by JN Chaney
“Not in a million years,” she told me.
I nodded. “Then do it.”
She touched the key, and the screen changed. A long sequence of numbers and letters flooded across, cycling too fast to read.
Suddenly, everything went black. We both stared vacantly at it.
“Jonah…?” I muttered after a moment.
No answer. A stretch of silence passed, the heat in my body rising as I feared the worst. What the hell was I expecting? I thought. We’re sitting here on a computer we built with illegal parts, trying to rebuild something we know nothing about. God, I’m so stupid.
I turned to Leslie and started to say something, but a voice interrupted. “Hello,” it said.
My eyes widened and I nearly choked. “Jonah! Are you alright?”
“Where am I?” he asked, but his voice was different. More mechanical, maybe.
“You’re inside another computer,” Leslie explained. “How do you feel?”
“Who are you?” he asked.
I paused at the question. Did he really not recognize us? Maybe I sounded different to him. Maybe this computer was strange for him. “It’s me Jim. The plan worked. Leslie and I got you out of the lab and now you’re safe. Don’t worry. Your voice is a little off but I’m sure Leslie can fix it. Do you need us to get you anything?”
There was a pause after that, and for a moment I wondered if he was still there.
“Hello, Jim,” said the voice in the machine. “My name is Jonah. It is very nice to meet you.”
The Other Side of Nowhere
A hospital in Georgia
A nurse rushed into the ER with an informational board. “Doctor Morris,” she said. “The patient’s car was hit on the driver’s side by another vehicle at downtown’s 45th and Main intersection. The other driver, Daniel Mack, is here.” She pointed to the farthest man, opposite the room. “No broken bones, just some bruises. He has a blood alcohol level of .25.”
“And this one?” The doctor nodded to the nearby patient, lying unconscious on the hospital pad.
Though her professionalism was present, the nurse still had trouble saying the words. “He has six cracked ribs, a broken left arm, and,” she paused briefly, “there’s internal bleeding.”
“Prep him.”
Abram Farm
Johnny Abram sat quietly under the shade of a large pine tree. The sun was going down, settling like a wildfire. He could see the moon already. It was full and bright, though he expected it would light up the sky all on its own soon enough. He stretched out his arms and leaned back against the wooden trunk. It wasn’t long before another man approached.
“Took your time, didn’t you?” Johnny asked, not bothering to look up.
“Well, damn, Johnny,” answered the man, and then sat down next to him. “You know how my wife is—can’t get her to let me away for more than five seconds. I had to practically swear on my life I’d be there on Sunday. I don’t think I can find an excuse to get out of it this time.”
“You’re married now, El. Church is just something you’re gonna have to get used to.”
“Yeah, well, it still ain’t no fun.”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be fun,” Johnny remarked.
They both laughed.
“Susie was asking about ya’ll the other day,” said El. “She ain’t seen Gale in about a week.”
“Yeah,” said Johnny. “Sorry about that. We’ve just been busy dealing with a few things, I guess.”
“Yeah, she was just wondering was all.”
“How is Susie, anyway?”
“She’s up in a roar about this new shed I’m building.” El chuckled. “Says I do things like this just to get her going. Hell, maybe I do.”
“If that were me, I think I’d cave. I’d feel bad about it.”
“Shucks, you feeling bad? You still ain’t confessed about when you said you were going to work, and really you went with me and Phil to Atlanta.”
“Hey, I almost told her last night.”
“And?”
Johnny grinned. “We got a bit sidetracked.”
“Figures. Ain’t you two something else? Been married over ten years and still acting like kids.”
“Anyway,” El went on, pretending to be disgusted, “‘about what you called me for—what is it? If it was just to talk about the wives, I’m gonna smack you.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said seriously. “I almost forgot.”
“Well get to it already,” El said. “What’s up?”
Johnny paused a moment, then took another look at the fading sun. “It’s like this...”
Emergency Room
His eyes opened. The room was bright. There were curtains all around him with people both coming and going, and everyone was wearing green and white.
“Doctor, the patient is awake,” said one of the women suddenly. She towered over his limp body, her face covered in some kind of protective green mask.
“Sedate him and let’s begin,” the man answered. “And someone see what’s taking Doctor Shen so long. We need him for this operation.”
Johnny moaned, trying to speak. He wanted answers: where he was, who they were, where Gale was, why he couldn’t feel anything. But he couldn’t ask her what was going on. He couldn’t ask her what she was doing. He couldn’t do a thing but lay there, helpless. She placed a plastic device over his mouth and nose, and said, gently, “Count back from 100, please.”
But he didn’t count. In fact, he tried his best to stay awake, but it was no use. The drugs would have their way, and before he knew it, the light began to fade.
Abram Farm
“I don’t understand, Johnny,” said his wife as she poured a glass of iced tea. “You didn’t have to tell him.”
“He’s my best friend, Gale.”
“Well, I’m your wife,” she said.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he just looked her. Her beautiful red hair flowed over her neck—just the way he liked—and her face seemed more alive today than it had in months. If he didn’t know any better, he’d never know she was sick.
