Harry opened his eyes. For a moment he said nothing, trying to coax his face awake, widening his eyes and stretching open his mouth. He cleared his throat.
“Wow... that was, uh... incredible.
“Got a cigarette?”
Arnot chuckled and jotted his final notes.
“I... I can’t believe that. There’s no way any of that could be real—”
“It’s as real as you choose it to be,” Arnot said.
“But it felt like I was making it up the entire time.”
“That’s okay,” Arnot reemphasized, leaning back, and again scribbling on his note pad. “All I was trying to do was get past your daily filter and see what the big, underlying issue you might have had lurking about beneath your consciousness... I never expected any of that.”
“Come on—how could any of that be for real—”
“Why not? Because it felt ‘made up’? Don’t worry so much about whether or not it’s fake—for now. Just realize that for some reason, this... ‘other you,’ for lack of a better term, this Kioshu... surfaced. Made himself known—”
“But I’m not even a fan of Asian culture! Nothing against it, I’ve just never been all that interested in it.”
“Try to understand what this information might mean symbolically. It doesn’t have to be a literal interpretation. For example, it might just symbolize an internal struggle going on within... as we already seem to feel there is. The Asian theme might have come from something you saw—or heard—earlier.”
“Well... I was talking with an associate about an Oriental urn a client had given me.”
“There you go. Just give it some thought. The mind is extremely creative... as you just experienced. Don’t judge it... just try to understand it... what it might mean on other levels. Give it time.”
Harry nodded, pensively.
2
The police undid Tiger’s handcuffs and turned him loose inside Port Charlotte’s city lock-up. He’d been traded one cell for another, though, in here, Tiger mused, he doubted whether anyone really gave a shit about a whacked out, injured, alleged murderer. Those days were over, he was pretty certain. He rubbed his wrists and shook his head. The wind was still there, whistling around in his messed-up psyche, though subdued and still somewhat drugged, and his skin still itched like crazy. Eighteen hundred fire ants had nibbled at his flesh and injected their poison. Pretty impressive for a homeless guy.
Damn, how it itched, though.
He raked away at his stomach and arms and legs as he approached his cell-door’s viewport. An empty hallway with other similar cells lining the rest of the detention center. As he left the cell door, he heard a subtle, scratching, sound. He followed it to one of his walls and placed an ear against it. Scratching? Rubbing? Someone next door must be busy. He shrugged it off, and returned his attention to his new home. At least now he had a roof over his head... and for the rest of his life.
So, he had that going for him.
The cop who’d escorted him in kept joking that he’d better enjoy his stay while he had it. Life was short—shorter for convicted killers. Everyone’s a comic. They knew nothing. Nothing about him... or what’d actually happened. Not that he knew exactly what’d happened, but he knew a damned-sight more than they thought they did.
Tiger threw himself down on his new bed and a forearm across his face (vigorously scratching at areas of itchy ant attack wounds).
What the hell had he done?
What the hell had become of his life? From the high-rises of New York City... to this? He used to think life was funny... but this wasn’t. Funny was rags-to-riches-to-rags... not funny was riches-to-rags-to-murder. People used to pay him well for his advice, now he couldn’t get a dime for the time of day. And he’d brought it all on himself.
He’d run away.
Disappeared from society.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Nailed. He was stuck in his ten-by-twelve rent-controlled, heavily fortified, apartment. Awaiting death. Just like the rest of the mob who’d also wandered into that sleepy little retirement home and also began to whack away at the residents, one, by one, by...
Why?
What the hell had possessed them... did they all have that same storm raging about inside them... that same hellish noise screaming around inside their souls? The evil nightmares and images that just wouldn’t go away—that remained with you even when you opened your eyes? Did the others taste sand in their teeth and tremble to the thunder of unseen hooves?
Death was ever so welcomed.
