FB-OVER AGAIN

Daniel Arthur O`Ryan was one of the first residents to move into the Lake Cliff Apartments in 1978. He had seen a world of changes since and now was the worst day of his life. He lay silent beneath his hospital covers as the heart monitor intermittently sounded its annoying alarm.  The eighty-three year old man had been stricken with brain cancer, and now faced his final moments with a barrage of silent noises.  The mechanical whirl of his feeding pump began to tone its beep that his meal bags were empty.  As per hospital procedures with all patients on a ventilator, Dan’s two middle fingers on both hands had been taped to the bed rails to prevent him from pulling the tube out of his throat.  He was quite a sight to behold, all wired up.   

     Even after the neurologist had told his wife, Sally that he was brain dead, and had drifted off into a coma after having aspirated on his breakfast orange juice, Dan was somehow aware of everything around him.  It was as if he had been standing in the corner of the room watching every gory detail to the bitter end, like some damn spectator.
   Then, it happened.  Just moments after Dan’s cardiologist and his two student nurses departed through the ICU’s sliding glass door, Sally froze where she stood at the foot of the bed.  Aghast, in-between excitement and total horror, his wife was speechless.  With lightning speed, Dan rose up on both elbows, leaned forward toward his wife’s direction and pulled the breathing tube out of his mouth in one swift motion.  Abruptly coming out of his long coma, with eyes wide open, hoarsely told Sally, “To do it all over again --.”
   Suddenly every alarm rang out along with his screaming wife as a medical team ran in, witnessing his flat lined computer screen.  A second later they began to comfort the DNR’s newly pronounced widow.

   A black, silencing moment later everything changed.

   Dan found himself totally aware of everything that had just transpired at the moment he died, and yet, somehow -- afterwards as well -- almost.  Yet the shock of his present state took him half a moment longer to recover.
   Seeing Sally standing in her regular spot behind the teller’s counter of The Second National Bank immediately brought a smile to his now twenty-one year old face.  Realizing that this was the very day they were to meet for the first time in their lives, and that a month later he would propose marriage to her made Daniel’s perfect brain race.  Being the fourth person in line gave him enough time to compose himself, and figure out why he would have gone back in time to this very moment baffled him tremendously.  Dan had had no regrets whatsoever about his life with Sally.
  Suddenly, his inner thoughts were interrupted as Dan turned about to respond to the tapping on his shoulder.  A beautiful, slightly older than him, brunette stood behind him all dressed in black.  Aggressively shoving an automatic weapon into his hands, she yelled, “Take it and get to work buddy.”
   From that breath onward everything that followed was a complete blur: the chaos of gunfire, people dropping, Sally’s blood splattered against the back wall, the maze of police vehicles and lights, ever changing court dates, and the prison experience itself.  As he lay there, all stretched out on the padded gurney, with an audience just beyond the bullet proof, wire re-enforced windows, Dan numbly watched in slow motion as the fluid of his execution edged its way up the tube entering his left arm.  A moment later the guard standing next to the controls heard the prisoner say, “To do it all over again.”

   Fighting against the waves as more loomed off in the distance, threatening to silence his gasping calls for help, Daniel saw Sally leaning over the side of their blue and white yacht.  Holding her usual Long Island Iced-Tea, she was laughingly scolding him to stop his horse play so far in the open waters of the ocean.  Suddenly, shouting and pointing to a fin slicing its way through the overpowering currents several yards beyond his bobbing head, they both screamed in unison. Bathed with thoughts of scenes from the movie Jaws, Dan spat out salt water while trying to say, “To do it all over again.”  Out of a flash of red came a new realization.

   Two men sitting under a covered bus stop grimaced a half smile to one another as a light drizzle of rain began to pour.  Growing a little concerned that maybe his bus-stop companion was from loony Ville, the young man replied to the older gentleman as his looked at his watch again, “Wow, man.  What in the world did you do to deserve all that?”
  Interrupting the multiple stories of his fantastic life, Daniel O`Ryan stood up and cautiously approached the curb so as to hail a yellow cab.  His worn expression answered back to his restless companion, “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you, son.”  
   Suddenly, without warning the young man jerked back in shock as a FedEx truck jumped the curbed hitting the old man throwing him aside into the oncoming traffic like a discarded rag doll.

