The Void (7 page)

"...I'll miss cuddling with you like this..."

She's cuddling with me?

"...I wish you could hold me..."

I wish I could feel her warmth...

"...I wish we could be in our own bed..."

I wish I could see home again...

"...I wonder if I could take you home, for the end, to be in your
own bed..."

I'd like that...

"...I'd like that..."

At least I could die with you.

In my bed...

My warm, soft bed...

Surrounded by family I could not see...

"Get down!"

And then the Earth shakes.

The air rattles with a burst of sand and fire, the furious warmth
snaking up my back as I am thrown against the wall behind me, my back
searing as a pipe tears into my shoulder. I hear shouting as my body
crumbles to the floor.

"Max! Oh, God!"

The echo of men, racked with agony, strewn across the now dirty and
bloody floor. I leap back to my feet and sprint across the floor,
into the burning sun, my eyes flaring at the brilliance before coming
back to focus and finding a flood of angry, shouting men rampaging
toward me, fists clasped onto large weaponry, aimed at the building I
had ran from.

And, out from behind the wall, comes Jenny.

"Jenny! Jesus!"

I rush for her, throw my arms around her torso, and rip her to the
ground, as bullets unleash from their barrels and fling toward us
both. By the time our bodies collide with the ground, the air was
frothing with metal death.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Stay down!"

"Max, stop it!"

"Jenny!" I shout, eyes fierce.

She looks scared.

"Max, what is wrong with you?"

I feel myself starting to sweat. My heart is pounding. I don't know
how to get her out of here. She's not safe... how did she get here?
Wait...

I look up, look around...

How did I get here?

I blink, shake my head...

"Max!"

I look down; Jenny is bleeding.

Why is she bleeding?

"Jenny, why are you bleeding?"

"Max, you-"

"Are you hit?" I immediately begin checking her body for
injuries. I find a gash across her left thigh; she must have been
grazed... It doesn't look life threatening, but it is bleeding. I
grab at my pants and remove my belt, trying to quickly fasten it
around her leg, tightly enough to act as a field tourniquet.

"Max! Max!"

I look up at her; she looks utterly terrified.

Her arm is flush under my iron grip...

"What?"

"Max... Please... Let go of me..."

"What?"

Why does she want me to let go of her?

"Max, it's okay! Okay? It's okay, just let go."

I shake my head, look around.

I see cars... Where did the cars come from?

"It's okay..."

We're on pavement...

"Max..."

I look left; a grocery store...

"Max, it's okay..."

I'm home- How did I get home?

"Jenny," I mumble, now frantically looking side to side,
scanning the area, looking for the men who were rushing toward us.
Looking for threats... I see many men, some women, some children, all
dressed casually, none of them angry, all of them staring at me. They
look shocked...

Who are these people?

"Max-"

"Jenny?" I look at her, my grip still furious.

"Max-"

"Where are we?"

She blinks, hard, eyes flare, shifting from side to side. She
stammers, searching for the words. "We're at the grocery store,
Max."

"The grocery store?"

"Yes, the grocery store. We were shopping."

"How did we get here?"

"We drove here, sweetheart."

Her eyes soften; concern floods her face.

"I... I don't..."

I am confused; I shake my head, blink twice, shake my head again. I
feel panicked, absolutely alert, but I suddenly have no reason to be.

"Max?"

"What?"

"Please let go of my shoulder."

"Oh," and I let go completely, her body falling from the
elevated position I was holding her, and her back struck the
pavement. She grunts as she strikes the ground; she coughs and puts
her hands to her face.

"Is everything alright?"

I leap to my feet, arms up; a man before me, a woman standing behind
him, looking a delicate mix of worry and anger as I try to quickly
decide how to react.

"We're okay!" Jenny shouts.

"Are you sure?"

"Who are you?" I don't know this man...

"Excuse me?"

"Sir, we're fine, please, just go away!"

