Stories From My Mind

She gazed out the window blankly, her eyes vacantly staring at a distant past. Placing her right palm against her furrowed forehead, she began to recall the sad memories of so long ago.

Remembering her aching back, strained from the weight of a protruding belly, her eyes squinted as though she could still feel the pain.

But the birth went quickly. With grunts and gasps and an occasional wail, the baby was pushed out, cleaned up, and whisked away. Never to be seen again.

Thirty long years had passed since that teenage experience, and the warmth of tears streaming down her agonized face was still a part of her life, even until today.

But today, things were about to change. DNA results from a genealogical site online may have brought her long-lost child once again into her life. A son, he had said in an unexpected and surprising email. Now they were finally going to meet face to face for the very first time. A door opened, and in stepped a tall handsome dark-haired fellow.

The resemblance was undeniable. They stood, frozen in the moment. So many questions lay just below the surface. He wondering why he had been given away. Were there brothers or sisters? Had she thought about him at all over the years? She wondering what his life had been like. Had he been happy? Had she done the right thing?

Gradually tentative smiles began to appear, first hers, then his. Cautiously they approached one another with uncertainty, neither knowing exactly what to do. They reached out in awkward silence, until ever so gently their hands touched. A tense moment passed, and then they embraced.

Now they stood, arms tightly wrapped around each other until tears turned to sobs. When the sobs gradually subsided a kindred warmth seemed to pass between them as though decades of pent up emotions were suddenly and finally released to flow freely.

Tears wiped away and smiles returned, arm in arm they walked out the door side by side. There were many years to reclaim, much to discover and a new unknown future ahead. Finally, hopefully, at last they were together again.

I often wondered how it might be. Those last few moments of life. The light they say, or at least some have said, glows faintly at the end of a tunnel. As you travel through the tunnel the light becomes brighter until finally you pass on into your next level of existence. You die.

I had expected to be alone when my time came for this moment, but as it happened I was crossing the street, my dear child next to me, with Rex, our sweet little golden doodle, trotting by our side. We never saw the car, a large black SUV, as it careened around the blind curve to our left and plowed into us. Suddenly the bright Sunday afternoon turned to blackness.

There we were, all three of us, standing side by side in a dense fog of semi-consciousness. Faintly in the distance we could see just a hint of light. So dim. So far away. And yet there. We began to walk toward it and as we did the vague image of a cavern, a tunnel of sorts, began to take shape around us. We felt no pain, no sensation at all really, only the sight of the light ahead, growing brighter with each step we took.

Suddenly my young child stopped and slipped her hand from my grasp. “I can’t go on mom, I’ve got to go back.” But I could not go back. It was as though what heart I had was violently ripped from within me. Tearfully we parted ways as my daughter turned and walked back in the direction we had come, gradually disappearing in the fog with Rex trotting faithfully behind. I turned. Alone I continued on my journey towards the light.

I never should have had that last drink. I shouldn’t have had the first nine either. But I did. Unfortunately I tend to stagger to the left when I’m looped, so when I left the bar it was to the left I staggered. To the right might have been better. There was a plasma donation center there and I would have most likely been thrown out. But to the left, the direction my foggy mind had taken me, stood a sketchy looking storefront. I was welcomed with open arms into the Pleasure and Pain Tattoo Parlor.

My blurry eyes however had only seen the “Pleasure” part of their overhead neon sign. The rest of the words were burned out and unreadable in the dark. Pleasure! Sounds like my kind of place. What could go wrong here? I staggered in.

I was greeted by a dreadlocked, leather vested heavyweight who’s massive arms looked like two roadmaps. He smiled showing teeth that had been filed into sharp points and in a deep raspy voice said “Have a seat brother.” He helped me into what seemed to be a slippery red vinyl barber chair and tilted it back. “So relaxing” I thought. I settled in comfortably and felt like taking a long nap.

“What’s your pleasure?” Asked the burly bearded artist. “Pleasure?” I thought. That sounded great! Just what I needed. “Surprise me” I mumbled as I drifted off into a semi-comatose la la land.

