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It began just like all the stories and the TV documentaries described; Thomas Mayvin found himself floating above his body as a white light appeared. Its alluring beauty was something nobody could ignore for long.
Tom felt the presence of his wife nearby, below, watching the doctors, nurses, and technicians. Practiced and methodical like the scientists they were, the team worked against the clock. They’d put Tom under, allowed his heart to beat just long enough to circulate the injected antifreeze, an array of complex sugars, amino acids, and unpronounceable chemicals meant to protect his cells. Opaque tubes ran into every orifice of Tom’s pale, naked body, necessary for thawing it once a cure was found.
The cryogenic decision wasn’t the only mistake Tom had made, but it set the stage for all the others. He learned that after blowing Judy, his unseeing wife, a kiss from above and moving to answer the light’s call. Faint, barely audible music, possibly angelic voices mingled with the strings of a thousand harps drew Tom’s soul toward the shimmering rays. Tom realized what he was now, a soul, not the cold flesh below.
Then pain, like a carp snagged by a treble hook in the gut, jerked him to a stop. At first the pain meant nothing; the light was everything. It promised warmth, love, paradise. Tom strained and stretched, each effort doubling the pain until it radiated from his soul’s core to each extremity. No matter what, he remained anchored to his body with the light hovering inches beyond his reach.
Supposing a damned soul suffers fire and brimstone, Tom’s anguish and gut-wrenching pain certainly matched it. His second struggle to reach the beckoning light ended when the pain, reminiscent of being submerged in a deep fryer stomach first, overwhelmed him. He screamed in agony and despair. His cry didn’t drown out the faint angelic melody. Nor did it reach the ears of his wife or the medical team.
Suffering and confused, Tom retreated to the only place he might escape the light—the diseased body that clung to its soul sure as a titanium string binding a kite. Seconds later the scientists inserted the soul’s anchor into a lined, metallic tube and made final preparations before cryogenic preservation by way of liquid nitrogen.
Over the next few hours while the scientists directed the technicians storing his frozen body, Tom emerged several times only to encounter anew the white light and its music resonating just on the edge of his senses. Just as before, he couldn’t reach his goal.
Was he suffering some malicious cosmic joke or a cruel twist of fate? Tom couldn’t decide. While inside his body, he felt neither warmth nor cold, only gray. Whenever he peeked his head, if that was what he had, out of his body, the light hung just out of reach, promising paradise. Tom couldn’t ‘see’ his soul, his essence, but he recognized its boundaries and reach. Was it Hell that anchored him to his body and caused the pain?
Then, shortly after he heard everyone leave, Tom flowed out of his body into the octagonal monitoring room. He steeled himself to ignore the light and looked around. They’d stood the tube preserving his body upright in the first alcove to the left of the door. His vault rested eighteen inches into the floor and behind a sealed Plexiglas barrier.
It was just like he remembered from the tour. The scientists were excited but polite enough to walk slowly and allow Tom to keep pace with his unsteady gait and cane. Even though the scientists were cognizant of his losing battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Tom tried to hide it. With a nod and a smile, Tom said he’d seen enough before viewing a third of the facilities.
A tingling sensation, alternating between energizing and soothing, flowed through Tom’s essence and broke his train of thought. Thinking it was a sign, Tom shot upward toward paradise. Broiling pain immediately vanquished the energizing sensation before stopping him.
Tom looked around for the origin of the short-lived tingling, some sign or even another other being. Nothing, only the flashing lights and digital readouts of the monitoring systems directly across from the door.
To Tom the light was like a banquet to a starving man. In the days that followed, he spent most of his time in his body trying to formulate a plan. Like clockwork, every four hours a technician came in the room, visually scanned Tom’s vault, checked the readouts, initialed his or her name, and held a microchip-imbedded hand over the security lock to exit. It was all in the contract. They never noticed Tom or the light.
For a week Tom kept track of tech entries and multiplied them by six to mark a day. He was pretty sure the light remained even when he was in his body. It didn’t matter. Tom recalled stories where dead relatives came to meet the newly deceased. So he spent the first week, using every moment he could endure, pleading, shouting, crying out to dead parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. No one answered, no one came for him.
After each effort he retreated to the quiet grayness of his body. He felt nothing in there, and outside he only felt desire or pain. No sense of hunger, no real tactile sense. He could see and hear, but there was so little to experience within his five-foot range of movement. Like a mutt chained to a doghouse inside an empty garage.
