Mark continued to drive faster and faster. His siren was on, so traffic dispersed in both directions for him to pass freely. Most cars drove only to drive home and watch the storm from a window, as it continued to prove itself as the worst storm of the year. The lightning lit up the sky like fireworks, as the new moon hid in the clouds and as the mountains popped their heads out of the dark after every spark of light drew a path through the air. The rain fell fast and sharp, while the wipers on the automobile wiped the rain off with frantic force, and as the wind periodically rocked the accelerating car. Mark screamed for the police engine to move faster and the people in the road to disperse more swiftly, missing some by an inch. Aaron was three miles behind, speeding as fast as Mark, pushing the car faster than ever before as the wind also shoved his car with hostility, making it slip and slide in every dangerous turn that could be their last. They both passed through Broadway and the coffee shop Tempus Garrapatas. It was their last day of service until the shop closed for good. A legendary coffee organization known for its love to their customers and employees. Mark, through the town and quiet neighborhood, made it to his destination and, without keys, slammed open the door. It was a house bought once he got cancer, out of the military base and into the suburbs. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The second bedroom was for Tom. Mark completely convinced that he would return. But now it was where Mary’s bedridden, sick body lay. Before her isolation, nurses told him he needed to be sterile and scrubbed before entering to see her withered body. Yet as her condition worsened, he was told that he could not see her until she began to show great strides in recovery once again. “Her frail immune system finally disappeared,” Mary’s father told him with a stern look. “You cannot see her anymore; Aaron and I both will not allow it. You would kill Mary by your introduction of germs into her quarantined environment.” We would both die of meningitis, Mark thought to himself. No, I would die of meningitis; she would die from my dangerous touch, if I remember their self-absorbed lies correctly. I will die of meningitis, this is true, but if she’s going to as well, then my death with her is the most joyful opportunity available. I can die with her. We can end our lives together.
“I can feel her soft lips on my mouth once again!” Mark yelled with a roaring laugh while he walked toward the room. Every step made him more and more excited than the last as his smile extended wider and wider and his heart rose with gripping desire. He began to walk through the living room, past the two chairs that they once shared, past the painting of the swans on the stream. He never glanced over to his left or right and continued moving forward. He was pulled by an unavoidable force, to renew his past for one last moment with Mary. Lightning struck and lit up the paintings, all surrounding Mark from every angle. The swans under graffiti that said, “You’re home, never leave my hand again. I never doubted your return. —Love, your Hand Mitten.”
Tom was still not fully painted, just a solid, incomplete black swan. The ghosts dining on a war ground while the deformed cartoon-faced soldier cried for his fallen veteran. The swans at the lake, kissing in the sunset, a painting with different shades of blue, of a mother that had lived a short life. Mark made it to the hallway, where there lay three doors. The first one was on his left, the gateway to his room, a room with clothes thrown everywhere in a chaotic explosion of institutionalized thoughts. There was the bathroom farther down to his left, with a tiny window over the dry shower. To the brutal windstorm was where that room led, a final escape from his thoughts, the last resort that led into what Mark believed were seemingly endless storms. The last door was Mary. He didn’t know what the closed door held but imagined a white room filled with a healthy, excited wife awaiting his arrival and warmth, his hand slipping into hers and igniting hibernating butterflies in his stomach to erupt like they used to years ago. Mark passed the first door, slowly making every step as if nothing would disturb the moment, crying with excitement. “My Hand Mitten!” he yelled with exhilaration. The lightning struck again and pictures surrounded Mark, pictures of their wedding, Mark and Tom in their uniforms, Mary painting happily in the sun while she giggled in her white apron, yet Mark was never sure why she was laughing, or when the picture had been taken. He has always been completely clueless as to where the photo came from. Then, finally, there was the painting Mary was working on in the photo. It was only primary colors painted a centimeter thick on the canvas, covering every inch, side, and strand of white. There was no point of the painting, except that it was pleasing to the eye. It was pleasing to see how it was made, and like an orchestra, it was exciting to wonder what the artist had been thinking when crafting their form of art. The complexity of it was more than just a picture—it was a lifestyle. Mark passed the second door without much thought at all, shaking with excitement that continued to build, knowing he could not hold the restlessness any longer. “I’m here!” Mark screamed with shrieks of loony laughter, and reached the doorknob for the third, cracked green door.
“Mark,” whispered Aaron. “Don’t do this. You’ll kill yourself.”
Mark turned 180 degrees toward Aaron, who was aiming a nine-millimeter toward Mark, hiding in the shadows. Only the barrel and his body’s outline stood out like a phantom, although ghosts don’t fear, and Aaron, still alive, was overwhelmed with it. Mark let his head fall forward and chuckled lightly while shaking it back and forth.
“You lied to me, Aaron. You lied about Mary’s illness. Now she’s on the brink of death and you threaten me with death?” Mark laughed to himself. “His logic is pointless.”
“I didn’t lie, Mark!”
“YOU LIED BECAUSE YOU LOVED HER!” Mark’s impulsive yell accused, pointing his arched finger across the hall. “That’s right, Aaron, I heard your whispers after our argument! You were going to strike me across the face. It was a dream of yours ever since we met. But you didn’t. Why?” Mark cuffed his ear, as if someone would answer. “Because you loved her!”
“That was a long time ago!” Aaron yelled back, yet with slight hesitation. “The only reason I love Mary now is because you love her.”
“So now in our final argument, you become modest? It’s hilarious that with a little pressure, even the most stubborn change!” Mark snarled with his wild grin and careless attention. “Shoot me, Aaron, we all know you can’t,” he hissed, acting again as if there were a crowd.
“There’s an entire fleet of police officers outside. Where I fail, they’d succeed.”
