On Black Wings (8 page)

Just like I remember it.

I feel the tears again. “People are dying! There’s something wrong with the sun, the ozone layer, something! Please listen to me and look!”

Brad’s mouth is open, he is breathing short breaths, and his eyes are wide. “My God. Bill. Bill’s dead? My God.”

He looks down at me, his face a mask of fear. “How did you know? How did you know?”

“Brad. I love you. I don’t know what’s happening with me, it’s like I’m living a nightmare. I have these wings, I’m young again, and I’m reliving a lot in my life I wish I could have changed. I’m seeing other things too I can’t explain, places, dark places I know I have to go to. People are hunting me wherever I go.”

We hear the back patio door slide open, and I bolt towards the back of the house as fast as I can, screaming at the top of my lungs. “No!”

I’m too late.

The future me and my two children are swirling away in a pile of ash on the back lawn, her cell phone hitting the ground, the bright cinders of the three of them blowing away in the wind.

So that’s how I die.

The cell phone is still on as it buries itself in ashes, saying, “Miss? Miss? Stay inside-”

I’m on the floor again, collapsing in exhaustion and shock, my black wings flayed out across my living room.

“Oh my God.” Brad walks in and collapses next to me in shock. He screams and howls a cry I never heard from him before. “No God no!”

I’m shaking my head. I can’t believe I’d do this to myself. I’m so stupid. Brad buries his face on one of my wings on the floor, hunched over in agony, and sobbing uncontrollably.

“No, God, no.”

Now it’s his turn to cry.

CHAPTER XI:

My Heart Left Before His

He’s a hollow man.

The ash continues to fall outside, piling up on the windowsill, people likely dying by the thousands or millions at the moment. Yet only one life means anything to me right now, Brad’s.

He sits across the table from me, broken, his eyes gaunt, and his expression lost. He’s crying, tissues wadded up and strewn about, his hand on his forehead, while repeating the same words over and over again.

“God, why God?”

I can’t help to feel bad for the man I loved, even though I can’t love him, not like this. But I can’t help to love him as the man who I shared my life with, my soul-mate, and to watch him waste away tears my heart out.

Again.

Somehow I feel so jaded and hurt that I’m done crying.

Forever.

“Brad?” I speak, it’s so quiet that I don’t need to speak very loud. “Brad, please.”

He looks up at me, eyes bloodshot, his face lost in the depths of sorrow. “Why do you look like my wife?”

“I’m not your wife, not yet,” I say, reaching for his hand but he backs away, “I’m Jessica before me met, maybe just before. It’s hard for me to see you like this, I told myself not to go out there, to keep the kids inside, but she wouldn’t listen. I can’t control my own actions.”

The realization hits me like a hammer. No, I’ve never been able to. I’m my own worst enemy.

“You warned us, why?” His eyes slowly blink, staring at me. “How?”

“Brad, maybe I’m an angel now, maybe that’s why I’m here. I died or something and now I’m doomed to wander the Earth and warn people about this.”

I really don’t know, I’m guessing as much as he is.

He doesn’t move a hair and keeps staring at me. “But you, you could walk outside. Why?”

I rub my eyes. “I don’t know. I just found this out today. I know you can’t, and now I know the older me can’t. There was some, there was some horse that came up to the back door, it should have been here by now. It took me away from here, I ended up in some diner downtown.”

“On a horse?” His voice is low, gravelly. “And those wings? Why do you have wings? Why are they black?”

“I don’t know.” I want to be honest with him, I move my mouth but I can’t explain why I changed or why I’m changing. “Brad, I don’t know. Don’t you remember waking up with me this morning? Did I faint in the bathroom? Did you see anything on my back? Scars?”

“No I-” He stops, rubbing his tear-filled eyes in agony. “Wait, I don’t know, it’s a haze. I remember us talking when we got up, something about you having nightmares. I calmed, wait, yes-”

“It feels so fuzzy.” He stares at me. “I remember the scars, yes. I remember you fainting, but after that, I don’t know. I remember you getting up, and saying you’re fine, and I don’t know why but it’s hazy after that and I remember accepting it and damn, forgetting about the whole thing.”