Tom was pretty sure forty tech-rounds had passed when a janitor pushing a cleaning cart showed up. The middle-aged fellow hummed the Notre Dame fight song as he ran a dusting stick across every surface before mopping the floor. Due to the light’s increasing lure, Tom retreated into his body partway through the man’s work. He reemerged to read the janitor’s nametag as the man ran an expert eye over the Plexiglas, inspecting for fingerprints. Satisfied, Janitor McCarver left using the same hand-swipe as the technicians.
Almost like clockwork too, the tingling sensation passed through Tom’s essence twice a day. After spying a technician’s watch, he estimated the first occurred between 6:00 and 7:00 am and the second 10:00 and 11:00 pm. Its source and meaning still baffled him.
Since shouting into the light didn’t help, Tom decided to see if he could stretch his pain tolerance and endurance, and over time inch closer to the light. He became single-minded in his goal. Emerge and reach for the light, stretch, endure the pain, stretch, stretch, stretttchhh, retreat. Recover and begin again.
He performed his obsessive, nonstop routine during technician visits and through two of Janitor McCarver’s cleanings. Just as every soul on the other side of the light, they remained oblivious to Tom’s agonized screams and suffering.
Finally, during the janitor’s third visit, Tom took measure. He shot upward and halted like a tethered helium balloon, eyelevel with the third screw in the second panel above his vault. He strained upward, ignoring the pain. No progress.
Tom fell back to his gray retreat, more distraught than ever. He shut down, curled up, and ignored the world. After all, it ignored him—except for the tingling, which he loathed. It chipped away at his hardened anger.
Weeks may have passed. Time didn’t matter for Tom, but his predicament did. Tantalus from his Greek studies came to mind. Punished by the gods for offending them. Standing in a pool of water, thirsting yet never quenched. Whenever Tantalus bent to drink, the water retreated. Above, fruit of a tree hung, ever out of reach. No matter how far Tantalus stretched, the limb withdrew, leaving him hungry. Tom searched his mind, his life, wondering what he had done to so offend God.
Eventually Tom emerged and was immediately drawn like a magnet to the light, but he resisted. During his retreat from the world, a new resident had been moved into the vault next to him.
Tom called out, "Hey! Hello?" while moving in front of the sealed tube. Tom knew he could resist the light for about sixty seconds before it got the better of him. That was the only thing in his environment he seemed to be able to control to some extent.
"Hello, it’s okay. I know it’s confusing."
After no response, he finally retreated to his own body. Had the person made it to the light? Frustration followed by anger raced through Tom. Why did he ignore the outside for so long? He missed seeing how the soul next to him reached the light. But, before Tom beat himself up too much, he recalled first seeing the light in the operating room. If the soul next to him escaped, it probably happened then. If the soul was truly gone.
Tom prided himself on the fact that if he was anything, he was persistent. So he set about calling to the soul in the body next to him for at least a day, or six technician visits. He kept telling himself the soul may be timid, have a lower pain tolerance, or was simply scared and confused. He kept trying to explain who he was and what was happening.
"The light is paradise. Heaven. We’re trapped here in Purgatory. Maybe together we can figure a way out."
After another eight hours, Tom began to lose confidence. What if the soul was there and they just couldn’t see or hear each other? The technicians and janitors couldn’t see or hear him.
Tom lost patience and decided to force the issue. As long as it was near enough, he could pass through any barrier, so he moved closer to the neighboring vault and preservation tube it held. He gingerly reached through to touch the soul next to him. "Hey, it’s okay. Only me, the guy who’s been shouting your way for the last two days."
Tom touched the frozen body and withdrew his hand. He sensed cold and blackness. Not really blackness, but emptiness. Tom was thankful the lure of the light began overwhelming his resistance. It gave him an excuse to flee back into his gray safety.
Tom spent his time focusing on why he was where he was. What had he done to offend God? He’d been more than a steady church goer and had years ago accepted Christ into his life. He’d sent more anonymous donations to churches, missions, parochial schools, food kitchens, homeless shelters, and job training centers than he could count. He gave so often it concerned his accountant. That didn’t matter to Tom. He’d pray, then act as inspired. And he always set aside a large sum for his wife to donate as she saw the need. Still, Tom’s real-estate and venture capital investments had left him with almost two billion dollars in assets by the time the degenerative disease had stuck.
Prayer! That was it. What had once been so routine in his life, he’d forgotten. Did the dead need to pray? Maybe so.
With renewed determination Tom began to pray. Sorting out the actions in his life, asking forgiveness, seeking guidance. After days of silence, thoughtful meditation and prayer, an answer to his question began to take form and resonate. He wasn’t dead.
