At the Gates of Madness

by Shaun Meeks

  Jeff stretched his legs out, slumping in his chair a bit and crossed his legs at the ankles, putting one combat boot over the other and wondered what his next step would be, where he would go from here. He wasn’t even sure at all why he had come here in the first place. The last thing he remembered, he was heading to work, taking the local transit bus and then just thought he needed to get away, needed to make a run for it and have a clean start. It was not the usual way he acted, or even thought and as he sat in the station and looked around at all the other people here, he could only question his motives. Sure his job sucked, he had little to no love life to speak of and all his friends were pretty much dicks, but that didn’t really explain why he was thinking about making a run for the hills. As he looked around, he also began to wonder where other people around him were doing there, where they were going, or maybe if they were just waiting for someone to come home to them. He looked at faces and tried to see what it could tell him about their lives.

  There were a group of younger girls, most wearing t-shirts of some heart throb boy that would someday soon be old and forgotten in a pile of other lost stars. They chattered to each other, giggling like little hyenas about something said, or as they were making fun of someone’s bad fashion sense when they were clearly victims themselves. One of the fashion disasters they were laughing was an older woman who appeared to be wearing a coat made out of cat hair and had a small black bag clutched in her hands. The older woman had a road map of creases and wrinkles on her face and stared only at her well-polished black shoes, never once looking up to see if any of the buses pulling into the terminal were hers. He wondered if she came down here to catch a bus or wait for someone, or if she was simply here so that she didn’t have to be alone in her home. Maybe her husband had died and she decided to come to the terminal so that she didn’t have to sit at home and listen to the silence that had once been occupied by the only man she had ever loved.

  That thought depressed Jeff a bit, so he stood up and moved away so he didn’t have to keep looking at her. He walked a few rows over, his back now to the old woman and sat across from a stunning auburn haired woman wearing a long red coat that looked as deep and rich as a slice of red velvet cake. As he sat down, she looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at him. Jeff quickly smiled back and she went back to her story, judging by the cover it was a hard boiled novel. Jeff saw a scantily clad woman with a gun in her hand standing over a man in his boxer shorts, a small red hole in the middle of his forehead, the title was “Moxy’s Proxy”. He shook his head at the title and turned his attention to the other people around him.

  To his left, four seats away, was a man with a briefcase and a look on his face that told Jeff that there was no joy anywhere in the man’s life. His brow was as creased as his slacks, which looked so wrinkled that Jeff wondered if the man had pulled them out of the bottom of a cloths hamper or usually rolled his pants into a ball when he put them in his suitcase. Either way, the pants caused the man to look disheveled and possibly even homeless. If it wasn’t for the expensive briefcase and well-trimmed hair, he might have sworn that he was a vagrant.

  As Jeff watched him from the corner of his eye, he saw the man pull a handkerchief from his pants pocket and then seconds later began to cough hoarse, wet coughs into in. The man hacked away, his eyes watering and the sound was like that of someone with bronchitis. Jeff knew that sound very well, had heard his father cough the same way for years until the day he died of lung cancer from his two pack a day habit. Jeff didn’t really want to think about that so he turned and looked to his right where a teenage boy sat bobbing his head to whatever was playing on a pair of white headphones jammed into his ear. Jeff hoped that it would be something cool like Municipal Waste, D.R.I. or NOFX, but judging by the way the kid was dressed, with his skinny jeans, his bad haircut that looked like a rip off of something one of the Beatles would have had, he doubted it. Jeff was pretty sure that if he could catch a snip of it, it would no doubt be some top 40 drivel that floods the airwaves year after year.

  “You normally do this much people watching?”

  Jeff turned to where the attractive woman had been sitting and saw the old man that had told him the time, was now in her spot, staring at him intently.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I was just noticing the way you look around, staring at people, watching them and no doubt judging them. I was wondering if you do it often, if it’s sort of a hobby. Some people bird watch, you people watch.”

  Jeff thought about it and knew that the old man was pretty observant, that he did tend to people watch a fair bit. How many times did he go to a café or coffee house, make an order then sit on the patio just watching people as they went by, making up stories for each of them, a new life that seemed the most likely just by how they dressed and moved. He would sit there and make up conversations of two people walking by who were speaking to one another even though he couldn’t hear the exact words. What he was doing here was no different and obviously the old man had noticed it too. Jeff gave him a curious look, knowing he had been the victim of being watched and judged himself and nodded to him at his good call.

  “Looks like you were doing the same thing.” Jeff said and the man smiled at him.

  “Best way to spend a night, kill some time. Is that why you came here, to people watch?”

  Jeff shook his head, thinking again as to what brought him here and still not really knowing the answer to that. He thought to all the things that had led him to coming here and still most of it seemed like a blur, like a dream that slowly fades as you wake up.

  “So what brought you here? Are you going on a trip somewhere? Getting away from your old life and old ways?”

