by Pierce, SJ
During a commercial, she rested her cheek against the arm of the couch and drifted into a wine-induced, sound sleep. As she slept, short visions resembling vivid, faraway memories bounced around inside her head. In one, a lady with ginger hair pulled into a tightly curled coif wore a fancy Eighteenth-Century gown made with rich, red and gold fabric. Her skirt split down the front to reveal an ivory petticoat with matching gold trim. This elegant lady hooked her arm around the waiting elbow of a gentleman, who sported a camel-colored cutaway coat with an ivory waistcoat and black breeches. A cropped, dark beard trimmed his face, and he walked with a limp and a long, black cane. They descended down the stairs in front of their home to get into a carriage that awaited them on the cobblestone driveway below, chatting and laughing about the promise the night held.
Alyx stayed hidden amongst the shrubbery across the road, grasping a looking glass when the dream slowly blurred away, fading into muted colors and faint murmurs of the couple as she fell into a deeper sleep.
* * *
The doorbell startled her awake. Alyx bolted from the couch with her hair in a tangled mess, the TV still on, and the empty wine bottle on the coffee table beside her. Her eyes squinted to tiny slits from the light pouring through window, and she cradled her forehead in her hand. The beginnings of a headache gnawed just above her right brow.
She glanced at the cable box. Two minutes past ten. Cindra, she’s early.
She snatched the wine bottle and hustled to the kitchen to toss it in the trash, rubbed her eyelids, and went to open the door. When she swung it open, there her friend stood, bright eyed and bushy tailed with two lattes, one in each hand. Cindra took one look at Alyx’s hair and her eyes widened. “Oh, girl! Who beat you with the nappy stick?”
“Good morning to you too,” Alyx replied, flipping a bird, and headed back into the living room.
Cindra doubled over with laughter, cackling and holding the lattes upright.
Alyx stopped by the kitchen and raked her hands through her hair as she scowled.
“You know I love you,” Cindra said, shutting the door behind her with her foot, “and I knew you would sleep late, so I thought I’d give you a wake-up call and bring you a latte.”
“That’s exactly what I needed,” she said and took the cup from her hand. “I figured you were early because you were extra eager to get going today.”
“Well… that too.”
She pointed a finger at her disheveled hair. “Now let me go take care of this mess. I won’t be long.”
“Yes, PLEASE!”
Armed with the latte, Alyx made her way to the bathroom to get ready for their girls’ day and pulled her make-up bag from the cabinet while her hot rollers warmed.
“Since when did you start watching the History Channel?” Cindra yelled from the living room. “I didn’t realize you were an old person disguised as a young whippersnapper.”
Alyx’s hand paused as it went to swipe on the first of her foundation, and she studied her reflection in the mirror. For lack of a better description, that’s exactly what she was; an old person disguised as a ‘young whippersnapper’-- as her friend so eloquently stated.
Even though she had lived three life spans, each time her soul was placed into a new earthly-vessel that began its lifecycle at the age of twenty-five and aged like a humans normally would. This ensured that she successfully blended in with society, her cover story this time being that she was a single girl who moved to the city in search of career opportunities. Her final assignment commenced three years ago, the day before she started at Bachman and Yorkshire. So as far as Benjamin, Cindra, and everyone else at work knew, Alyx was only a mere twenty-eight human years old.
Because her vessel always began in the mid-twenties, her life spans were considerably short. The past two were thirty-eight and forty-three years a piece, which technically made her eighty-four years old to date. In total accumulation, including the years she spent in the darkness between lifetimes, her soul was around three hundred years old. But Alyx had become so accustomed to her human veneer, she felt more human than she did anything else. Mainly because her time spent in the darkness was more of an unconscious limbo.
After a brief moment, she shook her head with a hint of a smile. “Don’t hate, Cindra!”
