Inches of water separated Andrew from life, blurring the face he’d opened his door to hours earlier. Pressure built in his lungs, screaming for a release impossible while a size-eleven boot pinned him to the bottom of his claw-footed tub. The brass studs on his costume ground painfully into his chest. He allowed his eyes to bulge and calculated: he had ninety seconds, two minutes tops.
Ninety seconds. Lifetime to an impatient punk. I may be old, but I can still wait you out.
He thrashed weakly, a panic play for an audience of one, designed to bring an early end to the current dunking. Counted to three, released a whisper of breath. Closed his eyes to slits. Went limp. Counted ten, fifteen.
The last breath of air escaped, rising in a cloud of tiny bubbles, obscuring what little he could see. The boot vanished. Hands dove into the water, jerking him into a sitting position.
Water, rolling off his face, streaming out his nose. He convulsed, coughing his insides raw, the intake of air like fire. No point trying to run. His opponent was much younger, too strong. He wouldn’t make it out of the tub. It pissed him off, this nobody punk catching him with his guard down.
Thank God Jenny isn’t here.
“Ready to talk, old man? I’ll let you live.” The punk sat back on the closed toilet lid, one sodden work boot propped against the rim of the tub, dripping on the puddled floor as he flipped a coin lazily in the air, waiting.
Andrew forced the words out in a voice ragged from repeated drownings. “You’re a fool chasing a chimera. I’m not who you think I am.”
The coin fell, bouncing on the floor as the sneering face thrust forward. “I’ll kill you and pull this house apart.”
“That coin,” Andrew croaked, “is all you’ll get.”
The punk stood. The foot returned, poised against Andrew’s sternum. “Last chance. Raise your hand if you change your mind.”
Andrew sucked in air as water closed over his head for the seventh time. The need to breathe built under that oppressive leather boot; pressure, and pain like knives. He’d been certain the punk would realize the stories weren’t true when he almost drowned the last time. His only chance was to finesse, buy time with promises until he could escape.
He’d escaped before.
But I had Rose that time.
What was the point? How long before the punk realized he was being played? An hour? Two? Then what? At sixty-eight, he no longer had the reflexes to exploit the openings inexperience would provide. His current predicament proved that.
He wished he believed in God. If there was a God, if he could see Rose again…. But the world was too cruel, too selfish to be under the auspices of a benevolent intelligence. Hypocritical to call for divine intervention now, while facing eternal nothingness.
Andrew’s lungs exploded. Bubbles rushed to the surface, a school of fish in a feeding frenzy. The boot stayed. Oblivion crept along the edges of his vision.
Encroaching darkness brought awareness: whatever waited in the void, he wasn’t ready to confront it. He struggled—and failed—to lift an arm exhausted by repeated torture.
In the last moments of Andrew’s life, Rose occupied his mind. Rose and what had never been.