  “What makes you say that?” Jeff asked, wondering if maybe this was what the old man had been thinking to himself while he had been watching him. He wondered if maybe the old man had been sitting there watching him and making up a story line of what he himself was thinking and doing. “Does it look like I am going somewhere?”

  “Well, I don’t see any bags, so I didn’t think so at first, but you aren’t really looking up at the arrival screen, so I doubt that you are waiting for someone to come here.”

  “What makes you think that I’m not just going somewhere, maybe running from creditors or from the law?”

  The old man chuckled, revealing his crooked, yellow teeth, folding his hands over his lap. “Well, you don’t seem very nervous, so I doubt that you are running from the law. And judging by the way you dress, with your combat boots, ripped jeans and your Dead Kennedys shirt, I doubt you’re much of a credit card person. You strike me as someone that uses Credit Unions instead of banks.”

  “Not sure if I should be insulted by that.”

  “No insult meant, just a little story I made up about you when I saw you. You know what that’s like. I’m sure you have done it a few times since you were sitting here.”

  Jeff nodded and looked around again, seeing more new faces. “I guess I am planning on going somewhere, just not sure where that place is.”

  “Ooooh, I love a man that lives mysteriously.”

  Jeff turned and saw that the woman that had sitting across from him before being replaced by the old man, was now sitting to his left, staring at him with her smoky eyes and pursed lips. He didn’t know when she had moved beside him.

  “Sorry to eavesdrop on you two, that’s one of my many bad habits. But, guys that just go with the flow and don’t waste their time making silly plans, that is such a turn on. I’m Cassidy.” She held her hand out, smiling and took his. He introduced himself and as he took her hand, he was caught off guard by how cold it was. “I’m not really sure where I’m going either, so I guess we are in the same boat.”

  “Most people here don’t really know where they are going. It’s not all so unusual.” The old man said and Jeff turned back to him.

  “I’m not sure I buy that. If people didn’t know where they were going when they came her
e, I doubt they would come at all. It is a bus terminal.” Jeff looked around and saw that in a way, most people didn’t really look as though they were going anywhere in particular. Nobody was checking the screens to see arrivals or departures, nor was anyone holding tickets, or seemed to have suitcases with them. They all just seemed to be sitting there, waiting for nothing at all. “What the hell?” He whispered to himself.

  “You just noticed that? Just seeing the fact that nobody really seems to be going anywhere at all?” The old man asked humor clearly in his voice. “Some people watcher you are. But that’s to be expected, after all, you did just get here.”

  Jeff shook his head and turned to look at the woman, Cassidy, to see if she understood what the old man was saying, but when he did, she was gone again. He turned back to the old man and saw that she was now beside him, but that was impossible. She had just been sitting next to him and there was no way that she could move without him noticing.

  “What the Hell is going on here?”

  “Not Hell, that’s for sure, but close to it. Sort of in between both if you must know.” The old man read the look of confusion on his face and laughed before he went on. “I can see that you don’t really get me, really understand what I’m saying. Let me ask you this; how did you get to the terminal today?”

  Jeff opened his mouth to answer, but felt no words leave him. He sat there, opening and closing his mouth like a fish that’s been washed up on shore, looking foolish, but he could think of what to say, couldn’t really remember exactly how he had gotten there. He had tried to think about it earlier, just briefly thought about how he had actually gotten to the terminal, but there was nothing really there. Just that he had been on a bus on his way to work and then, there was the terminal. He looked around the terminal then, hoping to find something to stir a memory and then something else struck him; this was not the terminal he knew, this was not the one downtown where he had grabbed a bus to Niagara Falls twice to head to the casino. He had never been here before.

  “Is it making any sense to you yet?” The old man asked and when Jeff turned to where he was sitting, he wasn’t there anymore, instead and young child, maybe five or six years old was there in his place. The child smiled at him, but when he spoke, the boy had the same voice as the old man. “I’m sure this doesn’t help.”

  Jeff jumped up from his seat and backed away from the old man that was now a child. He had no idea what exactly was going on, but he also didn’t plan on sticking around to find out. He turned to walk away, to get away from all of this, the old man/young boy, the terminal and everything else, but when he turned, the little boy was standing in front of him, blocking the way.

  “You should just sit down so I can help you remember what happened, why you are here.”

  “I know why I’m here.” Jeff told him, backing away slowly. “I came here to get away from my shitty life, my crappy job. I came here because I am so sick of who I am and just wanted to get away and maybe have a fresh start. That’s not hard for me to remember. I was on my way to work and then told myself that I’ve had enough of this city and all the shit that has come with it and I came here.”

  “But how did you get here?”

  That Jeff couldn’t answer. He tried to remember what bus or subway he had taken to get to the terminal, but he couldn’t figure that out, couldn’t get passed the gap in his memory. He looked at the young boy who was walking towards him now, and he stopped, not knowing what else to do, thinking that it all might be a dream. The young boy took his hand and motioned for him to sit down. Jeff figured he had nothing to lose.