She completed her hair and make-up in record time, threw on a knitted beret, a pair of skinny jeans that she tucked into brown, leather boots, an ivory knit t-shirt, and some dainty gold hoop earrings. “Let’s go make history,” she said as she grabbed her purse, and they headed for the door.
CHAPTER 2:
Isaac
The disorientation frightened him. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall his name or where he lived, and couldn’t see so much as an inch in front of him as he thrashed through the night air to search for something to hold on to. After his futile attempts to decipher a sound or a shape in the darkness, he gave up and blindly walked forward over the cold, grassy earth.
Clueless as to where this decision would lead him, he placed one foot in front of the other when the branches above slowly thinned away to allow the tiny, twinkling lights to shine through, illuminating his path. This is the right way. What seemed like a guess in direction before was now clear. Something pulled him there, she pulled him there, like a gravitational force.
By the faint crashing of a waterfall in the distance, he knew that he was close. Fifteen… fourteen… thirteen… Only a few more paces and he would see her again.
The tree line broke, and he emerged into an open field. The same woman he had seen in past dreams sat on her knees amidst the tall grass, gazing sullenly at the ground. Her glossy black hair enveloped her shoulders with a single strip of white flowing along the left side. He felt strangely attracted to this creature -- despite his partial inward protests to the contrary -- and like all of the times before, he couldn’t distinguish the details of her face, except her eyes, which were entirely black, disturbing, but fiercely beautiful. They resembled two dark, shiny marbles, something that would haunt the dreams of children, but their sorrow comforted any fear they might have inspired.
As he approached, her eyes didn’t shift upward to acknowledge his presence this time, as though he weren’t standing there at all. To steal her attention, he opened his mouth to call to her, but the steady splashing of the waterfall masked his efforts. Desperation washed over him as the imagery faded back into darkness, his futile cries ignored.
As a result of his panic, the forceful pounding of his heart lifted him from his sleep and he awoke with a frantic gasp.
Isaac Walsh scanned the living room with bloodshot eyes, soaking in his surroundings like a sponge. The TV in front of his sofa bed flickered with images of infomercials, the picture on the windowsill of him and his son stared back at him comfortingly, and the remnants of his late night snack lay on the floor beside him. Home, he thought and lay back down with a thud, his wrist resting across his forehead. This strange woman had invaded his dreams for the past two weeks.
At first, he didn’t mind her being there, but now the dreams were more like nightmares – intrusive and daunting. His morning routine involved lying listless on the bed while he composed himself.
His head pivoted to glance at his phone on the end table. Eleven thirty. I need to call and check on Micah. He dialed the number, and a few rings later his voicemail answered. “Micah, ‘tis your father,” he said in his mild Irish brogue, “let me know when to get you from Jordan’s. Text me back.”
Isaac lived with his thirteen year old son in their flat, which occupied an entire corner on the third floor of an abandoned mill that a developer bought and divided into separate units. Their flat had concrete floors, high ceilings with exposed pipes, and floor to ceiling windows in the living room that provided a view of another set of apartments across the street. The kitchen, living room, and bathroom were on the main floor with furniture and décor mainly from IKEA, which complemented the architectural style of the flat with their straight, si
mple lines. In the back of the living room, a suspended, metal staircase spiraled to a loft where his thirteen year old son slept on a twin size bed.
Isaac used half of the flat as an art studio that remained hidden behind a sliding, metal door. He paid a little extra for the adjoining room, but determined that it would be the perfect space for an art studio. Isaac painted canvases, some of which he displayed in the living room with long, steel cables hanging from the ceiling. He made his living mainly from his craft but also had a side job as a waiter at the bistro around corner.
He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the side of the sofa-bed to make his way to the bathroom in nothing but his plaid boxer shorts and the silver cross that hung around his neck on a leather cord.
