It was then that he saw Phil blocking his way.
Vindictive Twist of Fate
“Don’t come any closer Josh,” Phil said as he lifted his arm and pointed a gun straight at his son’s heart. “Put Maria down and move away from her. Don’t worry, I will not harm her. I have just two bullets left; one is for you and the other for me.”
Josh slowly put Maria down on the sand and walked away from her, all the time looking at the pistol which was closely following his movements. Some voice inside his head told him to fight back; he could easily overpower his aging father. But this was surely a mistake, Phil would never hurt him, he just wanted to talk and grieve for his older son. But how did he get to know about it so soon? His mind went blank. He could not understand what was happening or rather he did not want to understand what was happening.
He heard Maria’s voice from somewhere behind him, “Oh Josh, I forgot to tell you that he was helping Freddie. Phil, put the gun down. He’s your son too. Just remember how much you loved him when he was a boy.”
But Phil looked somewhat deranged, “If you move, Maria, I will blow his brains out this very second, bam, no discussions and no explanations.”
Maria immediately stopped limping towards her husband.
Phil’s voice shook, “May died last month and now you have killed our only son. I promised her plenty of grandchildren, his children, so that she will never die. And Freddie wanted Maria. All he ever wanted was to start a family with her and now you have killed him.”
“Phil,” Maria interjected. “Please, Phil, you are not thinking straight. Have you ever asked yourself why he wanted me when he could have had anyone? It was because Josh loved me. Freddie never loved me, he was just obsessed with the object that made his brother happy. And he killed himself with his determination for revenge. Josh had nothing to do with it.”
“I’m not having this discussion with you, whore. Don’t make me use the second bullet on you.” Phil’s arm swung menacingly towards her.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles, Maria. Just shut up.” Josh had never used that tone with her. “Hey Phil, look at me. Look at me, Phil.”
Phil’s arm swung back and Josh sighed with relief. “What did you expect me to do, Phil? Give him my wife on a silver platter just because he is used to having whatever takes his fancy? You made Freddie sick with the twisted obnoxious childhood you wanted to immerse us in. Perhaps if you had been honest about it there wouldn’t have been all this pain and vengeance brewing around us. I never asked to come into this world. I had no control on what my parents did in a filthy broom cupboard.”
“I know that,” he bellowed. “You were my mistake, a mistake that hurt my May and killed my Freddie. You were never meant to exist; now I must clean up my mistake.”
Josh closed his eyes. The familiar wounds in his heart started to bleed again. He was transported back to his childhood, to his mother’s yearly visits. She too had told him repeatedly that he was a mistake. He had somehow endured that, hoping that his father would actually feel differently about him. But that illusion was now permanently shattered. He did not want to run or fight back, he just wanted it to end.
“Dad, get on with it. Do it for Freddie and May. We have nothing else to discuss.” He opened his eyes and calmly watched his father’s finger curl around the trigger. He heard the click followed closely by the bang. Insurmountable burning pain scorched his chest, eating away at his insides. He looked down and stared at the spreading red stain across his white shirt. He staggered backwards and, as he hit the ground, he heard this second shot. Then Maria started screaming beside him.
“Don’t leave me Josh, you never told me that you might get hurt today, I would not have wanted you to come. Just hold on, the kids need you, I need you, we all need you. You must keep on fighting. Don’t you even think of giving up, you can’t leave me, I will not let you leave me. I love you Josh,” she cried as she fell across his bloodied chest.
He looked at her face all twisted in agony. He reached out and touched her hair. He had always liked the feel of those soft curls slipping through his fingers. He tried to smile. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that it was all right, she would move on without him and would someday find her happiness, but he could not find enough strength to say what was on his mind. His breathing was failing. The pain was unbearable.
He had never seen this coming, but again, this world was never meant to be his.
He looked up at the cloudless blue sky as his life flashed before his eyes. He was grateful for every second of it. It was much more than he ever deserved. He was happy. He smiled. He let go of her hair, closed his eyes and willed himself to leave that burning flame behind.
He saw his body from a distance. Maria was desperately trying to pump his heart back to life. Marco’s holler for help echoed around the cliffs as he ran towards the bleeding wreck. There was profound horror on his friend’s face...Marco, his friend, his closest friend, they had become inseparable these past two years and he knew that his death would shatter him. Perhaps, perhaps his friend would continue to protect Maria and the children. He could not think of a better person to do that. He felt no jealousy; he only wanted her to be happy and safe. He wanted her to move on and live her life to the fullest.
So, the bloody broken body on the beach in his dream was his own. That was the significance of the black mist surrounding the body; he had looked on it through his own dying eyes. He had organised the extravagant medical team for his own benefit. The vindictive twist of fate; he had managed to change Maria’s destiny but in so doing he had opened a new path for himself. The grieving Josh would be replaced by the grieving Maria. They were never meant to live together beyond this point.
“You are wrong.” The tall dark-haired man stood beside him. Josh could see and hear him clearly. He had never been able to hear him before. He must have died.
