Fragile Dreams

by Philip Fracassi

  He gripped her fingers. “Me too,” he said quietly. Then, more loudly, playfully, “Now tell me what you look like.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’m five-five, so I wear heels a lot to work. Don’t like always looking up at people.”

  He choked a laugh and pressed her fingers to urge her on.

  “I suppose most people think I’m pretty, but I’m very conservative. Robert and I don’t go out much, home-bodies, I guess. And now with the kids, forget it.”

  “And,” he started, unsure of how to continue, “you’re okay? You’re not... you’re not hurt too badly?”

  There was another pause. When she continued, it was not in answer to his question, it came out of her as if spoken from a trance.

  “I work on the second floor. I’m a paralegal with MacKenzie Douglas. When I left the house, Robert was getting the girls ready for school. He leaves later than I do for work. He’s the day manager of RJ’s Grill.”

  “Hey, I’ve been there,” Matthew interjected, more to cut off Dee’s eerie monotone delivery than true enthusiasm. “I’ve eaten lunch there. You know, I probably met your husband, or at least saw him.”

  “Today I wore my favorite work dress. It’s cauliflower blue with tiny white daisies. I think I’ve ruined it. Ruined...” And then Dee was quiet, as if she’d run out of things to say. Matthew waited for her to continue, but she said nothing.

  “Dee? You okay?”

  Her hand felt suddenly lifeless in his own, and he wondered with a small degree of alarm if she’d passed out. He wanted to tug at her hand, pinch her, shake her awake. But he resisted those urges, simply held her still fingers in his.

  “I’m twenty-eight,” he said, quietly. “I have black hair, blue eyes, pale skin. Too pale for California, I’m always told. But I was born here. A native. Right here in Burbank. Weird, right?”

  Dee’s fingers didn’t respond and she said nothing.

  “My wife’s name is Diane. We have a two-year old son. Robbie. We named him after a friend of mine.”

  Dee’s hand remained still.

  “He died in a car accident. I’d known him forever. We grew up together. He was going to move to New York, become a writer. He was so talented. I know he would have made it, you know? You can just tell with some people.”

  He let the irony of his mistaken prescience slide away into the dark, ignored its withering tail.

  “Anyway, things happen. You can’t control fate.” He paused, gathered his thoughts. “I think we’re going to die, Dee. I don’t know how long we’ve been down here, but if feels like days, doesn’t it? Probably not, but it’s always so damned dark, and I’ve been going in and out a bit. I’m a little bit confused, to be honest.”

  Matthew stopped talking, released Dee’s fingers.

  He laid there, reciting the words Dee had given him. I’m going to get through this. I’m going to live. I’m going to be saved.

  His hurt hand throbbed, trapped like a dying animal between his chest and the ground beneath. He let it throb. It was distant, no longer part of his body.

  He settled his head down again, thought about trying to sleep. Thought about his family.

  Something large moved in the dark.

  He looked up and around, blind eyes jerking from point to point.

  “Dee?” he said, loudly. “Dee!”

  She didn’t respond.

  He reached out his hand, found hers, groped her fingers, pressed them, tried to elicit a response.

  The sound was coming from below, a few feet from his head. It was not Dee he heard. It was something else.

  How could something be moving beneath me? It’s all rubble... it’s impossible.

  He looked toward the sound as it rose, squinting desperately to see something amongst the black. There! There, the air wavered. He left Dee’s hand and reached toward it. A ripple in the air, something was coming through, right toward him. He reached for it, moaning with some mad hope, a grimace of desire on his face below wide dilated eyes.

  Bright white light erupted from the ripple in the dark. Matthew screamed and withdrew his hand, the pain in his head like two ice picks rammed through each of his eyes. He slammed his eyelids shut, covered his face and moaned.

  Somewhere, deep inside him, beyond the thick veil of pain, he realized. My god, there’s light. There is LIGHT. I’m saved. I’m saved, yes, they’ve found us! He pawed at his eyes, not daring to open them but wanting so badly to see.