It must be true. Before the disease degenerated his nervous system too far, he’d arranged for the cryogenic procedure, but with an incentive-based eye toward the future. He’d placed thirty million dollars in an investment fund to ensure maintenance of his body. He then established two accounts worth $750 million each. One for the scientists or institution that first discovered a cure for ALS. A second for whoever developed a procedure to unfreeze him with a minimum expected successful recovery rate of seventy-five percent.
Tom had doomed himself to his own purgatory. He hadn’t feared death. What brought terror to his heart was being trapped in his own body. Retaining an active mind yet unable to move or interact with the world. What might have been a five year struggle and demise could now become an entrapment of decades, or longer.
"Are you sure this is the right thing to do?" his wife, Judy, had asked. "Have you prayed on it?"
"Yes," he had lied.
The first symptom of the disease had been dropping his bowling ball during league play, and a falling average. It progressed to fumbling the keys of his BMW, struggling to button his shirt and tie his shoes. After the diagnosis and prognosis, Tom lost faith. His prayers for health and guidance went unanswered. Why him? Finally Tom stopped. Stopped until the morning of the procedure. He’d prayed with Judy and Pastor Simms. He’d prayed but didn’t listen.
Tom spent the next week attuning himself with the intricacies of his body. With effort he managed to examine groups of cells, learning if they were healthy or damaged. He wasn’t an expert in anatomy or microbiology, but he estimated almost half of his brain’s frontal lobes had crystallized. The scientists said that was what the injected antifreeze was meant to avoid. His brainstem, heart, lungs and other internal organs appeared ninety percent intact. Still, it didn’t take a genius to figure that if someone successfully revived him, he’d be effectively brain dead.
Depressing as that fact was, at least he’d be alive and aging—moving toward death and his soul’s release. Even if his soul remained aware, at least he’d be in a hospital or nursing home where activity occurred. Windows, televisions, radios, people.
The isolation had begun to wear on Tom. His soul provided something akin to vision, hearing, and touch, but the restricted environment compounded the lack of intellectual stimulation. He recalled studies of people’s reactions to sensory deprivation tanks and prisoners held in solitary confinement. They led invariably to hallucinations, depression, and mental illness, among other maladies. Could a soul escape such fates? Tom didn’t think so. Despite being reduced to a spiritual essence, his mental processes seemed unchanged.
The university scientists said a cure for ALS could be scant years away, but probably longer. Successful recovery from cryogenic preservation, a minimum of ten years, probably twenty or more.
The chances for failure of the cryogenic tube’s mechanical or electrical systems were remote. He’d paid for multiple redundant fail-safes and invested heavily to ensure maintenance for decades. Doomed himself to suffering. Tom didn’t know what to do, other than pray and turn inward until his time came. Maybe something would happen before insanity set in. He doubted it.
Tom lost count of the weeks, maybe months. He meditated, focused on past memories, recalled novels read, composed songs, made up stories and poems, crafted elaborate riddles, recited memorized scripture and prayed for a miracle.
What kept him going was the twice-daily energizing sensation. Tom once hated it but now he again wondered about its source. It was the only outside stimulation he received and something to anticipate and enjoy. It provided warmth and hope.
One afternoon something external sparked Tom’s interest. It was more than the lock to the octagonal room’s door clicking open or Janitor McCarver humming Christmas carols. The ring of familiarity drew Tom from his isolation.
He emerged to find the ever-present light beckoning and one of the scientists escorting Judy. His wife carried her blue winter coat folded over her arm. She’d come to visit him wearing his favorite dress, one he’d purchased for her six years ago during a London vacation. And she still wore the small, half carat wedding ring from twenty years ago.
Tom would’ve wept, if he were able. She hadn’t forgotten him.
"See, Mrs. Mayvin," said the scientist with an efficient sweep of his hand, rattling a pair of metallic ballpoint pens in his lab coat’s pocket. "We’ve taken excellent care of your husband."
Judy smiled. "Of that I had no doubt, Dr. Sanchez. Tom wouldn’t have placed himself under your care if his research even hinted you and your facilities might do otherwise."
"We have made some progress."
"I’ve read your quarterly reports. Tom knew it would take years."
Even that somber news didn’t bother Tom. Judy hated the idea of cryogenic preservation. Yet, she came to visit. She was so close.
"May I have a moment with my husband?"
Dr. Sanchez nodded. "Of course. The door automatically locks, so I’ll wait outside. Just knock."
"Thank you. I will only be a moment."
