Clouded Rainbow (24 page)

Roger fought his tears as his pupils adjusted to the soft light inside. Then, he took one more step, the last step into the room. He saw a figure in the bed. Roger crept closer as the sweet scent of his love invigorated him. He neared his wife as her soft, supple skin glistened and massaged his eyes.

“Lois. I made it,” Roger whispered.

He inched closer, overwhelmed with emotion. But then, something stole his focus. It was the torrential rain outside the window. A blast of thunder erupted. A bolt of lightning flashed. Roger closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them and saw the face of a man covered with rage. Roger spun around and saw an army of police. He realized that he was back outside, back to reality, and gone from his wife’s side.

Roger took a breath. He had to find a way out. His mind yelled, and then a sudden, enlightening feeling overwhelmed him. He saw a solution to his problem, a solution that he hoped would explain his situation to those around him. Roger reached slowly into his rear pocket. As his arm moved behind him, the officers stood tall and reaffirmed their weapons.

“Don’t move! Stop!” erupted from the army.

“Put your hands up! Stop or we’ll shoot!” another exclaimed.

Roger, however, felt calm. He knew the answer was in his back pocket as he prepared to remove the item that he hoped would explain it all.

“I just… I just want to see my dynamite,” Roger explained as he reached deep inside him.

“Dynamite? Bomb! I think he has a bomb!” exploded from the chaotic crowd.

Their yells and screams frantically filled the area.

Roger smiled as he began to remove his hand, but then a quick flash and blast filled his senses. At first, he thought it was a jolt of lightning and thunder, but the sudden pain in his chest diverted his focus. He looked down as his smile turned into a look of terror. The front of his shirt had two small holes. Suddenly, the holes turned deep red, the color of blood. Roger realized the flashes had not been produced by the storm, but instead by the pistols of his aggressors. He had been shot twice in his chest. One bullet was embedded into his right lung as the other had broken heart.

“Noooo! Holster your weapons!” Det. Cleveland yelled as he ran into the middle of the action.

He finally reached the man, the man he had grown to understand, the man he had vowed to protect. His arrival, however, was seconds too late. Most people failed to appreciate the significance of a few seconds, but it was a measure of time that fit many facets of life—a sudden sneeze, a stubbed toe, or the moment of death. Det. Cleveland realized that a matter of seconds would haunt him for the rest of his life, as he could do nothing now to help Roger. He could only watch the life leave his beaten body.

Roger looked out and stared at the nearly one hundred police and bystanders frozen in silence. They stood stock-still; the only motion was that of the rushing raindrops. Roger blinked his eyes rapidly as the pain intensified deep within his chest. It felt like an uncontrolled tractor-trailer had run over his heart. The feeling was so intense that it lacked feeling. He attempted to turn in an effort to complete his journey, but his legs didn’t respond. He realized they no longer worked. Roger fell to the ground on his knees. He looked down at the once light-colored shirt and saw it was now soaked with blood. Roger felt the bullets sucking the life from him, and he knew this was it. As the rain hit him, he recognized that he would never complete his journey, never step into the hospital and reunite with his wife. Roger felt his head bobble and fall forward as his neck muscles died. His breathing slowed. His pupils dilated. His muscles shut down.

An odd memory surfaced in Roger’s mind. It was of his last conversation with his dying grandfather many years ago. Roger was only twelve at the time, but he could recall that memory as if it were yesterday. His grandfather had said, “As the years go by filled with life, one sometimes assumes his place in this world is infinite. If he took a moment, however, to fathom the number of years the Earth has spun in the infinite universe, he would realize those years of his life were nothing more than an insignificant raindrop produced by a violent storm that encircled the world.”

The last image Roger would ever see was in front of him, an image every human life would see one day. For him, it was a puddle of water. His fading body reflected back as he saw himself dying, an image he could never have imagined, but there it was, directly in front of him. He was scared, realizing this was the end. Death was inevitable, which all living creatures must face on their day, but what Roger feared most was the unknown, the transition into a place, a time, and a state that no living creature could possibly comprehend. As he accepted his fate, the vivid image of his wife flashed before his eyes. Her soft radiating skin, her flowing brown hair, and her glowing smile were a part of him that would, and could, never die. Rapidly, Roger’s eyes clouded. The image of the puddle blurred. He could not move, and he could not breathe. He attempted to inhale a gulp of air, but he could not. Roger suddenly felt trapped and unable to fill his screaming lungs. It was the most horrifying feeling he had ever experienced. Every second seemed like an eternity as he felt completely alone. Nothing or no one could possibly understand his state, but he realized that eventually we all would experience this unavoidability. It was just a matter of time. In a flash, the pain subsided and a burst of light filled his eyes. An emotional charge traversed through his mind, his body, and his soul. It was the feeling of bliss. Then through the blinding light, he heard something so vivid, so bizarrely familiar. It was the sound of a—

Det. Cleveland watched as Roger’s dead body bashed against the ground. Water splashed into the air from the force. Roger lay perfectly still on the ground. The detective rushed toward him and grabbed the item that Roger had attempted to display. He picked it up and showed the stunned crowd.

“A picture, God damn it! He had a picture. Dynamite is his wife! He had a damn picture! He was just trying to find his wife!” Det. Cleveland screamed as he moved around the crowd.

