Part One is a simple story, the typical, you don’t want this to happen or this bad evil will be unleashed. Part Two is the ending to part One. Three is where the story takes a turn down an unpredictable path and Four complements Three beautifully. Five and Six finish the story in a way that hopefully people will remember. There is nothing like T.B.O.T.E.
In my mind I calculate how much money certain movies made. I use a very successful trilogy and part One made like 360 million. Part Two about 375, and part Three made around 405 million. I add those numbers together and I know that the six stories we have is way better than that. I know that the trilogy I am comparing our story to is good. It is, in story idea, every bit as good as ours but in delivering the scenes and not letting one down, or disappointing an individual, we deliver. Our story is that good, our writing isn’t.
I’m not stupid, or I try not to be. I know why and how we were able to get The Beginning of the End completed, or at least completed in rough draft form. It was Michael’s idea. No one will ever believe me but that’s the truth.
Something happens and I know what it is. It’s the feeling of awareness. I have it right now. Why? I don’t know, but I do. There is clarity and my vision is clear. I know where I’m at and I’m learning why I’m here. I’m still messing up and I’m still running my mouth but I’m learning.
Mind lost? Maybe. Do I care? No. Am I happy? Yes, and I mean I’m truly happy but then why the fear? Why is it so strong?
My ability to travel through my memories is something that people don’t care to hear, for whatever reasons. I do know that it’s becoming easier and I have more control. The times that I lose it are getting farther and fewer between. The last two days have been challenging. I’ve woken on the floor twice and as soon as I create complete focus, distraction happens. The distractions are never the same, some are physical and others are mental.
I will not allow distraction to occur right now. I will answer the question why. My demons will not leave until I do.
I remember sitting in the basement. I was talking to Michael about a screenplay contest. We already had part One completed, as far as we knew anyways. It sounded like a good idea. The next few months went fast.
Sally and I knew that when Savannah was born that we’d have to move. We had too many kids and not enough rooms in our apartment. Things were good though. I was still at the collection company and she was assistant manager at an apartment complex. It was through her job that she met a man who worked in real estate. They came up with an arrangement that benefited him in selling houses and her in renting apartments. It’s through this man that we buy our house. A big five bedroom blue house with blue carpet, and that’s what we asked for. It’s what we got. It’s funny being the only blue house in the neighborhood.
This man, this salesman thought that my wife would be good at selling houses. I was not happy about the scenario but my wife is different than the others in my past. She’s my wife. That’s a title I have given no other and she deserves trust and understanding more than anybody. I still didn’t like it but whatever.
That’s what we were going to do. Buy a house and she was going to sell them. It seemed like a great plan. We qualified, it was hard and we had a lot of debt to eliminate before the house could be ours.
My wife is a wizard with money. I say that because anyone can be good with money you have. She was great with money we didn’t have. We got our house and we moved in. It was crazy, we had a house. We had a big blue house.
The job my wife was to get, the one that promised great money and benefits, it didn’t happen.
Our fault. We were caught up in a plan that was never going to happen. We thought it was one thing and it turned out it was something else. She quit her job at the complex two weeks before she was to start the other. We thought of it as a vacation and it was fun but what happened next was not. There became reasons that pushed her start date back a month. It was upsetting but we still had faith. The next month came and so did another reason. The salesman said that he didn’t understand. He was lying. I knew it. My wife, she was still trying to believe.
A month later my wife got a job as a waitress. That salesman who sold us the house, the one who told Sally he knew she was hired. He thinks that I’m stupid. I have no problem with people thinking I’m stupid.
Financially rough times were about to get rougher. You could say my wife and I went on a financial diet; we took care of the kids but not always ourselves. There was a period of about two months where we didn’t have water, or should I say running water. That was tough. What we did have was seven five-gallon jugs and we’d fill them up at my mom’s or at Michael and Tammy’s apartment every day. We took turns going to my Mom’s for showers, the girls going one day and the boys the next. We did laundry at the Laundromat. It was rough but we survived and we’ve never lost water again. The electric is shut off for normally no more than a day, and that’s always for stupid reasons. It’s the same with the phone and gas.
I hear the distractions from behind. I hear the whispers blowing around the basement but I don’t want to.
“Stop! Stop!”
They leave with the ending of my yell. Why they leave so easily I don’t know. I don’t care either. My focus is strong.
I was wrong. I woke on my bed. What happened? I didn’t know. I was in the basement, working, what happened? This isn’t right. I’m getting tired of this. I am, and I won’t let it happen again. No sleep and no food equal no strength. I know this but it’s not something I’m conscious of most of the time. My mind is elsewhere or too intensely focused on the current, so I sometimes miss a lot.
I remember. I remember darn near every experience of my life but right now I can see only one. The memory is over a period of a few months. It was in this time that The Beginning of the End was first completed. Completed, that’s funny because I don’t feel like it will ever end. That story has taken over my dreams.
We decided to enter that contest, the screenplay contest. We thought screenplays would be easy. Of course we didn’t do it the proper way. It wasn’t because we didn’t try. Our limited education and lack of time didn’t help; we thought we had a plan.