   As the medical team quietly worked around them, turning off the life support machines, the Psychiatric Hospital’s Chaplain spoke softly to Sally as comforting as his could, “You know, my child only The Father knows the true heart of man.”  Then, as the priest was making the sign of the cross over her husband‘s covered body, Sally slowly walked out of the room heading for her children and their families who waited down the hall.

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FB-THE NEW OLD BOOTS

 It had been a rough day at work.  Yeah everybody says that, but for Keith Thatcher it really had been a crazy day from start to finish.  After an early morning mishap and forgetting to document a client’s fall; his mood just seemed to spiral downward out of control with one accident after another.  Then nearing the time to transport a group of workers to another center; Keith blurted out a few wrong choice of words in an exchange with a high level supervisor who passed him in a hallway.
   Next thing Mr. Thatcher knew was the exact tile count, window panes, brown shoes, snot-nosed yelling children, and other people that could crowd into the unemployment line two days later.  It was just crazy how one incident could wind him in such a mess.

   He was getting the finishing touches of his last move all packed up into the rental van.  All Keith needed was that one last box, and to shut the door.  The late afternoon cast its weary shadows over his shoulders and into the now empty apartment with that last look over.  The moment of closing the door seemed to strangely last a lot longer than it should have as Thatcher’s view grew slender with the shutting door.  Almost depressingly so was that final chapter closed.  He felt his own story had just taken a sad turn as the brass key tumbled through the familiar lock that last time.
   Keith was tired, the last few hours had been spent in a mad rush to clean and pack up his last residence, and now his new adventure of unpacking lay before him with a sigh from his couch. Sitting there with a single lamp to glow the crowded room, he snorted a laugh to himself aloud, “Man, what a hoarder I’ve become.” He shook his head, visually taking in all the randomly stacked boxes that had been hap-hazardly stacked along with other odds and ends.
   Keith Jonas Thatcher had virtually given away his entire 32 years of life to the donation center near the old downtown area; yet, it felt like he had not even made a dent in the memories.  Actually, smirking a laugh as he held up a pair of high-top boots, Keith realized he had just picked up as much stuff as he had given away.
   There was something compelling about the strap-up-to-the-knee military boots that the 32 year old temp worker found rather fascinating.  Though a worn red-leather, they could have been new.  For Keith they were.  He had remembered seeing an old photograph one time of his great grandfather wearing just such a pair.  He looked so comfortable in them too, sitting in a chair playing with his kids in front of a tent.  Like so many other destitute families during the dirty 30’s, Keith’s own had lived out of their Ford pick-up and canvas tent.  He knew his father’s grandfather was just a child during the Great War to end all wars; but these boots seem to hold a flood of memories of their own - somehow.

   Without thinking, Keith slipped off his penny loafers.  Replacing his tired argyle with tube socks; which felt good being rubbed, he reached into a near by box.  Then, absentmindedly clicking the remote his shoulders slumped.  “Great!” With the HD’s screen remaining blank for far too long its remote flew from the frustrated viewer back into the open box and landed atop the unconnected HD cables.  The television like everything else had yet to be unpacked.  Slipping his tired foot into the long entrance of the boot was a tight fit, but fit it did - like it had been tailor made just for him.  But as Keith was finishing up the second boot's wrap-around-strap on the right foot, and his heel found that comfortable niche, there was a loud explosive bang outside his front door.
   Running to the door he flung it wide open.  Half expecting the apartment’s courtyard to be filled with rushing neighbors inspecting the noise like him, Keith found himself engulfed in a cloud of smoke.  Thinking the complex was on fire, he coughed his way forward with squinted burning-eyes.  One hand covering his mouth and an out stretched arm fanning a path ahead.