“Then don’t fail!” Mark hollered, throwing his arms apart. “Finally grow some balls. We all know Mary will die soon, so there’s no point in—”
“Don’t put that disease in your head!”
“Let me finish!” Mark screamed, whipping Aaron’s revolver out from the elastic waist of his jeans. Aaron flinched and fled a yard back, farther in the darkness and past the first door. A flash of lightning struck with thunder a second behind, and Mark’s face was revealed, his broken nose that continued to gush onto his face and clothes, and Aaron’s large Metallica T-shirt on Mark’s broad body, yet stained very heavily with thick streaks of blood. Aaron had changed into his police uniform while racing through the slowly emptying streets, the slightly tight dark blue clothes fitting perfectly around his body, camouflaging his lean structure.
“Mary will die,” Mark confidently listed, smiling like an entertained hyena. “So I’m not afraid of death. I already know you won’t shoot. Now give me one reason why you deserve mercy from me. Aaron, you pitiful little man, scraping through life believing you are more than just a background noise, something to fill up space. But you are, you are the most worthless voice on the planet.”
“You won’t shoot,” Aaron snapped with sharp yet glossy confidence. Mark with no second thoughts raised the weapon and shot it in the air. Ceiling chips and fine powder fell in front of Mark’s face, some landing on his shoulder and hair with haste, as his eyes continued to glare into Aaron’s. Frightening, cold tension surged between the two as Aaron finally understood that Mark would shoot him with a smile and, as the basic blueprints of the perfect man, would not miss. But the crackling bullet in the house’s still air was not what Aaron had expected, he dropped his handgun from the tension and screaming in his head with panic as he realized the gigantic mistake that was made. Aaron reached for the weapon once it was dropped, sliding it a yard away from immediate reach. Men around the house jumped from the gunfire, whispers between police officers died off, and they all stared toward the origin of the noise. The first wave of officers ran through the collapsed front door, snapped hinges, and into the living room. The rain pounded loudly on the roof, and a crackle of thunder above shook the house roughly as the hole Mark’s first bullet carved began to leak water onto his head, yet Mark still stood in his spot with a motionless, diabolical glare. Aaron quickly fell to his knees and Mark raised the weapon with form and ease.
“I’ll blow your hand off if you even graze the grip of that gun!” Mark firmly shouted. Aaron quickly jolted his hands upward toward the white popcorn ceiling. “I’ve taught five other men how to, what makes you think I won’t?” Mark yelled. “Kick it over.”
“I don’t,” Aaron angrily responded, standing and kicking over his weapon to Mark who, while the weapon was still in motion, pushed the weapon even faster down the hallway, until it smashed into the nearby wall. Three police officers ran toward the hallway and saw Aaron with his hands spread out in the air, but ran back because of his continuous, obvious yet subtle wrist flick. Aaron’s wrist extended his palm back, then forward again to its original straight position, repeated a dozen times without looking behind in a frantic motion. The leader of the three was the police commissioner, Francis Baker, a thirty-one-year-old college graduate. They ran out the collapsed door and flooded front carpet, announcing that Mark had a gun pointed at Aaron, who didn’t seem to want any interference from anyone else. Francis stood at the front door with a few police officers, grazing his black two-inch goatee with a grave, stern face, his mind flooding with ways to prevent Mark’s death. Then, while also speaking into a much more modern Bearcat radio, informing the stationed officers around the perimeter, he began to speak to the small circle of officers around him.
“First, we cannot leave Aaron in a hostage position,” announced the police commissioner. “This danger will force us to make very serious and precise decisions so as not to trigger any hostile actions. We do not want to give Mark a reason to shoot at Aaron. Mark has been a very nice, gentle man at our station; we all know his kind, yet sometimes repetitive routines.” Some officers let out a light chuckle, all holding fond memories of what Baker meant. “But we all know how aggressive and strong he is as well. So you need to be alert when dealing with this issue. Gentlemen, do not let your memories interfere with your job! Whatever he’s upset about is worth holding a nine-millimeter in the direction of his undeniably best friend. He is not emotionally stable! Aaron, I know, is trying with as much effort as possible to calm him down. None of us know why he is like this, but he is, and he will not respond like the Mark we all have come to know very well. I heard many of you whispering, but no need. We do not know if it was from the accident. It could be an assortment of different reasons, although the car accident and the possibility of head trauma is the most logical answer. That is our best guess,” the commissioner informed them, his eyes bone-dry with difficult force. “Yet we will go in there again, for Aaron’s protection. Know that a split second of hesitation could cost you your life. He isn’t stopping, and, as some of you know, he was trained for these moments. Although he is a community resource officer, he is also a Gulf War veteran. The feeling of a weapon isn’t abnormal to him. Also know that he was the one who shot his weapon and has someone as a hostage, our chief. We have every right to shoot him. But as you know, our goal is to get them both out alive—do not shoot unless you must and do not hesitate your judgment. Since Mark is close to us all, I will also accept anyone who cannot stay, so please speak now if you cannot do everything I asked.” Some officers in the circle agreed easily, but a few stirred officers, one from the circle and another from the far right side of the house, asked to leave. Still the rain poured harder, and small droplets of hail began to form with a strange and slight cool summer breeze, pounding the police officers’ heads like bullets and thickening the atmosphere even more. Aaron and Mark could hear the hail pounding on the roof and windows, the wind howling, blowing past their bodies from the front door. Their two motionless bodies in a moment of constant, long-awaited tension. Mark and Aaron, two lifelong friends, glaring at each other’s eyes as the moment of testing finally came. Mark’s face dripped his own blood and the drops of water from the roof, his only movement from periodic cynical grins erupting on his face like a constant tic. Aaron, his head down and eyebrows arched in a furious, stern stare, thought of what, if any, options were available to get his revolver out of Mark’s grip. His face was motionless, cautious of the incubated lunacy that has trickled out of Wegman. Then, after a minute of tense thoughts, began the growth of an idea. He could already feel the tormenting pain his body would endure, a shiver traveling up his spine like a hasty millipede and its tickling legs. A simple-minded idea was what he had, which carried the slight potential in saving Mark’s life. The Passenger Effect, Aaron thought. I can fight it. I can prevent what he has always been destined to do, the destiny we damned him to. If he walks through those doors, that cracked green door, we, and three more officers, would all certainly die, until my six-round revolver runs out of its dangerous venom. Aaron’s idea was simple, yet the more he thought about it, the faster his heart sank.
