Letting Go

by Carrie Lange

  Dan noticed the dark spirits leaving from the corner of the room where they had hovered close to her, small wisps breaking off and fading away. The room became brighter as more and more of the darkness lifted. For a joyous, fleeting moment he thought the despair was releasing her from its cruel embrace.

  Then he saw what stepped forth from the darkness.

  The man he caught mere glimpses of before, now stood beside her, fully formed.

  Dressed in shadows, pale skin, long black hair. Gauzy filaments of inky blackness clung to him, unwilling to let go. He held out his hands and touched her head which lay on Dan’s chest, and the last of the clinging tendrils fell away.

  “Do you see him?” Tar asked.

  Dan nodded. “I see him. Who is he? The one you told me about?”

  “Yes. He’s called Rale.”

  “He looks like another movie star, Brad Dourif.”

  Tar gave him a sidelong glance. “What is it with you and movie stars?”

  Makes perfect sense, Dan thought. And, he supposed the decision had been made back on Rick’s porch, when he had been thinking about Chucky, and Billy Bibbit, and Martin Klamsky. Her fear and his. Personified.

  ~~~~~

  Anne couldn’t imagine ever walking out of this room and leaving him behind.

  “How will I make myself walk out of here?” She said aloud.

  Her despair wrapped its arms around her and whispered in her ear. “You won’t have to. Soon they will come and take you away.”

  That was a comforting thought. She laid her head on Dan’s chest and waited. And yes, just as the voice promised, they came for her.

  “Come on,” Leonard said, “it’s time to go.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and led her out the door.

  Chapter 17

  Dan stood alone beside his grave in an obscure little cemetery on the outskirts of Nashville. He had been dead for over a week now. Tar had wandered off, as he often did. He must have stayed close, however, for he always came back when Dan called his name.

  In the distance, he could just see the highway he had driven so many times when he had been alive. It was quiet here, except for the gentle wooshing of the distant traffic, and the lilting birdsong from the few trees that dotted the bumpy, uneven lawn.

  Heaps of wilting flowers covered the mound of dirt that marked his grave. Plastic flowers, some bright and cheery, others faded and frayed, marked the graves of his eternal neighbors. The occasional plastic angel or cross or vase, tilted or fallen over, were sprinkled among the clusters of forgotten flowers.

  Dan looked toward the highway, the spark of sunlight on metal glinting in the distance. He always hated that traffic, every morning forcing himself to pull out of his apartment parking lot and go to work.

  I’ll never be in that traffic again. Now, it will be forever passing me by.

  He had kept his distance from Anne these past few days. The dark spirit was always with her now. Rale, Tar called him. Had they known each other in life? Or only in death?

  Dan tried to find out more about Tar, but he would say very little.

  “I let go of that life, Dan. That’s been over and done for a very long time.”

  But Dan saw something in Tar’s eyes that made him wonder if that were true. Sometimes he saw a longing, and a remembering, a certain kind of sadness that meant he still held onto something.

  “Are you going to haunt this graveyard?” Tar asked him.

  Dan jumped. “Tar, you startled me. What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask you the same question. You spend so much time here. Why?”

  Dan sighed. “I’m not sure, really. I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to leave her, but, the truth is, I don’t want to be around Rale.”

  “It’s all right, I understand. I don’t like being around him either.” Tar paused. “You know, you could move on now. Let go of all this.”

  “I wish I could. But I’m not ready to leave her.”

  “Well then, you’ll have to get over your fear of Rale, because he’s not going to leave her anytime soon either.”

  Chapter 18

  Dear Dan,

  This website about how to deal with the suicide of a loved one says I should start a journal. I’m supposed to write down everything I wish I could say to you, what I’m feeling and thinking. I mean, really? How I’m feeling? I’m feeling fucking sad. It’s not that complicated, is it?

  Okay, how about what I’m thinking? I think about time a lot now. And God.

  It sounds so cliché about realizing the value of time, but it’s true. I’ve always taken it for granted. I remember when I told you we didn’t have to talk to each other every day. You used to drive me crazy calling me all the time. Did you know that?

  The first few days after you died, I kept calling your office phone so I could hear your voice mail greeting. Over and over I would call, until that voice was taken away from me too, when they disconnected your line. I left so many messages. I wonder if anyone listened to them.

  I’ve spent hours and hours believing that if I just try hard enough, I can go back in time, to our last kiss. I lay here alone in my apartment trying to will myself backwards in time. I’m not speaking metaphorically. I believe that I can go back in time and change all this. Pretty hilarious, huh?

  I try to make deals with a God that I never believed in, to work a miracle that I fully realize is impossible. I promise God that I will devote my life to him and spend the rest of my life in service to him, if he will just let me open my eyes and be back at that moment. No one would have to know but me. It would be our little secret.

  An all-powerful God could make it happen. If I can just convince him, I can save you.

  It’s pathetic, it’s wildly irrational. But nonetheless, I sit for hours trying to make it happen. I open my eyes over and over.

  And nothing.

  So, I give up on God. He’s just a fairytale anyway, I tell myself.

  Then I try to make it happen through the sheer force of my own will power. I go over in my mind the days leading up to your death, like it’s my do-over. If I can figure out what I did wrong, what I missed, what I should have done or said, then somehow, it will magically all be fixed, and I’ll go back in time. I’ll open my eyes, and you’ll be standing in front of me.

  I don’t know why I start thinking this way. Right now, I’m rational and know that nothing will ever bring you back. You are dead, and that’s the way you will stay forever. God is not real. Time travel is not possible.

  But, something changes when I begin thinking. My thoughts develop a will of their own, and drag me down into this fantasy land of make believe where I literally have the power to change the course of history. If I just believe it strongly enough, pray good enough, wish hard enough.

  And as irrational as I know these thoughts are, I’m completely devastated all over again when it doesn’t work and you’re still dead.

  I keep on doing my do-over, but nothing changes...what the hell?

  So I think I must have done it wrong. And I go back again, trying to re-do my do-over. I’ll open my eyes and - poof!

  You’re still dead...Fuck...

  ~ Anne

  Chapter 19

  There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.

  ~ Washington Irving

