B008M2IEII EBOK Page 6

  A father sits holding his head in his hands on a small folding metal chair. He looks over his shoulder into the room next to him briefly, I can see his eyes have spent many hours crying. I approach with nothing but the slight squeak of my chair tires on the linoleum. He does not look up, but I can see he is aware of my presence. I lean forward slightly and look into the room. A mother is sitting next to the hospital bed holding the hand a small boy. She is whispering to him and stroking his hand. Several tears roll down her cheek as she speaks quietly.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have let him go over there,” he says as he looks into the room. He turns back to me as if I should pass judgment on him, agree that this is all his fault, that any blame should be placed squarely on his shoulders and no one else.

  Flashes of blue and green. A rare mist of blue moves through the ripples of black mercury. Small sprites of red flash toward the center.

  “I didn’t want him to go to his friend’s house today. I always thought his friend’s parents just didn’t pay enough attention when the kids were playing. They never watched when they would go outside.” He looked into the room and a tear rolled down his cheek. He watches for several moments as I see more rolls of pain flood through his Darkness. I find I am struggling with my own emotions now.

  He turns back to me, “They were supposed to be taking naps but he had gone out to play with their dog. He always wanted one so he took every opportunity to play with theirs, he’s a great dog. I don’t know how it happened, maybe he was running and playing with the dog or just didn’t pay attention, who knows? Somehow he fell in their pool. It wasn’t covered and they didn’t have one of those splash alarms but I guess that doesn’t really matter, does it? He was out there for at least twenty minutes before someone came out to quiet the dog. Every machine in there says he will most likely not wake up again. Even if he does they aren’t sure if...” He trails off into silence as he begins to quietly cry again.

  The black mercury stills briefly. Hopelessness is hard to look at.

  He holds his head in his hands and cries quietly. The empathy I feel is overpowering, I want to go back to my room and just cry until I fall asleep. This is almost more than I can bear but I push forward. The wheels on my chair squeak slightly as I turn and roll my way through the open door and into the room. The bed is bathed in a subtle blue light from the various machines arranged around the room. Monitors, tubes and wires stretch from one end of the bed to the other. The mother attempts to wipe away some of the tears as she sees me looking into the room. Her face looks tired and her makeup has long since been removed by the hours of tears. She is exhausted but she will stay by the bedside until her body physically gives out.

  The boy looks to be four or five years old with dirty blond hair. His face is devoid of expression as he lies peacefully on the bed.

  The mother is watching me uncomfortably but I smile warmly and try to calm her fears with nothing but a look. She senses that I am no threat and turns back to her son.

  Streaks of blue and green in the still black-mercury of her Darkness. A still pool of blackness is growing slowly from the center.

  Her hope is fading that the boy will ever wake up again. I can see she is already starting to realize that she may have to face the worst thing a parent can ever deal with. I am struggling to keep from crying myself. The pain of loss that I see in her Darkness is the saddest thing I have ever seen. It tears at my heart.

  “What is his name?” For some reason, the present tense seems critical here. I hear my own voice waver slightly as I try to bury the emotions struggling to come out. My throat is heavy as I fight to hold the tears back.

  She turns to me as nothing more than a stranger, “Evan. My little boy’s name is Evan. We named him after my brother.”

  I smile at her and nod a silent thank you.

  I look at the motionless boy and clear my throat, “Hello Evan, my name is Adam Carter. I just dropped in to say hello.”

  The small boy is pale and motionless. The various monitors around him show nothing beyond a barely alive boy. His heart beats slowly, his pressure is normal but his brain activity is a still, steady green line moving across the monitor. The machines don’t see everything. I see far more than they can detect. I see life. I see his Darkness.

  Unorganized flashes of green and blue. Hints of red and gold flow around in an unorganized pattern. There is no order in the flashes, waves, curls. Quick flashes of light and sound register all around me. I sense laughter and crying at the same time. One instant the Darkness smells of chlorine and water, the next it is crayons and warm bread. This shadow is in complete chaos.

  Watching his Darkness is like listening to someone put random words into a sentence. I lacks all structure. With a deep breath I talk to him, “Evan, can you hear me?”

  I stare deep into the young boy’s Darkness. I have never actually looked into another Darkness with this much concentration before. I feel the cool black-mercury all around us. I feel my own Darkness move, slide, into the life essence of young Evan. The maddening terror of the young boy is tangible and consuming. Part of me wants to scream out loud as our black-mercury joins. I am struggling for several moments as the flashes of random light threaten to pull me into the tempest at the core of his Darkness. I push out slightly and create calm within the storm of colors.

  After several heavy breaths I am able to speak again, “Evan? I’m a friend buddy, your parents are worried. I know you are there Evan. I need you to trust that I know you are there.”

  A single spark of blue and green starts in the middle of the Darkness. It holds for several seconds then fades slowly.

  “I saw that Evan. I need you to come back again. I know you are scared but I can help you.”

  Again the blue spark surfaces only to be swept away in a maddening rush of gold and silver flashes.

