by everything. I’m not used to,” I look back at the chalk outline, “this.”
“It’s understandable, sir. Let’s hope you don’t ever get used to it. So, Mr. Carter, you say you are just down here for a walk?”
“Yes, officer. I walk this path several times a week after dinner. I got home late tonight due to a work related issue so my walk was about two hours later than I usually go, it usually isn’t this dark when I head out.”
The second officer looks up from his small pad of paper, “Why were you in the bushes sir?”
The silver mercury flickers and folds as he waits for my answer, he is expecting a lie. Wait, that isn’t quite right. He wants a lie.
“Because I heard what sounded like two men fighting and I’m kind of a pussy when it comes to that sort of thing?” Honesty of this nature tends to put authority figures at ease. It moves me from the potential threat to non-threat right at the beginning. I can see the change almost immediately in his Darkness.
The first officer smiles knowingly at the second one. I can see that neither one expected that answer but both believed it. The second officer glanced at my pants and shoes very briefly. He thinks I didn’t see him look. He passes a quick knowing look to his partner.
Small sprites of blue and green. A fold forms at the edges of his Darkness.
I must have dirt on my knees from kneeling and he is going to try to catch me in a lie.
Another silvery flicker. Wait, is he trying to force a lie this time?
The second officer doesn’t look toward me but instead looks over to his partner. His partner is now watching for my reaction as he asks the question. This is an obvious mental ploy to get me to relax a little and give body language queues that counter what my words say. I was able to read this kind of thing by the time I was nine. They were doing nothing more than simple misdirection. Conversational magic if you will. For me, it was amateurish and juvenile.
While still looking at his partner he asks me, “So Mr. Campbell, you were standing in the bushes and just watching the whole thing happen?”
I smile to myself but show nothing but flat emotion on my face, “It’s Carter, not Campbell, and actually I was kneeling on the ground trying my damnedest to look like a bush. The taller guy that wound up doing the shooting didn’t look like someone I would want to tangle with and he most certainly didn’t want any witnesses left around. I felt it was in my own best interest to hide.”
I can see they are done with me. They believe what I say and most likely they don’t have enough to ever catch the guy. I can see they have a hint of who it is but I can’t tell anymore. If the well-dressed man disposes of the gun, they really have nothing. Even a moderately good attorney could throw doubt on my late-night-in-the-darkness identification. The man that died most likely had entirely questionable connections to just about every kind of local crime.
Both of the officers think I am far less than the man they feel they are. I can see it clearly all around them.
“You have any plans to leave town anytime soon, Mr. Carter?” He assumes the answer but asks anyway. In his mind I never go anywhere or do anything.
“No, sir. Up until tonight you could say I had a pretty boring life.” I find my eyes locking on the rapidly drying pool of blood a few dozen feet away yet again. I think back to the incredible flash of light as the man’s Darkness blinked into, well, into wherever or whatever it is that life moves on too. In all my experience I had never seen anything like it. It was so final, so complete. A deafening silence after a raging storm.
“Mr. Carter?” the officer says a second time.
“I’m sorry, my mind drifted.”
“There will probably be a detective contacting you in the next few days. If they have any questions they may need some more information from you but to be perfectly honest, I think we have gotten everything they need. Do you need a ride home Mr. Carter? I can have one of the other officers give you a lift if you would like.”
“No, thank you though.” I smiled, “I think I could use the walk at this point.”
“Okay. Be safe, Mr. Carter, it’s a nasty world out there.”
He had no idea what an understatement that was. But to be perfectly honest, I was getting the feeling that neither did I.
~3~
Erica was fast asleep on the couch when I walked through the back sliding door. I made my way through the kitchen to the front door to hang my jacket and keys in their appropriate place. I glanced at the clock on the wall, it was already after one in the morning. I lean over the couch and kiss her lightly on the forehead. She wakes up long enough to realize I am there and hugs me tightly.
“I’m glad you’re home. I was really worried about you, Adam. Are you really okay?”
“Physically I’m fine. Mentally I think I might have a few things I need to work out.”
She hugs me again, “I’m glad you are home.”