Judy leaned close to the Plexiglas barrier. "Oh, Tom, I miss you." Her hand fumbled through the folds of her coat until she found the pocket with tissues.
The light’s call intensified. Tom forced its presence to the back of his mind. "I’m here, Judy. I’ve missed you too!" He didn’t expect his wife to hear or respond. It hurt anyway.
Judy wiped a tear away and pressed her fingers against the transparent barrier. Tom wanted to reach out and touch her, but he was afraid. The frozen body next to Tom left a cold empty feeling that haunted him. What would he feel if he touched his wife? He imagined fullness and warmth. She was close enough. But would he regret it, leaving him craving more contact through the years? And what might his touch do to her? Taint her with gray?
He wouldn’t wish that upon her. Even though Judy was oblivious to the light hovering above, Tom wasn’t. "I love you, Judy."
She’d folded her hands and bowed her head in prayer. As soon as her lips moved, the familiar energizing sensation ran through Tom. He retreated from the light filled with hope. It was Judy’s morning and evening prayers that had sustained him. She truly hadn’t forgotten him.
Tom went back to his body, curled up tight within his gray retreat and waited. He relived memories, created new stories and poems, prayed and waited for a miracle, or the end just as before. Or so Tom thought.
He never noticed his subconscious counting of the technician checks and the anxious feeling as his wife’s prayer time approached. At first it was like an agitated stock clerk watching the clock, fumbling with his lighter, anticipating the dash for the exit and lighting up. It progressed to a heroin addict fending off withdrawal until his next fix.
In Tom’s mind, it became all about him. Judy prayed for him. If she died before him, she’d come looking for his soul. He knew it. He concentrated, sending mental images after each rush of prayer-filled energy. He should have done it when she’d visited. They had a connection. If he tried hard enough she’d pick up his messages. At first he directed her to contact a lawyer and move to redirect the investments that kept him on ice. Then he decided that wouldn’t work and Judy knew it. That’s why she didn’t move forward with the plan.
The university could keep the money. Shut down maintenance of his body. They’d agree to that.
When that didn’t happen, Tom urged her to contact a lawyer and find a loop hole in the contract. Nullify it.
Tom spent more and more time concentrating on focusing his essence and sending his message to Judy. There wasn’t time to make up stories to entertain himself. This was important. And why hadn’t Judy visited again? Too busy? Too busy spending his money? She couldn’t take it with her. She knew that.
Since their first date, Judy loved to talk about her dreams. Maybe, Tom thought, that would be where he could contact her. Manifest himself in her dreams. Sure, he was stuck to his body, but his mind was free. They had a connection. He’d pray for strength, to boost the message. If nothing else, her soul should feel it. And why was she spending less time praying in the evening? Maybe she was working late with the lawyers on his case. Or maybe she was out having fun. Spending his money on a good time while he suffered.
Although Tom couldn’t verify it, he suspected the time Judy spent in prayer continued to shrink, both in the evening and in the morning. Was she forgetting about him? Or was she shutting him out because he’d been pestering her in her dreams?
The reason didn’t matter. She’d show up again some day, and then he’d contact her directly. Tom convinced himself that if he stopped communicating with her, she’d come and find out why. So he stopped.
Two days later was the last time Tom felt the energizing warmth of prayer.
Tom huddled in his body, waiting, becoming more agitated with each tech visit. It struck Tom that something had happened to Judy—maybe a car accident. The thought sent him rocketing from his body, not toward the light but for the door. It’d been so long since the broiling pain had reverberated through Tom’s essence, he’d forgotten its intensity.
A cruel cosmic joke. The one person who cared about him had been injured. Maybe Judy had died. Tom stopped fighting to leave and turned toward the light. "Judy, it’s me! Help me. I’m trapped!"
Through two of Janitor McCarver’s cleanings, Tom called and then pleaded for Judy to come to him, or send help. To do anything. All the while, not a trace of prayer energy coursed through his essence.
"She’s found someone else," Tom grumbled to himself during Janitor McCarver’s third cleaning. "She’s forgotten me!" How could she expect him to face his isolation without the soothing energy of prayer? She was in on the cruel joke, probably with Pastor Simms advising her.
Tom decided if he was going to escape his situation, he’d have to take action himself. With the same methodology he’d used to explore the cell clusters and organs in his body, he examined the electronics and inner workings of his preservation tube. He couldn’t reach the monitoring computers; they were beyond his radius of freedom.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t affect the physical world. He tried for weeks to short out the sensors keeping his body frozen and stable. "If my traitor wife would pray just once, I could use that energy to free myself. But she knows that!" He cursed and then shouted, "It’s your fault, Judy. Come visit me again and I’ll give you a touch of my world!"