  The blinding flash had set off an explosion of colors behind his eyelids, swirling rainbows and flickering pin-pricks of hot white flashing amidst it all. He opened his eyes oh so slightly.

  The space surrounding his trapped body had turned into the black cold of space. A field of stars dense as a glittering black blanket. Pin-pricks of a billion bone-white lights flew toward him, eclipsed him. Colorful galaxies spun, pink, green and blue behemoths wallowing in their own ether. His mind expanded, cold and bright and impossibly vast, his jaw dropped in awe as the millions of worlds barraged his fragmented brain.

  There was a tumultuous rumbling as his body shook and flailed like a rag doll caught in a meat grinder. A thousand miles away he heard Dee’s voice calling to him, but his mind was bursting with kaleidoscopic colors. She was pleading for him to keep his eyes closed, to turn away, to hold her hand. He tried to look away. His head was on fire, his ears buzzed as if a thousand black flies had erupted inside his brain and were now giving him comforting instructions that he could not resist. Look, they said, their voices a mountain of flickering, buzzing wings and spindly, stabbing legs. You are saved, Matthew. Just LOOK AT US.

  He moaned and reluctantly turned his head to stare directly at the eternal light. He stretched open his mouth and watering eyes as widely as he could, welcoming the abyss of death as it flooded into him like a thick black river, filling him with sparkling white-hot worlds, bursting and snapping into fire like synapses, a god’s mind absorbing him from the inside-out.

  Chapter 7

  The green turtle nightlight appeared to be crawling up the wall. Betsy watched it, waiting for it to move one of its flippers, to inch its glowing body away from the power socket where it was fastened by steel and electricity.

  She looked across the room at Margret, who was asleep, breathing easily. She fought the urge to slink out of bed, run to her parent’s room, crawl between them, safe and warm. But they weren’t home yet. They were out, and she could never sleep when they were out at bedtime.

  She sighed. Her eyes left the turtle, trailed along the wall to the open closet and the black chasm within. She swore she heard noises from deep within that dark abyss, scratches and grunting. Something coming.

  She shuddered, flopped over, tried to close her eyes and escape the world through sleep.

  The bedroom door opened, light spilled across her face. She looked up, saw her mother silhouetted against the pale yellow glow of the hallway.

  “Mom,” she said, and held out her hands toward the shadow. “Come here, I need a hug.”

  Her mother moved to the bed, sat down next to her, and embraced her. Betsy breathed in her mother’s warmth, caressed her hand against the fabric of her scratchy black dress.

  “How...” she started, but her mother shushed her, released her from her hug. She started again, whispering now. “How was the party?”

  “It was fine,” her mother said, her face a dark void. The yellow light glowing behind her made her look like the angels Betsy had seen in the posters at Sunday school. She said so, and her mother chuckled, kissed her forehead.

  “It’s time for you to go to sleep now,” she said, caressing Betsy’s hair.

  Robert came to stand in the doorway. His body was a bright white light, illuminating the entire room.

  “Time to sleep now,” he said, too loudly.

  Across the room, Margret woke, sat up. She looked at her dad groggily, rubbed her eyes.

  Betsy blinked, then pushed away her mother’s hand.

  “What
happens to us when we die?” she asked, looking skyward.

  “Worms,” her mother said. “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,” she said, sing-song. Like a nursery rhyme, something from an old book of fables long gone to dust, only remembered by ancient gods and men of magic.

  Her mother brought her hand to Betsy’s face once more, but it was not a hand. Never was. It was slick and black and tapered to a pointed end. It pressed into her forehead, then slid across her face, leaving a searing mark, and pushed into her mouth, gagging her.

  “I love you,” her mother said.

  Margret yelled, “Stop!” and jumped up from her bed. She ran toward the bright light of her father, but her mother was too fast. Another limb shot out, ripping the fabric of her party dress. It shot impossibly across the room and speared the girl in the stomach, nailed her to the ground.

  The girls wiggled and belched what was inside them. Their mother stood and waited while their souls tore apart in slow increments, it was always slower in the young, and separated.

