Obscura Burning

by van Rooyen, Suzanne

  Leaving my pets to their meal, I flip back to the comics. I’m not the greatest storyteller, tending to draw the images that come to mind before figuring out how the story will go to match them. That’s probably why there are a dozen sketchbooks full of half-finished comics gathering dust beneath my bed.

  Scanning the black-and-white pages, there’s this sinking cold that fills my belly. My main character, the hero of the story—wrongly incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit—is wearing orange pajamas, the same ones in my dreams. My skin prickles.

  My scarred protagonist is sitting at a picnic bench in the prison yard, chatting to the shrink assigned to evaluate him before trial. He tries to escape, but gets into a fight with a warden and is beaten down, which lands him in the infirmary, tended by a young nurse.

  The parallel is more than a little disconcerting. Having been Obscura’s bitch for the past thirteen weeks, I know better than to consider the dreams mere subconscious manifestation of this comic book story. It felt too real to be a dream. Maybe the comic is trying to tell me something. But what?

  Professor Cruz’s card lies dog-eared on the floor beside my bin. Pearl Jam’s “Alive” starts playing as I pick the card off the floor. The shift is sudden, wrenching me from one reality and unceremoniously depositing me in another. Orange pajamas. I’m in a hallway of sorts, leaning against a vintage pay phone. The jackhammer headache throbs at the base of my skull. At least there’s no ear or nose hemorrhage this time.

  The stench pervading the hallway does nothing to help my headache. Ripe body odor and dirty toilet water. The stink is even wafting from my armpits. My hair slicks my forehead in greasy rat tails and my fingernails are filthy.

  In this reality, there are no stitches bristling from my skin. Instead, Prof. Cruz and a smudged phone number are written in black ink across the palm of my right hand. Voices, a man cursing in Spanish and the rattle of chains. Two men in uniform escort another guy dressed in the same pajamas down the hallway.

  Despite the heat making my skin sticky, I feel icy cold as the realization wallops me in the gut.

  This is prison and it’s no dream.

  With trembling fingers, I dial the number. The number you have dialed does not exist. Please try again later a computerized female voice tells me, politely asking me to check the number and try again. The last three digits are smeared, but look like 877. I dial again, changing the last three digits to 511.

  It rings twice before Professor Cruz answers.

  “It’s Kyle Wolfe,” I whisper into the receiver.

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  “We met the other day; we discussed my whole shifting space-time continuum thing. Remember me?”

  Silence followed by an exasperated sigh. “Does your lawyer know you’re calling me?”

  “What lawyer?”

  “I’ve asked you to stop calling me, Kyle. This is harassment.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to document me.”

  “Kyle, please—”

  “Just listen then and tell if you think this is possible, OK?” I take a breath before plunging into my idea, not giving the professor the chance to interrupt me. He could hang up, but he doesn’t.

  “What if I go back to where this all started, to the fire, at the precise moment that Obscura is at her closest. Do you think I could undo what happened and fix things, like un-quantum entangle my consciousness? Or will the world just end?”

  Contemplative silence, interrupted by the sound of him breathing and scratching his stubble.

  “Theoretically, anything is possible. You’d have to hope that there’s another major quantum event. Perhaps there is something special about that location.” He sighs. “Kyle, if you truly believe you are experiencing some kind of quantum phenomenon then perhaps going back to where you think this all began might be worth a try.”

  “So I just go back to that barn and what? Wait for the celestial alignment to sort everything out?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help you more than that. Please stop calling me.” He hangs up.

  Maybe it’ll work. It has to, because if it doesn’t, my reality might end up being me strapped down in a bed en route to Desert Hills, or stuck in a grotesque meat suit for the rest of my life. Worse still, I might end up wearing orange pajamas, behind bars.

  It’s simple, really. Get out to Ghost Town, shift back to April 6 at midnight, and stop the fire from happening. Then Danny and Shira will still be alive and I’ll still be me, original Kyle, version 1.0.