We knew that we wanted six parts to the story but we didn’t want to call them parts, episodes, or some multi-word name. We couldn’t. So we call them, The Beginning of the End One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six.
One is always hard for me. One roars into my dreams and even conquers my thoughts while I’m awake. When I work on that story it takes over. I experience everything each character experiences and sometimes it’s just not right. Sometimes it’s too real.
I’m always running, running through the woods and it’s always cold and I’m always running. I’m running for my life and those I’m with at the time. We run through the woods, down roads, past buildings, through houses, across fields. Every time I shut my eyes its different scenes from the story and One is just hard on me. It hurts.
There are times where I see multiple scenes. They slam into my subconscious, bam, bam, bam, one after another. My vision fades to blackness.
It’s weird, life is I mean. It’s as unpredictable as anything and as predictable as everything. Could of, should of, would of, will do, can do, won’t do, they are all so close together that I don’t see the difference between any of them. They blend and they bleed until reality is no more. No more what? No more reality? I’m not sure what reality is. I don’t think I ever have, then again, maybe I do. Maybe I lie to myself. Maybe we all do.
Like now, I asked for the moment. I need to get some thoughts out of my head. If these thoughts don’t exit my head then I will lose all control, all focus, and that’s not something that is good. Not good for many reasons, reasons that affect all that I care about. I was there. I had focus but now, right now, I have none. The blackness is stronger than my will and there is no choice. No choice for me.
I hear him. The one I’ve battled for more than ten years. This Being is strong. It knows me, kno
ws what it takes to travel me where I don’t want to go.
“No more . . .”
“No more what!” I yell my question to the no one that is in my basement or the no one that’s in my head, in my thoughts? No more what? Just go! Get out of here!
My vision clears and I know where and when I am. Its last night, less than twenty hours ago, we had no kids. Having no kids for the night has different meaning for different people, for my wife and I, it means we have no idea what to do with ourselves. So we find ourselves at a bonfire, a bonfire where we know few people. Earlier in the week an old friend of mine actually his girlfriend calls up. I don’t know her. It’s not right, that I don’t but I don’t, and she was the one who called and invited us to this bonfire. We had to go. It was cool because my little brother Joey was coming up from Kentucky with his son and our Mom was going to take her grandkids for the night. For Sally and I that meant no kids, that’s a cool thing for us. So we said sure, why not.
We’re at the bonfire and it’s a beautiful night. I will say that I wasn’t expecting to see someone from my past. To be more specific a girl from my past, but there she was. I can say that in my memory of this girl, I don’t come away with thoughts, like I was cool. I hadn’t been when I knew this girl. In my memory she was very cool, and I wasn’t, or hadn’t been anyway.
There she was though, walking around the fire and taking a seat right beside my wife. I didn’t know what to do, should I say, “Hey, how are you,” or should I say nothing until she does? Maybe she doesn’t remember me? I knew that wasn’t true. I was too big of a as... I’ll be kind, an idiot that she wouldn’t remember. I knew what I had to do. I whisper to my wife without facing her. She’s cool and she understands my silliness. She picked up on my signal. I said to her, “Life’s interesting,” and she knew what I meant. “Who?” She knew that there was history at the bonfire, history that had to do with me. My response was, “The worst place possible,” and she laughed. She knew that meant the girl beside her.
For the next minute she and I talked about it in short sentences that hopefully were not noticed. If it was noticed it wouldn’t be a deal because we were saying nothing bad.
How bad was one of her questions?
Not bad, maybe bad for me, embarrassing anyways.
Silly?
Yeah, and stupid I told her. It was a funny scene. Sitting beside my wife was girl I had history with. The history was not in my favor, it was a time where I was drinking a lot. My drinking stories always end with me not being cool. Not being right. I owe a lot of apologies for my drinking days.
She was, during my drinking days. I needed to say something to her. Our eyes had done the typical meet then look away to pretend that we didn’t, or at least I was. I had to talk to her. She was a good girl and to a minimum I had to find a way to apologize.
Sometimes I stare around and have no idea what’s happening, or even where I’m at, it’s always shocking to the point that I physically jerk back into awareness. It’s shocking sometimes, when certain truths are realized.
I need to get away from this basement. I need to get away now. I’m going down a path of distraction and I can’t allow that. I will not allow that.
Four minutes later I’m back at my computer. I take a deep breath. I was successful. I had gone upstairs thinking that I was going to see my children, but I didn’t. They were still outside with my wife. That is awesome and I was able to keep focus. On the way upstairs I hear my oldest, Jessica, say hey. I respond and walk down the hall to the bathroom. I was able to keep focus. I splash some water on my face and take a deep breath. I don’t look at the mirror for a reason. I wasn’t going to allow distraction.
I had made it out of the bathroom and now I’m downstairs in the basement, staring at the computer.
The lights flash and blackness forms, vision returns and I see the screen in front of me. Stop typing. Wife is at the top of the stairs. There is interruption that cannot be controlled. It’s my younger brother. Joey and his son are on their way home to Kentucky and he is on the phone. The interruptions are cool, he tells me about our football team. Raider information is one of few interruptions that I don’t mind, especially when they win. Today they won.