“Look, John, this is a big deal. We can’t let it get out. If people knew—”
“If people knew, they’d freak out. I know. You’ve told me a thousand times. But, so what? Who cares what they say?”
“I do! It’s my life. It’s my decision to make, whether or not I want the whole town coming around asking if I feel alright, asking if everything’s okay. I don’t want their charity or their pity. I just want to be me, okay?” Her voice started to crack.
Johnny put his hand gently on the back of her neck and brought her closer to him. Their foreheads touched. “It’s alright,” he said in a low voice. “Gale, I’m sorry. I won’t say anything to anyone else, I promise. I already told El not mention it to anyone, and he said he wouldn’t. I made him swear. He’s good on his word. You know that.”
“What if he tells Susie?”
“He won’t. I made sure of it.”
“How?”
“I told him if he said anything I’d tell everyone about Colorado.” He smiled.
She paused a moment. “Oh! Is that when he got arrested for being naked or something?”
“Close. He was drunk, and Susie locked him out of the hotel room, and he was naked, like you said. She didn’t mean for it to last long—only a few minutes—but there was a cop outside and he saw El running around making all kinds of noise.”
They both laughed at the thought of it.
“Anyway, you should have seen his face light up in fear when I said I’d tell everyone if he said anything. You could tell his lips were sealed.”
“Well, good,” she said. “But if he does tell anyone, he’ll get more than an embarrassing story from me, I promise you.”
They laughed again, and Johnny kissed his wife, and she smiled that smile of hers—that beautiful and heavenly smile—and the day, they silently agreed, like so many others, was worth remembering.
A White Room
Johnny Abram opened his eyes and the light hit him like a hammered nail. He tried to scream because of the pain, to call for help, but when he went to open his mouth, nothing came.
Where was this place, and where was Gale? Wasn’t he just with her at their farm? This had to be some sort of dream. Yes, that was it. Maybe he’d fallen asleep.
“Doctor,” called a woman. “The patient’s awake!”
“Impossible,” said the man. “He should be out cold.”
“No, sir. Look!”
“You’re right,” he said, standing over Johnny. “Give him another shot, but keep him monitored. We need him asleep, not in a coma.”
And moments later, he was. The bright light faded, along with the strange dream of the white room, and soon even the memory of it had gone.
Abram Farm
El stood beside him as he stared beyond the fading light. The sun was sinking back into the mountains, the blue sky turning orange and red and purple, chaotic and tranquil all at once. Johnny breathed deeply and sighed. He loved this place, this land. It was so old and he knew so little of it all, but it was his home and had been since the day he’d found it. “I’m sorry, El,” he finally said. “I can’t go with you.”
El sighed, but didn’t look at him. “Figured you’d say that,” he said. “Clearwater’s pretty far away from here. I hope you’ll visit us there.”
“This is my home. I can’t leave.”
“Is this why you brought me all the way out here?” El asked. “To tell me you’re not coming with us?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “This is where I asked her to marry me.”
“Really?” he asked, surprised. “Nice spot.”
“It was right over there next to that tree,” Johnny pointed. “We had a picnic. She packed up the food and cloth afterwards and looked up to say something…and there I was, on one knee and nervous as hell.” He wiped his nose and coughed. “I can’t leave those memories.”
“Guess there’s no way I can change your mind, then,” El sighed. “The wife’s gonna miss you something fierce. You know she’s gonna just cry and cry.”
Johnny smiled. “And you?”
“Now, you know I ain’t never been one for saying that sort of thing, but…” He laughed. “Guess we both know how I feel about it.”
“Yeah,” said Johnny, throwing his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Same to you, buddy.”
The Room
“Doctor, the patient isn’t responding to the medication!”
Johnny Abram opened his eyes.
“Then switch to—”
The man’s voice suddenly became a hard shrill, indecipherable, like a high-pitched siren. Johnny tried to ask them to stop, tried to move or speak, to do anything and everything he could to tell them of the noise, but it was no use—he couldn’t move, he couldn’t scream. He couldn’t stop it.
Johnny.
Johnny, wake up.
The Void
Johnny Abram stood alone atop a desert road. The noise was gone, along with the room and the strange people in masks.
Was he dreaming again? If so, then his dream had just become a nightmare, gone from mildly unpleasant to something else entirely.
Before him lay a vast and endless desert. The grains of sand sparkled like a hundred million tiny oceans, reflecting every bit of sunlight within reach, and for a moment it was like standing between two identical skies, each containing all the celestial beauty of the other.
What was this place? The dunes beyond the gravel seemed to go on forever, merging with the sky as if they were the same entity, where the gold, reflective flakes met the bronze and royal firmament, their colors finding adopted homes within the grains of the earth. And as the sky was reborn again and again in the different shades of a thousand canvases, so also did the dunes find and reflect their will.
Johnny walked along the dueling skies, his feet leading his mind as it muddled over the impossibility of such a place, but, he decided, it must be real, somehow…and this road must lead somewhere, eventually.