He draws a long breath. “If you had scars like that I was going to take you to the hospital. But I didn’t? Something, I don’t know, something made me act like this was a normal day. Like I was going to call you in, drop the kids off, and let you go. Damn, Jess, how come I feel so, so drugged or fuzzy about all this?”

“Something-” I grab his hands. They are so warm, so good to feel in my hands. “There’s something messed up, I don’t know, maybe with time. Like that TV show, Time Wizard. Where I’m from one time, and going between two or more, and we can’t figure out why. Maybe I came back as my older self, and I started to change, and you seen the scars, but I left and time is trying to fix itself by making the right things happen.”

“Jess I-” He’s a fan of the show just like me, we watch it together on Sunday nights. “What do you mean?”

I squeeze his hands tighter, and this is really the only explanation I have. A campy British television show is my only frame of reference and way to explain things, great. “As humans we can’t even begin to comprehend what’s happening to us if time is messed up. We could be in more than one place at a time. We could be crossing paths from different times. It’s why I’m younger, there’s something wrong with the younger me, I don’t know, I’m just guessing here.”

“As humans we can’t do this,” he says, pulling my hands towards him, “then what are you? Are you real? What’s with the wings? How did you know? How did you get here? Is this a joke?”

I don’t have any answers, so I drop my head on the table. “Listen, Brad, I have no idea. Maybe it’s not different times, maybe it’s different worlds. I don’t know what I am.”

He lets my hands go. He’s quiet. He speaks as if the words choke him up. “You, and the kids are dead. How am I supposed to deal with that?”

I look up at him, slowly. “How am
I
supposed to deal with this?”

He stares right through me. “Is it always about you?”

“Jesus, Brad, why now?” I slap the table. “This isn’t a fight. Do you think I like watching myself die? The kids? Not being able to do anything about it? This is the second time-”

His expression changes.

“The second time?” He gets up, his face like stone. “The second time? What the hell, Jess?”

“You are so unfair-”

“So this is about fair?” He’s hysterical. “Fair to who, you? How about fair to me? How about that? You can just wish yourself away, can’t you? Well, why don’t you do just that, wish yourself away to a happier time where it’s just you, and you don’t have to worry about kids you never wanted to have-”

I stand, I’m not thinking but I stand. The tears are flowing down my face but I don’t even know they are there. I’m moving my mouth but the words aren’t coming out.

Brad is staring me down. I retreat, bumping into our floor lamp, stepping back with every step he makes towards me. “B-Brad.”

“You did this. Maybe you are some angel of death
making
this happen.” He speaks with his teeth flat together. “Maybe this is your wish coming true.”

He’s a different man, full of hatred and not the Brad I know. I’m searching his eyes, trying to find a reason for why this is happening, for something I did, for something. I don’t know.

I just don’t know anymore.

He’s walking towards me, and stops when I hit the wall. He’s not even crying, his eyes hollow, and his expression gaunt. He moves his lips like he has something to add to his assault, the muscles on his neck spasming, and his left eye fluttering.

I turn away. I don’t, I don’t know this man.

I hide behind my wing, in the corner of the living room, crying my guts out. How could he turn on me? Why? I’m wiping my nose on my shirt and sniffling. I’m just so confused, and adrift in a sea of lost emotions.

“Why don’t you just keep hiding?” His voice trails off. “No, no help-”

Why does he have to keep hurting me?

What did I do?

I rest my head against the wall. Does he hate me that much? Does he think I hate the kids? I loved them, I love them, and I’ll do anything to bring them back.

Even sacrifice myself.

I peer out. Brad’s head is against the patio door, looking out at the ash falling like snow, his face lit by a pale shade of gray. He’s not moving, just pressing against the glass, and his hands are like spiders as he tries to bring back things dead to him.

He’s given up on me.

Do you hit a blind person who strikes out at you because they are afraid? Do you gag a patient in pain so much they can’t stop screaming? Or do you just let the sorrow settle into your heart, step back, and do the best you can to give them comfort from a distance?

I forgive you Brad.

Please have it in your heart to forgive me.

I stand up.

“Brad.” I wipe my mouth and nose. “Try to remember what you loved about me.”