  A guy in uniform approaches, grim faced and menacing. Prison’s the last place I should be if there’s any hope of me getting back to the barn and saving the world from annihilation. Unconsciousness is the surefire way of shifting me through realities.

  Gritting my teeth, I bash my head against the wall. An explosion of pain and fireflies dot my vision. Still conscious. The warden yells and starts running toward me. Last chance. Clenching my fists, I slam my head into concrete, the wet crack of skull on wall, and slip happily into the black.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Shira’s dead

  Could’ve been days or seconds that I spent trawling the dark. Bright light slices into my eyes, bringing the world back into focus. One of them, at least.

  “He suffered a minor heart attack, but he’s stable at the moment,” the doctor says.

  My mom, the sweet smell of her perfume. She’s holding my hand. A straw presses between my lips and I take a sip of water.

  “Kyle, I’m here. You’re going to be fine.” Mom brushes hair from my face. There’s concern in her voice.

  “I’m dying.” I want to laugh, but end up coughing instead. Seems ridiculous that less than a day away from being able to fix things, I might not live to see the moment.

  Mom places a kiss on my forehead. Maybe I’m just imaging the hint of cologne under the perfume drenching her skin. My dad never wears cologne, says it’s for city slickers and nancy boys.

  “You’ll be fine, Kyle.” The doctor pats my shoulder.

  “Mom…” My voice cracks and she hushes me, tells me to get some rest when all I want to know is who she’s shagging, who she’s leaving us for.

  They leave me then. Muffled voices on the other side of the door and Mom’s soft sobs.

  * * *

  My eyes peel themselves open at 8:24 p.m. Feels like a truck’s repeatedly backed over my chest. Groaning, I heave myself from the pillows and down a cup of water.

  Danny’s supposed to come for me at nine. Gabriela hates me. Not sure why she’d risk busting me out, but here’s to hoping.

  Feeling worse than one of Shira’s mom’s withered cacti, I reckon I’ve still got half an ocean in each lung. At least the fever’s gone, but every breath is a wheeze of effort that makes me wince. Eighteen is too young for heart attacks; I’m too young to die…

  Tonight’s the night. July 4. Only a few hours until I can put all of this behind me, until I get myself back on track with life the way it was before the fire, the way it should’ve been for all of us.

  Dragging my feeble behind over to the window, I scan the parking lot. No sign of Gabriela and Danny yet. They’ve still got half an hour. The chair offers comfort so I curl up there and keep an eye on the parking lot. Skimming the horizon, Obscura rises, taunting me and blushing blue. It’s all her fault. None of this would’ve happened if it hadn’t been for that planet’s interference.

  The sketchbook and pencils are sitting beside my half-eaten dinner. Grabbing them, I settle back onto the chair, balancing the sketchbook across my knees. Drawing helps pass the time. Charcoal smears across the blank paper, slowly taking form.

  The minutes tick by. Every moment is excruciating. The glowing hands of the clock tick past nine p.m., and my hope diminishes. Guess that means the world’ll end instead.

  My phone vibrates on the bedside table.

  “Where the hell are you?” Danny’s voice.

  “Where are you?” Sketchbook and pencils left discarded
on the chair.

  “Waiting in the parking lot.”

  “Where? I don’t see headlights.”

  He curses my stupidity in Spanish, and directs me toward the far end of the lot where their car is waiting in darkness. Seems Danny’s a natural at skulking.

  Now, the tricky part: getting out of my room and outside without being noticed. Wrenching off the tape, I extract the IV needle, ignoring the bloody bead welling from the hole in my arm. Then I stagger into the hallway to find an exit.

  There’s a nurse at the desk, watching the news. Religious zealots in white, burning crosses, and chanting Armageddon slogans.

  The corridor’s clear. The emergency exit beckons, offering an empty stairwell. Four flights of stairs leaves me sweating and breathless at the bottom. I emerge in an alley, and collide with two nurses on a smoke break.

  “Just getting some fresh air,” I tell them nonchalantly, heading toward Danny’s truck with my ass hanging out the back of my gown.