After a time, the fading sun collapsed back into the far side of the world. As the light escaped the sky’s attention, it was replaced by a hundred thousand others. The stars of the universe shined, their angelic light reflecting off the gem-like sand, until the only thing that existed was an orchestra of light playing continuously throughout both heaven and Earth.
Johnny walked on, seemingly encased within the universe itself.
For a while, it was difficult to tell where the road was in all of this, because everything was dark except for the stars and their reflective counterparts. The only thing that helped him was the realization that the road did not reflect the sky the way the sand seemed to, and so, although it was pitch black, there were no stars on the road, which meant that all he had to do was follow the darkness. So he did.
He walked along the hidden path for longer than he cared to know, but never once did he stop—never once did he doubt that the truth was somewhere before him—the answer to an unspoken riddle.
Soon the darkness of the world evaporated into cerulean morning light once more, and Johnny Abram stood alone, unable to fathom what it was he saw before him along the road of the wastes.
The Door stood atop the road, its deep, black oak both thick and strong. It was at least ten feet tall, seven feet across, and it had no handle or knob that could be clearly seen.
He hated it instantly. With all his heart, he wished for it to end—to die, if such a thing were possible. Somehow, it was responsible, he knew. The desert, the men in white coats, the darkness, and his madness. Somehow, this thing was behind it all.
But as he stared into it, time passed, and before he knew it Johnny had become transfixed, his eyes never swaying, never moving from the monolith, and eventually he found himself unable to think of anything else but the Door, unable to look away. Unable to speak. Unable to move at all.
Johnny Abram
Johnny sat alone in his house. The television was on, but the sound was mute. From what he could see, it was the news, and the headline said something about another little boy missing. They showed people looking for him in the woods, putting up posters, and eventually putting out a call to anyone that might have any knowledge of the child’s whereabouts. He felt sorry for the boy, but there was nothing he could do.
He got up to look for Gale.
He went up the stairs, first to the bedroom, then the guestroom, and finally back downstairs and into the kitchen. He looked everywhere, all the while feeling as if he had just missed her—like she had just left the room—and so he continued, over and over again, searching continuously without a trace.
After a short while, he gave up and proceeded back into the living room, thinking that if he stayed in one spot long enough, his wife might walk by.
But she never did.
He began to watch the television again. It was still the news, except this time they were covering a car accident. The headline read Auto Accident at 45th and Main.
But Johnny ignored it.
He walked over to the nearby fireplace and took one of the pictures of the two of them. It was an old photograph—about seven years ago—with Gale sitting on a chair and Johnny standing behind her. She was wearing a dark green dress, her long red hair flowing down over her shoulders like a cloud. And her face—
What the hell? He thought. What’s wrong with her face?
It was smudged, distorted, faded. He threw the picture into the sofa—it bounced and shattered onto the ground—and he quickly found another.
This one had been taken only a year ago, but his wife’s face was exactly the same as the last. Frantically, he looked through them all, tossing them back until at last there were no others left. This couldn’t be right. Why were all the pictures smudged? Someone must have done this, he thought.
He sat again on the sofa, rubbing his forehead so hard it burned.
He looked at the television again. The headline ha
d changed again. This time, when he looked at the words on the muted screen, his eyes widened, and a sudden rush of disbelief rolled over his entire body. The headline read: Gale Abram Dies of Cancer. She was thirty-four.
He didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t do anything at all. He just sat there, staring at the words. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Gale was here somewhere, and any minute she’d walk through the front door, back from the market or the church, complaining about how bad the traffic was and wondering all the time what Johnny was up too. And the second she got there, they would hug and kiss and laugh and cry. And she would smile that smile of hers, that wonderful and beautiful smi—
That smile, he thought, and tried to remember it. It was right on the edge of his mind, but he couldn’t bring it back. It was gone, lost somehow, like he misplaced it.
Oh God! he thought. I can’t remember anymore!
He continued to watch the news broadcast in hopes of seeing her face, but they never showed it. They went through interviews with her friends and some doctors, and finally concluded with a glimpse of her funeral. A lot of people were there, including her parents, friends, sister, extended family, and even some people Johnny didn’t recognize.
The tears began to gush uncontrollably, unstoppably, and for the first time since he could remember, Johnny wept for his dead wife—wept so hard his cheeks began to hurt, so red with grief that he felt the warmth of the blood like a fire below his skin—wept and screamed and raged and breathed and loved—wept until he cried out with everlasting joy, of acceptance, of understanding, of something so entirely new to him that it shook his mind in a such a way that only those who have transcended can truly understand—he wept, determined and resolved, his mind transfixed and certain—he wept, and wept, and wept, until, at last—
Johnny Abram moved again.
The Door
It was quiet along the road of the great Void. For an eternity, there had been silence there—there had been peace. Its peculiar majesty had not been seen or felt by mortal men since the days of the last Buddha, but time, like so many other things, is irrelevant. The Door will wait forever for the chosen few for as long as men draw life from beyond its arch.