   Just as someone began yelling, they shoved something into his hand, “You dropped this soldier. Now get ready men, we’re the next to go over the top.  They don’t call this No Man’s Land for no reason. This is it!”  The voice was harsh, but commanding.
   As the smoke was clearing, Keith saw that not only had a rifle been given him, but along with his boots he had been outfitted like his new companions.  He was now a soldier in the trenches of World War I.  Surrounded by praying, crying, screaming, stern faced men lined along a ditch.  Frighten like him.  But he for reasons all his own.  He saw the booted soles of the bodies that lay face down atop the very ridge he and everyone else were now told to climb.  His stomach churned.  Unbelievably Keith’s own hand reached out, like all the other men readying their stance at a wooden latter, awaiting for the whistle to be blown.  When he was nudged out of the way by another younger man.  He had glory written all over his face.  Wild grin with brilliant eyes.  Shell shocked he was with a bandage wrapped about his left elbow, muck smeared across his uniform and no foot ware at all.  Looking down at Keith’s boots, the man cutting in line said, “Hey, Yank I’ll take those back thank you very much.”
   Trembling with an indescribable fear, Keith just stood there frozen in the winter mud and haze.  Suddenly tossing his weapon aside, Keith fell down in the muck of the trench desperately trying to unlace his boots.  All the while a Captain’s screaming orders were being silenced by the barrage of artillery fire and yelling men, dying to follow their duty scrambling over the embankment before them. The bootless soldier had scrambled up the latter anyway and was blown back into the trench riddled by gun fire.

   As the second worn-leather boot was flung from his trembling hand it hit the corner of his 60” Plasma Screen.  Unexpectedly the thing came on by itself blaring in the middle of a conversation between two Detectives of Law & Order.  The sweat drenched Keith stopped in mid heave realizing he was back in his new apartment.
  Seated on his suede couch, among the maze of his belongings, Keith’s breathing returned to normal as his mind whirled between thinking about having had two sets of HD cables, and what in the - had just happened? His bewildered eyes scanned the room for the right remote to lower the volume.  Shaking his head, he stood up on his socked feet, and quickly grabbed the newly acquired red blotched-handled knife set on the coffee table at his knees.  Going into the kitchen he tossed them, block and all, into the trash can with, “And no away in the world do I even want to know the back story of these things are!”

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FB-THE GLASSES

THE GLASSES...

   The bifocal glasses he withdrew from the velveteen box amid other treasures were just plain unremarkable things. They were nothing special actually. The lenses had a subtle yellow tinge more from age than tint. Their subscription had expired long ago. Their fashion was out-of-style - an early 2000s model.

    Maybe they should have been thrown out a long time ago with all the other things that held no use; pots and pans, clothes, newspapers. Maybe he should have thrown out all the other personal odds and ends neatly ordered in the opened box before him. The box itself had been carefully stashed away in the weathered footlocker he had acquired five years back. The glasses were nothing special to anyone else, but him… He couldn't find the courage to... He gave an audible sigh trying not to allow the old pair of eye wear evoke deeper emotions. They were gently returned to the velveteen box as the weathered footlocker was slid to the back of his closet again. Before the door was closed on their memories he gave a melancholy whisper, "I miss you Dad."

FB-THE GAZEBO

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   The heat of the long day and his Lasagna supper were weighing heavily on him with drowsiness  The action on the TV screen seem to have blurred out again from his field of vision.  Surely the wave of numbness that soothed his thoughts was simply him dosing off again.  He had fought that feeling of nodding off for the last half hour or so.  This time he allowed himself to be over taken by the sensation.
   His vision blurred back into focus from a soft blackened-gray to a brilliant green glow.  At first his eyes hurt.  But quickly they adjusted to his woodland surroundings as the forest colors he found himself in were less saturated in light.  A fallen tree on his left and the moss covered branches overhead had a familiar look; like the area near his own apartments.  Yet they were not.