  “There are a million ways to suffer,” their mother said.

  The room was suddenly too small and so it expanded, and Mother with it, swallowing the light. Robert blistered and became a star. The thing’s onyx trunk of a throat worked hard to take it all in, to swallow it all, until it shone most brightly in the expanse, until it became the sky. A creator.

  Chapter 8

  Matthew jolted awake. His eyes were crusted closed, his ears ringing, canceling any sound from the outside world. He listened to the constant soundtrack of his time in the dark: the blood flowing through his body, the pulsing throb in his temple, the discordant thuds of his pissed-off heart.

  An odd verse sprang unbidden to his mind. A prayer he had no memory of learning.

  Blood will let blood, on my lips, on my tongue. The spark inside me is yours, the lift of my soul, that energy, yours to feast upon. My flesh is yours. I am without hope. I am without love. My humanity has been stripped from me and hangs in tatters before you, ready to accept your gift, my sacrifice. Your paradise awaits me, because all I am is gone.

  He opened his eyes to slits, careful to keep his head down.

  A tiny, soft hand patted his brow. “Da-da,” his son’s voice said. “Da-da, love you.”

  Tears sprang from Matthew’s eyes, but he did not move. Did not dare to. His nose, though broken and clogged with cartilage and dried blood, could still catch the faintest trace of his son’s smell. Baby powder and purity. Matthew wanted more than anything to bury his face in the child’s hair, hear him laugh one last time.

  The tiny soft hand rubbed Matthew’s head absently while he wept and wished. When he could stand it no longer he reached his fingers outward, hoping to touch his baby boy one last time.

  There was nothing, nothing but the emptiness.

  Matthew breathed in harshly, sucking large gulps of air, trying to right his mind. The digging. The light. He raised his chin, the effort causing his head to tremor, his neck to stiffen. He looked where the light had burst through the dark.

  He heard... digging. Someone, or something, was pushing through the debris a few yards away.

  “Hello!” he yelled, his voice slurred wet gravel. He waved a hand in the dark. “Hello! I’m here! I’m here!”

  There was no sound of rescue, no movement. Desperate for reassurance, he turned his strained neck to look toward the area where Dee lay. He reached out his hand, and after a few brief moments of scrambling panic, he found hers, still warm.

  “Dee! I think, maybe, we’ve been found.” He waited, but Dee was silent. “Dee?”

  Then, “Yes, Matthew. I hear you, I’m sorry, I hear you.”

  Matthew was so relieved he nearly sobbed again, but kept himself together, kept himself hoping.

  “Did you see the light? Did you hear?”

  There was a pause, and then Dee spoke. “I heard it.”

  Matthew was very still, he clutched furiously to Dee’s fingers. Something was tugging insistently on his exposed foot, but he felt no pain, so ignored it.

  His shirt was soggy with blood. He rolled his body, trying to slowly release his injured hand. He could feel it squelching beneath his stomach, as if he were lying face-down in a puddle in the middle of a muddy beaten road.

  “Dee? Do you think they’ve come for us?”

  “How is that possible, Matthew?” she said, her voice toneless. “You’re not thinking clearly.” He heard a rustling. “Here, boy. Don’t let go of my hand now. It’s coming to get you.”

  Matthew squeezed her hand more tightly. “Dee, we’ll be saved soon. C’mon, I believe now. You should be thrilled. I believe.” He waited for a chuckle, or a chiding. He received neither. He swallowed. “They must be digging toward us. Yes, yes. They’re coming.”

  The movement seemed to come from all around. Something was tunneling through the spilled guts of the building, straight toward them. Matthew laid his ear to the vibrating concrete. In the pitch black of his world, Matthew heard something break through the rubble just in front of him, palm-slapping sounds smacked the ground, glass broke and iron twisted with a high-pitched groan. There was a shifting sound as the thing filled the space directly before him.

  Matthew pulled his hand away from Dee and reached for what had come. His hand plunged deep into some writhing, jelly-like substance, which immediately shot up his arm and sprayed itself onto his face. He gasped and felt something wiggle down his throat.

