Season of Waiting

by Jim Christopher

  People were standing now. He could see their legs and feel their hands as they helped him to his feet. A rising pressure built behind his eyes. It was coming again. Caleb held his breath as the gale of noise crested against his skull.

  Are you speaking to me? I can’t tell.

  The voice racked the right side of Caleb’s body. He leaned into the strangers, trying to maintain a focus on his children outside. Wes was holding Irene’s wrists. But he wasn’t. No, there were two of Wes now. Two Irenes. One Wes held both hands tight around Irene’s wrists; the other Wes raised a hand to strike her. One Irene struggled to free her hands; the other shrank away from the impending blow. The view unfolded in front of him, and a third Irene appeared in the fray. She was kicking another Wes in the groin.

  The world split around him. A kaleidoscope of scenes and people bent into an impossible space. Caleb squeezed his eyes shut, unable to process what he was seeing.

  Wait, am I doing that? Or is that you?

  Caleb spit through his clenched teeth, “You be quiet!” He moved forward, eyes clamped against the visual cacophony around him. He left the supporting hands behind and lunged for the door—for where the door should be in the darkness. The solid edges of the tables guided him, until they passed, and Caleb braved opening his eyes.

  The door. Irene was outside. All the Irenes. So many. A wave of nausea grew in his gut as the door gave way. The ground bent away from him in every direction. An angry roar built in his ear. The voice. It was coming again.

  He grabbed at his right ear. He had to stem it. To pull the voice from his head. His other hand gripped the frame of the door. Caleb sucked in a thick, dusty breath. His children. They were staring at him now. Every Irene and Wes. The crackle ignited in his ear. The sun dimmed in the sky as the voice approached.

  Caleb hollered, “Be quiet!” He had to get to Irene before the voice hit him. This next one might kill him.

  Is this too much?

  The world grayed at the loudness of the words. His right leg buckled as the voice slammed through his bones. Caleb drifted from the door, away from Irene.

  “Just. Be. Quiet!” he screamed. It should have been loud. The scream tore at the inside of his chest. It grated at the nerves in his throat. But he heard nothing.

  Yeah, okay, this is too much. Let me dial it back a bit, hang on.

  Caleb’s feet flopped, trying to find the ground that flowed beneath him. Above him. Around him. His foot fell off the curb. His body followed. He spun around, arms reaching out, bending in impossible directions. His mind registered a car moments before he stumbled into it.

  Pain. Everywhere. And relief. The voice was quiet. His eyes opened. There was color again. There was Irene. One Irene. Her face was close. She was speaking. He could hear her.

  “Dad? Don’t move!” She was looking him over. “Jesus Christ, don’t move.” Her face tight. Shocked. Concerned.

  The ground was beneath him. Where it should be. It was warm, solid, and supportive. Irene’s eyes found his. She felt his head with her hands, gently probing for injury. He reached up to touch her face, and a surge of pain radiated through his body. He moaned. And then he smiled, because he could hear himself again too.

  “I said don’t move, Dad!” Irene spoke in apneic gasps. “Christ, they could have killed you.” Wes appeared behind her, gawking.

  Pressure. Against his skull. It pushed tears out of his eyes. No. No, no, it was coming again. The voice. Turning back to him. A growling throb grew with each pound of his heart. It scraped against his skull until it reached his right ear. Caleb tensed as it took ahold of him.

  I guess she’s not ready for you to die after all.

  Chapter 7

  Wes

  Wes ran back to his father. Irene squatted over Dad as he lay on the road. Onlookers had gathered from the diner and surrounding businesses.

  “The driver fucking took off!” Wes cried. “Is he okay?” Without waiting for her answer, Wes leaned over his sister to examine his father. Sucking in a breath, he asked, “What the hell is happening with his face?”

  The right side of Dad’s face twitched on and off. In one moment, he scrunched up, as if he was experiencing intense pain. In the next, the eye relaxed, and his cheek and mouth released their tension, leaving his face slack with palsy. While this happened, the other side of his face stayed locked in a mask of constant terror.