Water from the faucet of his pedestal sink pooled into his cupped hands, and he splashed it onto his hairline that dripped with night sweat. After blotting his face with a towel, he placed his hands on either side of the porcelain basin and stared into the mirror to help shake off the rest of his disorientation from the recurring dream. His dark hair fell past the tops of his ears and dusted the brow of his mysterious eyes, which were two different colors – one blue, one green – and sat perfectly proportionate on his handsome, but slightly boyish, face. Even though he was three weeks shy of turning thirty-seven, others often mistook him to be in his twenties, and it didn’t help that he was incapable of growing any type of facial hair except a small patch on his chin that he kept shaved.
A gurgle rolled through his stomach, reminding him that lunchtime neared, and he had yet to eat breakfast. Isaac went straight to the kitchen and pulled a carton of eggs and a package of ham from the fridge to make an omelet. After folding the cooked eggs over the cut-up chunks of ham, he turned the burner off and ate the omelet straight from the pan, finishing it in five bites. He tossed his makeshift plate into the sink and warmed a stale cup of coffee from the night before in the microwave.
Carefully blowing the steam that curled from the mug, he sat at their round dining table to read the newspaper when his phone beeped with a new text message. Hey, dad, come get me at three o’clock. See you then. The corner of his mouth rose into a half smile, pleased that his son had answered him fairly promptly.
As he closed his phone to read an article about a new art exhibit in Atlanta, a familiar, creative inspiration swept over him. His gaze moved to the center of the flat, and he lightly tugged on his ear, envisioning what he wanted to paint.
Leaving his coffee on the table and the bed still unfolded, he made his way to the metal, sliding door of his art studio. The dream was fresh on his mind, and he only had two and half hours before he needed to be on his way to pick up Micah. When he immersed himself into a painting, two and a half hours would sneak by as though it were fifteen minutes.
The squealing of the rusty chain he used to raise the door grated against his eardrums. He had lived there for close to fourteen years, and with every one that passed, it worsened. One day I’ll oil that thing, he thought, cringing with each tug.
Once inside the open, quiet room that smelled an odd blend of must and the strong chemical smell of paint, he thumbed through the newly purchased canvases that rested against the wall and chose the largest one. He placed the canvas on the dark, wooden easel speckled with multicolored splatters and slid it to the center of the room in front of his leather stool. After resting atop the worn, black leather, he pulled his metal box from a cubby on the easel and picked a handful of aluminum tubes to make an acrylic paint-filled palate with green, black, blue, yellow, and white to recreate the scene from his dream.
The anticipation of reliving the moment was almost too much to bear, and his hand trembled as he reached for a brush from the cup of murky water that sat atop lip of the easel. He chose a broad, horsehair brush and dipped it in the black paint. The setting of his dream would be first – the dark field, the night sky. He drew in a breath to steel his nerves and focus on his objective. I need to get this right.
The brush swept across the top of canvas to begin with the sky and followed with the sprinkling of golden yellow and white to represent the stars. It would never compare to the brilliance of his dream, but he resolved to work meticulously to somehow do it justice. He labored over his new creation for the next two hours, engrossed in the unforgettable scenery his mind replayed.
* * *
When it came time to leave, Isaac added one last star to the sky and slid the easel to the corner of the studio by his other paintings that sat in perfect alignment along a glass shelf. These recent paintings were of angels and demons at war, and all he had left to do was settle on a price for each one before he displayed them in an art show next month.
The angels’ enormous wing spans stretched across the canvas, and their feathers’ intricate, textured detail popped from the scene. The valiant cherubs appeared to be warriors as their muscular physiques entangled with the foul, offensive beasts that he depicted with smoky, black bodies and exposed fangs, gnashing at their opponents. The beasts overpowered the angels, in spite of their splendor, tearing into their flesh, portraying them to be the weaker of the two, but still valiant and brave. Not frail by any means.
Because it would only appeal to a specific clientele, Isaac wasn’t sure how his recent collection would sell, especially because most of them wouldn’t appreciate the depiction of angelic beings as ‘weak’. But he didn’t care. He only wanted to paint what came from his soul, which his dreams typically inspired, just as the one he had painted that afternoon had been.