  He gagged, clawed at his lips, but felt nothing. He threw up, the stinging tang of vomit somehow bracing him.

  There was an upward swell, and although he felt no pain it seemed as if his eyes were melting down his face, cold and slick. He felt his body lift then spin in a barrel-roll to one side, although he knew, somewhere in his subconscious mind, he had not physically moved. It was dizzying and he clawed at the chunks of destruction around him for purchase. But the pieces of the structure were gone, the whole of the physical world had fallen away. A blast of warm stale air gusted upward.

  Was he falling? No, that familiar, constant pain was still in his back, a part of him now. Would I miss it, my murdering lover? he thought. But it wasn’t gone. It was there. Solid and heavy. He was still trapped, but there was a gulf beneath him now, a space wider than a canyon blown open where there should be bricks and glass and dirt. A giant’s dark heart beat somewhere in the abyss and he found himself staring down into it, searching. There was a flare of color, and another, erupting from the sides of his vision. The world came into focus.

  There were trees, sweating slime-covered smooth black monsters rising a thousand feet into the air, reaching for him, their sappy perspiration running freely down their sides, tracing through faint veins of stone-hard bark, splashing into their gray roots. They plunged upward from an impossible distance, their bases surrounded by a fetid swamp that went as far as he could see, a black horizon. The sky was pale and dead, but he knew that it was eternal, like space. An eternal emptiness. Home.

  * * *

  “It’s a letter,” his grandfather said, dropping the thick envelope on his bed.

  He left and Matthew swiveled away from his desk, watched the door close. He stood, walked to his neatly-made bed, studied the envelope; it was dingy brown, soiled, old-looking. The handwriting on it was scrawled in an imprecise manner, jagged and spearing, peaks and valleys of black ink thin as an old woman’s hair. There were stamps bearing language and prices he did not recognize slapped across its surface.

  He picked it up, studied the front. It bore no return address, no name of sender. Turning it over he saw the envelope had been previously used. It was frayed and torn, spotted with something dark. Dreary tape held the flap closed, as dingy and browned as if its contents had been sealed for hundreds of years.

  He ripped it open, pulled out two hand-written pages of scribble. Many of the words were hard to make out, but once he got a feel for the author’s form, the words cleared, came into focus:

  I write this in the ho
pes of finding you well.

  This night is a terrible night, one that will be remembered only for its misery. Nothing of consequence has taken place and nothing of note has been accomplished. The price I ask for living is a harmonious sequence of knowledge that turns the wheels of the clock to tomorrow, diversion that makes daytime turn to night and allows me once more to close my eyes on the world which has deceived me until such time as I am forced to open them.

  War is rampant and civilization is holding firm on sandy beaches of past moralities as wave upon wave of hatred, corruption and bloodshed splash against the shore. I fear I don’t know of anything but what is before my very eyes. The people I think I love are deceivers, those who follow me whisper corruption behind my back and friends are true only as it suits them. I’ve lost the willpower to pick myself up time after time, exhausted from being knocked down by indifference, selfishness and lack of honor. We chase gods and act like children. It’s pathetic.

  Old friends are shadowy memories, ghosts that talk to me in the night and conjure distorted images of the way things once were. The way things could have, should have, been. They exist as passersby, breathing shallow confidence of the boy’s life, of the boy’s happiness. I tell them to get the fuck away, to leave the past buried. But it returns in my sleep. It haunts me.

  I believe that love is a bauble held only by poets. It exists only in words, on paper, in songs and through acting of all kinds including the most devious. It doesn’t exist any more than hope, trust, conviction, honesty or faith. Lost ideals of a racist generation, mistaken concepts taken to heart by the weak and overly sensitive, tossed aside by the strong, the survivors, the leaders. Strength lies in appearance. Appearance of person, of religion, of stature, of wealth. Gone are souls intertwining, coupling energy. Gone is romantic ambush.

  We are ravaged. We are followed. We are dying.

  I write you because there is no one else to write and I’m alone with these thoughts. It is haunting.