His idea was to force Mark into one of his episodes of motionless panic, for the chance of a window to open up, for someone to make a feverish sprint across the hallway for the weapon in Mark’s momentarily limp hands. Aaron needed Mark to be in pain, to ignite deep, unbearable regret, knowing that, for Mark, everything worsened with regret. Though Aaron Hudson knew that his decision to escalate the tension could (or would) backfire harshly, he crafted the plan B to leverage Mark into using as much ammunition as possible, to play with the snake and drain its poisonous venom. They both stood with power in their eyes. Aaron’s head was slightly tilted downward, while his two eyebrows continued to arch toward the bridge of his nose. Mark’s nose finally became more crusted with fresh warm blood, but his eyes and quiet, unemotional actions stood as well-known red flags of a sociopath. Lightning struck and they both saw each other’s grave faces.
“Mary was quite something,” Aaron gracefully confirmed in the dark, while curling his arms lower and eyebrows straighter. “She painted beautiful paintings.”
“Shut up!” yelled Mark aggressively.
“I was dazzled every time.”
Mark aimed the nozzle and shot Aaron in the right shoulder. He gasped for air and fell on one knee, then screamed from the pain in a very loud shriek, quickly covering his wound. Two, he thought, while beginning to sweat from the pressure. The commissioner and two others rushed in, but Aaron looked back at them and yelled.
“Get out, now!”
The police officers fled two yards back, soaking the keen, white carpet in the dark living room with water, next to the two chairs. Some others outside had to cup their ears and broke out crying from the stress of their once close friend.
“Mark, don’t pretend it never happened.”
Mark took his third shot, aiming to graze Aaron’s left arm lightly. It was perfect, and Aaron began to bleed from his second arm, a chunk of meat scooped out of his flesh. He screamed a second time but quickly continued without covering the second wound.
“The childhood friendship, teenage romance, and years of marriage! She fed you while you were sick!”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Mark quickly cuffed his ears, began to cry, and oppressively screamed. He shot two bullets in the air to block out the noise and fell to the ground. Water streamed from the roof as huge chunks of plaster lightly fell onto and around his body. Aaron fell on both knees and began to feel the loss of blood, noticing himself drenched in a dark red puddle. “That’s five.” He continued.
“You guys sang together! Now that I think of it, where were you when she got sick? Where were you?”
“I’m here!” Mark aimed the weapon at Aaron’s head with the final bullet. “I’m trying! I’m trying to be there, but I so wish for the pain that I can’t bear to watch her fight a disease I would gladly take! She is an angel. Mary knows many things that none of you can begin to imagine because of her heart! I can’t bear to watch her suffocate me. She suffocates me! Every time I think of her, I know it’s my fault—because of my C. diff, she stayed in the hospital. I was afraid to be admitted again so I waited, and she happened to catch it. Don’t touch her! Don’t take her!” Mark lowered the weapon down between his legs and centered his memory, crying viciously. He was out of reality and into the past, like a time machine. Aaron quickly turned to Francis Baker behind him and yelled.
“Get the gun, commissioner. Now, or he’ll shoot us all!” Aaron screamed in pain once more. “With all my might, I will NOT let him through those doors!”
October, November, and December of 1991, while the Soviet Union also began to crumble from within, was when Aaron knew where Mark was.
◆◆◆
Mark was fond of the downtown police station, its location next to the public library, and the feeling of brotherhood that made paying the bills more playful. Next to both the police station and the library was a DMV, a very bland, white brick building with a constant stream of furious adults and excited teens streaming in and out.
Through these difficult times, Mark and Mary lived very poorly. Medical bills piled high, and the cash left as quickly as it came. His police duties on the computer were surprisingly high, with many long hours spent at the station, mostly because no one cared to be a 911 responder; it was flat-out boring. Mark’s salary was about $30,000 a year. It was surprisingly good for that line of work. Then there were Mary’s portraits. She made around $35,000 annually. It began as a fun competition. Mark received a paycheck and placed it high on the fridge. Then Mary sold a portrait and placed that check higher on the fridge with a few stepstools. Mark did the math and said he could double her check in a week. She later punched in the numbers and told him she could whack him with a canvas. One snarky comment later and Mary began painting while Mark sat in a chair and patiently waited for Aaron to pick him up. Mark quickly waddled over to the automobile and rolled into the passenger seat. It was difficult for him to step in because of his weak muscles, but—while only having half his body inside—he hollered at Aaron to step on the pedal. He did so with immediate force, shocked by the aggression in Mark’s voice, to arrive at work as soon as he could. Mark held on while Aaron sped down the road, speechless, while Mark realized he had no strength to pull his feet out of the outstretched door, not realizing that the top of his bald head was also grazing the driver’s door as well as Aaron’s lap. His feet were only a few inches out of the car, along with one sandal, the other lost somewhere in his neighborhood’s concrete roads. Then Aaron abruptly halted at the stop sign, still speechless from Mark’s loud, unexpected screeching voice. For three awkward seconds they stood there listening to “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D & the Boyz. Both Mark and Aaron felt as if they were smacked with a hard club full of complete and utter embarrassment, blushing wildly through three different shades of red.