  ~~~~~

  Anne spent five days in Tennessee, and when she returned to Indianapolis, she spent another week alone in her apartment. No one called or came over, and she felt it best to let Alexandra stay with her father.

  Her appetite and thirst had long vanished. In Nashville she had been with people who insisted she eat something. Alone now, however, that pressure was gone. For five days she ate nothing, and drank almost nothing.

  Typical for late May in Indiana, the weather was hot and humid, yet Anne turned the air conditioner off. Perh
aps it was because of the chill that clung to her spirit.

  Perhaps it was because she searched for some form of Hell in which to burn.

  The heat crept in and wrapped around her, along with the cold shadows of grief.

  The heavy sweater she wore slid over damp skin, causing prickly red rashes to rise on her stomach and neck. Her vision blurred as stinging sweat dripped into eyes already swollen and tender from salty tears.

  Anne stopped bothering with her contact lens in Nashville. Now her glasses slid down over the perspiration on her face, etching red, shiny furrows in her nose as she constantly pushed them back up. The moist heat from her face and eyes fogged the lenses. She wiped the inside with equally moist fingers which smudged and smeared the glass.

  A sudden bolt of anger drew her hand up to grab the infernal glasses and she beat them on the floor over and over and over again. Then she cradled the broken pieces in her hands, tears streaming down her sweaty face, because once again, she had destroyed something precious to her.

  Occasionally, the heat overwhelmed her and she got up to stick her head in the ice box for just a few blessed moments of relief. She saw a carton of French Vanilla ice cream, Dan’s favorite flavor. Two days before he died they had snuggled on the couch eating this ice cream together, watching one of Anne’s bad science fiction moves, ‘Death Machine’.

  At the moment when the cop looked up and said “Holy donuts!” right before the death machine fell on top of him, Dan had groaned and laughed. “Oh my God, Anne, this movie is so bad. How can you like this crap?”

  Anne giggled and scooped some more ice cream out of the carton Dan held. “Oh man, what are you talking about? I love this movie! The bad guy is so awesome. It’s your buddy, Brad Dourif. Did you know that? It’s the dude who plays Chucky and Billy Bibbit.”

  Anne knew Dan enjoyed the movie as much as she did, even if he did tease her about it. “The only thing awesome about this movie,” he said, “is the ice cream.”

  Now, looking at the carton through the swirling fog rushing out of the ice box and over her hot face, a wave of nausea rolled through her stomach.

  Why was the ice cream still here and Dan was not?

  She smoked cigarettes and watched the same three VHS tapes over and over again, ‘Galaxy Quest’, ‘Re-animator’, and ‘Death Machine’, only getting up to go to the bathroom, or to go smoke on the porch, or to hit the rewind and play button on the VCR.

  ‘Re-animator’ had been the one movie they agreed on, one of the best horror movies ever made.

  “Finally!” she had shouted, when he expressed his enthusiasm for the movie, “I see a ray of hope in you! You do have good taste...in one movie at least.”

  Muscles around her face and throat and abdomen tightened, strained, ached from strenuous and prolonged sobbing, until finally they trembled with exhaustion.

  And then, at last, an expansive yawn released her and drew her down into a fitful yet welcome unconsciousness. There she dreamed dark dreams that reflected her dark spirit.

  In one dream, she saw the detective again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “There’s nothing I can do.” Then his face started changing, morphing into the face of Dr. Herbert West, the re-animator.

  He held up his hand, and instead of holding a pen, he now held a large syringe, filled with glowing yellow fluid. At the end of the syringe, a long, silver needle gleamed.“There’s something I can do for him.”

  Dr. West, crazy eyes set with determination, leaned over, moving the syringe downward. Anne saw with horror, that Dan’s body lay on the metal gurney before him, and the needle hovered just above his head.

  “No!” Anne shouted, reaching for the syringe.

  “What’s wrong?” Dr. West asked reproachfully. “I thought you wanted him back? I can give him life!” He slammed the needle into the bloody hole in the side of Dan’s head and pushed the plunger down, the bright yellow fluid disappearing into Dan’s flesh.

  Nothing happened.

