One woman—her verbal communication was very limited—had been a professional ballerina. Her agitation manifested as unhygienic behaviors, random cursing, and a tense, angry face. When she became distressed, I’d put on her favourite CD—specifically, Swan Lake—and it seemed like the music linked her to the past. Back to that familiar place of dancing and youth where she was joyous and at peace.
The suffering of these people heightened my own sense of vulnerability and fragility. Dark shadows of doubt took root in my mind as I realized that one day, my memories, my clear, rational thinking, might be stolen by Alzheimer’s or a similar disease.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent some time focusing on the future, contemplating retirement and making financial plans. Retirement is idealized as this wonderful place filled with tea-drinking, cake-eating, cruise-taking frivolity, where sandy beaches are plentiful and the grandchildren joyful.
Even if that’s not your ideal, I’m sure it includes working less and playing more. For Alzheimer’s sufferers, retirement holds the sad and dark realities that come with the advanced stages of their disease. They’ll be completely dependent on other people.
Writing “Remembering Hannah” was my attempt at producing a real and gritty account of what it’s like to lose grip on one’s reality.
Bill, my protagonist, gives a rich narrative that I believe relays a faithful example of sufferers’ internal experiences, though his psychological decline is aggressively quick and therefore fictional. Bill is not a hero. He’s not even that likeable. He’s simply a man who has the predisposition for an array of complicated neuroses.
“Remembering Hannah” is a mixed bag of first-person psychological phenomena and suspense that reflects my love of psychology, my deep empathy for those who are robbed of the life they deserve, and my passion for showing the beauty found in human connection.
My other works are typically considered high fantasy. I use the medieval fantasy genre to uniquely explore complex interplays between psychological experiences, magic and political and religious upheaval.
For more information on my words, please visit my website here: http://www.kjcolt.com/
Or subscribe to my newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/vrX-r
Red Rain
by Monica Enderle Pierce
To err is human; to forgive, divine.
—Alexander Pope
EYES CLOSED, DR. TASHA GARCIA GRIPPED HER PHONE and leaned against the cold, stained wall outside Virginia Mason Hospital’s emergency entrance. “It’s been eleven months since I divorced you, Peter, and now you want to talk? Bit late, don’t you think?”
Her ex-husband’s sigh was heavy on the other end of the phone. “The mess I made of us is the only thing I haven’t resolved, Tash.”
“And you want my forgiveness.” She scowled at the red rain that fell steadily past the emergency entrance.
“Yeah.”
Goddamn.ef I’m too tired for this. Her last patient had been a suicide. Tasha’s grip tightened on a stack of patient files a nurse had handed her as she’d answered Peter’s third attempt to reach her that day. “You’re asking for a lot.”
College sweethearts, they’d been undergrads at UCLA when Tasha had caught her father screwing a woman who wasn’t his wife. Peter had been her backbone throughout her parents’ messy divorce. So discovering him in bed with a bimbo a year ago had effectively firebombed their own marriage in spectacular fashion.
“I know.” His voice was low and tense. “But I’m asking as much for your sake as for mine. Judgment is coming, Doc.”
“What if I don’t believe in Revelation?” She lodged the cellphone against her shoulder and fanned out the files to prioritize the cases. “What if I’m not ready to forgive you?”
Five more plague cases (as if there’s anything I can do for them), four anxiety attacks, three blunt-force traumas, two ODs, and a partridge in a pear tree. She almost laughed. She was getting punchy. But Peter’s reply sobered her.
“Try. Please.”
Tasha straightened the folders and pushed away from the wall. "Fine. I’ll meet you. But I’m not making any promises."
"Thank you."
* * *
People huddled together in the red rain, silent and fearful. A queue to enter St. James Cathedral stretched from the massive marble building’s Ninth Avenue entrance, up Marion Street, then followed Terry Avenue southeast and turned down Columbia Street to head for the freeway.