“Aaron,” Mark wailed. “I am so sorry.”
“We’re pulling over,” Aaron shouted as he accelerated and jammed into the unusually crowded double-lane road. He accelerated to the right and cut off a new 1991 Chevrolet Caprice, not realizing upon action that the car they cut off was in fact a police car. The Caprice instantly flicked on its siren and lights the second Aaron’s tires grazed the black concrete of the right lane and, almost as promptly as his last turn, pulled onto the dirt on the side of the road. The police officer walked promptly over, all smiles, to the driver’s window as Aaron slowly cranked it down.
“Hey, Aaron, seems you have a human sticking out of the window. I’d like to inform you that’s not legal.” the officer said, grinning wildly.
“Hey, Stewart!” yelled Mark in a voice of uncertainty.
“Oh, you didn’t tell me it was Mark. How’re you doin’, Mark?”
“Oh, I’ve had better.”
“You know that’s not how you sit.”
“I know. I was trying to get to work faster, you see. I made a bet with my wife that I can make more money than her because my check on the fridge was better than hers, and she couldn’t handle it. Then one snarky comment later she was painting, and I was chilling on Aaron’s lap.”
“And how did this happen?” Stewart asked, with chirping birds and “Now That We Found Love” filling the short silence, watching Stewart’s smile disappear as a thought rose in his head.
“You guys aren’t…are you?” Stewart said, his mouth half open.
“Oh gosh, no, that’s not what this was!” Mark hollered as he tried again to push himself off Aaron, who fell into a frantic shuffle to turn off the radio, skipping from station to station. “I jumped in, but my arms were too weak to push me up!” Mark continued to confess. “Aaron was going to pull over anyways.”
“I was, I swear on my life,” Aaron interrupted, waving his hands like a madman, still trying to turn off his sticking radio. “There are no feelings like that, I swear.”
“Oh really,” Stewart said, barely holding in his laughter. “Then how do you explain Heavy D?”
“Let’s not talk about Heavy D!” Mark screamed as Aaron pushed him into a wobbly, upright position.
Stewart began to laugh so hard he bent over in a fit of hilarity, cramping from his borderline diabetic stomach.
One $320 fine later and they were back on the road with Mark, more angry at the radio than anything else, with him arms crossed and light, provoking words appropriate for children’s cartoons. “Raga smaga baga,” he jabbered like a madman. Later, Mark took his check off the refrigerator, cashed it in, and paid for the ticket, continuously bickering even with the teller. Mark was upset when he did; once he came home, it was pitiful depression. The tired 911 respondent’s feet dragged, his lip hung, and he couldn’t even place his coat on the hanger. It lay on the square tiles next to the front door. Mary came out of her office from continuously painting morning to evening; she was in a classic white painting apron with a few wet paintbrushes in its front pocket and wet paint strokes on the front, while older strokes were faded underneath. Her brunette hair was in a tight ponytail, which also bore fresh paint strokes from continuous, dedicated work. But after all the painting, she was still very energetic, both hands clenched tight around her mouth.
“Mark, how was your day?”
“I got a ticket.”
“But you work for the police department. Explain how this happened.” Mark looked up and saw her smile behind her two clenched hands, shaking in order to contain herself from bursting out into a loud, joyful roar. Mark quietly laughed to himself, stretching his tired face with his left hand, knowing exactly where her amusement arose from.
“Did you record it?”
“All the way until the stop sign.”
“I was struggling to get in.”
“I met the neighbors. They thought it was funny, too.”
“You showed it to our neighbors?” Mark began to laugh slightly bent over like Stewart earlier that day, believing he should cry instead.
“They wouldn’t stop watching it, until the battery died on the camcorder.”
“That’s fantastic. I’m very glad.”
“So I went to the store and bought a replacement. The store clerk’s favorite part is when Aaron stopped at the stop sign.”
In total, Mary had shown the video to thirteen people. Mark was on the ground laughing at the end.
“Well, I guess I win,” Mary stated with complete confidence, after helping Mark up with one hand in his and the other on the ledge of a recliner.
“If you win, I’ll eat my shorts.”
“Then you better find a good cook, because I’m not going to cook for you ever again,” Mary half teased while flicking her chin into the sky. She then turned around and, with her arms crossed, walked over to their room.
“That’s quite all right. I’m a better cook, anyways,” Mark joyfully claimed with half certainty, knowing with confidence that without her, his diet would only consist of Honey Nut Cheerios, milk, Kraft macaroni and cheese, microwaved popcorn cooked in brown paper bags, and burnt eggs.
“Then it won’t be any trouble.”
“I can cook circles around you.”
“I’ll make it easy for you Mr. Wegman, and take a well-deserved nap.” Her voice echoed from the hallways as she walked farther into the house.
“You don’t want dinner?” Mark asked, unaware that his voice cracked and goose bumps rose when he spoke, as he also tried to remember a time when Mary was not there. He could not, while silence began to overrun the house.
“Are you going to wear a hairnet?” Mary asked, which made Mark smile with increasing joy, and he rubbed his newly growing peach hair with one hand. Hair, no matter what length, was hair, and after months without it, the feeling, the texture of it, overwhelmed him with excitement.
“I love you!” Mark yelled happily.
“I love you too, my amazing and handsome husband!”
Later in the night, Mark made eggs for himself and quietly prayed for the meal. Thanking God for his life and God’s grace and mercy. Then, after throwing out the eggs for having too many eggshells, all hiding like Waldo, he went to bed. These were the second happiest days of Mark’s life, with him and Mary in the face of hope, living humbly in a small, rented dwelling. Yet when he spent time away from Mary, Aaron was around, driving Mark places while also working in the same station, which they both enjoyed a lot because of their lengthy friendship and strong, brother-like respect for one another. Aaron continued to have more and more awkward moments, drifting away from a time in his life where his heart carried billions of opinions, hundreds of keenly prepared rants, and witty, vulgar responses—now, when in the situation, never knowing what to say. It began when Mark got ill, yet skyrocketed once Aaron became a police officer. His confidence and sense of protection increased tremendously, the control freak finally believing he was the captain to his own future.