  Irene turned to face Wes. “He needs to get to a hospital. This is some kind of seizure.”

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Wes offered.

  Irene waved him off as her phone went to her ear. “You stay with him, I’ll call.” She leaped to her feet and stepped back toward the diner. More people stood there, at a respectful distance, gawking at their dad on the ground.

  Wes knelt next to him. “Hey, Pop, you’re gonna be okay. Irene’s calling an ambulance and …”

  Dad reached out and took Wes’s hand. He heaved out a thick breath, squeezing Wes’s fingers until his knuckles cracked.

  Wes winced at the pressure. “Jesus, take it easy!” He would never have guessed Pop had that strength in him.

  No response. Wes felt the grip relax in his hand. His father’s body rag-dolled against the pavement, his face now slack, eyes unfocused.

  “Pop?” Anxiety bloomed in Wes as he waited for his father to breathe. To blink. Nothing. “Shit! Dad?” Seconds passed. Too many. Wes turned to his sister and shouted, “Something’s wrong!”

  Irene turned around, her phone to her ear. She was holding her breath too. A violent rasp exploded out of Pop, snapping Wes around. Dad was back. Sputtering. His face tightened around his cheeks, eyes pleading.

  “Stop,” he coughed.

  “Stop what?” Wes asked.

  Dad collapsed back to the pavement. His face lost all tension as his stare drifted to Wes’s forehead. Wes put a hand to his dad’s chest, shaking him. “Pop?”

  The murmurs of the crowd filled the surrounding air. “What the hell’s wrong with him?” “I don’t know CPR, but I think my cousin does, should I call him?” “Hey, is he dead? He looks dead.” “Shit, I’ve never seen a live dead guy before, this is messed up!” Through it all, Wes watched his father’s chest. It didn’t move.

  Panic squeezed Wes’s throat. Before he could call to his sister, Pop’s hand shot up, grabbing Wes’s shirt. His mouth gaped as he sucked in a deep breath, releasing it with a ragged cough as he writhed on the street. “Oh, thank God!” Wes said, relief exploding through him.

  “Don’t,” Dad spit between coughs, “don’t let me go, please!”

  “What? I’m not doing anything!” Wes’s hands trembled helpless in the air over his father. Dad’s breathing became labored and deliberate.

  Irene leaned over them, speaking into her phone. Her words clipped, her tone calm. Fifty-nine years old. Hit-and-run. No visible injury. Something about an existing condition.

  Their father’s face tensed, as if he was concentrating. His cheeks reddened, his teeth pressed together, cracking lips stretched in a tight grimace. Pop’s eyes lifted. His right pupil opened. Wider. Too wide, as if it wanted to suck the sun from the sky.

  Hissing through clenched teeth, he spurted, “Two … seven … one eight … two eight … one … eight three.”

  Wes turned to his sister. Her face locked on Dad, her calm veneer cracking around her eyes. “Irene, what the hell is he saying? What is this?”

  “Two seven one eight ... two eight one … eight three,” Pop repeated. Wes felt Dad’s grip relax on his shirt as the tension left his face.

  Irene’s throat swelled as she swallowed. In her matter-of-fact tone, she spoke into her phone. “I think he’s having a stroke. Please hurry.”

  Chapter 8

  Caleb

  I realize this is hard on you, and I’m sorry.

  The impact of the voice had blunted.

  Give me a few seconds to dial this in.

  Caleb watched hi
s body from above. It lay prone on the pavement, Wes kneeling over it—over him—and Irene standing close, on her phone. Caleb tried to speak, tried to ask, “Jesus Christ, am I dead?” No words came.

  No, you’re not dead. Hang on a second.

  Caleb felt his awareness of the scene expand. Details became clear. The texture of the pavement. The particulates in the air, suspended as if the moment had hardened in amber. The tension in the tiny muscles around the eyes of the looky-loos in the small crowd gathered on the sidewalk. The swirl of smoke from Wes’s abandoned cigarette, sketching the current in the air with a wispy tendril.

  Okay, this looks good. You can see everything, right?

  Caleb nodded. Or tried to. There was nothing for him to nod.