   He found himself walking along on a pathway. Naturally cut through the woods by its lack of foliage. The smells of damp leave and distant bird calls felt somehow comforting and all the more inviting to him, so he continued. There slowly appeared from the thickness of trees, a clearing. In the midst of the open area was a stair-stepped gazebo encircled with paved stones inscribed with designs of stars, moons, swirls, and names he couldn't make out.
   Just as he was standing there taking in the fascinating sight the figure of a young woman emerged.
   “Who are you?” He called to the woman on the other side of the woodland’s strangely place gazebo.  She seem to have appeared out of nowhere, or having just stepped out from the shadows.
   Her hair was up in a high fashion with ringlet curls along her smooth jaw line. Short sleeved white blouse, and a long blue jean skirt; very attractive, but conservative look.  She answered back through the frame work of the structure before her, “You don’t know me?” Making him suddenly blush in his ill-recognition of her.
   “Hum - Sorry, should I?” Her expression was as if she it was her turn to have been caught off guard.  Her wide eyes puzzled to place his bearded face, framed by shoulder length graying-hair.  The man was in his late forties but his aged highlights always got him pegged as being older.  With John Lennon glasses riding his nose she caught him smiling at her from fifteen feet away.
   "My name is Neil.  Neil Lindsey, and you?"
   "Sabrina." Then with a brilliant smile, beamed, "Sabrina Huffman."
   The black haired woman could have been brunette, but who could tell for sure in dreams, he thought to himself. She looked to be in her late twenties maybe, yet her youthful looks and soft blue eyes had captivated him already.
   She held an upright pose as her well formed body seemed to gracefully glide closer to the gazebo that stood between them both. Speaking as she glanced about for a moment, “Well, you are in my dream.” She intoned emphatically while climbing up the three steps as if she owned the cushioned seats personally.

   “No.  You’re in mine.” He nudge with a softer voice making her smile back as he edged around approaching the pristinely painted steps.
   “Well, looks like we’re both dreaming the same dream here.” She said with an almost seductive blush on her high cheeks.
   He quickly added as he beamed back, drawing closer to where she sat. “…and in the same one it seems.”
   “I must have went to sleep ‘bout an hour ago on the couch reading a Ted Dekker novel on my Kindle.”
   His brows furrowed for an instant at not knowing her favorite author’s name, “Hum - well, I was watching an episode of The Tudors on Blue-Ray.”
   Feeling a little pleased in an odd way; she had never heard of his movie either, “Strange how different we are and yet we’ve found one another in the same dream-scape it seems.” Her cutting eyes had a captivating charm to him as he blushed back, wanting to know more of her.  His eyes soaked up her form and his thoughts raced with imaginations.
   Hoping his fishing for a compliment would work, offered up, “Not all that different I guess.  Seems this gazebo’s tiled-courtyard could have been from both of our imaginations, hum?”
   Half buying his offer, conceded,  “I suppose.  Could have, I am a ferocious reader.” Then looking about for any extra book or movie props added, “Who knows?”
   Giving her a full smile, “You - are just - beautiful.  Gorgeous in fact, if you don’t mind me being so bold…”
  Accepting his boldness with a smile of her own and deep inhale, “Not at all.  Flattery is nice sometimes.” Quickly glancing him up and down she offered her own complimentary remark, “You seem perfect yourself.”
   Yielding up a blush, “Ha - I’m anything but - but thanks all the same.”

   “Well… Now that we’ve found ourselves here what would you like to do?”  She smiled and folded her hands in her lap.
   “You’re voice is like a song. Wow! I hear you so clearly yet your lips aren’t even moving.”
   She smiled a brilliant grin, and blushingly rolled her eyes, brushing off his compliment.  “Seems anything goes here; dreams are that way ya know.”
   Continuing his thought filled answer, “Well, I love it! Makes you all the more fascinating to me.”  She rolled her eyes again with a slight grimace of annoyance at his endearment, but gave him a second chance to redeem himself as he continued with, “How about we just sit up here awhile and chat before to reality of the world comes crashing in around us and we both wake up."
   A little more uplifting, she smiled and rewarded his efforts with, “You’re cute.”
   His whirling thoughts searched through the expressions and asked her, “How’s that?”
   She softly pronounced her surprise, “Wanting to stay with me, I was just thinking the same thing about you. Are you reading my thoughts?”

   Surveying the woods as he paced back and forth from one railing to the other.  After a moment or so Neil finally took a seat across from his dreaming companion as a light mist of rain began to haze about them.  As a purple butterfly fluttered between them he suggested, “I guess I should just share who I really am instead of complicating things with a lot of wishful thinking or complex fantasies, ‘eh?”
   Then almost completing his thoughts, she injected, “…and just what are we to one another; if not, apparently each other’s ‘Happy Thoughts’?”