At the station, it was easy to point out that Mark was loved for his strength and witty comments, yet at the same time balanced on the brink of ruin, hidden deep in his soul like the eggshells that hid so well in his scrambled eggs. March 11, 1991, was the date when Mark began to run through life like a man walking on a tightrope the width of some surgical stitches. He ran without a back heel, without a net to catch him if he fell. Ever since the breaking point, Mark had been balancing on one thing: Mary.
One week later and they both placed their checks on the fridge, surprisingly close in value. Mark earned an amount of $650 by working forty-eight hours—eight hours of soul-crushing overtime, compared to last month’s $590. Mary sold a painting, for $600, of a woman praying on her knees on the front steps of a funeral service, families crying with deep, overwhelming grief. Their faces were all different shades of dense, dark blue, in clothes blacker than coal. Yet the woman on the ground carried a shade of blue darker than them all, her hands clenched so painfully hard in the form of prayer that the intersection of her two firmly pressed hands was shooting off silvery red sparks, like two metal plates at an extreme speed, clashing together with welding force. In the coffin was the woman who bowed on her knees. It was obvious that she was deceased, with the stiff, lifeless body she once called home lying dormant in a box of finely chosen, elegantly bright brown wood, and her newly replicated, slightly transparent, dark blue body and wings only inches from the body. The angel smiled with tears streaming through her clenched eye sockets. Her miserable, overly dramatic tears originated from the grief she felt for departing from the only world she knew, leaving the ones who couldn’t see her, the ones who grieved with their own different levels of self-fear, the ones who didn’t expect such a thing.
Yet the smile, the beaming smile that seemed as if it were ripped off a much different, sweeter portrait, was filled with bright, welcoming colors. There were shades of her eloquent brown skin around her rosy-red, vibrant lip-gloss, and coconut-white teeth. They were colors you could only imagine in a cartoon nature book for toddlers. The bright colors took up only a slither of space on the painting yet represented the flicker of light many feel once death has been knocking for some time. The colorful grin was the acceptance of death, the overpowering joy of her fast-approaching life in the world of clouds. The portrait was called And Then There Was Light, as it represented the woman’s first epiphany of her departure from Earth-bound pain, loneliness, and the fear of unworthiness in God’s judgmental eyes. The first realization that she was going to spend an eternity in constant, never-ending bliss occurred instantaneously, so quick that only her smile could react fast enough. Now many would say that this was one of Mary’s weird portraits, because the woman bowed down to two objects at once—there was the cross over the coffin and, well, the coffin. Although many simple-minded observers might have missed this symbolism, the idea was simple. She just wasn’t ready to let go.
Mark saw the painting before a very old man purchased it. An old man that had something completely wrong with him, wickedly wrong, yet Mark could not figure out what it was. Mary had soon begun to advertise her art in many newspapers as well as pitch up periodical tents in art fairs with a tiny yet growing list of numbers from art collectors, whom she would call first, once her most recent painting was complete or her tent was up in the fairs. Mary called these people “Wet Paint Enthusiasts,” as they always seemed to chase, and sometimes compete, for her artwork, many times still drying, moist on its wooden easel. They always told her that it was the symbolic meanings she slipped into the cracks that made them so lovely, “are what art should be.” One seventy-eight-year-old, feather-voiced German woman told her, “it should make you think.” Yet she’d been having thoughts that this, this weird old man with such a darkening aroma, never had a single care for the art or the symbolic meanings. That this specific Wet Paint Enthusiast only cared for her. Mary felt that her shudder from his call was just the beginning stage of a cold, just the sun setting in the mountains, pushing her off track from the glare into her eyes. It rang after she lifted the fine-point gel pen from the bottom right corner of the painting, signing her name. He called her from the phone number listed in her newspaper ad and asked to buy her most recent work of art.
“I enjoy my art fresh,” the man stated in his very smooth yet very imperiling voice. “It’s a habit of mine, an itch that I must scratch for satisfaction.”
He then stated that their meeting must be soon, as soon as they can, so an hour later, Mark and Mary both waited for this man to arrive, the paint so unbelievably wet that she had to hold the painting by its inward wooden frame. She held her painting with a tight fist, and Mark was aware, watching the tension in her eyes constantly burn, waiting for the perfect time to burst. She wasn’t only concerned with the man; there was always an emotion that was concealed from the outside, something else within Mary.
“Are you alright?” Mark asked with a gentle, troubled smile. Mary continued to stare at the front door, unmoved.
“Yeah, why do you ask?”
“Well the painting you created is beautiful, although it’s very concerning. Is something wrong?”
Mary began to stare into his eyes, both knowing that once she explained why, March 11 and the black swan would all seem like the same day. She burst out in uncontrollable, hysterical tears once again.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked as he lightly held her soft cheek with his palm. Mary broke eye contact quickly, pushing the hand away, and began to explain.
“Well I’ve been watching many talk shows on the television and reading many books. I continue to find out that we aren’t Christians.”
“What do you mean?”
“We aren’t Christians. If we die today, we’d both go to—”
“Why are you talking about death?” Mark asked with a lower, sterner voice. His muscles tightened and heart raced faster as he took a half step back, immediately thrown out of his comfort zone. Yet from Mark’s hostile reaction, Mary seemed to double in her own hostility and agitation. He proved Mary’s judgment to be correct, as one of her deeper meanings in the silence proved not to be worthless, paranoid thoughts.
