The ground is cold under my fingertips. I struggle to move my right hand, but fail. It feels wet. I feel wet. I force my head up, and strain to see in the dark, and the headlights manage to illuminate the scene just enough. Everything looks inky, soaked in something. I can’t turn my head to either side, so I assume that I’m covered in the soggy, sticky feeling.
Nothing comes to focus. My eyes are open, but it takes a few minutes before the stars above me take shape. There’s no clouds, very little noise, but I can hear a rumbling growl of metal to my side. Left, I think? I can’t check. I’m on the ground, but it’s hard. Rocks, maybe, definitely... grass? Possibly. I cough.
It’s almost comfortable, and seemingly more so with every passing second. I can’t remember anything, I don’t even know where I am. The growl continues, but it sounds further away. I close my eyes, and consider letting myself drift into a nap. Just as the warm fog of imagination starts drifting over the horizon, I’m jerked awake by a prodding feeling in my side. Jerking awake hurts. Moving hurts. I open my eyes angrily, and with more than a little annoyance, to see a man standing over me with a stick. A dark, long stick, taller than the figure himself. I look up, not exactly at the figure or the stick, and try to open my mouth. But I give up, after not an insignificant amount of effort, and continue staring at the stars.
He nods. Leaning down, he places a hand on my chest. The sound it makes is unpleasant.
“You think you know me, but I know I know you.” He almost seems like he’s talking past me, in fact he’s not even really looking at me. He continues, with his short hair catching the breeze and rustling in the air. “Everyone has a time, right. I am inevitable, yes. But you don’t know the rules. I keep it that way, because it’s the best way to stay impartial. If everyone knew the rules, they’d find a way to cheat them.”
I don’t even care. I’m barely listening, almost comfortable again. I’m not cold, I’m warm. I’m closing my eyes again, it doesn’t matter what this guy wants, he’s probably crazy.
“You don’t care because you can’t remember. But I can always help you remember.” The man looks down at me, finally acknowledging that I have eyes and that it would be fair to look at them. “I’ll see if you can figure it out.”
He reaches up, his hand leaving my chest with a sucking thwop, my shirt reluctant to let it go. His fingertips rest upon my eyelids, and he finally- FINALLY lets me close them.
But I don’t dream. I live. I see myself climbing a staircase. I’m going to catch ghosts in the attic.
My grandfather is here, but he’s not awake. They close the casket.
The walk to school is long, and cold.
This time it’s sunny.
Cold again.
My parents are so happy to see my sister’s drawing of that owl. It looks like a ball of yarn.
Everything.
I see everything. I don’t just see it. I feel it. I live every moment again, but in the blink of an eye. But I know this script. I know what’s coming. I see it all coming, every tragedy, every happy moment. I graduate. I wreck my car. I fall in love, so many times. My parents die. My sister dies. I make someone happy. I had a boy. Levi.
Every time something valuable happens, I can savory it and see it coming like knowing my favorite song is next on the playlist. Like knowing my mom got my favorite toy for Christmas, and waiting for morning.
Every time something painful happens, I can dread it. I fear it. I know she’s going to leave. I know he dies in surgery. I feel months tainted by sadness and pain - not just after the fact, but now before. Knowing loses me the battle, before it can be fought.
The equation isn’t even. I can tell there have been more downs than ups. But I feel the man’s fingertips leave my eyelids and I open them. I know what he wanted to explain. Everything I ever experienced led me to one moment, like a winding pathway coming out into a forest clearing. They culminated in an idea, in a desire, in an angry and painful sentence.
The metal growl has sputtered to a conclusion, and the night is quiet again. I lie there feeling wet and cold, but now also sad. I’m alone. I know I’m alone, and that’s why I’m here.
But as the light fades from my vision, and the feeling seeps inwards, as my breathing starts to soften, I wonder.
What was his final thought? He was only 8, for God’s sake, what could he have thought.