Tiger stared at the solemn gray jail-cell door. He’d wished he’d been able to OD while at the hospital, but he’d been too weak, and too, well, guarded. Round the clock. Suicide watch. Shit, why not just let him do it and save the taxpayers a hit? But that wasn’t how civilized folk did things, was it? We needed drama. Something to make us feel important, something with which to compare our dull, daily, existences against. Due process, we called it. He figured it was more akin to the old Roman gladiators... only more civilized... refined. And lawyers, judges, and the media all needed their cut. Bored humans needed something to do while alive and kicking about on this lump of dirt, flying through lonely, empty space. Watch the condemned man (or woman!) kick in their final moments to give those not in their shoes a sense of safety. Superiority! That no matter how bad a day ours was, no matter how bad our lives were, they weren’t nearly as bad as the poor schmuck now being paraded about in front of them, in this new, civilized arena we called the courtroom...
3
If nothing else, Tiger was eternally grateful for the lack of fire ants. The hungry little bastards that just hadn’t stopped biting. He was pretty sure they shouldn’t be able to get at him from here... almost sure. He didn’t know if anything was for certain any more. All bets were off on just about anything, as far as he was concerned. Was the sun coming up tomorrow? Wasn’t placing any odds. He never would have placed himself in a jail cell even a year ago, though he definitely would have placed himself on the streets. But a few years before that was when his world began to fall apart, his mental landscape slowly, methodically, peeled away like a rancid onion. He began hearing wind, lots of it—yet there was none. Or felt hot during the dead of winter. Tasted sand in the streets of New York. Yes... that was when his life began to take a turn for the worst... and he thought foraging for food out of dumpsters had been bad...
* * *
... the streets of New York were many things to many people. To some it represented excitement and culture, to others loneliness and despair. To still others... both. On one frigid December morning, Tiger slept beneath the Manhattan Bridge, between Chinatown and the East River. He’d been homesteading there for the past couple months, hidden within a city he’d long since lost interest in. Curled up within spent cardboard boxes and other pieces of rubbish, with the remains of moth-eaten blankets, an Army field jacket, and other ragged and decaying trappings he’d been carrying about in his shopping cart—which also doubled for one side of his makeshift home. He’d lead a fairly simple, nondescript existence. He came as he wanted, left as he needed. Sure, it’d made other aspects of life difficult... like entertaining, finding food, booze, and a warm pair of anything, but, hey, that’s what he’d chosen, right? He’d left his previous existence for this; it had been his choice—no one else was to blame. And maybe that was the problem... too much blame. “Tiger,” was as he’d come to be called one day early on, after having put up quite a fight when cornered by several homeless attackers who’d decided they’d needed his rather fine threads more than he did. He ended up keeping them then, but they, like everything else in his new world, eventually decayed and fell away, and he found himself curled up in a disgusting trash heap in a back alley of New York City, trying to keep from getting additional frostbite. He couldn’t feel his ears any longer, his fingers, nor (for that matter) his pride. And the fact that it was snowing like a son-of-a-bitch didn’t much help matters. Life just fucking sucked, and he’d
accepted the need to die... to languish away into another troubled sleep and secretly expire alone and in obscurity among the other street refuse. He’d picked his life, and he’d pick his death. It was all right, he reassured himself, as he shivered among the cardboard and newspapers like just another piece of refuse. You just did the best you could until you couldn’t any more, that’s all. Until you reached the end of your road. There was no harm in picking the time of your passing. He’d tried his best.
So the new-him called Tiger closed his eyes and tried not to let the shivering bother him much. If he could just keep his mind off the cold, maybe the cold would take him away from all his other worries...