“Because we’re all going to face it, Mark! One hundred percent of us will die! You can’t live life ignoring it,” she said, her fists clenched to the sides of her deep-ocean-blue skirt.
“We aren’t ignoring it. Every Sunday is dedicated to God!”
“Even Satan can attend church, that proves nothing.”
“Then please tell me why we are going to Hell.”
“Because we’re sinners!”
“Everyone is a sinner. That’s why we have Jesus!”
“But you’re not saved by a single prayer and a dip in a pool! You must live for God!”
“I do!” Mark yelled, his voice traveling through the walls of the house, into the street and the ears of their neighbors. His face was turning red, furious, yet more afraid than he could imagine, hardly able to conceal his weakness from Mary’s eyes.
“Then why do I feel like I have become your idol, your cane? You don’t cry, I have only seen you cry once, yet I know what you’re doing. You have changed ever since that day. That dreadful day a switch turned on, and I have a sinking feeling that you will not make it to age thirty. What happens when I get cancer, and you are alone? Are you going to lose God? Are you going to lose all your senses of reality? You can’t depend on my life. I’m a ticking time bomb, Mark, ready to go off. You cannot expect stability from a bomb, from me.” Mary began to break down from her own words, tears gushing from her eyes like those two times before. Mark ran over and covered her body with his own, squeezing with comforting force, as if she were the priceless Smithsonian Hope Diamond. She immediately grabbed him and cried hot tears on his shoulder, seeming to never end. They both loved each other more than themselves, more than any married couple was expected to. They were together not only through vows but also as a necessity that under no circumstances could ever be broken.
“I won’t ever let you go,” Mark whispered, grasping her a little tighter. He then shed a tear.
From gravity, the tear rolled, trickling down through the peach fuzz on his face, down to his lips, and then to his chin, pausing as the droplet grew in volume, the stream struggling behind, catching up to the collection of water. Then finally, the tear grew too large, hitting Mary’s shoulder, innocently. She flinched from the diminutive, warm drop that touched her shirt, and then smiled to find that Mark was truly human, that he could cry, yet her heart grew with fear, afraid that he was, in fact, human. Then the doorbell rang.
It echoed through the dark house, and Mary leaped up, terminating their lengthy embrace. Mark struggled to get on his feet. He crawled to the couch and used it as a cane to hoist himself to a sitting position. He needed Mary, but she was looking through the peephole to find a dark shadow in the shape of a man. When the painter opened the wooden door, it was slow and cautious. The handle was cold and gave Mary a chill, parallel to the one she’d felt when he called earlier that day. But when she saw the face of the old man, she took a breath of relief. He wore wire glasses with orange circular lenses, a very fluffy coat made of sheepskin, designer shoes, and a very nice, expensive cane made with some mystery wood withered throughout the years and painted gold. He was old, with very thick white hair and a perfect, friendly smile that seemed to shine back.
“Hello, madam. You seem very surprised to see me.”
“I’m so sorry, sir, I’ve never seen you before and didn’t know who to expect,” Mary said, her eyes beet red from the crying. The old man, though, wasn’t filled with any curiosity for her eyes, nor for Mark’s weak, slowly approaching body. He already knew.
“Well, don’t be surprised anymore, because now you’ve seen me.”
Mary rubbed her eyes one last time, sniffled a little, then strolled farther inside. “Well, I have the painting right here, still wet, though. I don’t know how you will transport it without some of it smearing,” Mary said, walking toward the canvas, picking it up by the wooden frame as she did before. “Do you want to see it first?” Mary asked with a twirl toward the door, yet she was shocked to find that the old, white-haired man was still at the door, not a single hair out of place. “What’s wrong?” Mary asked.
“I’m so sorry, madam, but as you can see, I am very old-fashioned,” the old man laughed, tapping his finely polished leather shoes with his cane. “I can’t come in unless you invite me.”
Mary laughed from his charm.
“Well, come in, sir, you’re invited into my house!”
The old man’s smile grew wider, two dimples showed from his wrinkled, rosy cheeks, and without a second thought the man took a step inside. He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, cherishing the moment, and let it out.
“And…and what is your name?” Mary asked with a stutter. The old man quickly opened his eyes and smiled again, leaning on his cane.
“Why, my name is Christian. Now enlighten this night with your magnificent portrait.”
◆◆◆
The weeks passed faster than they could ever believe. Mary began to practice speed painting and, in the rush of the week, could whip out three paintings in a day! Of course they were breathtaking, so much that her prices continued to stagger higher and higher until the fridge was consumed with checks. Mark’s jaw dropped, his shoulders drooped, as he stared at the increasing gap between their overall earnings. His checks, although not close to Mary’s, also began to add up. While Mark started to regain strength, his position also became more involved, more demanding. An open position for an officer became available around the end of December, and although his application didn’t have the recommended college education, it did have the support of a few persistent coworkers, edging the chief of police (or as they simply called him, Satan’s Little Helper, as he was well known for stealing food out of lockers, for commenting on others’ appearances, for throwing his lucky black staplers at anyone who either commented on his own sloppy appearance, rolled their eyes, chewed their ice cubes, or slept in their offices, and for constantly sleeping during the day, cradling the same, lucky stapler).
Mark had to perform an oral board first, where five police officers rapidly put him through tough questions about stressful situations as a test to see how he reacted under pressure, to see if his mind was equipped to do the best in any given situation.
“The window rolls down and you see the driver has a weapon that isn’t concealed. What do you do?”
“You are alone and stumble upon five men who are smoking marijuana and will be dangerous. What is your first action?”
“There’s a suspicious automobile that has a driver with a clear drug issue. What is your first reaction?”
Mark quickly answered like a robot, calm and collective, yet his nerves ran wild. “You pull the suspicious character out of the car and perform a drug test.” He shortly found out that his answer was the most agreeable.