  Reaching out to his Darkness I try and coax the blues and greens but they slip away before I can ever reach them. I’m doing something wrong but I’m so close. Like knowing whatever it is you are trying to remember, it was just beyond my fingertips but I couldn’t reach out any further for it.

  “I know you can hear me Evan. We sure would like you to come back buddy.” I feel myself getting frustrated, giving into the pain of loss. For a brief second I feel like giving up, but seeing his that his Darkness is crying out for help and it makes me angry for not trying harder.

  With the flash of anger, something changes inside me. Some part of me wakes and before I am even aware of what is happening I am reaching out to the small boy. Like a hand reaching out into the dark, but not truly a hand. My Darkness is forming a bridge of sorts. I feel my Darkness flowing toward the chaos surrounding the small boy. They touch with a flash of light and I can suddenly feel him all around me. I mean truly feel him, it is as if he and I are sitting in a darkened room together. I feel his fear and terror. I feel as if I am locked in a small room with no light. This is the chaos little Evan is suffering. He is there but locked away. He can hear but not speak. He is terrified that he will remain like this forever. He cries out but no one can hear him. The fear nearly overwhelms me and I gasp deeply for air. I cannot see the hospital room around us, I am quite literally in his hell. I realize that I must show him the way. I need to calm the storm and quiet the chaos. He needs someone to show him the way out.

  Currents of Darkness swirl around. I reach for the blues, the greens, push away the reds and blacks. Calm the ripples and curls. Even the flow. Smooth the torrent tearing at the core of his essence.

  I comfort the boy. I can sense him calming as our Darkness’ converge and flow. I allow the blues and greens to flare and spark around us. He is calm and relaxed. I continue to comfort him. I pull slightly as if to say, ‘follow me’. His Darkness is calm and organized. He is aware that I am there now but he still does not understand where ‘there’ is. I continue to comfort him, coax out the good colors, and push back the bad. The colors, the smells, the sounds, all of them calm in the storm of black-mer
cury around us. I pause and can see that his Darkness is now stable. I reach out a hand in the Darkness and I feel him grab on to me. With the colors calm, I slowly, carefully pull. I feel us separate and become two again.

  Calm ripples of black mercury. Silver edges flash a dark green and blue.

  With a rush of cool air and the distinct smell of ozone I feel a sudden wave of exhaustion come over me. I am spent. Part of me feels more energized than I have ever felt but in body I am spent.

  The mother is holding the boys hand and singing quietly. Evan’s face has a different light to it now. I see his eyes move slightly under his still closed eyelids and the slightest of twitches around his mouth.

  “Welcome back Evan, good to see you are with us again buddy,” my voice sounds raged and exhausted.

  The woman is startled and jumps to her feet. “Evan?” She nearly screams as she calls out to her husband, “John! Come in here, he squeezed my hand! John!”

  I hear the small metal chair slide across the hall as the father jumps up. He runs by me as if I am not there and I slowly back out of the room.

  “Mine too! Evan buddy, are you there! Can you hear me Little Bear?”

  “He did it again!”

  One of the machines on the wall begins to blink a green light and a similar light flashes above Evan’s door in the hallway.

  Swirls of blues and greens. Edges curl in sprites of gold and silver.

  The boy still has a long road to recovery, but I know now that it will be full. He will be given another chance at life.

  I roll down the hall with an exhausted smile on my face and tears flowing freely down my face. I needed rest as never before but I knew it would not be haunted by nightmares. I had finally found the purpose I was looking for. The piece that made me complete. I didn’t get someone’s purse back or stop some petty crime. This boy was given a second chance at a life that would have all to suddenly been stripped away. I could see someone’s Darkness and for once in my long painful life, it wasn’t a curse. It was a gift.

  ~4~

  I turned the car off of the highway and into a large business park. I was driving Erica’s Volkswagen Jetta and found a wide open space at the back of the lot under some trees. We held hands as we walked in silence toward the large two story office complex. I had been out of the hospital for more than three weeks and was nearly back to my old self although I still had occasional pain when I tried to exert myself.

  “Thank you for doing this, Adam. I really hope he can help you. Help us.”

  “I do to.”

  “Really?” she stopped and turned to face me. “Do you really want this to help or are you just saying that to try to make me happy?”

  “Since I have been out of the hospital I think I might be a little different,” I held her hands. “Wouldn’t you agree?” They had sent me home with strict orders to stay in bed for another week. I took a leave of absence from work and had the next three months to do nothing but get better. It felt strange not to have a job to worry about but I was getting used to not having to wake up to an alarm clock every morning.

  She looks at me and smiles, “Yeah, I would agree with that. But it’s also the first time off you have taken since our honeymoon. Maybe you should get your ass kicked more often if that’s what it takes to get you to stop working and spend some time with me. You have been more relaxed, I haven’t heard a single ‘managers suck’ complaint, and you have cooked dinner nearly every night.”

