and Falling, Fly

by Skyler White

  I try to imagine Alyx standing in the sand, shouting at a flaming shrub, but it just makes me giggle. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not funny.”

  “Yeah, but it is, isn’t it? I mean, seriously, all my pathetic life, I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell I was here for—what I was there for—on the planet, I mean. I figured, when I died, at least I’d get to know. I never really believed in God. Not since I was a kid, when God was like Santa Claus, this old white-haired magic man who could bring you whatever you wanted if you asked real nice, who would make your wishes all come true. It was baby faith. But then he didn’t show up a couple of times, no matter how I asked. Figured he’d stopped listening, phone off the hook.”

  Alyx shrugs. “I guess I still believed there would be answers when you died. You’d get to know what you were supposed to have done. Your destiny, calling, whatever. I thought I’d finally know why. He’d say, ‘This is the reason you were put on Earth. This was your reason for being,’ and I’d know if I had failed. Or maybe succeeded.”

  He’s trying to sound casual, unconcerned, but his fingers grip mine hard, and his other hand is balled into a fist. His eyes scrape the walls and ceiling of the empty cave.

  He shouts into the blackness over us, “I want to know!” He peers over the ledge into the crack in the ground. “Tell me!”

  “Tell us.”

  It’s a whisper that forms in my mind like a headache. I glance at Alyx, but he’s transfixed. He hears it, too.

  “I don’t know,” he whispers.

  “Tell us now why you have lived.”

  It is a thousand whispers, brushing against my cheek and ankles, pouring up from the earth and down from above. “Tell us why you have lived. God only asks the questions.”

  Alyx is shivering. I want to touch him, reach my transparent hand out to him, but the air is too heavy with whispers, and I can’t move. He looks at me. He is almost impossibly beautiful, his cheek and collarbones rising on the same steep angle, like wings.

  “The purpose of life is to have a purpose for life,” he says softly.

  I nod. I get it. But we’re dead. It’s too late for us to have a purpose. The dead have only what meaning the living give us.

  “And the purpose of death is acceptance,” Alyx whispers.

  “I’m not so sure about that.” I’m trying to joke, but I just sound strained.

  “For me.”

  “Alyx? You’re slipping.”

  He smiles.

  “Are you going to Heaven?”

  He shakes his head at me.

  “Is this Heaven?”

  He shakes his head again. “No. This is just one of your deaths.”

  I shudder. “How many do I get?”

  “Only two.”

  He hardly looks like himself anymore.

  “Any idea when the other one’s due?” I ask him.

  “You’ve already done that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Adam, the count, the duchess, all the way back…”

  “No, they never knew me. Never loved me,” I say.

  “Exactly.”

  “They didn’t kill me.”

  “You aren’t life, Olivia.”

  “I don’t get it!” This is pissing me off. Alyx isn’t making sense.

  “I saw them,” he whispers, vanishing, smiling, slipping away. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, but he looks blissful. “I touched them,” he murmurs. He starts to hum, smiling, low in his throat, a perfect, clear note.

  I close my eyes to clear them, and he’s gone. I close them again, and I’m back in my room, alone with Alyx’s broken corpse, ashen on my scarlet bed.

  I don’t get it. Of course this is Heaven. It must be. The place I’ve been trying to reach since Time trapped me in human form. I’m just not as happy as I thought I would be.

  Alyx’s body jerks violently, and I jump. I watch with horror, but there is nothing more. He looks childlike, laid out this way. Once, he had a mother who tucked him into bed. Now he only has me, poor bastard. I creep to the contorted form of the second friend I ever made, to pull the red curtains over him. He whispers to me.

  I can’t stop screaming.

  ———

  Arms flailing, hands clawed and grasping, he struggled against the ash in his mouth that kept air from rushing in. He couldn’t breathe. He coughed again.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay. Try to relax.” The ruined teeth smiled down at him. “Dominic, can you hear me? Blink twice if you can.”

  Dominic blinked. One. Two.

  “Good. Can you talk?”

  “I think so.” His voice tasted rusty, of blood and disuse.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “You called me Dominic.”

  “That’s right. Do you know your last name? Or your birth date?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where you were born, or where you are now?”

  “Hospital?”

  The old man chuckled. “I suspect you are correct on both points, my son, but I meant more specifically.”

  Dominic looked around. He recognized things, knew the names and uses of them, but he could find no context to place around them—or himself. He shook his head.

  “Today’s date?” The old man asked, brows contracting.

  “No.”

  “It’s April twenty-seventh. Do you know who I am?”

  “A doctor?”

  “Yes, but I’m not here in that capacity. I’m your friend. My name’s Francis Dysart. You and I work together in the U.S. But we’re in Ireland now. You had an accident.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Well, that’s part of the mystery, son. Nobody knows. You turned up in the emergency ward downstairs two days ago. You were a right mess, from the sound of it.”