  Dr. West hung his head and sighed heavily. “Not fresh enough. If only I’d gotten to him sooner.” The tone of his voice was sharp-edged, accusing. When he looked up, Anne saw disappointment in his eyes. “I would have gotten to him sooner. I never would have left him alone. You didn’t love him enough.”

  And then, Dan’s eyes blinked rapidly. He brought his hands up to his head, and screamed. He sat up and turned to look at Anne with dead eyes. “Why didn’t you save me?” he asked, and then growling like a wild animal, arms flung out before him, he lunged at her.

  Anne woke screaming, and reached with shaking hands for a cigarette. She went out onto the porch to smoke and watch the night sky move slowly above her.

  As time passed, she had to go to the bathroom less and less. She still cried, but seemed to have used up all her tears, for no more fell. Her eyes became dry and red. Although she was as hot as ever, she must have become acclimated to the heat because she no longer sweated at all. Her lips became chapped and cracked, but at least the prickly rash went away.

  She didn’t smoke as much either because the porch was too far away to bother with. More and more, her routine reduced itself to play, rewind, play, rewind.

  It was a strange comfort for her, a way to go back in time - back to the beginning of the movie. She had complete control over the lives of those tiny people in the TV.

  Some of them, she could even bring back to life just by hitting a button.

  Do-over.

  No matter how many times she rewound them, however, the movies always ended the same. The same people still died in the same ways.

  Sometimes, she didn’t have the strength to get up and hit the rewind button and the credits slowly rolled over the screen to the end of the tape. Then she stared at the blue screen until her eyes burned and she remembered to blink them.

  She talked to Dan less and less, and to the voice in her head more and more. She stopped asking “Where are you?” and started asking “Where is he?”

  A familiar voice answered her. “He’s gone. He’s dead.”

  Was that voice real? Or was she just making it up in her head? An attempt to create a companion where one no longer existed?

  Then, a man began coming to her in her dreams, a shadowy figure, who always reached for her. Anne was afraid of him. She would dissolve if he touched her. She tried to run away, but always came back to him. He looked like the bad guy from ‘Death Machine’.

  “You aren’t real,” she finally said. “You’re just a scary guy from a movie.”

  “No...” he answered, reaching for her, “I’m real.”

  Or had he said ‘Rale’? Anne wondered, after she woke up, groggy and disoriented.

  It only took a few seconds for the pain to sink in. She didn’t exactly forget when she slept, but somehow after waking, she remembered all over again. And for that fleeting moment, it was fresh and new.

  Dan’s dead.

  Easy as pie.

  In the darkness of her quiet bedroom Anne searched for a sign of Dan as she did every night. Scanning the room, she caught the glimmer of eyes watching her from the corner. Her own eyes flicked back to the corner, but it must have been only the glint of a passing car’s headlights reflected on the wall.

  Where is he?

  Chapter 20

  To Anne, it seemed that Dan’s troubles didn’t start until he moved to Nashville. She didn’t want him to go in the first place, but he insisted it would be a great opportunity. In the middle of a cold, snowy December, he moved away from her.

  At first, he loved his job in an almost oddly obsessive way.

  “This job is going to fix everything, I can tell.” he had said to her, his eyes wild and darting.

  “Fix everything? What needs fixing?” she replied, a little crinkle between her eyebrows.

  His gaze froze, and he looked down, and shrugged. “Well, nothing…I mean…it’s just a great opportunity is all.”

  By the beginning of March, however, he started complaining on a regular basi
s.

  “Oh my God, I hate this job more than any I’ve ever had. It’s almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning. I sit in my car, grinding my teeth, forcing myself to drive out of that parking lot.”

  She straddled his lap as he sat on her couch one evening shortly after her twenty-ninth birthday. She ran her fingers playfully through his hair. “Just come back home. You hate that town, and that job, but you love me. Come home.”

  Dan pushed her hand away, telling her he would be a failure if he gave up on this job so soon. “I can’t let you support me, Anne, not even for a moment. What kind of man would I be? No, this is my job. I have to make it work.”

  But Anne persisted over the next few weeks, finally convincing him. “A man isn’t defined by the job he has or how much money he makes, but by how well he’s loved. And me and Alexandra love you.”

  Dan agreed to return when the lease expired on her one bedroom apartment at the end of June. In April, they picked out a new two bedroom apartment. Anne began collecting boxes in anticipation. She even went to see a divorce attorney, something which was long overdue.

  Then an unexpected thing happened at the end of April, a week after they signed the lease agreement. Dan called her and told her he wanted to end the relationship.

  “What are you talking about?” Anne asked, bewildered.

  “I just don’t think this is going to work. I mean, you aren’t even divorced yet.”

  “But we signed a lease agreement. Why’d you do that if you were just going to break up with me?”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry, but I just don’t think this is going to work...look, I gotta go.” He hung up, and left Anne staring at the phone in her hand. She tried to call him back several times, but the phone just rang.

  Later that night, Sarah called and told her Dan was in the hospital for attempting suicide by cutting his wrists.

  Anne made the four hour drive to Nashville the next morning. On the way, Rick called.

  “Are you going to the hospital?” he asked.

  “Of course, I’m on the way now.”