But, like the street, there was no easy way out of anything. That’s when he, sometime later (time meant little, except that he still had some), was jerked awake. Not in the way of hypothermia, but in that something, or someone, was pulling on him, one of his feet, and bitterly yanking him back to full wakefulness. He’d found shadows hunched and huddled over him, pulling at his boots. No sooner had he tried to, groggily, arise from his welcomed death slumber, when another shadow flew past, and he saw stars and experienced a heavy crack to the head. He flailed at his attackers, kicked wildly, when suddenly both his boots slipped free from his frozen feet. Still conscious, he renewed his attack, while at the same time experienced additional painful attacks about his body. Kicking wildly, he felt some of his blows land solidly into soft matter and saw through his clubbed haze that the shadows were finally retreating. As he fumbled about in the loose trash for a hold, the shadows again attacked. He was now able to make out that they were, indeed, men—of course—as they beat and pummeled the shit out of him with a busted-up two-by-four, but before he could gain an upright position, they split. He heard them trample their noisy, flailing way out of the alley, leaving his socked feet bootless, one sock pulled completely off, the other half-way. Bleeding and dizzy from the thumping, Tiger staggered to his feet and peered after his assailants under a quickly swelling lump over one eye. He spit out blood and a tooth or two from swollen and cut lips, which quickly froze over.
And still it snowed.
Whether it be from pure attitude or the incoherency that came with approaching death, Tiger followed his attackers out into the snowy, freezing streets of a dark, forgotten part of the city. His attackers were long gone, as was his life. He didn’t need no stinkin shoes no more, because, he realized, he didn’t need no stinkin life, no more, neither.
What the fuck, right?
He was already frozen and useless—why not add shoeless? Why fight it? Take it like the man he used to be. Take responsibility for your actions. Confront it head on. No flinching.
The snow still made its way down, but away from the confines of the alley he found wind, bitter and cutting, also slicing through the urban canyons called streets. The streetlights bathed everything in their eerie, snowy, glow. Perfect way to go, he thought, cozy and alone, staggering on one socked, and one unsocked, foot. Tiger made his way out to meet his Maker. He may not die with his boots on, but he’d die standing up, confronting it head on.
Stumbling and sliding on cold, snow-packed streets, he watched the snowflakes alight on the ground before him and smiled. He remembered the days he’d spent as a kid out in his backyard watching it snow. Sometimes he’d lay down in the snow and just watch it all fall down directly on him—then his mother’d find him and yell at him to get up off of the ground—what, did he want to catch his death of cold? No, ma, he’d respond back, struggling up in his bulky snow suit, brushing himself off. But, for just a moment there, when all was hushed, and he could actually hear the snow land on the ground, he felt all was right with the world, and always would be...
And that was how Tiger felt, now, collapsed onto the snow-packed streets of New York City, feeling the snow alight upon his face. He could even hear it hitting the ground. He smiled. He was about to close his eyes one last time, when something else startled him. Something dark and swift. Something that actually reengaged his mind back into action. Angling his head into better position, he craned his neck to see... a horse. And rider. Positioning his body a little more, he was able to get a better perspective and saw the cop. He smiled. Go ahead, ticket him. This was one fine he wasn’t ever going to collect, and closed his eyes...
But something about the rider wouldn’t stay still in his mind and Tiger again opened his eyes. There seemed to be... renewed energy... seeping into his weary limbs, his weary mind, and he found himself able to, surprisingly, push himself upright. Through his incoherency and the ever continuing heavy blanket of falling snow, he again focused on the rider.
It wasn’t a cop.
The rider sat silent and motionless, seemingly unaffected by the cold and snow, as the horse snorted and stomped about, whinnying huge fountains of vapor into the air. The rider turned slightly to its right, and pointed its pike—pike?—down to street level.
Tiger looked in the direction beckoned.
Again, another surge of renewed energy coursed through, not only his body, but his soul. He had no choice but to stand.
Slowly, painfully, he got to his feet.