  Dominic struggled to sit up. Dysart helped him, gently supporting an elbow and raising the head of the bed with a lever. “A nurse walked into an empty examination bay, and found you naked on the table. You looked like you’d been hit by a car or fallen from quite some height. You had a fractured arm and depressed skull fracture, but—and here’s where it gets really interesting—no intracranial hematoma, no bleeding at all. In fact, your blood volume was dangerously low. They gave you six units.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know! Stranger still, with that much blood loss, they could find no internal bleeds, and the hypotension may actually have saved your life, since it prevented any bleeding into your brain from the head trauma. But you were very near to empty, and we still don’t know how that happened. Your head and forearms bore generous surface abrasions, but no lacerations large or deep enough to explain the blood loss. Dominic, do you remember what happened to you?”

  “I don’t really remember anything.”

  Dr. Dysart smiled too brightly. “Transient global amnesia isn’t uncommon in head injury with reduced blood flow, especially with coma. I’m sure your memory will return soon. I really should summon a doctor. They’ll be very eager to talk with you, now that you’re awake.” The old man studied him. “Dominic, do you remember the date?”

  “April twenty-seventh.”

  “So the amnesia is strictly retrograde,” the old man muttered. “Dominic, I need to ask you something important.”

  “Okay.”

  “You were… No, no, you are a brilliant young neuroscientist. One of the best in your field, and you’ve been working with me for the past several years on problems dealing with memory. But you and I have never really discussed the reasons behind your interest in this area. You’re a very private—I won’t say secretive—but a very quiet person on the topic of your past. I’ve never been able to get you to say much about your childhood or family. I have wondered, through the years, if you weren’t trying to forget something.”

  Dominic said nothing.

  “You should know that your mother has been notified of your accident and is on her way,” Dysart said, “and tha
t several other people are here to see you.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not afraid of anyone, are you? Not in any danger?”

  “I don’t feel afraid. Do you think someone did this to me?”

  “We honestly don’t know, but the police have been involved. There’s certainly no way you could have walked into the hospital in your condition. Someone must have brought you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Dominic, you weren’t engaged in any kind of radical experimentation over here, were you? Something I didn’t know about? This isn’t an operation or a medication gone horribly wrong, is it?”

  Dominic hated to see the old man’s face so scarred by worry, but no matter how he tried to push his gummy mind backwards beyond waking up to Dysart’s voice and teeth, he simply couldn’t see anything.

  “That doesn’t feel very likely, but I don’t know.”

  “Well, don’t let it worry you, son. These amnesias are typically short-lived. Your memory should start coming back soon. Although I imagine they’ll want to do another CT now that you’re awake. I wish I had thought to bring your old scans from our lab as a baseline.” The man was talking to himself, gathering his coat and hat, rummaging through the magazines on the floor. “Here’s another odd thing,” he said, turning back to Dominic on his way out. “Yesterday, out of the clear blue, your laptop bag appeared in your room. Just right there in the chair. Nobody knows who brought it. The ICU nurses didn’t see anyone come in or out. Nothing on the monitors. It looked as though someone had tried to clean it after you’d bled all over it, but it’s here, if you want it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’d give it to you now, but I don’t imagine you’d get a chance to unzip it before the doctors come in. But you’ve kept a photo log as long as I’ve known you. It’s online, I’ll jot down the URL. I didn’t find any clues in your latest pictures—mostly snapshots from the roadside by the look of it, but maybe something will spark your memory. Oh, and don’t tell them how long we visited. I should have gotten them right away…” Still muttering, the doctor let himself out of the tiny, glass-walled ICU room. Dominic watched him shuffle up to a central desk, but closed his weary eyes against the burst of activity the old man’s news caused. Nurses snatching up phones, doctors striding his way. He wanted a nap.

  ———

  “Dominic, dear boy? Dominic, are you awake?” A slender hand shook his shoulder softly, but insistently. “Dominic? It’s Madalene. Can you spare a moment, my dear?”

  Dominic rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. An older woman leaned urgently over the hospital bedrail.

  “Oh good! I’m so glad you’re awake. My goddaughter’s waiting in the hall, so I won’t take much of your time. Just one quick question.” Dominic sat up and raised the bed’s head to support himself. He felt weak. Time to start getting some exercise. He stretched his creaky arms above his head and flexed the muscles along his spine. Madalene’s practiced eyes ran over his chest and down his legs. Had they been lovers? She glanced away discreetly. He didn’t think so. She pulled a chair up to his bedside and leaned in conspiratorially.

  “Dominic, do you know who I am?”

  “No.”

  “I’m the reason you’re in Ireland. I sent you here on a mission, and I have reason to believe you’ve been more wildly successful than I would have dared to hope.” Madalene’s cultured voice was soft, but urgent.

  “Radical experimentation?”

  “Not really radical, darling. Just innovative.” She was clearly excited, nervous, and expensive.

  “Are you the reason I’ve been moved to a private room?”

  “Well, let’s just say that I’m not without influence here.”

  “I didn’t think I was getting the usual treatment.”

  “No. You’re getting the very best.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not at all. If I’m right, and you’ve solved my little difficulty for me, you can become accustomed to no less.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t remember the nature of your difficulty.”