Tasha’s gaze skipped over unfamiliar faces, searching for one she didn’t want to see; a face she’d once loved. Why did I agree to this? After eighteen hours on her feet in the ER, she just wanted a shower and her bed.
She navigated through an ocean of stained umbrellas. Seeing so many in Seattle was strange. To this city’s natives, rain was ubiquitous, and people usually wore only hats or hoods to keep their heads dry. But this rain was different. Heavy, staining drops demanded the use of something more protective.
Or maybe the umbrellas were an attempt to hide from judgment.
Few cars drove past—though it was a Tuesday morning—and the city’s oppressive silence made her shoulders hunch. Even the people gathered around the cathedral were strangely quiet. The only sounds were pattering rain and hushed conversations between parishioners and the black-robed nuns and priests moving among them.
She sighed and glanced past the crowd to the red-streaked green signs that marked the intersection of Terry and Marion. This was where she’d agreed to meet Peter.
She always walked past St. James on her way to and from work. She liked the building’s two white towers and massive arched entry. Still, she was glad she and Peter had gotten married in San Francisco and not here. That would’ve made seeing the towers stained red from the incessant rainfall even more depressing.
“Tasha?” Up ahead, Peter stood ten-people deep from the street and watched her approach.
“Crap-crappity-crap,” she said beneath her breath. She looked down at the sidewalk and quickened her pace.
“Doc, don’t pretend you didn’t see me.”
Tasha stopped as Peter scooched out of line. She studied him. Peter Garcia wasn't classically handsome. Not GQ handsome or runway handsome, but she liked the curve of his nose, his brown eyes that were so dark they were almost black, and the shock of thick, black hair that he wore in an undercut—short on the sides and longer on top. He’d let his beard and moustache grow but kept them neat. Of course.
She looked down at her dark blue sweats and turquoise t-shirt. Coffee stained both. Her greasy hair was pulled back in a bun. Had it been three days or four since she’d last showered? Tasha yawned and her jaw cracked loudly. The hospitals were swamped, and all of her colleagues were in the same sad shape. Neatness had disappeared from her life.
When he reached her side she asked, “How did you spot me through this sea of people?” At five-foot-two, Tasha didn’t exactly stand out in a crowd.
“Degas.” He gestured at her umbrella. “It’s gruesome.”
She glanced upward. “Right.”
It had a reprint of Degas’ Two Dancers on Stage. The poor ballerinas; they were covered in red rain and looked like they’d jetéd through a slaughterhouse. Tasha scowled. Why had she kept the damned thing? It was a gift from him that she’d never used until the rain had turned red. And it did a crap job of keeping her clothes clean and dry.
“You look exhausted,” he said. His umbrella was black, and he wore blue jeans and a gray hoodie, but the laces of his brown loafers had turned the color of old blood.
“Wonder why?” She gazed past him to the cathedral’s stained edifice, then muttered, “Is confession enough to save your sorry ass?”
Peter cleared his throat. “I hope so.”
Her gaze shifted to the pair of luminous orbs that had appeared in the sky and hovered there—visible day and night, no matter the weather—for forty-two days. Dubbed “Watchers” by the media, pairs just like them hung above all seven continents,
baleful eyes watching Earth.
Since their appearance, drought had scorched every country that lay between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and earthquakes and tidal waves had damaged or destroyed much of the western coast of North, Central, and South America—from California to Peru, the Pacific Islands, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan. When inexplicable, festering sores began to appear upon people’s bodies—regardless of their color, creed, or nation—all hell broke loose. Widespread looting, murder, and arson had brought the world’s militaries into play. People had packed up and fled the cities. Those who remained either couldn’t leave or didn’t have anywhere to go. Both were true for Tasha.
Frightened faces surrounded her and Peter, an ocean of people—young and old—in line to seek absolution before the Apocalypse got into full swing.
He nudged her with his elbow. "Come on, let's walk and talk. I’ve come to confession every day since this started.” He rubbed the back of his neck and added, “Guess I should give someone else a chance.”
Tasha remained silent, deciding.
