Beautiful Illusion (17 page)

“
T
hanks for the movie tonight
,” Sam said. “I had a lot of fun.”

“I had a lot of fun with you too,” I replied, reaching my hand out and grabbing Sam’s.

We were both sitting in my new, bronze-colored Toyota Corolla, staring into each other’s eyes. Technically, the car was used, a 1996 model, but it felt new to me. I had never owned a car, but my parents decided to splurge on a ‘congratulations’ gift for bumping my grades up during the first semester of my senior year in high school. It had started to look like my grades wouldn’t afford to get me into a decent college, and they promised if I focused and tried harder they would get me a set of wheels.

That night was the first night out in my new ride, and I had decided to take my girlfriend out for dinner and a movie. We had burger and fries at a local diner and saw “Dawn of the Dead” at the local $1 theater. The night was going great, and I could tell that Sam was happy that I finally had a car. I’d be able to see her more often and take her to all the hip places around town.

Sam leaned over, placing her lips gently onto mine, and I inhaled her scent. Her face smelled like honey and her lips tasted like caramel. I closed my eyes and basked in the feeling of her femininity. I wasn’t a virgin, but even after 7 months, Sam and I hadn’t had sex, nor had I ever had sex with a girl of her caliber. Her long, flowing hair and young slender body— My mind raced in anticipation that perhaps that night would be our special night.

I placed my free palm on Sam’s cheek, and she exhaled a purr into my mouth, slowly parting her lips and allowing me the slightest bit of access. My tongue darted inside, finding the tip of hers which quickly reciprocated the pressure. The taste of her was heavenly, and for a moment, I got a bit ahead of myself, forcing my tongue all the way in her mouth, trying to absorb as much as possible.

“Easy there, tiger,” Sam chided me as she pulled away and wiped her lips off with the sleeve of her shirt.

My face was flushed with frustration, and I could feel the pent up aggression hardening in my pants. “Tonight?” I asked, trying my best not to appear overly anxious.

Sam lightly shook her head and pressed her lips together tightly. “Not here Mitch…”

I sighed and shifted my eyes. “When are you going to be ready, Sam? It’s been—“

“I’m ready Mitch,” Sam interrupted. “I just want it to be somewhere special. Not inside a parked car a block away from my parents’ house.”

I chuckled and nodded in understanding. “Yeah, I guess it’s not the ideal spot, huh?”

“Tell you what… Why don’t you pick me up tomorrow after school? We can head over to Leslie Grant’s house. Her parents aren’t home until way late at night, and she won’t mind if we spend some time alone in one of the spare bedrooms.”

A grin crept across my face. “Really?”

Sam nodded and gave me a sly grin.

I tried to hide my excitement and play it cool, giving a slight nod of my own before starting up my car. “Sounds like a date.”

A few minutes later, I was in Sam’s driveway, and she leaned over one last time to give me a final kiss on the cheek. “Text me when you get home, okay? I love you.”

“I… uh… um…”

Sam rolled her eyes and hopped out of the car. “I know… I know… It’s hard for you to say.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’ll text you when I get home.”

I probably loved the girl. In fact, I was pretty sure I did. But there was something weird to me about saying the words. I had never told a girl that I loved her, and I wanted it to mean something when I finally did. It just wasn’t the kind of word that I wanted to throw around.

I glanced at myself in the rear view mirror before pulling out the driveway. I had a decent cut on my dark brown hair, and everyone always complimented my ocean blue eyes, but for the most part, I felt incredibly average. I wasn’t nearly as buff as the other guys on the team, and I wasn’t even that great of a player; most games I was stuck warming the bench. Nor was I the smartest guy or the most handsome. I couldn’t help but wonder if I deserved the incredible lucky run that I was having with Sam.

I made a mental note as I pulled off of the main street and on to the freeway: this year I going to workout more and convince Coach to start me in a few games. No more bullshit—I’d make it to the Seahawks someday. I was feeling on top of the world with my new car, beautiful girlfriend, and a sexual invitation for the next day. My loins burned with excitement, and my foot slowly eased into the acceleration pedal. My free hand toyed with the radio, finally settling on a popular, power rock station with music that synchronized with my increasing speed.