“Josh, you were never meant to die today. You have gathered a wonderful team here, the crème de la crème, the best surgeons and paramedics, only the best for your wife, and it is nothing that they can’t handle immediately. You have to go back. Remember your dreams; there was never a hint that you would die; injured and in need of urgent medical help yes, but never death. I must ask you to embrace destiny this time. From now on you have to keep on going with the flow of fate.”
Josh remembered his dreams; there was either a grieving Josh and children, or a happy family visiting a family grave. There had never been a crying Maria.
“All right, it’s not destiny. But I’m not going back. She can start afresh. She can do that. I’ve seen her with Freddie in my dreams and if she could manage to lust for him after what he did to her in Murren, she could easily have the same feelings for anyone else. She doesn’t need me.”
“You have misinterpreted what you have seen in your dreams, it was not passion but fear. He would have threatened her with killing you and your children and she would have done everything to prevent that, even fake her love for him. Did you not also see her caress your photo just a few minutes before Freddie came into the room? Don’t let your jealousy dictate what you interpret from your dreams. If you go back ask her why she was screaming her head off when she boarded that plane. Just look at her now. Do you honestly think that she can move on? I know my daughter and she will only love one man in her life and that is you.”
“Huh, love only one man in her life, I wish,” he roared as he clenched his hands in tight fists. “Then tell me, why did she betray me with my own brother in some restroom? He wasn’t threatening her then.”
“She stopped....”
“I don’t care. It still happened. And she must have done something else today too. She looked as guilty as hell.”
“I brought her up in innocence and love. She was not prepared for your world of glamour, perfection, cunning and manipulation. It overwhelmed her. Freddie had to play with her mind before he seduced her. He told her about you and Pam before moving in on her on the dance floor,
and today he threatened to kill her kids. But I think that she handled Freddie quite well on both occasions. Stopping in both situations was not easy.”
“Stopping is not important. It should never have happened in the first place.” He growled as he punched the air in exasperation and kicked viciously at the sand. The psychiatrist just looked on as the young man continued to vent the frustration that had been locked up all those years. This was a first for Josh. When he was a boy he never spoke to anyone about the wounds in his heart that bled profusely every time he was rejected. And after he got married he never confronted his wife about her small subtle actions which were hurting him so much. He had kept everything bottled up. No wonder it was now overflowing.
“That’s it Josh, get it out of your system. You are allowed to get angry at the world, or at your wife, or at me. You don’t have to keep it all in. Sometimes it feels good to shout and scream and above all, to talk about it.”
Josh stopped fuming and laughed heartily. He fell down on the sand and spread his arms and legs. He had always enjoyed doing angels in the sand whilst looking up at the endless infinity above him. He had often wondered if there was anyone up there in the sky watching him. Today his guardian angel was down here beside him.
“Oh, you are good...the best psychiatrist that ever existed...the crème de la crème. You got me just as you used to get me every time when I was five. I used to feel really great after a good solid conversation with you. Why did you stop those sessions? You could have helped me a lot, you know.”
“I know Josh.”
“I felt really let down when you left. There I was, I had finally found someone who cared about me, who understood me, and then he just left, because his family circumstances dictated him to do so. I was never on top of anyone’s pile, always second best. Your departure hurt as much as my mother’s repeated rejections.”
“I know that too and I’m sorry. But destiny wanted it that way. Now it is calling you back. You don’t have much time left, they can’t keep shocking your heart. What are you going to do Josh?”
Josh looked at the desperate, hysterical Maria still trying to bring his heart back to life.
“Josh, stop thinking about the small subtle things she used to do to hurt you. She only acted that way because she felt she never deserved you. It was her way of lashing out against your physical perfection and superior intellect. Think about the big things she did. You had once asked her “...Surely you still do not want to go through with this madness just to spend a few more years with me?” ...And she chose to stay with you even though you repeatedly warned her of the dangers. Splitting up was never an option for her. She wanted that short happy life with you rather than that long empty life without you. And she chose you again today when she thwarted Freddie’s shot out on the cliffs. She knew that she was about to fall, she had recognised the ledge, but she was prepared to die for love. Josh, just remember what I wrote in that black diary many years ago. This is the time when you must believe that there are people who really love you for who you are and for nothing else. You are on top of someone’s pile...hers. Start believing in yourself. You have to go back, son.”
A shrill unearthly scream stunned them. Both men looked round. Josh was horrified to see Ben shrieking in fear. His son must be in one of his dreams and they must have met in this weird tertiary world where the dead and the “freaks” met and exchanged information. Josh did not move. He saw his father-in-law quickly run to the boy and hug his head close to his chest as he whispered soothingly in his ear. The psychiatrist must be working overtime that day. But Ben was inconsolable. Josh wanted to go to him but he had already lost a lot of time. He had a choice to make.
He looked at the sorry picture. The medics were giving up on him but Maria wasn’t. Marco put his arms around her waist and tried to drag her away from the corpse but she lashed out and tried to break free.
“Don’t give up on him; he is all I’ve got. JOSH, you have to come back to me, I know that you can hear me. I love you Josh. I always have and I always will.”