He bent his knees to see her face beneath the dripping edge of her umbrella. "I’m glad I finally reached you. Six weeks is a long time to ignore someone’s calls."
"Not if you don't want to listen to a bunch of stale excuses for philandering.” Her chin lifted and she added, “If I walk with you, can you at least come up with some new reasons for being a dick?"
People turned to look at them. A circle of disapproval rippled out from where they stood. Her resentment was a pebble in their pond of apprehension.
Peter scowled, but then he took a deep breath and nodded. "I deserve that. What I did was complete crap."
“Damn right.” She tightened her grip on her umbrella, checked for cars, then stepped off the curb. “Let’s go.”
"Thanks." He touched her arm.
“Don’t.” Her glare slid from his hand to his face. “I haven’t forgiven you yet.”
Peter lowered his hand and they walked toward Spring Street, navigating around families, couples, and individuals who were huddled and hopeful that a last-minute reprieve would come to them if only they could get into St. James Cathedral and seek absolution. They turned west toward the ocean and headed into downtown Seattle from First Hill. As they crossed the freeway overpass, Tasha gazed at the expanse of empty traffic lanes. It was eerie to see so few vehicles on the interstate.
Since the seven sets of orbs had first appeared over the continents, none of the world’s astronomical or climatological organizations had been able to explain them; NASA couldn’t even get a radar signature on them. It was like the Watchers shouldn’t have existed, yet there they were, visible from everywhere all the time. The tabloids and the paranoids had screamed, “Conspiracy!” and labeled them UFOs or super weapons. The world’s religious leaders had called them the first sign of the Apocalypse and had opened their doors to take in the terrified masses.
A lot of people had suddenly found faith with a capital “F” and were trying to get good with God, including Peter, it seemed, who’d returned to his Catholic roots. Tasha had continued to keep her nose to the work grindstone. He was religious, she wasn’t. That hadn’t been an issue with them before the divorce, and it still wasn’t.
On the downhill slope of the freeway overpass, a middle-aged man—gray-haired, dirty, and disheveled—sat upon a crate and folded little paper boats from cardboard coffee cup sleeves. He'd jerry-rigged a wide, green-and-blue Seattle Seahawks umbrella to stand upright, and he hunched beneath it, mumbling and laughing to himself. He placed each little boat into the rushing gutter at his feet, and then smiled with the wide-eyed delight of a child as the flow carried the boat downstream until it disintegrated or turned a corner and disappeared.
"Spare change?" he asked as Peter and Tasha came abreast of him. “I’ll make you a boat for enough money to buy a cup of coffee." His face was covered with red, swollen, and weeping boils. He wore olive-green pants and a dingy gray jacket.
Peter dug into his pockets and pulled out a handful of coins. "That’s all I’ve got." He dropped the change into the man's open palm.
"Been over to the hospital to have those sores looked at?" Tasha asked.
"Nah." The man shrugged. "They don't bother me. No more than the lice do, anyway." He eyed them and then cackled, showing blackened, broken teeth. He pocketed the change and started on a new boat. “Crazy weather, eh?”
Peter cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m not sure I’d call it weather.”
“Sure it is. And it’ll blow over just like one of them storms from Canada. Makes you cold and wet, then it’s gone and you forget about it.”
“That’s an optimistic view,” Tasha said.
“What’ve I got to worry about? I’m one of God’s chosen few. I’ve suffered enough. Ain’t gonna punish me no more. Not my God.” He held up a perfect little boat. “Noah’s Ark.”
Peter took it.
Tasha jerked her chin toward the hospital. "If you become uncomfortable or run a fever, go to Virginia Mason and tell them Dr. Tasha Garcia said you should be seen."
The man nodded, glancing from her to the boat in Peter’s hand. "You gonna set her adrift?" he asked.
Peter shook his head. "Think I’ll wait for clearer waters." The man nodded, and Tasha and Peter turned and continued down Spring Street toward Puget Sound.