Then there was the fitness test in the following day, which Mark passed, children! He passed! But with the lowest score you could possibly pass with. Then he had to communicate with the state and obtain certifications. Then there was the drug test, background check, and a bunch of other baloney. After all of that, the “Three Rule” took play—where the chief of police chose one person from the top three eligible and well-performing applicants; although in the much smaller station, there were only four who applied. They all stood shoulder to shoulder, stiff as nails, and when Satan’s Little Helper shook Mark’s hand, he almost toppled over in relief. Mark heavily bragged about how the promotion would cover the fridge in green and couldn’t bear the thought of returning home to Mary’s common “I win in everything” speech, telling her that he didn’t receive the promotion, the two-dollar raise.
Mark was always accompanied by a second officer, since the chief wanted him to recover fully before handling situations alone. Except this time around Mark was actually able to step out of the vehicle!
It was true that they began to purchase nicer material with the extra doubloons. With kitchen remodels, a new television, comfortable spring beds, and a fresh layer of paint, their competitiveness definitely began to pay off. With Mark’s promotion, they were given medical insurance through the police department. So their entire house was painted a nice, light tortilla color and pine. Mark called it light brown and dark green, so of course Mary laughed from his lack of knowledge of the glorious invention of the color wheel. Their bedroom door was painted tortilla, and Mary’s office was painted pine green, which they both painted merrily, yet always called “Tom’s room” if he ever did return like Mark constantly proposed. Mary did complain to Mark that, since it was her day off, she couldn’t help him paint the house. He grumbled under his breath while stroking the house with a paintbrush about how everyday was her day off yet was well aware that she still made around five hundred more than he did a month. Around this time, Mark began to feel pains in his lower stomach again.
“You’re probably constipated,” Mary said in a comedic manner while pushing Raisin Bran his way. But they both had a different topic glued on their mind.
The annual colon test.
“It’s okay, they’ll clean you out!” Mary yelled from a distant hallway while Mark scarfed down the Raisin Bran.
Then after about three minutes, as Mark was almost done with the hefty size of Raisin Bran, Mary ran toward Mark, screaming.
“Mark Wegman, put down that baby blue bowl, now!” she yelled in her bee-yellow dress with grass-green polka dots, almost seeming to be stroking her hands in the air with her goofy run.
“Why?” Mark whined, pulling his chair out, facing her. “I need to poop as soon as I can. Everything’s backed up.”
Mary slowed down and put both hands on his shoulders, three inches taller than him in the chair, staring into his eyes. “Honey, if you don’t poop it out by tomorrow morning, it’ll come out on the table.” Mark took a second to think, then made a gagging noise with his mouth.
“Oh, God bless America, the anesthesia!” Mark wailed, spitting out his half mouthful of Raisin Bran back into the bowl, rubbing his tongue with the spoon before Mary slapped him on the back of the head.
“Mark, how is rubbing your tongue going to help?” Mary demanded. Mark felt the back of his head before bursting out into laughter.
“To get the flavor out,” he wailed as Mary began to join him in laughter.
The next morning, while the sun began to wake, Mary was in one bed and Mark in the other, similar to every one of these flimsy medical tests. While her thoughts trembled her body, Mark grabbed her hand and smiled, beginning to rub her thumb with his own. Her body quit trembling from fear of any pain or of what the test might reveal afterward. She smiled back and lost her view of him. The injection of anesthetics separated even the most compelling lovers. She dreamed of some garden in the sky, where grapes were never used to create wine and everything was white. There was a stream, where milk flew, and the leaves on trees had a fine taste of sweet, fresh honey. She plucked one off and ate it, filled with its sweet pleasure. Peaceful. Very peaceful. It was faint, like a dream should be, and seemed like a world only children could hypothesize, yet it was okay because the dream was blissful, a fantasy. Then it faded very slowly. Mary reached for one last honey leaf, but it was too late. She woke up on a white bed, with a pain in her rump that slowly grew into a very painful feeling, worse than she usually believed it was. Mary hummed a little, and a nurse kindly asked if there was any pain. Mary nodded, and more morphine came in through her IV. The pain slowly faded, and Mary quickly began to remember why she was there: the colonoscopy test, and Mark. Mark, her lover, her Hand Mitten who probably took a dump on the table. She giggled to herself while facing a curtain to her left and knew he was on the other side of her. He always was. So with a painful shift in her body (Why is it so painful?), she rolled herself to see Mark, to tease him, and to apologize about slapping him on the head, all high and loopy on morphine. Although, there was only a lone nurse and another curtain. Panic. Thoughts coursed through. He was always by her side after every procedure, yet this time was different. Thoughts coursed through.
She jerked up as quick as she could, breathing harder than before.
“Nurse, where’s my husband?” Mary slurred horribly. Pain shot up from her butt. Why so much pain? she thought again, her focus skewed from the drugs.
“Mrs. Wegman, lie down!” the nurse said kindly but urgently. “There was a perforation in your operation.”
“Mark! Mark!” Mary called in a weak scream, her mind too loopy to register what the nurse said.
“Some of your tissue tore during the operation, please stay down. He’s in another room. Rest and we will escort you over later.”
“He was holding my hand!” Mary yelled louder as she pushed herself further, the pain increased. Why the pain? she thought again as she began to fall asleep. Why the pain? The nurse watched her fall into an even deeper sleep, her squirming becoming lighter and lighter as her body became numb, and was impressed. The dose of morphine Mary asked for was still continuous, adding to the amount of narcotics in her veins. Yet she almost made the stretch, almost passed through the dose and kept consciousness. Then the nurse shrugged off the slim praise and continued her rounds.
As Mary rushed toward the B-wing on the fifth floor, pain striking with every step, she remembered the doctor’s words.