   Over the next few weeks Neil had begun going to bed earlier, and found himself sleeping progressively later and later in the day.  So much so had his obsession with sleeping, and trying desperately at trying to recapture the same blissful dream and its continuation; that he ended up losing his job as a forklift operator at the Wal-Mart warehouse.
   Two days into his search for a new job something from beyond the newspaper’s job listings caught Neil’s ear.  Blaring as background noise came a story from the nightly news showcasing the very gazebo from his obsessive dreams.  The anchorman said the structure, which happened to be a real place near a local wooded area, was to be replaced by a mall’s off ramp.  It was to be bulldozed that very afternoon.

   Rushing in his car to the exact site, Neil drove twelve miles from his Lake Cliff apartments. Jumping out of his car and   He stood in the parking lot and starred with a mixture of emotions.  First at the carnage before him, then at what lay passed it.  For there, just as the last roofing shingles and timbers imploded beneath the roaring force of the reversing bulldozer, was the woman from his dreams.  Dressed in a long blue jean skirt and white blouse was Sabrina Huffman, standing on the opposite side of the newly rubbled heap.  Like him she had raced to the site hoping against hope to find him as well.  So it was how they met for the first time during their waking lives in a parking lot on the verge of creating a new reality

FB- THE ENVELOPES

The Envelope
By
David DeLaine Snow

       As beautiful as Jennifer Lessinger was, the one thing the dark haired court-appointed attorney was not - was stupid.  Lacking any credible alibi, other than a brief morning exchange with a neighbor, her client’s story ran through her head again.  His ramblings were disjointed, and accented with excited gestures.  The round face and uncombed shaggy hair gave him the appearance of an uneducated man.  Looking in need of not only a shave but clean clothes as well, he looked every bit the guilty part.  Yet, was he set up as he had claimed?
     Jennifer’s office was leaning hard on her to put this guy away, and fast.  But her thoughts whirled through the details, searching for inconsistencies and motive.  Suddenly, looking up from her scribbled notes into the green eyes of the nervous defendant sitting across the table from her, she said, “Okay.” Sounding almost like a cop, “Look - the cops went through your place with a fine-tooth comb, and not only did they not find any of these envelopes you keep going on about, there was not even so much as a laptop, iPad or cell phone.   So, your story’s not adding up here, Malcolm. Let’s go through this one more time.  Without the delusions, and don’t throw in any tricky neighbors either.  The truth this time, alright?”
Then adding with a frustrated smirk, “Yeah - and this time without all the breaks and hand waving, alright?”

    

      Motley Crew blared through the speakers with a pounding beat. Without being consciously aware of it, Malcom McJones was listening to his favorite music on the radio too loud, and weaving in and out of traffic like a mad man.  Only after cutting over to lanes to exit the freeway did he even glance up into the rear view mirror, noting the three car pile-up in his wake.  Brushing it off as their poor driving skills, Malcom approached the signal light’s intersection, relieved the accident had not slowed him down.
     All he wanted to do was get as far away from work as quickly as possible.  Being a dog catcher was wearing on him; it was all road kill and bites.  A lousy one week, he thought to himself.  His second week of vacation had been denied.

   Thoughts whirled is his rock-n-roll pounding mind of how to downsize his plans.  Instead of going out-of-town to visit some old friends, he would just stay home and play the lazy bum all week.  Actually, shampooing the carpet, reorganizing his seven hundred volume-book collection, moving furniture and playing computer games made the week fly by faster than he wanted it to.  Realizing he only had one day left, Malcom decided to make it last by stretching it out doing nothing; starting with sleeping in late.
    His plans went awry once again as he heard a thunderous noise, then a knock at his front door.  His bedside clock blared in red numerals that for God’s Sake it was only 6:40 A.M.  After stubbing his toe on a pile of books that had not yet been replaced to their proper shelf, Malcom managed to unlatch the door’s chain and dead bolt.  His neighbor, Jacob Townsend was an early riser.  It was Jacob’s smiling, apologetic face that greeted Malcom with an envelope that had been wrongly delivered to his address.  Jacob had received some kind of footlocker through the mail, and its dragging must have been the thunderous scrape that woke his neighbor.
   Only after watching his early-bird neighbor carry the green box into his apartment did Malcom even look at the envelope.  It was plain white, and addressed in a cursive handwritten script: “Good Morning Mr. McJones.”  Going inside, and locking the door behind him, Malcom tore it open.  Inside was a computer web address.  Scratching his head and making coffee, Malcom then pecked in the site’s nomenclature on the Google window.  A second later the brightly illuminated screen went black displaying a single question and directions:  Well, Mr. McJones would you like to win two hundred dollars, free and clear?  If so then go to…  Malcom recognized the address, it was just two blocks down the street.  Thinking, ‘What the heck I’m already awake now,’ he dressed after his first cup of Mountain grown goodness then walked out to get some free cash.
   The grey skies and sporadic puddles gave away the real thunderous noise that had awakened him during the night - rain storms.  Yet the perfectly dry white envelope that stood erect at the base of the Stop sign belied the fact it had been recently placed in its careful upright position.  Quickly glancing around, Malcom hoped to catch a glimpse of the secret messenger, but was met by empty parking lots and a deserted golf course.  Again the envelope was addressed: “Good Morning Mr. McJones.”  He tore it open as he walked back home and discovered the promised $200 in cash along with another web address.