“I don’t know you.” His voice is low, quavering. “I don’t know what to think.”

It’s so hard for me to control my rage. This is not my fault. I pause a moment. What if it is?

I don’t care if it is or not, I will make it right.

“I’m coming back for you.” I pause, too angry to spit. I grit my teeth, a snarl on my angry lips.

“And my family.”

The next instant, I’m gone.

CHAPTER XII:

The Moment Loses Me

I’m standing on green grass, with warm blue skies above me, and a pastoral glade of trees surrounding me. The air is cool too, the sun hot, and it feels like a perfect day. A soft breeze rustles the trees.

I feel the air take my wings, softly blowing and catching my feathers in the breeze. There’s no ash here, no death, and no darkness. It is a beautiful day.

Only I’m staring at my own grave.

Tombstones surround me in the bright green grass, thousands of them covered by the names of lives the world just wants to forget. Just die and let’s move on. Next to my grave are predictably ones for my husband, and our children.

I should have known I would be staring at these. We all die. Maybe I am dead, and I’m just going through Hell before I’m judged. Maybe I died in my sleep and never woke up, and these are the last few microseconds of my brain misfiring and giving me one last strange flash of a dream before I’m gone forever.

All my fears, all my hate, all my confusion and self-doubt are coming back to me in spades.

I’m moving around in time again, or to different places, and I cannot control it. Please God help me. What is happening to me?

A dark shadow looms over me, easily dwarfing me, stretching from somewhere behind me all the way past my headstone. I don’t want to turn, I don’t want to even see this hideous torture inflicted upon me by some nightmare dream.

In some ways, one of me has the better deal right now.

“Hello,” I say to the shadow, enjoying the day, letting the black feathers of my wings rustle in the wind. I run my hand across my headstone, feeling the cold marble, enjoying the great amount of work that went into this cold and stoic tribute to my life.

Do I know who it is?

No.

Does it matter?

I suppose not.

I speak without looking up. “Did the person who carved this even know anything about me?”

“Oh, likely not.” The voice gives me chills in its powerful and deep resonance. “Just another pointless bit of remembrance to those who will never enjoy the craftsmanship.” He steps next to me, a very tall man in dark clothes. “Still, it’s the thought that counts.”

I don’t want to look at him, he’s just another figment of my twisted imagination, but I look anyways. He’s tall, and dressed in all black. He looks rich, very rich, with tailored clothes, perfect fits, and an air of importance to him. Black riding boots, black pants, a black shirt, and a scarred and marred face weathered by the sun. He’s an older man, and his white hair blows in the wind, long and pulled into a wispy tail on his back.

His belt is covered by pouches for coins, some loose, others stacked up neatly in cylindrical stacks. A pair of riding gloves sits in an open pouch, neatly folded and put away.

He turns to me, his eyes dark and penetrating, a pair of round banker’s spectacles resting on his nose.

“A measure of your time for your ears, and three measures for your thoughts. What say ye, Jessica?” he doesn’t smile, just closes his eyes and nods to me in a knowing way. The edges of his lips are wrinkled and dead, cracked with years of anger or hatred, laughter or tears. “I’ve been waiting a while to meet you.”

“I never imagined God would dress in black.” I look into the sky. I’m not fighting him, there’s no point. I look back towards him. “So I’m guessing you’re not him?”

“Correct. Such tragedy for the youth to see thou hurt in such ways,” he says, “but alas, mercy is blind, and so is tragedy. You are very smart, perhaps too smart for your own good. Still, I think he did well by finding you.”

“Who?” There’s a cloud drifting by, it’s so beautiful. I sigh as it floats away from view. “Who found me?”

“Oh, my horse. I am a man of many needs, and many whom call to me. My time is precious, a currency of which I invest wisely.”

“Your horse?” Somehow, I knew someone else was behind this. I drop my head, biting my lip. I stare at my grave, admiring the smooth stone and how it reflects the light. “Can I ask why?”

“Why is a good question, the beginning of many answers, or the beginning of many endings. To understand that you need to understand me,” he says, looking my way. I don’t return the eye contact. “It is understanding the balance. And I don’t think many can, Jessica.”