  “It’s okay to be afraid, most people are when they get here and know where they are.” As they say down, the little boy again began to become the old man that had first told Jeff the time and Jeff was sure that he was dreaming then, that there was no way that he was awake with this going on. It was the stuff of fantasy writing, not reality. “Do you really not remember what happened today, when you decided to come here?”

  “I told you, I was on my way to work and I just had enough. I decided to get away and…”

  “And you took an entire prescription of pills, overdosing yourself and dying. Do you remember that?”

  “No.” Jeff quickly blurted out, but then stopped and actually though back to earlier in the day. He thought about getting on the same bus he had for the last eleven years to go to the same job he had that he dreaded so much. He thought about looking out the window at the grey city, the dirty streets full of grey people with looks of hate and sorrow on their faces. There seemed to nothing worth looking at or thinking about in this city anymore, it was as though everything around him was just a copy of a drab day that was being played again and again, over and over and over and over. He remembered thinking of how he was just done, tired of being alone and feeling lost in the city. He couldn’t remember the last time he had sat down with someone he considered a friend, or felt the soft touch or kiss of a woman. He felt like the last man on earth, surrounded by the undead, invisible almost to everyone around him accept for people that were looking for a reason to hurt him in some way. He thought all these things as he went into his coat pocket and pulled out a bottle of Oxycontin and made a final decision.

  “Oh my god, what the fuck did I do?” He whispered and the old man took his hand. “If I did what I think I did, does this mean I’m dead? And this is Heaven?”

  The old man laughed heartily and clapped his knee with the hand that was not holding Jeff’s. “This is not Heaven, seeing as there is no such place as that, but you are most certainly dead.”

  “Then where am I? Why does this place look like a bus terminal?”

  “It looks like that to you. To those two over there,” the old man said as he pointed to two men in Army fatigues. “To them, it looks like an Army base and they think they are about to be deployed. And in a way, they are. Just like in a way, you are at a bus terminal, about to depart from this place. In a way, you can call it Purgatory, or Limbo, but those are just terms from a religion that is as real as this terminal is. It’s all about perception, you see what you want to see. What this place really is, is the in between time. The place you go to when one life ends and the next one is about to begins.”

  “You mean like reincarnation? That’s what you’re talking about right.” Jeff shook his head, knowing that there was no way this could be right. When he was a child and had no choice in what religious ideologies he would follow, he was taken to catholic school by his mom and dad. He sat through mass and Sunday school, listening to teachings on Heaven, Hell and what lies in between those two places. What was also taught to them is that there is on one chance we have on this planet, one life, so it was important to make the best of it. Live sin free lives, do what Jesus would do and hope it was enough to get into Heaven when you die.

  There was nothing in any of the teaching about reincarnation, so he knew, or thought he knew, that this couldn’t be real.

  “You can call it that. It’s as good of a word as any. You live a life, then die and come here, the “here” your last life perceives this place as and then you go there.” The old man pointed to a set of door that a couple had just walked through, and when the doors had opened, blinding light shot into the room for the briefest second. The light seemed to call out to Jeff, whisper his name like the voice of a mother calling out to her child, or a lover whisper sweet words into their partner’s ear. When the door shut and the light went away, Jeff felt sadness swarm over him, a cold shadow seeming to pass over him as the light was taken away. “You want to go there, I can see. Once you see the light and it calls to you, you feel nothing but its pull, everyone does. Do you want to go over now?”

  “Yes. But what is it?”

  “Whatever you want it to be. It is your next life, but you have to choose it, feel it. Everyone chooses the life they are going to go to, whether it is subconsciously or they actually concentrate on it. You have to want it and feel you deserve it to actually get it. The fate that
everyone talks about in the world is whatever you have decided for yourself; you make your own path and subconsciously try to adhere to it.”

  “Are you saying that I picked my last life? I choose to be a punk kid loser with no job, no friends and nobody to love me? You’re telling me I picked that life?”

  The old man nodded.

  “Why would anyone want that? Who picks to suffer?”

  “Suffering can teach us so much about who we are, what we are capable of and makes us stronger. People choose hard lives to learn lessons so that later on, in a following life they can be more enlightened and succeed. Did you learn nothing from all your suffering?”

  Jeff thought about it, wishing that he could say he had, but when he looked at what he had done with his life, where he had gone, all the strife he had gone through, it all seemed pointless to him. He thought of the bullies that beat him up during his years in high school, the girls that rejected him whenever he poured out his heart to them, he thought of the endless and meaning hours he spent working, followed by hour upon hours of drinking and doing drugs to forget about the hours of work. He thought about the food he ate that made him fat, the television he watched that made him not want to leave his couch, and he could not find a single lesson learned from it all. His life, to him, was a joke, a total waste of time.