Bent over and staggering against wind and snow, he felt impelled toward the direction of the pike. Going against the wind, he dragged himself to where the rider directed and found the pike pointing to a steam vent at the entrance to another alley. Tiger hurried to the vent and collapsed atop it, allowing... willing... the warmth to penetrate his ice-enshrouded mind and body. He curled up into the fetal position, drawing up his feet over the vent. He didn’t know how long he lay there, but gradually and now, even painfully, physical sensation returned. And when he again looked up, the rider was still there, only this time down inside the alley. The horse continued to snort and stomp, but, now, at its hooves, lay a bundle of rags. Loathing at having to leave the warmth of his vent Tiger was again made to move... and as he approached the rider and bit-chomping horse, saw the bundle was actually a body—a frozen body. A dead man with boots and an overcoat.
His boots.
Wasting no time, Tiger frantically stripped the corpse of its boots and socks, and the thick overcoat he’d no longer be needing, and returned to his vent. It was then, as everything warmed up, and he lay, finally feeling human again and having a desire to remain that way—alive—that the other wind began its assault. Another wind blast, not of this blizzard, seared through him... his consciousness. As he huddled, eyes closed, he heard the mount again stomp and snort, the rattling of the rider’s accouterments cutting through the blizzard. He looked up to find horse and rider rearing, the horse’s fore hooves freewheeling high into the air above him—and saw them charge.
The thunder of its hooves was deafening. Tiger couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. His mind and body just weren’t that quick... but it didn’t matter, because as he awaited the single-horse stampede, the rider and mount vanished... while the sound of its thundering hooves continued on deep into his head.
As Tiger squirmed and wiggled, trying to avoid the phantom stampede of a thousand horses from nowhere, he was also besieged by powerful images of battle and screaming and death. He tried to shut them out, to shout above them... but they only grew louder, more violent. Somehow, he witnessed unspeakable acts of carnage...
And it was all gone, just as quickly as it had arrived.
Once again, he was alone... huddle over his steam vent on an empty New York City street, except for the wind... not the December blizzard... but the screaming, blistering tempest that would now, forever, be a part of him...
4
As usual, Mark Burnett more played with his daughter, Emily, than got her ready for day care in the morning. It didn’t help that it was late morning after having spent an extra-late night at work yesterday. It was just something about being a fifteen-month-old that made changes in diapers and clothes, or getting fed, not a high priority. Daddy was up... that meant play time! So, Mark sat in the middle of the living-room floor, while NNC presented
Buster Harris, in New York City, relating all the news that’s fit to report, as Emily went chasing after a ball he’d tossed. She charged across the room in mock toy-soldier, pseudo-marching fashion, rocking her shoulders up and down, when her attention was suddenly and mercilessly diverted by a Sesame Street noise maker the ball had grazed upon it’s cross-living-room trip. Emily immediately plopped down on the floor and began banging on the toy, composed of Oscar, Elmo, Ernie, and the Cookie Monster. She especially liked the I love trash—and anything dirty or dingy—or dusty! noise she kept making issue from it. Mark watched in amusement, as Buster Harris related a mass murder in some small Florida town, the exact name of which Mark missed. Something Harbor. Propping his arms behind him, he leaned back and half-heartedly watched the news, casting loving, smiling, glances to his daughter. Buster talked about a sleepy retirement community that had been inexplicably decimated yesterday by a horde some labeled as cultist. That only one couple had survived, only to be, in a bizarre twist of Fate, killed this morning—by a man who’d also taken his own life. Police speculated the man had been involved in the previous night’s activities. The report also went on to say that just as inexplicably, only the actual residents of the community had been murdered—all visitors and visiting family had been spared.
Mark shook his head. “What is this world coming to—”
Just then Emily bolted across the floor, in her wobbly way, and bodily dumped into his lap, giggling wildly.
“Oh, you think so?” Mark said, laughing, lifting her off her feet, “you think so?”
Emily continued giggling and Mark slowly rose to his feet, lifting her upside down.
“You think you’re funny, do you? Well, I’ll show you funny!”
Upside down and giggling madly, Emily lazily swung by her suspended feet, her little hands and fingers dangling just above the carpet. She clenched and unclenched her tiny hands toward the floor.
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