  “Really?” The woman leaned closer to Dominic. Her delicate perfume and face powder combined to gently waft the heady scent of pure wealth over Dominic. Whatever was on her mind was important. And secret.

  “Dominic, you emailed almost a week before your… accident. In that letter you hinted that you’d made a critical discovery, but also that you were becoming alarmed by something. Since my goddaughter was sightseeing in the British Isles—she likes ruins, part of the whole Gothic thing, I imagine—since she was already here, I thought I’d pop over and, ah… encourage you. As soon as we touched down, I learned of your accident. I came as soon as I heard you were conscious.

  “Last night, I stopped in, but you were asleep in the ICU. Apparently they’d been running tests all day. When they were moving you to this room, I picked up your bag to bring it with you, and a little pill bottle rolled out. I took a chance. You had used the word formulated in your email. I knew it was risky. I gave one to my goddaughter, and Dominic, she already seems to be improving. She’s outside right now, wearing a sweatshirt!” Madalene was trembling, and rested a thin, vein-spattered hand on his bed to steady herself. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen her in anything but latex?”

  A different and beautiful hand shakes the little brown pill bottle before his eyes, asks him something, and he’s trembling, too, aroused suddenly, hard beneath the thin hospital blanket.

  “Dominic?” Madalene gripped his elbow, nails driving into skin. “Did you just remember something?”

  “I think so.”

  “What? What did you remember? About my goddaughter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dominic, do you remember the pills?”

  “I remember someone taking them. She was beautiful.”

  “She is, but do you remember the formula?”

  “No, but I’m sure I would have written that down. It would be on my laptop—”

  Madalene pulled the bloodstained bag from a chair and placed it beside him in the bed.

  “I know you need your rest, but please, Dominic darling, just as soon as you feel up to it, would you find out what you can about those pills—how many, how often, how long?”

  He nodded.

  “There were just two left. Is it possible that only one pill could be enough for…”

  Dominic nodded again, and Madalene reached into her exquisitely tailored suit jacket to fish out a business card with another woman’s name. “Megan will be able to reach me wherever I am. Just tell her it’s you.” Madalene stood by the door, her shrewd eyes taking in the full length of Dominic’s body on the bed, and then every inch of his face. “I know quite a lot of your personal history,” she said in a voice raked clean of emotion. “Perhaps we can exchange notes? Your past in exchange for my goddaughter’s future?”

  “Mrs. Wright—”

  “Ms.”

  “Ms. Wright, if I can do anything to help your goddaughter, I’d be happy to.”

  “Just out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose.”

  Dominic shrugged.

  “Your heart was wiser when we first met.”

  “I’d like to think it was always good.”

  “Good is not innocent. Nor the other way around. But that’s the glory of your condition, isn’t it? You can think anything you’d like about who you used to be. You might be innocent and good. I could envy you that, my dear, if I weren’t already too old for new beginnings. Get well, Dr. O’Shaughnessy. I’ll pop in on you again after my tour.”

  Ms. Wright pushed open the door, only to have it caught from the outside and held wide for her. A thin, graceful man entered and beamed benevolently at Dominic, who struggled to swing his legs over the side of the mechanical bed. Before he talked to anyone else, he wanted to stand up and try walking. Does every critical care patient become a confessor? People had been testing their secrets against him since he woke up, and
this man, although he looked wise and gentle, an antiquated professor in tweeds and wool, also seemed about to do the same.

  With soft hands, the man wordlessly lifted Dominic’s feet from the bed and slipped a slender arm beneath his shivering shoulders, supporting his weight easily. Intent on walking stiffly from his bed to the window, Dominic did not say anything or meet the man’s eyes until he had accomplished his self-assigned goal and sank, exhausted, into one of the elegant chairs that framed the window.

  “I’m glad to see you upright, Dominic. You’re looking well.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not the case,” Dominic chuckled. “I haven’t seen a mirror since I woke up, but I know I haven’t shaved, and I can feel the sutures in my scalp. I bet I look like Frankenstein’s monster.”

  The older man smiled. “You were always too handsome for your own good, anyway.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about you.”

  “No, of course. I’m sorry. I’m Gaehod. You were staying with me before the accident.”

  “But I’ve known you a long time?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “How are you feeling, Dominic?”

  “Okay. I had my first bit of a memory just now, I think, talking to the woman who was here before you.”

  “Ms. Wright? Really?”

  “Do you know each other?”

  “I know her by reputation, but I’ve been having a very interesting chat with her goddaughter. Madalene wasn’t pressing you for information was she?”

  “No. But the doctors say that the first seventy-two hours are critical. If I’m going to recover my memory, it needs to happen in the next two days. The prognosis drops dramatically after that.”

  “Have you considered that you might be better off without it?”

  “Without my memory? No. Why?”

  “You could choose to see your amnesia as a gift.”

  “A gift from whom? What are you, a priest?”

  “From an angel, actually. And no, I’m not a priest. Far from it. But I could restore your memory.”

  “You’re a doctor?”

  “I’m an innkeeper.”

  “So how is it that all the medical experts are telling me it’s simply a matter of time, whether my brain heals or not, and you think you’ve got a miracle cure?”