My car hurtled past traffic as the music roared, going faster than the slow-lane cars, but not as fast as the speed demons in the fast lane. My friends told me to never go more than 10 MPH over the speed limit to avoid getting pulled over, and I was trying to heed their advice. I slapped the dashboard of the car and tried to think of a name that I’d give ‘er. The Toyota already felt like my baby, even having driven it for less than a day.

I quickly pulled off the freeway and onto a busy street that lead to a 4-way intersection. The light was green, and I was still obeying my “no more than 10 MPH over” rule as I drove through to make a left turn.

An attempted left turn, that is.

The last thing I remember was seeing a pair of headlights rushing towards me at an impossible-to-avoid speed and something that sounded like an explosion. My head snapped forward, the breath was forced out of my lungs, and then everything went black.

A
nurse rushed
into Mitch’s room and began checking his vitals. After seeing his condition and making sure that all the wires and tubes were still attached to him, she began pressing buttons on a pager that was attached to her waist and then rushed out into the hall. Within seconds, she returned to the room followed by the doctor and two additional nurses.

Doctor Wallace was panting as if he had been running when he made it to Mitch’s side, and he went about performing the same checks as the nurse. “Yep, no vitals. Time to call the code. Susan, go ahead and start CPR. Mary, prepare the defibrillator.”

Mom was standing as close as possible to Mitch’s body, and the nurses were navigating around her. The third nurse that was assisting the doctor turned towards our family and told us that we needed to get out of the room while they worked.

We obeyed… sort of. We moved to the hall-like entrance of the room and watched from afar as they continued their attempt to save Mitch’s life. All three of us were sobbing as we watched one of the nurses pressing viciously on Mitch’s chest and squeezing a pump into his mouth, but we tried our best to keep our noise down so that we didn’t interrupt them any further.

“He’s going to die…” I whispered, just loud enough that Dad could her.

He pressed a strong hand on my shoulder and leaned down towards me, holding back his tears enough that he spoke with a straight voice. “Don’t say that, Annie. He’s not gone yet. Don’t give up on faith.”

“Clear!” the doctor yelled out, and suddenly a loud shocking noise rang out in the room and Mitch’s body leapt out of his bed.

Mom turned her head and let out a particularly loud sob. She put her hand up against the wall and was crouching slightly as if her legs were barely holding her up. Dad wrapped his arms around her and tried to whisper something to her to calm her nerves, but he seemed just as bad off.

“Clear!” rang out again. By then, I also had my head facing the wall and wasn’t sure what was happening behind me. The doctors and nurses were talking in strange medical talk, spewing numbers and phrases that sounded like another language to me.

The resuscitation attempts continued for the next 15 minutes with Dad, Mom, and I waiting patiently by the door. Eventually, the doctor said calmly, “That’s a wrap,” and walked towards us. He had been so focused on his work that he didn’t notice we were standing in the room the whole time. When he turned to where we were waiting, he jumped a bit when he saw us.

“I’m sorry…” he said softly as he began to shake his head. “We did everything we could.”

“Oh god,” Mom sobbed again and put her hand up to her mouth, trying to hold everything in.

Dad had since stopped crying, and his face was completely blank. “Is it okay if we have a little bit of time with him?”

The doctor protested for a moment, “Well… we usually don’t ‘til—“

“Please…” my Mom interrupted and threw a hand out towards the doctor’s shoulders.

“Alright. We can give you a bit of time.” The doctor twisted back towards the nurses who were arranging equipment around Mitch and writing on clipboards. “Let’s go ahead and clear out of here for 15 minutes or so. The family would like some time with the deceased.”

Deceased?
It was such a foreign word to me. My grandmother was 96 years old, and I figured she would be the first person of my family to die and probably from natural causes. Not Mitch. Less than 24 hours prior, I watched as he ran out of the house and awed at his new car. It never even crossed my mind that in such a short span he would be dead.

I was dazed, confused and in denial. I loved Mitch… He had always been a good brother. He didn’t deserve to die so soon. I kept waiting for the moment that I would wake up from whatever nightmare it was that I was experiencing.