Ripples of green and blue flow around in the silver-black mercury. Roles of silver start at the edges of her Darkness.
These patterns always put me at ease. When she is like this I see what I saw when we first met. She had swirls of color that spelled out a certain mystery. I carefully pick her up from the couch and take her upstairs to our room. She is asleep again before her head hits the pillow. That is one thing the Darkness allows me to see quite easily. There simply is no way for a person who is awake to fool me into thinking they are asleep. The Darkness never lies.
With Erica tucked in, I step into a hot shower to try to wash some of what I have seen away. The look in Willy’s eyes will stay with me forever. I can still see the crystal blue eyes of a man that had chosen poorly and was paying the highest possible price for those decisions. The way he reached out to me for help but already knowing that the wounds were fatal.
I leaned my head under the hot water and let it run over my head and down my back. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his pleading face.
He only wanted to live. Would he have changed his ways? If he had been given a second chance at some point in his life would he have been a different man? I think the argument was nurture or nature? The world would never know. He would not be given the chance.
With the bathroom lights off, I dry myself in the dark. I feel the path open before me but I have no clue which direction to go. I don’t want to hide anymore but I simply don’t know how to do that. I don’t know where to begin. A yawn and rub my eyes as it suddenly hits me how thoroughly exhausted I am but the feelings are still there. The shower did little to wash the experience of the night away.
I carefully crawl into bed as I try not to disturb my wife as she dreams peacefully.
I pull the covers up to my shoulders and watch Erica as she sleeps. Slowly the sadness that has dominated my life begins to overtake me again. My last thought as I finally drift off to sleep is to wonder how much longer she will put up with me. How much longer anyone will put up with me. How can someone that has spent his entire life feeling alone be so terrified of not having someone else there? Even when she is with me, I am alone.
~4~
A lone bird calls with a long, lonely cry far off in the distance. Far to my right, another answers with a similar call. The air has a slight chill to it.
I am alone in the woods. The thick forest spreads out in all directions around me, the soft pine needles and ferns cover the ground. A heavy mist floats through the upper branches causing drifting shadows from the bright Moon above. The night is as black as an inkwell but the moonlight that makes it through the wafting mist is more than enough to see by. In nothing but my pajama bottoms I begin to try to find my way through the thick undergrowth. I look around for a trail or path but there is no sign of how I got here, where I came from, or where I should go. Low underbrush and trees extend as far as I can see in every direction and regardless of where I look I see nothing indicating an opening in the trees. No guidance. I am truly alone in this forest without end. It smells like there might be water somewhere nearby but I cannot see or hear it. The heavy moss on the trees carries a relaxing smell. Aside from the occasional distant bird call and the slight breeze moving through the tops of the trees, the dark woods are silent. Even though I do not know where I am, I do not feel lost. I don’t feel as if I am out of place, I don’t as if I don’t belong here. I am a welcome guest.
I take one step and a branch snaps under my barefoot. The breaking branch sounds like a gunshot in the silence and echoes loudly through the forest. Even the mist seems to freeze momentarily at the sound. Something has heard me. Something in the distance has just become aware of my existence. Something that is evil beyond all human measures. I can sense it flying through the forest toward me, fast, unstoppable. It makes no sound but as it gets closer it desires me more. It wants to consume me. I can’t tell which direction it is coming from. It is approaching faster but all around me at the same time. I sense that it is nearly here, so close now I can smell it. It reeks of ozone and madness. I can hear the trees and underbrush rustle as it closes in. Bushes and trees all around me waver at the passing of the thing. The air around me feels heavier the closer the thing comes. The lurking shadow is here I can see it. It can see me. It’s hatred of me is overpowered by its desire to consume me, devour me, destroy everything I ever was or will be. It will make me into nothing that ever was.
I sit up in bed and struggle to stifle my scream. The dream is still with me. I can smell the forest, the wet undergrowth. The ozone feels thick in the room. I lay back down and look at the slow turning ceiling fan. Something is coming, something really, really bad. Whatever it is, it touched me tonight. It knows about me. I can still feel its hunger.