“Something burns” I thought when two hours later my heavily lidded eyes slowly began to blink open. I think it’s me! It’s my face! Suddenly in a jolt I was wide awake. “Where am I? What’s going on?” I asked with a feeling of dread.

A sinister smile spread across the massive face that loomed over me and a hand held mirror appeared above me. The Joker? Bozo the clown? Ronald McDonald? Noooooooo! Please, please NOOOOOO!

I never drank again.

Sweat flooded from my forehead. My legs ached from hours of slogging through the knee-deep mucky swamp. My camouflage shirt was torn ragged on both sleeves. I was exhausted. My two foot machete was now dull from endless strikes against ferns and branches and brush. My arms burned from the relentless swinging of the long heavy blade.

I had to keep going. Moving forward. There was no turning back now, only looking back in panicked glances of trepidation. I wanted to get away. I needed to get away. I had to get away. My life depended on it.

I cringed at the sloppy sucking sound of my mud covered boots working their way through tangles of reeds and roots. But I kept my focus. I knew it would end, this nightmarish day, and it would turn into a hellish night if I was not able to find a way out soon. I searched for any break in the foliage.

Then, at last, an opening ahead? Hope! I stepped out of the dense forest onto a path that eventually turned into a roadway. An actual roadway. I stumbled east in the fading dusk towards a grouping of faint lights glowing in the distance. Salvation?

The concrete windowless hallway was damp to the touch, cold and foreboding. Detective Jenkins’ soft soled wingtips splashed through an inch of stagnant slime as he made his way into the chilly underground air. He wore a grey pinstriped suit, white shirt and paisley tie that could not have been more out of place here, forty feet below the vault of Pacific Investors Bank.

Dim incandescent bulbs radiated a yellow glow every twenty feet or so along the corridor, providing just enough light to make the shadows in between frighteningly dark. Dark enough to conceal anything or anyone who might be lurking there.

Waiting and watching at the entrance fifty feet away officer Janice Winston stood as backup, her petite form barely filling the narrow entry way. The sleeves of her neatly pressed blue uniform were now stained with residue from the rusty door frame.

She could only hear the receding footfalls of detective Jenkins as he splashed his way carefully down the hall only appearing briefly from time to time in the glow of an occasional light.

“Detective!” She suddenly screamed out. “Get back here now! Now!” A shot rang out and echoed down the corridor. Then silence.

Jenkins turned back towards the entrance just to see the silhouette of officer Winston buckle, and then sink to the floor. Gun in hand he sprinted back towards her position in the doorway through the light, then the dark, then the light and darkness again as he rapidly closed the distance.

She lay staring up at him, barely visible in the dim light, but breathing. He noticed the shredded edges of a hole in her uniform just above the nameplate on the left side of her chest. He felt for blood, but there was none. Digging into the hole with his fingers he retracted what looked like a 9mm bullet that had mushroomed against her kevlar vest. He smiled. “You survived that one, but I think you’re going to have a bruise.”

The child had been missing now for almost three days. Searchers had combed the sandy shoreline, the steep root-covered cliffs, and the thick foliage along the ridge line overlooking the ocean from above. All to no avail.

Because of the stiff sea breeze’s constant flow ever-changing sand made it impossible for the dogs to find a scent.

Huddled in a trailer about a quarter mile away at a parking lot, two frantic parents held each other’s hands, fought back tears, and contemplated the gravity of the situation. As storm clouds gathered along the distant horizon forcing the sea into a frothing soup of white caps, things seemed all but lost. Dusk was close at hand and perhaps one final desperate search along the beach could be made before darkness settled in.

Undaunted, the child’s mother made one last hopeful pass along the shore. As she neared a stand of driftwood her eye caught a glimpse of something flapping in the wind beneath a log. Moving closer she recognized the Fourth of July cap her child had last been wearing; red, white, and blue, barely visible in the fading light. She rushed across the sand and a stifled cry caught in her throat. Her sweet precious child looked up from behind the worn weathered stand of wood.

Sweeping her daughter up in her arms, a powerful rush of overwhelming joy swelled from within her core. Two hearts beat together as one. Cheeks, wet with tears, pressed together as though they would never separate again. “Mommy! Oh mommy! I knew you would come!”