The nurses peeled out, and we all walked over to my brother’s lifeless body. The heart monitor in the background was still squealing the flat, lifeless sound, reinforcing the the fact that my brother was dead. I reached my hand out and touched him for the first time since we had been in the hospital room.

Cold.

Mom and Dad were on the other side of the bed, and Mom held Mitch’s hand with her head bent down. Dad had his hands in a prayer position with his head parallel to my mom’s. I wasn’t sure if they were praying. Our family had never been all that religious, but it looked like they were.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I simply closed my eyes and prayed as well. I wasn’t praying to a God or anything in particular. I was just wishing, or talking to Mitch, or hoping that any greater power would hear me out and listen to my words. I had never prayed before, so I just whispered the thoughts that were on my mind.

“Mitch, you’ve been a great brother and a good friend. I am so, so sorry that we haven’t been close these last few years, and if I could go back I would do anything to change that. I don’t want you to go… I really don’t. I want you to be here and give me a chance to make things the way that they should’ve been from the start.

“I… I just never imagined that you would leave us soon. And wherever you are now, if there is another life, or another planet, or heaven, or whatever there is out there. I hope you have the best experience possible and know that I loved you. I will always love you and always remember you. I would do anything to have you back.”

I moved my hand into his and squeezed on to his cold, stiff fingers. I had never imagined that a body could be so cold, and it felt so strange and foreign. I lifted his hand up in mine and place it against my cheek, still wet with my tears. I’m not sure why I did that; maybe I was trying to warm him up or maybe I was trying to remember exactly how his hands felt on such a sensitive part of my body.

My eyes cracked open, and I saw my Mom and Dad staring at me. Their tears had stopped for the most part, and they both seemed to have accepted the sad fact that death had taken their only son.

And then it happened.

A slight twitch.

For a moment I thought I had imagined it, and then I looked down and noticed another twitch in my brother’s pinky. My brow creased in confusion, and I wondered if it was some strange reaction of his nervous system. I had heard on a crime documentary that sometimes bodies would still randomly convulse after death. But then a third twitch in his hand made me seriously start to question things.

“Mom…” I howled as I pulled my eyelids wider.

Suddenly, there was a beep on the heart monitor. A single beep. And then another single beep.

“Mitch?” Dad asked. “Mitch?!” He rose to his feet and then turned towards the monitor and then back to Mitch... “Oh my god, Kim. Get the doctor fast!”

Mom ran from the room, and the chirps of the heart monitor suddenly picked up. Within seconds, it sounded like a normal, beating heart. I looked down to Mitch’s hand and I could feel the heat returning, slowly but surely.

And then I felt his grip. A strong, powerful grip, squeezing onto my hand with enough force that it scared the living hell out of me.

I
t’s
hard to say how long I was surrounded by dark. Maybe it was 5 minutes, maybe it was 10. I recall the distinct sound of hissing in the background and a repeated sound of clicking, very similar to my left turn signal going off over and over again. But everything else was dark.

And then suddenly, both of the noises were gone, and I felt weightless and standing in an expanse of white light. It was strange when I think about it. I didn’t even try to look at my body and never even saw my hands. It was like I was just an entity floating along, fully aware that I didn’t have a body to occupy.

I looked around, but on each side of me there was nothing but white, and the only direction that I could move was forward. Ahead of me was white as well, even brighter than the white that I was surrounded by already. But something inside was reluctant to move.

I was dead.

I hadn’t forgotten what had happened to me just a few moments ago, and while I didn’t feel completely whole or conscious, it seemed very apparent to me that the event had cost me my life.

For a few moments, I assessed the situation and felt a sharp pang of guilt engulf me. I never had the chance to say goodbye to my family, and I wouldn’t be having sex with Sam the next day. That wasn’t all; I had missed out on a lot during my short time on earth—even making the Seahawks as I had always promised.

