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arkness. Complete
void of light.
I can’t feel anything, but I am
aware of my thoughts. Is my head severed from my body? If so, I’d be dead. Is
this the experience of dying, or is this death itself? Would my soul be aware
if I’m gone from this world? At any moment, will my mind click off? Am I
paralyzed? I cannot move, no sensation, no smells, no sounds, as though I’m in
a cocoon hibernating until the next stage of life begins. Is this the afterlife
when the soul leaves the body, suspended in Purgatory awaiting the Judgment
that sends me to heaven or hell? Or is this hell, the dearth of everything, a
soul imprisoned in total darkness without any sensation?
An eternity without light would be
endless torment.
Darkness
flashed to pure white light. The brilliance faded. An image developed in his
mind like a photograph in a darkroom’s tray—fingers reaching for a mangled hand
twisted and broken, smashed with empty sockets, knurls of boney white, and
jagged edges of torn flesh.
This
was the day of Jeremiah Cristi’s reckoning.
—
Saturday pre-dawn, March 4, 1989
Thunder boomed. Wind howled. Rain
pelted. Jeremy bolted upright in bed, panting. His gaze darted around the dusky
room. Where am I? Digital red numbers
glowed—4:44. The outline of a pyramid of cans in the corner. Closed door. A desk
piled with books and papers. TV at the foot of the bed.
Lightning flashed and illuminated a
poster of a prism refracting white light into a spectrum of rainbow colors. He
glanced up at the wall nearest him—the image of a supermodel gazing over her bare
shoulder and back, an arm covering her nipple, seemingly studying him.
Fury hurled rain against the
window. Breaths rapid and shallow, a shiver crept over his shoulders, down arms
standing hairs, goosebumps pricking up. His back tightened, sensing—
Something.
Body chills, clammy palms, icy
fingers, roiling stomach. He forced a swallow. Throat dry, mouth sour, breaths
now sucking in and bursting out.
He flinched at the sound of
toppling cans. Heartbeat skipped, then galloped.
Silence. Wind and rain had ceased.
Eerie. Foreboding. Silence.
Something
is in here. The air is electrified. It’s just a storm. It’s just a storm
. . . It’s just a. . . .
A fluttering—swoosh, swoosh, swoosh—churned oppressive vapor clouding the room
. . . duskier . . . murkier . . . inkier
. . . swirling closer, tighter . . . clenching
. . .
His throat.
He grabbed around his neck but
found nothing but air. Nothing but the feeling
of something wringing his neck, constricting tighter and tighter against his
Adam’s apple as his butt lifted from the bed. Clawing, he sought whatever It was that choked off his breath. His
lungs tugged and tugged on his closed windpipe. He strained his arms above his
head in search of a rope to break It
loose but found nothing there.
It
intensified the
vice-like pressure—nose gorged, eyes bulged, eardrums sirened.
Fingernails dug. Jeremy scraped and
scratched and tore against the invisible noose that stretched his neck, his
fingers tacky with oozy slime.
Head pounded—baboom, baboom, baboom.
Drippy nose, sticky lips, the taste
of blood. Nostrils tinged with sulfur’s foul fumes.
Eyes burned, ready to explode.
Ears pulsed—vavoomp, vavoomp, vavoomp.
Face drenched from fierce,
sauna-like heat.
His vision blurred.
Walls pulsated with each beat of
his heart . . . faster . . . faster, faster.
He willed his legs to move, to
stand up and fight back, but no response.
His hands fell from his neck, arms
lame and lifeless.
Fear rose like a tsunami wave,
stretching, reaching, curling— engulfing him. He fought against its pressure
and turbulent force, his arms and legs writhing and thrashing in a convulsive
final effort to save himself from drowning.
Depleted of life-sustaining oxygen,
chest ready to explode, mouth coppery, bladder released—
And then . . . he gave up
the fight to live.
Whatever It was, it clenched him upright and stretched his neck taut but
left his shoulders sagging from a crippled body.
Darkness. Complete void of light.
I’m
gonna die.
His mind exploded with intense
light, fading to reveal a massive, bucking bull, a cowboy somersaulting in the
air, hat twirling and floating down to arms and legs splayed. The bull bucked
high, the beast crushing the cowboy’s hand.
His throat clenched a scream.
A roar penetrated the room.
A
lion’s roar . . . outside the door!
Eyes bulged. Vision blurred. Walls
hemmed in closer . . . closer . . . closer. The shadowy
room faded until only the closed door remained, trimmed with a line of light.
Boom!
Blinded by the light.
Deafening crack of bone-splitting
thunder.
Piercing, blood-curdling scream
from within the radiance.
Eyes stung from acrid smoke.
Glass shattered.
Whoosh! Air sucked from the room.
He fell to the bed.
Blackness. Dead silence.
I’m
dead.
No.
Dizzy, spinning, falling . . . falling . . . faster, faster.
Falling
to my death.
Caught.
Secured by . . . what? No crash. No smash. Safe?
Floating
down as if suspended from a parachute.
A
sprinkle of dazzling dots and crisscrossed, lit lines.
Circle
of bright lights.
An
open-air arena filled with a crowd in the stands.
Hovering
above as if snagged in a treetop.
Cowboy
and horse round up a bull and direct it through a chute.
A
body . . . face down in the dirt corral.
Timer’s
green lights 08 00.
I
can’t make out the man’s face.
I
must help him.
Is
he dead?
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