“In Mark’s bowel movement on the table, we found C. diff, otherwise known as clostridium difficile colitis. It is in a very severe state since his immune system has strengthened yet is still weak. This is also not his first time with this bacteria, or so I read in his charts, which can also make the infection stronger the next time around. We do not know why he ignored this for so long,” the doctor said as he glanced at the nurse, then back to Mary. “His constipation was from the C. diff. there’s no doubt, but now he needs help keeping his bowel movements under control,” the middle-aged Arabian man said before patting her knee. “Get some rest, kid. Take care of yourself, too.”
Mary ran quickly and became lost. Her focus was off and was in sheer panic, searching for a nurse who knew the ground. Then Mary smiled with over-ecstatic glee, seeing Kennedy, her old pediatric nurse, across the hall. The familiar face flooded her with joy as she felt an overwhelming sensation that made her feel as if she were in luck. Kennedy seemed new and was making some small talk to some local nurses, who at that point only smiled and nodded, as Kennedy’s version of small talk never seemed to end. Mary didn’t understand her move from pediatrics to nursing. She didn’t know about Kennedy’s two DUIs that kicked her out of the pediatric field, which made Kennedy let out a stress-releasing sigh, also aware that Mary did not know.
“Kennedy!” she yelled in a mixture of panic and joy. Kennedy jumped a few feet from her name, looked behind her and made a half smile from the sight of Mary. Half ashamed yet half grateful it was only her.
“Hello dear,” Kennedy yelped, scratching her head. “H-how can I help you?”
“I must find the B-wing—”
“Oh! I was just there myself,” Kennedy lied, trying to not seem new. “Take a right, and it’s the third door!” Mary gave thanks and half skipped over to the third door on the right, half in pain, half in glee. The other nurses exchanged looks and whispers with one another and turned to Kennedy in concern.
“Isn’t…the B-wing to the left of us?” said a small, twenty-four-year-old blond nurse, pointing to the opposite door with one of her glossy violet nails. Kennedy ignored her statement, hoping the other nurses did as well, and continued gloating about her medical career.
Sadly, Mary couldn’t hear anything they said after she made the right turn. She passed through the bland, moss-colored doors that all seemed similar. Then she smashed through the third door with excitement, but it wasn’t another hallway, it was a patient’s room. Her smile fell and died, and she stared shocked at the character on the cheap hospital bed.
It was the old man, with his cane propped on the side of the bed and those beaming orange lenses lying on the cheap, wooden hospital nightstand. He was white and ill in the darkness of the room. He was thin as well, seeming to only be a skeleton of a man she recognized before.
“CLOSE THE DOOR!” demanded Christian, squirming in his bed like an earthworm in feces. Mary quickly retreated her head from the room and shut the door, catching her breath as it raced in her chest.
“Wait. Come back, don’t leave me alone,” whimpered Christian through the door. Then a nurse named Elisabeth quickly ran up to Mary in surprise, beginning her shift with five charts in one hand and a double espresso in the other.
“Excuse me, ma’am, are you lost?” asked the concerned nurse.
“Yeah, do you know where the B-Wing is?” Mary said with a recovering voice.
“Yes Ma’am, it’s—” But the nurse stopped short and ran to a middle-aged man with a terrible receding hairline who seemed to have walked out of his room. Then Christian hollered again, somehow much louder. The walls dulled the sound less and less after every word he spoke.
“Mary, was that you? Please, I’m—I’m scared, don’t leave me in the dark!” said the growing sounds of his sorrowful voice. Mary felt awful for the old man. Her heart ached with pity for him, understanding. A foreign feeling rose into her heart, sharing his feelings of fear while her mind continued to widen with fear for Mark’s safety. Somehow, his words were almost luring, an overwhelming, powerful force drawing her to his side. The foreign feeling almost seemed to whisper to her, into her inner consciousness with great persuasion, as if all her troubles would be washed away if she cared for Christian, his soul darker than the black voids of space and death. She saw another nurse, opened her mouth, but fell short, and quickly opened the moss-colored door behind her. The old man halted his wails and continued to breathe heavily as if that were his normal rhythm. Christian had a rag on his forehead that seemed to need changing and was slightly bent forward by three pillows. Mary could also see red blisters that covered his entire body. The virus had seemed to spread throughout. Christian looked older, with parted white hair and the rest frail and thin. His figure was thin as well; Christian already seemed deceased. It was hurtful to watch as this new whispering voice grew louder in her mind. Mary’s heart broke for him. He seemed to be crying from the pain, coughing, and breathing rapidly.
“Don’t, feel bad, for me,” Christian stated with a sudden change in voice pattern. “I—I am, an old man, who, who has done some wonders for the world, wonders no one could ever believe. Come closer dear, I—I wish to see your, beau-ti-ful strength,” Christian asked, saying the word beautiful over and over again, exaggerating the syllables with enticement. Mary walked half of the room’s length, her eyes wide with wonder as she stared into his, the whisper in her head becoming a voice, and the voice becoming a dull scream as she got closer, losing control of where she walked while somehow wanting to cry. Then, about a yard away from Christian’s deceitful, expanding grin, his teeth rotting and eyes changing in front of her very eyes, an opposing force swept through the room. The first voice, screaming in her head, was cut off like radio connection, and as her knees bent to sprint toward the door, he shot a mist of his saliva all over her face like a reptile, landing in her mouth and eyes. The withered man burst out in relief, breaking out in uncontrollable laughter as she ran, wiping her face as if acid were settling into her skin.
“You may leave,” muttered Christian in the middle of his short breaths. He then grinned, more than pleased. “I—I am no longer fear-ful. Thank, thank you for, inviting me into your house, today a lie became a truth, and a truth became a lie.” The heart monitor evened out, as if that moment were planned, circled in his calendar.