  Good, good. Are you able to move?

  Caleb felt no part of his body. No, he couldn’t move. He no longer knew how.

  Huh. Okay, give me another second.

  The stillness of the moment rattled, the details still there, but wiggling.

  How about now?

  The idea didn’t seem possible. Caleb had nothing to move. No way to move. He had nowhere to go. He was already everywhere.

  Shit. Um … okay, I’ll need a minute. I’ve never done this before.

  Caleb waited in the pulsing moment. Cycles became apparent around him. Small and benign details, but Caleb was immediately aware of every one of them. Irene’s body rotated toward his; then the movement was undone. The smoke and particulates in the air flowed on currents he could not feel. Then they moved back, as if the moment gasped them in.

  Nothing?

  No, nothing. The voice filled the space, pushed on him with immense pressure. It was tolerable now. Or here. Whatever this was.

  Dammit. This should work, I don’t see why …

  The cycling details tore themselves apart. Caleb was moving. Or the surrounding scene was moving. He felt nothing—no air on his skin, no tingle in his gut. Yet space bent into something new. Something familiar.

  The boat. Caleb was on the boat now. He could see himself standing at the bow, in front of the small gate, heaving the anchor into Elephant Butte Lake. Behind him, around him, were his children. When his children were kids. Sitting at the boat’s small table, facing each other. The moment was static. Irene separated a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her brother to share. Wes hunched over a soda held between two tiny hands sticking out of an oversized life jacket. His lips pursed as they reached for the can. Caleb knew this day. This was the day Wes first went in the water.

  Whoa, okay, that worked. Did you do that? Or did I?

  Caleb didn’t know.

  I guess it was me, then. Let me check something.

  The scene flailed back to the road. Caleb felt the intimate and still details fade as his perspective moved into his body lying on the pavement. The warm asphalt supported his body. The air moved on his skin. Pain coursed through him. The moment was living again. Caleb heaved in a breath, the effort immense. His chest seized in an involuntary spasm.

  “Stop,” he hissed between hacking coughs. He found his son’s face. It gaped with concern.

  “Stop what?” Wes asked. Caleb didn’t get to answer before he snapped out of himself once more. He hovered over the moment, the air gone, his body not part of himself anymore.

  Sorry, let me try that again.

  Details thickened. The movements of the crowd magnified. Tics on their faces, wrinkling of their lips, shifts in their stances, the subtle changes smeared into a blur.

  This isn’t working like it should.

  Everything sped up. The smears of slight differences grew to broad strokes, overlapping and pressing together. At first, Caleb could make out individuals. Irene, Wes. But their forms smudged as they moved, a kaleidoscope capturing several seconds.

  Hang on. This might be rough.

  The scene became visual noise. People lost their edges. Caleb stopped trying to process any of it.

  No, I need your help with this. Try to focus on something.

  Like what? There was nothing around him except swirls of color.

  Anything. Just one thing. Pull something out of all of this.

  He couldn’t. There wasn’t anything solid.

  Fine! One second, I’ll be right back.

  The colors brightened, blending together into a single view of the sky. Caleb was on the road again. Wes sat over him still, and Caleb reached out, fisting a hand into his son’s shirt. An anchor, to hold him here.

  Caleb coughed, the air in his lungs stale and wanting to escape. “Don’t!” he cried. He tightened his grip on his son. “Don’t let go, please!”

  Okay, I think I’ve got it this time.

  Caleb tried to protest. He didn’t get the chance. The moment trembled; the sky opened behind his son. Caleb’s vision filled with new details. Edges. Shapes. Light.

  Focus. Identify one thing.

  A room. Pricks of light. Three dark edges meeting in a corner. A television.

  Good, come on, hone it in. We’ve almost got it!

  Caleb pushed his perception. The facets of the scene were innumerable. The screen dissolved into millions of points, individual lights. Caleb could see each one.

  Relax a bit.

  The dots of color merged into shapes.

  Good! What do you see?

  The shapes were familiar. Caleb knew what they were. They were numbers.

  Yes, can you read them?