   Malcom mixed up another potion of black java and hazelnut creamer.  The coffee’s delightful aroma waned as he pecked in the new search on his Dell computer.  A second later the lime green screen displayed a new question and directions:  Good for you Mr. McJones!  Now, would you like to collect an easy $500 for a new book shelf?  The cursor blinked about as much as Malcom’s staring eyes did.  But a thought later revealed he recognized the location of the new address as well.
   After his third cup of wake-up juice Malcom found himself flying down the freeway.  Locating mile marker 494.  He pulled over into the emergency lane of the overpass.  At the base of the sign, a string was attached to a badly stained white cord with yet another envelope taped to the tail of the cord.  Once again he was greeted by name, but this he time read the card on the spot.  Along with another web address, was a note that read: “Sorry but the $500 is at the next location, and bring the cord.”
   Back in his car, Malcom thumbed the address into his Blackberry.  As it uploaded a picture, Malcom looked around to see if he could notice anyone waiting for his next move.  As the traffic bustled beside his car, and the gas stations and hotels declared their own business, no one appeared to be aware of his small existence on the nearby bridge.  With blinker on, he merged back into the flow of traffic heading north.  Punching the address into his GPS locator, the coordinates pinpointed the exact spot of an area next to his lakeside apartments.  A park.
  As he pulled into an empty space, Malcom noticed a small hastily-drawn sign in block letters: ‘THIS WAY MR. McJONES.”  Curiously, Malcom found himself leaving his car and heading down the sidewalk, then entering the undeveloped woodland.  Down the winding pathway’s worn trail Malcom meandered, looking for any sign of another envelope.
  He had driven by this very park and wooded area a thousand times but had never actually been here before.  He did not have any kids to yell their fool heads off in the playground nor a dog to take a crap everywhere.  Just when he was about to call it quits, he noticed something white up ahead in a clearing.  Just as he arrived, picked up the envelope and read the: “HERE’S YOUR REWARD,” the sound of a thousand clicks rang out.
  Before he could even investigate the sound, Malcom turned around just long enough to see at least twenty odd heavily armed SWAT members aiming their weapons on him.  The police were repeatedly shouting for him to get on the ground.  A heart beat later and someone had pounced on him from behind, slapping handcuffs around his wrist, as he suddenly noticed that he lay before a freshly dug grave mound.


   After Jennifer Lessinger, his court appointed attorney quietly got up, she hurriedly stuffed her notes back into the black leather satchel, and left the cramped interview room.  She turned to her client with a disinterest smug tone, and said, “I’ll have to see what the senior partners want to do with your case.” Then without waiting for his reply continued leaving.
    Then after going back to his grey jail cell, Malcolm slumped on his bunk’s firm overused mattress and began to have that sinking feeling.  Then, before closing the bared door a squinted hawk-eyed guard shook his head and announced, “McJones, you got a phone call.”  His quick head nod signified that if Malcom did not go now the cell door would be locked again.
   Going in the opposite direction of the lawyer.  Down the long hallway of cameras, locked doors, and watchful eyes bearing down on him, Malcom was led to a booth and picked up the resting phone receiver.
   “Hello?”
   “Well, Mr. McJones congratulations on receiving your just reward; I guess you won’t be cutting me off in traffic any more - now will you?  Ha, being framed for being a Cop killer.”