As indicated by his paintings, Isaac had a penchant for anything spiritual. This past spring he designed a montage of angels, intertwined with crosses and other religious symbols, and had it tattooed in a sleeve over his entire left arm. His enthrallment with the divine was partially due to his Catholic upbringing in Dublin, Ireland, but he had dreamt of angels as early as he was able to talk. His father told him that as soon as he awoke, he would say his ‘friends with wings’ visited him again that night.
After Isaac had moved to the States, fourteen years ago last November, he shied away from the Catholic faith, fancying himself more of a spiritual person than a religious one as he found his own way in the world. Although, he and Micah would still attend church every now and then, visiting different denominations each time. Of course his father, being a devout Catholic, didn’t approve of this initially, but he accepted and loved his son anyhow. The importance of maintaining a relationship with son and his grandson eventually overcame his own prejudices. Partially because it was what his late wife, Isaac’s mother, would have wanted, but also because his father’s health had continuously deteriorated due to stage four liver cancer.
Isaac sat his box of paints atop the stool so he could continue when he returned, lowered the door to the studio, and went to the coat closet by the door where he stored his clothes. From a shelf in the back, he pulled a folded pair of fitted jeans that hugged his lean waist seamlessly and a v-neck, dark-green shirt to proudly display both his cross necklace and tattooed arm.
Once dressed, he grabbed his keys and phone from the kitchen counter and grinned as he slipped on his ratty old tennis shoes, recalling Micah’s protests the last time he wore them, Dad! When are you going to get rid of those nasty-looking things? Don’t come pick me up from anywhere again in those!
He liked embarrassing his son on occasion. Keeping him grounded was one of his highest priorities.
While jingling the keys in his pocket and whistling a tune he couldn’t remember the name of, he locked the door behind him and strolled toward the elevator located in the center of the floor. Before his finger met the round, plastic button, the elevator opened.
Inside the cabin stood a man in a black suit who stared from under the brim of his hat, centering his eyes on Isaac’s torso. Isaac looked down to see what he could have been looking at when the strange man plowed forward, almost running him over. “Pardon,” Isaac said as he stumbled backward, and then determined that the man was the one wh
o was rude. The strange man didn’t say anything in return as he walked in the direction of Isaac’s flat. Where is he off to? he wondered. No other tenants lived on their floor. He must be lost.
The sluggish elevator stopped on the ground floor, and Isaac wound his way through the parking lot to an old truck with chipped, navy blue paint. The engine squealed as it struggled to turn, and when it finally cranked, it sputtered on its way to Jordan’s house, which was fifteen minutes away.
On the ride there, dread seeped into the cabin of the truck like a growing cloud. Jordan’s mom -- Carla. Newly divorced and on the prowl, she would often answer the door in the skimpiest thing she could find. Last weekend, she left her silk nightgown untied, revealing a white tank top with no bra and a thin pair of cotton underwear underneath. Why she felt the need to go that far, to literally put herself out there like that, he couldn’t understand. She was attractive enough in her own right and didn’t need to flaunt everything God had blessed her with. The first time he brought Micah over, she grabbed his attention momentarily with her wild, curly blonde hair and a face that reminded him of a young Shirley Maclaine, but desperation oozed from her pores, completely turning him off.
Isaac never considered taking advantage of a sexually-frustrated woman before, and even with Carla – who would have more than likely pounced at the chance – he couldn’t bring himself to do it. But he couldn’t deny that he daydreamed about it occasionally. He was a man after all, and it had been a long time since he had been with anyone. His wife passed away five years ago this weekend, and in man years -- when it came to sex -- that’s a long time.
After her death, he mainly grieved for the first three years. The car accident that had taken her away from them was so sudden. He had focused solely on being there for his son and making a living, working two jobs. But now that he and Micah had settled into their ‘new normal’, Isaac toyed with the notion of dating again, except he hadn’t found anyone he was remotely interested in -- including Jordan’s mom.