That thought sparked a new direction in Tom. Judy wouldn’t show up. She knew better. McCarver will. He’s part of the team keeping me in Purgatory. He has a tool belt and he comes close enough.
Tom waited and plotted for a week. "Through all I’ve suffered, my soul is stronger than that janitor’s. I can take any pain he can dish out. It’ll only take a minute. Then I’ll be free."
Tom hovered inside his frozen, gray haven, ready to take action. McCarver pushed his cart in, and slowly began mopping and humming a moldy-oldie pointless love song.
"Fool, love doesn’t exist!" Tom shouted and shot into the janitor’s body.
Brilliant white assaulted Tom’s senses. Tom shoved it aside. He’d read about possession and knew it was possible, so he set about it.
It was easier than he thought as he took McCarver’s dormant soul by surprise. He took advantage of the soul’s shock and confusion, beating it back with fury while taking control of the janitor’s central nervous system.
Tom pushed aside the sensation of physical life, a heart beating, lungs breathing, cool air on the skin, the smell of detergent in the mop water. And the light didn’t call Tom while he was in the janitor’s body.
Keeping within five feet of his frozen body, Tom spun the mop around and slammed and rammed the wooden handle into the computer console and equipment. Then he slapped the water-filled mop head into the sparking mass, shorting it out.
Red lights from above flashed and alarm buzzers sounded. Tom beat back McCarver’s awakening soul. Grabbing a screwdriver he pried open the Plexiglas barrier and flipped open the internal panels on both sides and above.
How long did he have before the scientists or security showed up? McCarver’s soul began fighting back, feeble and unsure at first.
Tom grabbed a set of pliers from the tool belt and began tearing out components. Did he hear men running down the hall toward his Purgatory chamber? He couldn’t sort out his soul’s senses and those of the physical body he possessed.
Surges of energy, like touching a low voltage wire, attacked Tom’s soul. He fought back against the janitor’s soul as it began pushing, trying to force him out.
Tom dropped the pliers and grabbed a hammer. He slammed it against the tube encasing his body, merely denting it. So he took the screwdriver, placed it where he thought his head must be and hammered it. The second swing punctured the outer barrier, sending frosty steam into the room.
Arms from behind yanked McCarver’s body back at the same time the janitor’s soul expelled Tom.
Mayhem surrounded Tom; shouting security guards pinned the screaming McCarver to the floor while frantic technicians tried to salvage the damaged systems and scientists called for portable backups.
Tom stepped away, to the other side of the room. He was free of his body! He looked up. The light wasn’t there. Everything took on shades of gray, like an old black and white film. He looked down, afraid he might find a black hole ready to swallow him up. Nothing like that was there. But where once stood an invisible, energy-filled soul, stood a shadowy transparent form. "What have I done?"
Tom wandered the frigid twilight halls of the university hospital, unseen by its students, researchers, professors, and patients. All he needed was a set of ghostly chains to rattle. The building itself held him bound. Not with pain, but more like a bungee cord, restricting his movements from its center with each step until he strained to brush his smoky fingertips against the exterior walls. Those walls marked his domain.
McCarver spent months in the mental trauma ward and the janitor’s suffering sent pangs of regret through Tom every time he thought about it. Approaching the mental ward to voice an apology made things worse. McCarver’s soul reacted to his presence; the psychiatrists diagnosed McCarver’s shouted threats as a symptom of his delusional disorder.
Although Judy had no way of knowing it was Tom’s fault, she threatened a civil suit against the university unless they rehired McCarver, once his psychiatrist gave the okay, and that they continued treating his wife who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis. She directed the funds originally meant to keep Tom’s body preserved transferred to an endowment, funding the university hospital’s MS research.
Tom wandered the colorless floors, regretting his actions, trying to fathom why he’d allowed his thoughts and accusations to warp into such hatred and paranoia, trapping him in a hopeless existence.
Three months after McCarver’s release, Tom heard a scream that rattled his ghostly teeth. Instinctively he knew what it was and rushed to the operating room where Dr. Sanchez had just preserved another dying body. Tom saw no light, but he did see the woman’s soul retreat back into her body as the technicians slid it into the preservation tube.
Tom followed the scientists into the octagonal room. He had a purpose now, and maybe a chance for redemption.
“Tethered in Purgatory” first appeared in The Sword Review, July 2006