  He could. The first was a two.

  Yes, okay. Keep going, this is helping!

  More numbers congealed from the details. Seven … one, eight … two eight … one … eight three.

  Yes, yes, I think we got it!

  A jolt through his body. He was prone. Strapped to a stretcher. Being rolled into an ambulance. The voice was gone. He could think again. But he didn’t want to. He was so tired. He didn’t know anyone could be this tired. He wanted to go home. Sleep. Maybe forever.

  A man climbed in, his blue uniform crisp. He closed the ambulance doors, the frame to the street shrinking around Irene and Wes. She was biting the skin by her thumbnail and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Wes stood behind her, his hands clenching his shaggy head.

  Caleb felt a gentle rocking as the vehicle moved. He tried to relax as the paramedic poked and prodded him.

  “BT is 97.3. BP is …” The man leaned over Caleb, staring intensely at something connected to his right arm, and whistled. “Jesus, 170 over 110. Pulse is 122 BPM, and respiration …” He paused for a stretch, gazing at Caleb’s chest and mouth. “Huh … 12.” Caleb flinched as a brilliant light filled one eye, then the other.

  Caleb blinked away the fading colors. He took in the back of the ambulance. The space was tight with secured supplies and filled with the sharp smells of chemical cleansers. The only sign of their movement was the swaying of the medic’s torso above him.

  “Who were you speaking to?” Caleb asked him. “There’s no one else here.”

  The medic smiled down at him, his eyes kind as his hands gently probed Caleb’s left arm. “It’s just how we do, sir.”

  Chapter 9

  Irene

  Irene paced the waiting area at Sierra Vista Hospital. The muted television mounted in the corner above their heads played the montage introduction for a popular show that reviewed video clips and home movies. The local news program she was ignoring must have ended. That would make it ninety minutes since they arrived.

  They had hurried to the hospital, just to wait in this stale room to find out if their father was okay. The waiting room was almost empty. The only sounds were the jiggling taps of Wes’s frenetic foot bouncing on the tile floor, and the adolescent girl crying in her mother’s arms on the other side of the room. As she paced, Irene couldn’t help but notice the pattern between Wes’s tapping and the girl’s staccato gasps. Five taps, one sob. Five taps, one sob. Seeing the pattern irritated her, more so when she noticed her stride
s were falling into the rhythm.

  The television mounted in the corner showed a video. It was amateur, based on the camerawork. A doe stumbled away from a young Hispanic boy. The animal was wild, framed by asphalt on one side, small sun-bleached buildings on the other. It wasn’t where it should have been. Like her, in New Mexico. Like Dad back in the emergency room. Like Wes out of rehab.

  “So?” Wes asked.

  Her eyes moved from the television to her brother. He sat in one of the hard plastic chairs in front of the window, his right leg bouncing like it was trying to get away from him. She had sat with him for a while after they first arrived. The uncomfortable silence between them, the hardness of the chair on her bad back, and the vibrations of his wild leg got her moving around the room.

  She crossed her arms over her belly. “I wish there was a way to hurry through the waiting.”

  Wes nodded. “I know, Sis. I’m sorry this happened.”

  Irene shrugged and shifted her weight. They had driven to the emergency room together in Dad’s car. Her panic had worn off. Now the discomfort of being around her brother—of being alone with him—had fully bloomed.

  She scowled. “Yeah, me too.” She turned at the sound of the hospital doors opening. A man in green scrubs entered the waiting room and looked their way for a moment. Irene’s breath caught, but the man turned toward the only other people in the waiting room and called them through the door.

  Irene sat in a chair and leaned into the hard plastic. She pushed her feet into the floor and arched her back until she felt a series of cavitations in her backbone. She relaxed forward, savoring the release of tension. Wes slid across the seats between them, closing the distance she would have preferred.

  He moved to a whispering distance from her. “So what do you think that was?” Stale cigarettes and pastrami stained his quiet voice.

  Irene shrugged and leaned away from his rancid breath. “What?”

  Wes waved toward the doors with his hand. “That thing with Pop? What the hell was all that?”