"I don't-"

"She said go away!" I shout and lunge at the man, who dashes
backwards and throws his hands to his face. I try to grab him, to
question him, when Jenny clasps my leg, causing my attention to
divert instantly back to her; she looks aghast.

"Max! Calm down!"

"I-"

"No! Calm! Take a deep breath!"

"But, I-"

"Deep breath!" She slowly comes back to her feet, a grunt with
every movement as she wraps my arms around her torso, pulling me in
tightly to her chest. I feel my heart throbbing against my ribs and
echoing against her shirt. My breathing is suddenly raspy and
furious; I feel faint; my vision is jagged and clouded. What the hell
is wrong with me?

"What the hell is wrong with me?"

"You're okay, baby," and she starts to rub my back. I feel my
heart slowly begin to subside, and all at once the gravity of the
moment strikes me and I feel ashamed, panicked and desperate to be
home.

"I have to go."

"Okay, sweetie," and she cups one arm around my back and rests
her hand on my hip, slowly leading me away. "Let's go home."

And we dash for our car, reaching it in only a handful of leaping
steps.

I start to cry as the passenger door closes...

"He looks good today," I suddenly hear Mary saying, from my
right, where I imagine her staring out the window. I wonder if she is
looking at a park of some kind, covered in snow. "Doesn't he look
good?"

"Yes, he does," Jenny mumbles.

"It's not fair, really," Brian continues.

"I'm glad he looks good," Mary exclaims.

"Why?"

"He always looked good."

"He's dying!" Brian near shouts.

"He's not dead yet," Mary grumbles, and then says nothing
further. Perhaps she is still looking out that window, imaging just
how cold it is outside.

"Hey, dad," Brian says, his voice loud, right beside my left
ear. He must be sitting, or leaning, at my bed side. "How are you
today?"

"It's easy to talk to him, isn't it?" Jenny laughs.

Brian says nothing.

"You know, I always worried he'd end up here."

"What?" Jenny asks Mary.

"I just..." And then nothing.

But I know what she means...

"Son of a bitch!"

I'm screaming, on the pavement, clutching my leg, which is now
bleeding and quite clearly at an incorrect angle, the ladder on which
I was previously standing now lay beside my head.

Jenny rushes outside, eyes penetrating and her hands shaking, arms
flailing, unsure what to do. She reaches for me, her eyes carry to my
protruding bone, and then she retreats and screams.

"Goddamnit!"

It hurts, furiously. I feel my mental faculties leave me completely;
all I care for is the pain. The searing, all-consuming pain,
radiating up my thigh, into my abdomen, up my chest and into my arms.
My mind can think of nothing else; the pain is all there is for me,
the only element in my now small world.

My memory of the intervening hours is blurred, a series of flashes,
of Jenny, then no Jenny, and then Jenny again; of a group of burly
looking men, of the inside of an ambulance; a doctor hovering over
me, looking concerned; of a sterile room, devoid of people, white
everywhere, the pain subsiding...

Soon, I find my faculties gently returning, somewhat. Yet there
is... something else; something... something... It is a coating, a
film over life. My eyelids open and my eyes scan the room, still
sterile and white, but now holding Jenny, a nurse and a still
concerned looking doctor. I glance at Jenny...

She is saying... something...

"Hello, honey." I am glad to see her.

She answers me.

"Where am I?"

She answers me again, but I don't hear her.

"What?"

"It's- hospit- you-"

Why is she mumbling?

"What?"

All at once I realize, I have no pain.

In fact, I feel fantastic. I feel like I can dance.

"I want to dance!"

"What?" She looks perplexed.

"I want to dance!"

Maybe she didn't hear me.

And she laughs. She heard me.

"You can dance later, sweetheart."

"I feel good..."

I have never felt so good... I can feel nothing; I can feel nothing
at all. It is remarkable, like my arm went numb and spread across my
entire body. I raise my arm, watching it as it soars, just to make
sure I'm still able... I am, it turns out.