  “Hey!” It takes a moment for them to realize a patient’s trying to give them the slip. Barefoot with pneumonia and erratic heartbeat, I attempt a jog and return to a trundle, heading across the vacant parking spaces with the nurses in tow.

  The nurses catch up, reaching for my arms when we’re all blinded by the glare of headlights. The moment hangs suspended, time fractures, and I watch myself shrug off their hands and clamber into the backseat. Yet another reality.

  Rough hands grip my arms, haul me back toward the hospital despite my kicking. The exertion brings on a coughing fit as Gabriela’s car swerves around us and rushes toward the road, leaving me behind.

  I wish that other Kyle tumbled on the backseat good luck. I’m doomed now, destined for sedatives and leather straps, maybe even a straitjacket and padded cell.

  Pneumonia and rib fractures get the better of me as the nurses dump me in a wheelchair and escort me back to bed with grim faces. Imbeciles, the lot of them. The world’s going to end, and the only one who can stop it is going to be doped up and tied down in Coyote’s Luck community clinic.

  “Where did you think you were going?” the nurse asks, the young one who was afraid to touch me earlier.

  “To the dance.”

  “The street dance?” Her eyes widen with surprise.

  “I was meeting my boyfriend there,” I say while trying not to cough up a lung. She taps my veins, slides a new needle into my arm, and tapes it in place.

  “It’s OK,” the young nurse says to her superior. “I’ll stay with him.”

  They leave me unshackled, but not alone.

  She takes my hand, inspects the IV and then my arm. “What happened?” A slender fingertip tracing the craters on my forearms.

  “Cigarette burns.”

  “Did someone do that to you?”

  So easy to blame Dad for this, only he never smoked. Of all his vices, tobacco wasn’t one of them.

  “I did.”

  Her soft eyes tear up as she brushes hair from my face.

  “Why?”

  Not sure there’s an acceptable answer to that.

  “You draw?” she asks, her doe eyes full of genuine interest as she lifts the sketchbook off the chair before dragging it closer to sit beside me.

  Stupid bitch, we’re all going to die. I swallow the retort and say instead, “A bit, comics mostly.”

  She flips through the pages and her face pales as her gaze falls on my latest drawing. The pencil work is rough, more a sketch really, but the image is clear. Shira. Screaming. Flames dancing around her head and her hand like a talon reaching out of the page.

  Shallow rasping breaths and a grin. “You asked me why,” I say, shoving my scarred arm under her nose, across the image of Shira.

  “Yes, why?” Wide eyes staring at me.

  “Because…” It feels good being able to admit the truth. “I like making things burn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Danny’s dead

  Dinner aromas waft up the stairs to my room. Smells like a roast, but I’m not hungry. My pillow is stained burgundy from the blood streaming out of my ears.

  A horrific visage in the mirror greets me in the bathroom. Even my eyes are bleeding, streaking my face, turning me into one of those macabre black-and-white clowns.

  Wonder if blood tears are also a symptom of ghost sickness.

  I’ve just washed my face, returning it to its scarred but unbloody imperfection, when my phone rings. Shira.

  Two more rings before I can bring myself to answer it. “Hey, you.” My voice is shakier than it should be.

  “Niyol can see you tonight.” Her words sound like an ax chopping wood. She’s still pissed at me.

  “What time and where?”

  “Eight sharp. Meet me at my place. We’ll walk from there.” Expectant silence. She’s waiting for something.

  “I’m sorry about earlier.” It’s a paltry apology.

  “Whatever.”

  I count backward from ten, trying not to lose it. Shira doesn’t have to help me, but she is, so her snark’s excused.

  “Thank you. I really appreciate you doing this.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her tone is flat.

  “I’ll see you around eight, then.”

  “Eight sharp.” She hangs up and I want to hurl my phone into the wall. Girls. It’s like they expect me to decipher some hidden meaning between their words. Can’t they just say what they mean?

