Haunted Blood

by Elik Katzav

  A faint, hesitant, knock on my door.

  Nothing is set up yet, I’m not settled, nothing’s organized.

  In she comes, the sun shining on her brown hair. She comes over and gives me a hug.

  She’s shivering.

  “So there it is, you’re a hero now,” she sits on my brown armchair.

  - Well… so they say. I saved a bunch of kids and all that.

  She’s laughing.

  Oh, how I’ve missed this laugh.

  “Congrats on your new digs,” she looks around.

  - Thanks. Yeah, I sure miss the smell of glue back at the old upholstery shop. Still, I think this place can be turned into a decent place thanks to a woman’s touch.

  I look at her directly, but she avoids my eyes.

  “You know-”

  Here we go.

  “Itay took very good care of me while you were away. He was really there for me. He stuck by my side throughout all those intensive treatments, always showing me nothing but love and warmth. It was just like back when we began dating. I suddenly saw in him the same person he was back then. He took such good care of me in my time of need, you know.”

  No, I don’t know.

  “What I wanted to say was this: I feel we’re in different places right now, you and I. We each need to come to terms with what had happened. But… I also need to see how it goes with… with him and me. I just want to make sure this is really it, that I am not missing out on something.”

  You certainly are, and I am quite the thing.

  - I see. We’re in different places. That makes sense. I too have things I need to figure out about myself, what I have become. It makes more sense for you to be with Itay right now.

  She’s nodding. I’m agreeing with her, but she’s crying nonetheless.

  - I also think we should probably take a break from one another, a timeout for as long as we’re figuring things out. It’ll be better this way for both of us.

  She’s nodding. The tears won’t stop.

  - I am sure Itay will take good care of you. Please say hello to him for me. Maybe we’ll have a get-together over dinner sometime soon.

  I rise to my feet.

  No point dragging this any further.

  Rose stands up, walks over to me and gives me a hug.

  Her tears are getting my shirt all wet. I cannot bring myself to return the hug.

  There. Over.

  She turns and leaves, taking another look at me right before closing the door behind her.

  Between the fact that I no longer get any sleep and all the images I see floating around me, I keep having all sorts of dreams. To begin with, whenever I did manage to fall asleep, I would immediately have these images of fields of wheat, sheaves laden with grain. I caress them in my dreams as they sway with me. But then, the sheaves suddenly turn blood red and I see Yuval standing over me, firing one shot after another, bullet after bullet. The pain returns. I have a faint sense of it each time I wake.

  There are other dreams as well. I find myself walking on the sea, on the actual water in the middle of an ocean, with schools of fish swimming towards me, then circling around me. Unusually, these are groups of different kinds of fish. Suddenly, they all begin to float above the water, belly up. Dead. The stench of death takes over the scent of salt and even covers the water, which also turn blood red. Once again, it is then and there that Yuval is shooting me all over again. He’s filling me up with holes.

  So I quit sleeping all together. I thought it would be much more difficult, but it turned out to be pretty easy. My body doesn’t seem to require sleep as much as it used to.

  Apart from those dreams, I see all sorts of images floating around. At first, I thought these were merely shadows behind actual people. But then, in the middle of a sunny street, there it was, a woman and a dark shadow that was just sitting on her head. Certainly not a part of her. Some of them exist as shadows that move among us, but some are people who seem just like the rest of us. Only, I no longer consider them so. I have no other way to describe them, except that they look, walk, talk and laugh, living life just like us, but they aren’t us. I now see them as shadows of people rather than regular people. I can actually see them, same as I can see everyone else.

  Then came the month of September, and before I know it, it is gone again. The breeze coming from the sea is heavier now. One day, I return home and the wind pushes the door in and knocks over a potted plant with such force, it smashes all over the floor. I swear, and as I walk over to fetch a broom and dustpan, I turn on the TV on some random channel.

  As I begin to clear the debris, the interviewer moves on to her next guest on the show and says, “Please meet him and hear the story of his astonishing recovery from ALS. His rehabilitation is no less than a miracle.”

  I lift my head to the screen, only to catch a glimpse of Eldad, seated on a couch next to the talk show host. I am still fixed to the set as I feel the floor for additional bits of pot and sand. I pick them up without watching. I am only seeing him.

  Then, I feel this twinge and pull my hand away. A got a cut from one of the shards. Cursing again, I walk over to wash my hand from the soil and the blood, still staring at the screen as the host summarizes Eldad’s life and career up to this point and talks about ‘this unique research’ he was part of.

  The water seems to dull the pain and I turn the tap off, reach for a paper towel, wipe my hands and throw it away. Then, I go over to the bin and take a look. I pull the used paper towel out.

  Huh? There’s only water.

  I look closely at my hand.

  No trace of a cut.

  “So tell us,” the interviewer is asking Eldad, “how does it feel to be given a new lease on life, literally?”

  Eldad laughs wholeheartedly.

  Yeah, go ahead, laugh now, I half think to myself, half mutter to myself.

  This is far from over.

  “I had this strong feeling,” Eldad replies, “that I still have quite a bit to give back to this world, so I put up a fight to remain.”