  The automatic doors slide open and the room greets us with a blast of cool air-conditioning. I smell the metal of the processed air but the cool feeling is enough to get past the unnatural odor. I also wasn’t going to complain about this kind of weather when we should be looking at the start of the fall showers. My strength isn’t what it should be yet so we take the elevator to the third floor.

  “Going up,” the polite but bored sounding computer voice says.

  “I think you will like William. He reminds me of you in a lot of ways,” she says with a slightly nervous sound in her voice.

  “So he’s kind of weird then, quirky but dark, broods around a lot and really likes bacon?” I smile at her. Should I be concerned that she thinks he is like me? Why the nagging feeling that something is going on that I don’t know about? Part of me feels like I’m walking into an ambush.

  She gives me one of her ‘you better take this seriously’ looks and I decided that maybe being quiet was the best plan.

  “Third floor,” chimes the hollow computerized voice.

  She grabs my hand and leads me down the long well lit hallway. The carpet is a combination of red and green that is probably supposed to put people in a good mood but I find all it does is remind of vomit. The furthest door on the left is marked William Songbird, PhD NCC CFT LMHC LMFT.

  “That’s a hell of a lot of letters,” I smile as I point at his wall plate, “He should try for the harder degrees, the ones that have vowels.”

  “He takes his job pretty seriously, it probably wouldn’t hurt for you to try to be a little serious too,” Erica smiles and holds the door open for me. “I think you will be surprised. He really does know what he is doing.”

  “I’m sorry Hon. I guess I’m just a little more nervous than I thought I would be. This is kind of new ground for me.”

  The woman at the desk smiles at me then I see a flash of recognition as Erica walks in behind me, “Hello Erica, how are you doing today?”

  Flashes of silver and blue. Sprites of green in the ripples of black-mercury.

  “I am doing fantastic Sam, thanks for asking! This is my husband Adam, we will both be seeing William today.”

  I nod, “Hello.”

  “Glad to finally put a name to a face. Bill should be with you any minute. Have a seat and I’ll tell him you are both here.”

  She picks up the phone on her desk and pushes a button, “Mr. Songbird? Your three o’clock is here.” She pauses for a moment, “Ok, I will send them right down,” a quick pause, “You’re welcome.”

  She hangs up the phone and smiles at the two of us, “Go right on in folks, last door on your left. It should be open.”

  I nod politely to her and follow Erica down the hall. William’s office door is open and I can hear the gentle sound of flowing water and very quiet instrumental music. Erica steps in ahead of me and is greeted by a soft spoken Native American voice.

  “Good afternoon Erica. It is good to see you again,” William spoke with clear and concise tones. He looked to be in his late fifties and had long flowing gray hair held in a ponytail by a very colorful band. He wore a brightly colored vest that appeared to be a handmade collection of beads and leather. His pants were comfortable but loose fitting jeans with very well worn moccasins.

  He stood and reached a large hand forward. I shook it as I met his eyes, “And this young man must be Adam. Good to finally put a face to a name young man. Welcome to my office, thank you for taking the time to come in and talk.”

  Swirls and ripples in the black mercury. Edges of blue and silver with ripples of green. The edges of his Darkness ebbed and flowed like fingers reaching out.

  His hands were aged but had a strong grip. I was immediately intrigued. I had never seen a Darkness like this, so colorful and with a life all its own. “Hello Mr. Songbird, good to finally meet you.” His Darkness flashed and rippled in time with his words. I had never met someone so at one with their life essence. I was completely fascinated.

  He nodded as he looked into my eyes, “Please, call me Bill. Can I get either of you anything, water, soda of some sort, crackers, I have a few candies in here too if you are interested?”

  “I’m good thanks. Adam, do you want something?”

  “I’m still full from lunch. I’m fine, thanks for asking though.”

  Water falls from a small vase held aloft by a woman with long flowing hair. It drops through several small shells before rolling into a large brass pool with several goldfish swimming around. Every shelf and table top is
covered with various knickknacks from old cameras to new radio-controlled toys. The walls are covered with a multitude of photographs and paintings. Nearly all of them are of Old Western towns or Native Americans in various tribal garbs. The large comfortable sofa sits in the middle of the room and fills the air with the warm smell of soft leather. His small laptop is open on his desk to what looks like meeting notes from the last time he and Erica spoke.

  “Is there anything that attracts your eyes as you look around the room?”

  “You have a lot of really cool stuff. Kind of an eclectic gathering of really random items. I guess I pick something and it tells you something about how I didn’t get along with my mother?”

  “Not really. If you see something you like, I can tell you where I purchased it and you could get one for yourself. If it would make you more comfortable, I can make something up and we can then talk about your mother. It’s all the same to me,” he smiled brightly as he finished.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I don’t know how this whole thing works. I have never really talked to anyone like this before. Hell, I haven’t told anyone beyond Erica anything personal about me, ever, that I didn’t immediately regret.”

  “Well for starters, and to be very honest with you, if you aren’t looking to change then you have come to the wrong place.”