  “Kyle, dinnertime,” my dad shouts up the stairs. 19:03. I won’t make it to Shira’s by eight unless I leave right now. Two options. Duck out my window and escape without confronting my parents, without having to tell my mom I really don’t want to eat or talk about my sexual preferences. Or face my parents and their ire when I turn down family dinner to go see a medicine man with the friend they don’t approve of.

  If only there were two of me. One Kyle goes out the window; the other goes down for dinner. My dad’s feet trudge up the stairs. I take the coward’s way out, pushing my terrarium to the side and heading out the window.

  This time, I’m more careful and test the branch before swinging off the sill. Ominous creaking, but the branch holds and I monkey my way down the tree. Obscura hasn’t risen yet, leaving the skies untainted by her blue light.

  My dad’s shouting for my mom. “Kyle’s gone.” Hysterics will likely ensue. Maybe leaving a note would’ve been a good idea. Too late now.

  Guilt warms my neck and creeps onto my cheeks. They deserve a better son. Once these ghosts plaguing me are dealt with, maybe then I can start making things right with everyone.

  The jog to Shira’s is unpleasant. This route I’ve walked for most of life, usually comforting, offering me the solace needed to clear my head, now seems sinister and menacing. Every shadow seems out to get me: crouching juniper with distorted talons reaching for me, withered cacti with mouths full of jagged fangs. Jesus, I am losing it.

  The warm glow of light spilling out of trailer windows calms my frayed nerves.

  Shira’s waiting on the steps. “Mom’s home.”

  Clattering pans and her mom’s gin-soaked voice crooning along to the static-filled country radio.

  “Let’s go then.” I offer her my hand, but she ignores it. Dusting off her jeans, she heads into the thicket of darkness gathered at the periphery of the trailer’s lights.

  “Come on, Kyle. We can’t be late.” She flicks on a flashlight and blinds me with the beam. Warily, I traipse after her, mindful of where my feet land in case I tread on something venomous.

  We walk for what feels like miles. My phone in my back pocket keeps vibrating. Twenty-six missed calls from my mom. I should’ve texted after the first call; now it’s too late, and no matter what I say, it won’t be OK.

  “Your folks know what we’re doing?” Shira asks, breaking the tension.

  “Nope.”

  “You snuck out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was that wise?”

  “Probably not.”
>
  She turns on me, forcing me to squint in the glare of flashlight. “Either answer your phone already or switch the damn thing off.”

  Twenty-eight missed calls. I turn off my phone and try not to think about what’ll happen when I eventually go home.

  Shira leads the way through scrubland. Gradually the barren landscape is illuminated silver and blue as the moon and Obscura rise together in the east.

  “It’s beautiful.” Shira stops for a moment and stares out across the landscape.

  “It’s eerie.” Obscura seems so much larger and brighter. Her aquamarine glow is painful to look at. A distant coyote wails a greeting to the moon causing shivers across my skin.

  “Not far now,” Shira continues.

  Within minutes, we come to the circular dwelling I was anticipating: the hogan, the traditional Navajo house, made of packed earth or mud. This one’s bright orange adobe and surrounded by neat rows of green vegetation. Only yucca is recognizable.

  The hogan is illuminated by several solar-powered garden lamps. Wind chimes, as only Shira can make them, tinkle their soft music where they dangle from the droopy branches of mesquite.

  A man emerges, his face obscured by shadow, accompanied by a jubilant mongrel. The dog makes a beeline for Shira, its tail wagging in glee. Should’ve asked Shira for a crash course in Navajo etiquette. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do as the man approaches me. He’s younger than most medicine men, maybe thirty at the most. I look to Shira for help, but she’s too busy giving belly rubs to notice.

  Niyol chuckles, wipes his hand on his jeans and offers it to me. I shake it with a firm grip. Even though he’s barely my height, Niyol is still intimidating. There’s just something about him. Shira would call it his aura. Whatever it is, this guy gives off a don’t fuck with me vibe in spades.

  Then he smiles and it feels like coming home. My scars don’t seem to be having much effect on him.