I need to breathe. My vision blurs but my hands continue typing. My head lowers from weight and I have vision of the keyboard below me. I see my hands typing then I hear the roar. It’s a silent roar that echoes through my thoughts, blackening all until there is nothing. There isn’t even sound after the roar fades. I mentally pull myself to focus.
I’m aware. I know what I need to do. I turn the computer off and walk upstairs. In the kitchen at the table is my wife. I give her a kiss and then I kiss the three of my children that are present, Savannah, Anthony, and Brandon. Jessica must have been outside, walking around the neighborhood with her friends.
I’m tired and my mind is not truly in my control. I know my wife wants me to stay with her, to interact with the family. I also know that she doesn’t, she doesn’t want me here, not now. Now, right now it is weird for me. My vision blurs with movement and my concentration is on the images that continually slam into my subconscious. I know my wife and if she knew what was going on she’d want me to do what I have to do.
Sally does. I see it in her eyes. She wants me to stay but she sees it on me, she sees I need to rest. Rest my mind is all I mean, and that can be achieved by sleep, walks, video games, chess, and other distractions that take or allow focus. Then there are the times that rest cannot be achieved.
I kiss my wife and tell her thirty minutes. She says ok and I walk away. It takes all my focus to put one foot in front of the other. I reach for the wall to maintain balance. My vision fades to black and then fades to clear.
I’m inside a car. I’m a police officer and there is another in the passenger seat beside me. I am the driver but I’m not driving. The car is stopped and we’re staring forward, pointing. I see it. I see what they see and I feel the fear they feel.
There is a tall cloaked being standing in the middle of the road directly in front of us. There is a loud low pitch roar from behind and we turn around staring out the back window. There is another tall cloaked being standing in the middle of the road directly behind us.
My vision clears and I’m standing in the hall with my arm to the wall. My focus returns quick and I turn around. Sally and the kids didn’t notice. It must have been only a second but I still feel it. My heart beats fast and my breath matches.
I walk upstairs and into our room. On our bed we have like fifteen pillows. I shut the door and walk to the small TV-VCR combo on the dresser. I know what movie is in and I press play. This needs to be fast and I know it. I know what kind of night I have ahead of me. It’s going to be long, short, slow, and fast. I need my focus so this thirty-minute nap has value.
I lie down and arrange the pillows around me, one for underneath my head and one on each side of my body. There are multiple pillows creating a small pillow hill for my legs to prop up on. I take three more pillows, One covering my legs, one for my stomach and one for my head. This is what I do. I have only thirty minutes. My wife will wake me on time.
I breathe deeply and slowly. I hear the movie beginning and instantly I began to drift. My eyes are closed and I stare into the blackness but it fades and I’m aware. The air becomes cold and breath visible. I move the pillow from my head and instantly I jerk from fright. He was there, on top of me. I see the blackness inside the outline of the being. I see the arm, the arm slamming down, pounding my chest. Breathing becomes hard as piercing pain spreads throughout my body. I reach up and grab the being by the neck. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that but it didn’t matter. He strikes down busting through my grip and pounds my chest. I try to roll out from underneath but I can’t.
Go! Go!
I wake shaking but not yelling. I breathe harder and my chest hurts. I stare around the room and see nothing. I know I’m tired. I know I need sleep. So I rest my head and cover up with a
pillow. My eyes shut and instantly I hear a loud low pitch roar.
I sit up throwing the pillows off me to the floor. I stare around the room and see nothing. I know what’s happening and why, this is a battle I know. This is my demon and I’ve battled it before. I just won one, he’s gone and I call that victory. I’m confident I’ll get my rest. I shut my eyes and instantly my demon is on top of me. He roars as he strikes down, through my attempts to block him.
One after another he strikes down, Bam, Bam. Pounding until I wake. My chest hurts and I breathe hard. This has got to stop. Then my vision fades to white. There is no sound. There is nothing. No fear, no panic, there is nothing but white air all around my presence. A voice, a soft voice that sounds far away calls my name. I have no ability of speech so I cannot answer.
Again my name is called and then the whiteness fades. I wake in bed. The pillows are still in position and my wife is outside the door, calling my name. Its thirty-five minutes later. My nap is over. Time to get up and that’s what I do. I gave three baths, ate dinner, played a game with Michael, and kissed my wife to sleep on the couch. Now I’m here in the basement. I have seven hours until they all wake. I don’t know.
If people want to be confused then they will be. If they don’t then they won’t. That’s how I feel right now, confused. We all are, but who cares? I don’t. I don’t! I don’t!
“Son of a blaaaaaaaaaaaa!” That’s all I can yell. I can’t see anything. I can’t think of anything and if I do it’s only in my focus for a second. There are too many, too many thoughts and memories. They move too fast. I can’t maintain focus and I travel without control. The blackness is quick but the roars are quicker. They erupt all around my presence and then I remember. My memory calms the roars and the void fades. I know what we are doing and why.
Why Page 8