"Does anyone know what's causing the sores?" Peter reached down and, perhaps out of habit, took her arm and slid it through his. For a moment it felt right, good, safe. She hesitated, but then pulled away. Her forgiveness wouldn’t come that easily.
Everyone had thought they were the perfect couple. Such a stereotype. She was an emergency room doctor. He was a concert violinist. But Peter had unraveled, and so had their marriage, when focal hand dystonia had made playing impossible and cut short his burgeoning solo career. He was on disability for months and saw every specialist she’d recommended, but none could fix his problem. They’d both been disheartened by her inability to find an effective treatment for him, but his disheartenment had soured to spite, and he’d found a way to punish her for his misery.
They continued downward past Seattle's eclectic mixture of Victorian and modern architecture. Brick and stone buildings that dated back to the Edwardian Era neighbored ones that were still under construction. Now everything sat idle, abandoned or damaged since the Watchers had appeared in the sky and everyone had freaked out.
The red rain discolored everything, streaking the white marble of buildings and turning trash into piles of soggy paper entrails.
Tasha sighed.
“What?”
"I guess I've been in denial like that guy." She jerked her head back toward the homeless man.
"You mean about us or the Apocalypse?"
"Both. Us because it hurts too much to think about—"
"Still?" Peter asked.
“Still.” She shifted her umbrella. "And all this biblical stuff because it scares the piss outta me."
He nodded. “Me, too.”
“But you’re Catholic.”
“So?” Peter shrugged. “Just because I’ve studied the field guide to the End of Days, doesn’t mean I’m not scared pantsless. It’s probably worse for me because I know what’s coming and I don’t know if I’ve done enough to avoid the worst of it. And,” he added with a grimace, “I haven’t done anything to protect you.”
She looked away from his dark gaze. “That’s not your job anymore.”
“I know that.”
Their shoes slapped the concrete and their umbrellas rubbed together, nylon scratching nylon as they stopped beneath a cantilevered glass-and-metal overhang that was part of Seattle’s downtown public library.
“Is this where we’re going?” She gazed up at the glass stretching above them.
Peter moved toward the entrance. "Maybe. If it’s open." But a tug on the doors denied that possibility.
Beneath the overhang were places where the windows rema
ined clear of the blood-red taint that fell from the sky incessantly. Tasha had always liked this library with its odd angles and all those thousands of windows inviting passersby to stop, look inside, and learn.
She lowered her gaze and met her own reflection in the windows that flanked the entrance. Distant and distorted, she stared back at herself, and then slid her attention to Peter’s reflection. He was watching her.
They were opposites—she had auburn hair and alabaster skin, and the top of her head barely brushed the bottom of his chin. She had an easy smile and an open manner with strangers, when she wasn’t so damned tired. Peter was dark and quiet—a thinker and an observer.
Tasha tipped her umbrella to let the rain run off, then said, "Let's keep walking."
Two small boys, maybe five and eight years old, ran past them and pressed their faces against the library windows. The children rattled the door then turned away, their sweet expressions souring with disappointment.
Their very pregnant mother tottered to the entrance and leaned against its wide steel frame, her gaze on the boys.
Compelled by the sadness she saw in the woman’s eyes, Tasha stepped toward her. "Are you okay?"
The woman looked up, her hazel eyes wide and brows raised. Her purple coat—made a grotesque shade by the red rain—was too small to button over her belly, and she wore a plastic bag over her brown hair, beneath the coat’s threadbare hood. "Of course not," she murmured.
Tasha took her elbow and steered her to a metal bench. Peter followed. The boys watched the strangers and their mother, then climbed a low concrete wall and walked along it like tightrope walkers.
Tears shimmered in the woman’s brown eyes as she watched her sons. “What’s gonna happen to them? They’re innocent. I wish God would take me instead.” She wiped tears from her cheeks with a stained sleeve and left a red streak behind. “Do you think he’d do that?” She looked past Tasha to Peter. “Trade my life for theirs?”
The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 25