  She nods. “Go on, tell us a bit about the treatment you’ve been through. I understand this is still in a trial phase which not everyone can afford?”

  Of course not, I snicker, all you have to do is find a lost God and be willing to sacrifice half a dozen people to bring said God back to life. Then, you’d be able to afford this particular treatment.

  “Sure,” Eldad answers, “I won’t lie to you-”

  -yeah, right,

  “-Yes, my vast investment in the process allowed me the honor of being the first person to attend the trial.”

  “So in effect, you are saying that it is only thanks to your money that you are here, on your own two feet, talking to me now,” she gets more blunt. “Meaning, had it been an ordinary person, you could not possibly afford the cure?”

  “Of course,” he smiles and continues, looking directly at the camera. For a moment there, our looks lock on. “I am here because I am no “ordinary person”. I believe I am destined to greatness, which is why the Lord-”

  Which one? I thought you believed in Dagon.

  “-God,” he ignores my comments at the TV, “has afforded me the chance to come back and perform, do his bidding here on Earth. I would like to use the opportunity of speaking to you now to announce my return to run for public office, now that I am well again.”

  “That’s very interesting news,” she replies. “And aren’t you concerned the effects of the treatment are merely temporary?”

  There she goes again.

  “Do you think it is right and proper to commit to a grinding post, when only a short while ago you were practically on your death bed?”

  Eldad is laughing again. “I cannot tell you how much I missed the ability to laugh,” he tells her as she smiles back at him. “In the course of
this illness, there were days that even breathing took a toll, but now,” he turns once more to face the camera, “I am on a new course, a new man, and the treatment,” he looks back at the talk show host, “is not yet over. I am still missing another ingredient so that I may maximize the effect of the treatment,” he says. “By the grace of God,” he gazes directly at the camera, and me, “I shall see the treatment through and be more than I ever was.”

  I nod and frown, clenching my lips as I shut the set off.

  Then, I finish clearing the dirt and debris away.

  I don’t know, but what Eldad said suddenly makes sense to me.

  Perhaps there is hierarchy in nature and some people should indeed be above others. True leaders need to be able to make sacrifices, however cruel that might seem at the time. History may judge the situation as the lesser of all possible evils.

  I examine my palm. The common ivy I am holding looks so lush.

  When did I last water it? When did it sprout and grow so green?

  I caress the leaves for a moment, feeling the plant’s force of life. Its leaves seem to be growing as they come in contact with my hand. I can see them climb my fingers, twisting around as they, in turn, caress my fingers. I find myself watching the plant as though it were a moving animal seeking the warmth of my body, just like a cub or a chick clings to its own mother.

  I close my eyes and shake my head.

  Well, what does it matter now?

  I shove the plant into the dust bin.

  Epilogue

  Eldad is coming down the stairs and walks in. The room is bare, but for a long bed, almost 15 feet in length, consisting of two hospital beds attached together.

  The bed is positioned at the center of a black circle. There are all sorts of markings and drawings over the circular black part of the floor, complete with ancient inscriptions and deep carvings that run into the floor itself.

  Massive spotlights beam at this bluish white figure on top of the bed, washing it with light. It’s shaking, shivering, as it is stretched over both beds, from head to foot. The figure is flickering: one minute it is here, the next, it is not, like some illusion that keeps showing up, only to disappear, one second residing in our universe, and the next—no longer here.

  “So, any progress?” Eldad asks a man dressed in a lab coat, rather loudly. The man, who looks like he might be a doctor, moves from the shadow into the bright light. He’s holding a tablet.

  “Not yet, sir. You have to understand that everything we are doing here is so cutting edge, it has never been done before. None of it! We are as yet in no position to restore the blood we are pumping away. We are still dependent on its naturally occurring production. Nevertheless, aside from it replenishing its own blood in its own good time, we are completely dependent on its flickering. As long as it is here, we can continue drawing its blood, but we have no control over its location.”

  Eldad is moving his hand along the bed as he steps alongside the figure laying over it.

  “Do whatever it takes. We need to push the product out ahead of the next phase. Just make sure you are not killing him in the process. I don’t think we’ll ever see another of his kind.”

  “Yes sir, we’ll make all the necessary preparations,” the doctors answers him, full of dread.

  Eldad completes a full round circling the bed and stands by the figure’s head. Then, he positions himself by its side, adjusts the blanket over the bumps at the figure’s shoulders, caressing his hands over the flurry of white feathers protruding under the covers. “I don’t know whether what you’re feeling constitutes a nightmare or a dream for you, but if you do feel us pumping your life force out of you, then I hope you are dreaming, and that in your dreams, you are right back in Heaven again,” he whispers at the flickering figure.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  About the Author

  ELIK KATZAV has been a gamer, a bookkeeper, carny, a webmaster, an app developer, a startup entrepreneur, a dogsitter and an educator.

  He is a passionate collector and teller of stories.

  Together with his wife and two adventurous boys, he has traveled to almost every continent on the planet. But most of all, Elik is a passionate collector and teller of stories.

  Message from the Author

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