The stunned group of police and bystanders surrounded Roger’s departed body, completely immobile and unable to digest the chain of events. Det. Cleveland kicked a puddle of water as he held the rain-soaked picture in his hand. He realized he had lost and, although the man he had so desperately sought was right in front of him, he was face down and dead in the water like a belly-up fish.

25

Lois lay perfectly still in her comatose state sleeping through the battle outside the castle. Carol sat beside her holding her hand with the door propped open to circulate the air. The sudden departure of the two perched patrolmen had stirred Carol’s attention; however, her focus was and would always be on her sister. She would not leave her side until she did all that she could to bring Lois out of her seemingly wakeless sleep, and even then she would keep trying.

Nurse Ann had left the room to let the two sisters reunite. In fact, the nurse encouraged Carol to talk to her sister in the hopes of awakening the tranquil woman from her trance. Carol did just that, softly petting her sister’s hand and massaging her ears with her familiar voice. Carol also realized that her sister could stay sleeping for months, even years, which seemed horrifying to consider. The moments alone with Lois allowed Carol to examine her sister. She studied Lois’ perfect hairline rounding her face, her small, creased chin, and subtle nose flares from her involuntary breathing. Carol counted the tiny eyelashes lined up on Lois’ closed eyes, but in a sudden flash, she noticed a twitch under her eyelids. At first, she questioned the quiver, but convinced herself it did actually occur. She wondered whether such an occurrence was normal.

Carol realized something changed in the hypnotic sound hitting her ears. It wasn’t the electronic monitor as Lois’ heartbeat remained constant and rhythmic over the course of her stay. The subtle difference had occurred outside. The sound of the rain had stopped, which the continual electronic beat next to her masked. No longer was the howling wind, pelting rain, random booms of thunder, or flashes of lightning present. Carol stood up and walked toward the window, curious to see what her ears had deduced. As she neared the drawn blinds, she noticed a hint of light through the cracks. Carol parted the blinds. Her eyes filled with the emerging sun through the distant buildings. Without warning, the electronic heartbeats changed tone; the constant tempo escalated and began to resonate random notes.

Carol saw her sister’s eyes rapidly moving under her lids. Her left arm twitched slightly, and her toes fluttered.

“Lois. Can you hear me? Come on, sis,” Carol said as she squeezed her hand.

Lois moaned and whimpered under her breath.

“Nurse Ann! Nurse Ann!” Carol yelled.

Lois attempted to open her eyes, but they seemed to shudder randomly.

“Yes, baby. It’s your sister. You can do it.”

Finally, the princess opened her eyes wide as her pupils flexed from the light. Regaining her orientation, she focused on her sister’s tears.

“What… Where am I?” Lois asked.

Before Carol could answer, Nurse Ann burst into the room and widened her eyes at the awakened woman. She ran to Lois’ other side and rubbed her legs through the sheets with excitement.

“I’m your nurse, dear! You made it through!”

“You were in an accident, honey. But you’re okay now,” Carol added.

Lois registered the two women’s enthusiasm. She glanced at her right arm covered in a cast. It was all puzzling. She had a deep throbbing from within her brain as her mind caught up to her body. The words hitting her ears didn’t fully click, but one did stand out.

“Accident?” Lois repeated.

“Yes. You and Roger were driving home from dinner last night. Remember? It was your anniversary,” Carol said.

“Actually, the night before last,” Nurse Ann clarified as the sunrise peered through the window and warmed her face.

“Do you remember that?” Carol asked.

Lois studied her sister’s face, but everything was a blur. The moments before her awakening were lost in a void. She felt like she had been gone for years, unable to remember falling into the sleep from which she had just awoken.

“No. I, uh, don’t know,” Lois unsteadily replied.

Slowly, she digested Carol’s words as her brain regained control. She realized some sort of event had put her in the hospital. The excited nurse, beeping heart monitor, and tight cast all proved her plight, but something that Carol mentioned rose to the top of her mounting questions.

“Roger? Where is Roger?” she asked as she searched for him in the room.

Lois yearned for her husband, her partner, her crutch. Carol and Nurse Ann remained mute. Their silence concerned Lois, as she hoped to hear that he was just down the hall on his way to reunite with her, but these words didn’t echo inside the confined room.

Suddenly, a warm masculine voice startled the trio, “He didn’t make it.”

Lois tried to place the faceless man, as she recognized it wasn’t the familiar voice of her husband, her Roger.

“What?” she responded.

Det. Cleveland stepped into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, completing the circle surrounding Lois. His outward expression was unreadable and aloof; however, he felt overwhelmed with deep emotion. He had witnessed something that would change his life forever and now it was his duty to deliver the dreaded news.

“He died in the accident, trying to save you,” he said tenderly.

Carol and Nurse Ann felt a chill run through their bodies. The only thing they could do was hold on to Lois tightly and never let go. Det. Cleveland removed the item Roger had carried with him throughout his journey, the picture of the loving couple. It was still wet from the rain. He placed it softly on Lois’ chest like a petal that gracefully fell from a dying flower. Lois looked at the image as her world suddenly crashed. She realized she had awoken to a different world, a world where love no longer existed.