"I'm glad, sweetie."

"Why do I feel so good?"

It occurs to me that this isn't normal. Something was done to me,
what was done to me?

"You're just a little doped up, sweetie."

"Doped up?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," and I understand.

I have some kind of drug in me.

Whatever it is, it's a wonderful drug...

"It's a wonderful drug," I vocalize.

She laughs.

The doctor looks suddenly less concerned.

Or maybe I am imagining everything. Maybe nothing is real. Maybe
this is all there is, the numbing, the wandering curtains; I want ice
cream...

"Hey," the voice of Sarah. She sounds somber.

What's wrong?

"How are you?"

As good as a man could be, given everything...

I feel hungry...

I wish I could have ice cream, one more time.

"I suppose that's a silly question. You couldn't possibly be good.
You're not even there at all, huh?"

I'm here!

I wish everyone would stop assuming that I am not here, that I have
left. Where would I go? I am my mind; so long as my mind is still
here, whole and in my skull, I am here, in whatever form I can be.

"Michael is having trouble sleeping suddenly."

That's odd...

"I'm worried about him. He seems depressed."

Well, he
is
dying...

I would be depressed, if I could be. In fact, I may well be, only I
have no ability to show it. Do I think depressed? Are my thoughts
depressed? What does it mean to be depressed for a man who can only
hear and think, and has no perception of the world, or his place
within it? Do I have different states of being?

"I keep telling him not to give up. There is always hope, isn't
there?"

Of course not!

There can't always be hope.

I'd never say that to her, but it's true. If there is always hope,
there would be no endings. At the very end, when the eyes seal shut
and the brain dies, there is no hope left. The game is over, the
final play has been made. And if there can be an end to life and an
end to hope, then there can always be situations that are hopeless,
the ones that bring about the end.

You may not know which is hopeless until the end comes, but whether
knowledge or ignorance, it was hopeless just the same.

Hope, it seems, is dependent on outcome.

"He hates his chemo treatments."

Maybe he should stop them...

"He wants to stop them, they make him feel so sick and tired, but
he can't sleep, so he's miserable. He wants to stop, but I keep
telling him that he has to keep fighting. He has to... fight..."

It's
you
that is holding on to hope...

"I want him to fight."

You think he can win, you think he can survive. You want him to
fight so he can see the other side, and you can hold onto him for
just a little longer.

Don't make him fight, Sarah.

Let him choose how to go away from here.

I'd give anything for that choice...

"I can't live without him, Max," she squeaks, her voice
trembling. She sounds so fragile. "I just... I can't live without
him. He's all I have left."

What about your parents?

She never mentions their parents...

"I don't know what I'll do, Max..."

She's crying now.

Don't cry, Sarah; I can't take anymore of that...

"I need you to take care of him, Max."

You... what?

"He's not doing well, but I think you'll beat him there. Get ready
for him. I'll tell him to look for you."

Look for me, where? In heaven?

Does she think I'm going to heaven?

"I think you'll like him. He's a good guy."

I am not going to any heaven. I don't believe in such a place; and
if there were such a place, and were it governed by any of the Gods I
was educated about as a boy, I am certain that I would not be much
welcomed there. There is blood on my hands, and I would never dare
ask for forgiveness...

I'm not sorry.

"He may not be perfect, but at heart, he's a good man. He always
looked out for me. He always kept me safe, even... even when it hurt
him."

You sound like you truly love him.

"I don't know who will protect me now."

You'll be fine, Sarah.

"I should just go with him..."

Oh, Sarah!

"...then we three can be together."

Don't say things like that, Sarah!

"I wonder what it's like to die."

You won't find out for a long time!

"I suppose you'll find out soon enough."

Don't envy me; I don't want to find out.

I
want to live!

"I imagine it's probably just like a really deep sleep, just you
can't wake up from it."

I feel like that every day...

"I guess it probably hurts to get there, though."