He had to go back to that burning pain as the bullet tore his insides; he would endure that pain which would get better someday as it got replaced by that happy glow in his heart as he looked on his family again.
Josh dived back into that thick black torture chamber inside his body and his heart started beating again.
****
Josh opened his eyes. He was on this neat white bed in a neat sterile room. She was there beside him, holding his hand. There were tubes sticking out of every inch of his body and he could hear his heart beating on the monitor and the drip drop of his intravenous line. Every breath he took was accompanied by this tearing pain in his side. He wished that he could stop breathing, if that was what it took to relieve the pain.
“Thank God, you’ve made it. Josh, you have to keep on going for me, I can’t survive without you.” There was relief in her exhausted voice. How long had he been there? He tried to lift his hand to touch her hair but the tearing pain stopped him. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth in agony.
“I’ll give you something for the pain, it will soon go away. You will get better, you’ll see,” she reassured him. He heard her fill out a syringe. He felt her warm hands against his ice-cold skin as she injected the fluid. His pain slowly receded and he opened his eyes. She was speaking to him in her gentle voice but he could not understand what she was saying. Her face gradually faded away in the distance as his eyelids drooped and she was gone.
Josh hovered in and out of consciousness for days. He could feel her presence whenever he briefly surfaced for mere seconds. She never gave up on him and she fervently clutched onto those priceless seconds as she encouraged him on. Sometimes Julie would be there too. She would often hold his hand and stroke his hair just as she used to do whenever he was sick. He remembered his birthdays and the way she always used to hold him tight and kiss his pain away after his other mother had left that big wound in his heart. He never spoke to her about it but she knew what he needed more than anything in the world. He was Julie’s son and he will remain to be so in his heart.
He was obscurely aware of various other people in and out of his room, examining him, changing the dressings over his wound and setting up fresh intravenous lines. He could feel Maria shaving his face every morning and adjusting his pillows and sobbing when it must have been too much for her. But it all felt so distant and muddled. After two weeks in that limbo the complications kicked in and he started to shake all over. His debilitated state made him susceptible to various bacteria. This resulted in endless blood sampling and intravenous antibiotics. For the following weeks his body would constantly alternate between periods of intense cold and shaking, and periods of intense heat and sweating.
Josh felt those familiar shivers running down his spine. His temperature was on the rise again. He could vaguely hear Maria talking to someone in the room. She sounded on the verge of collapse.
“He’s been spiking for weeks now and he is conscious for not more than a couple of seconds a day. And you could hardly call it consciousness, he just opens his eyes...he doesn’t speak or move or anything. Rob, there must be something we’re missing.”
So Rob was there. They must have shipped him back to the UK.
“What do you expect? He is lucky to be alive. The bullet pierced his left lung, scraped his heart, tore through major arteries and lodged in his spine. You said he arrested for some five minutes out on the island and the resulting hypoxia might have affected his brain. We cannot know the whole extent of the damage until he fully breaks out of his comatose state. It is possible that he might never regain his full cognitive function. And to top that all up he now has this bug which is resistant to every antibiotic we throw at it. Let’s hope we’ve nailed it this time.”
“He is still spiking…”
“But not as much as he was. Here, take a look at his chart. There is marked improvement today. Maria, we are doing our best.”
; She broke down crying.
“Maria, please, have faith in us. You need to get out of this room, go home and rest. You look absolutely ghastly. Anna told me that you fainted again yesterday.”
“It’s nothing. I get it every time. I’ll be fine after tomorrow.”
Rob sighed, “Shouldn’t you wait to discuss this with him?” One of the monitors started bleeping. “Oh, damn it, his blood pressure is falling again.”
Josh felt the stir of commotion in the room as he slowly started to fade away….drifting further and further afield…..he started to hallucinate in his delirium…
He was thirteen. He had been invited to Freddie’s lavish fourteenth birthday party in Uncle Phil’s massive gardens. But the birthday boy was in one of his resentful moods that day.
“Go away, Josh. You’re boring, no one wants you.” Freddie roughly shoved him back and Josh was sent sprawling on the floor. The other kids sniggered.
Josh picked himself up, shrugged and trudged inside the living room. He looked out of the patio doors and watched the throng of children playing outside on the one hundred pieces of equipment Uncle Phil had bought especially for the occasion. But he felt no envy. He started to observe the children’s tiny subconscious reactions to each other. They were his microbes and he was studying them under his microscope. There was the pretentious stunning Pam chasing after Freddie who was desperately trying to hide his agitation behind his loud boisterous laugh. And there was the sly Fiona, madly in love with Jack but playing hard to get. He smiled, he knew so much about all of them.
“Josh, what are you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be outside playing with the other children?” Aunt May asked as she bustled in the living room, carrying an enormous chocolate cake. “I have to set up the table with party food. You can’t stay in here.” She carefully placed the cake on the centre of the long table and bustled back to the kitchen, leaving the connecting door ajar.
The Blake Soul Page 33