I never had the chance to do anything impressive in my life. Being a benchwarmer and getting average grades in school didn’t seem like much of an accomplishment. I only had my car for a day. Hell, I had only been with a woman a couple times in my life, and they were mediocre experiences. I was the guy who would never be remembered for anything. What had been the purpose of my pointless, unexceptional life?

I tried to sigh, but there was no sound. I guess you can’t sigh when you’re dead... I still felt it though. That release of frustration and guilt and “I-wish-things-had-been-different” feeling. All I could think about was how I wanted to go back and do everything over—to try harder, to work hard, and be the man that I should’ve been to begin with.

Why had I thought that I had all the time in the world?

Eventually, I accepted the situation and took a single step forward towards the strange hallway that led to a brighter light.

“
S
o you want
a second chance at life, huh?”
a deep, sizzling voice spoke out to me.

“What? Who is this?” I asked, startled at the first sound that I had heard since reaching the strange place.

“Do you want a second chance or not?”
This time the voice was much harsher.

“Yes, I would love a second chance, but—”

“I… can give you a chance,”
the voice interrupted.

“Who are you?” I spun in circles, but all I saw was white.

“
I have been given many fictitious names, Mitch Ryker. Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan. But I want you to consider me your mentor and your partner
.
Names are not important.”

“Satan?” I tried to chuckle, but there was no sound. “What kind of shit is this?”

“Good… good. I like for you to question things, Mitch. This ‘shit’, however, is your opportunity to live.”

“So, you’re saying that you’ll bring me back to life?”

“I won’t just bring you back to life, Mitch. I’ll bring you back to life and give you the tools to live a lifestyle that you’ve never even dreamed. I’ll make all your fantasies come true and then some.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“But why me? Why not someone else?”

The voice made a noise akin to a sigh. “
If that’s how you feel, simply walk forward and ignore my proposition. There are others…”

“Wait. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions.”

“Yes…”

“If you do this for me, what’s in it for you?”

The voice laughed, a frightening deep laugh.
“Now do you see why I chose you? You’re smart. You’re smarter than you think you are. There’s a certain stipulation that you must agree to if I’m to give you this gift.”

“What’s the stipulation?”

“It’s easy… A relatively tiny tradeoff. A small sacrifice you’ll have to make. I’m sure you’ll find it worth your while.”

“How about specifics?”

“If I return your soul to Earth, I’ll give you the drive to become the man that you always could’ve been. Driven, handsome, powerful. With a little motivation, you can have anything you’ve ever wanted. And with all these gifts, you will be desired— Oh, how you will be desired by so many. BUT NO… You cannot have that eternal love. In fact, I compel you to break the heart of every single woman you encounter who truly desires your heart.”

“You want me break women’s hearts? Why?”

“Now I’m getting sick of your questions,” t
he voice snapped.
“But I will tell you this: in this world there is a balance that must be had. If I’m giving you so much that is good, there must be something else that is bad to counter it. Without the bad that comes with the good there would not be balance.”

“That’s all? Break women’s hearts? Nothing else?”

“It’s simple right?”
The voice laughed again.

“I know that I want to live. I know that I want a second chance. I want to see Sam and my family again.”

“I can make that happen. If you want to live, turn around and tell me that you accept my gift, and realize that our agreement is indissoluble. Tell me that you will comply. If you’re unsure or think that it’s too much, simply go forward and accept your fate as it is.”

I paused for a moment to consider if I was making the right choice. It didn’t take long. I had no idea what was ahead of me, but there was a path behind me that was clear and desirable. I wanted to live and see the people that I cared for the most again. And with the promises that I was being offered, I couldn’t see ‘no’ as being an option.

I turned around and looked at the white nothingness that was in front of me. “I accept your gift. I will comply.”

“Good…”

Within an instant, the white began to pixelate, and the frame around me began to fall out into a shadowy black. Then the black began to brighten, sending me toward another bright, white light. But now I could hear something different. There was a beeping noise in the background and a pillow beneath my head.

I could feel pain. Lots and lots of pain. My body was there again, and I was aching everywhere. Everywhere except for my hand.

A tiny frail hand was holding on to mine, and there I could feel the slightest of comfort.

I squeezed it, and it made me feel alive again.