In Continuum.

When the Haze Comes Part IV: The Vanishing

A barren land,cold cruel winds.A broken structure,an old worn down building.Bricks strewn all over the place,with the broken glasses and dead trees.Below my feet wasnt the solid feel of land,but piles of sleeping pills,spreading from under my feet into the horizon where the red sun rises and the sky in bloody red.

Stepping through the broken door,the smell of rotten wood attacked my nostrils.The couch before me rigged of worms,and flies buzzed around what looked like an old livingroom.The television was turned on,with the face of an ugly clown dancing to a bunch of children,whose faces were blank and dead,almost like zombies.The floor cracked under my feet,and the pills below the floorboards flowed out of gaps.To the left of the couch and around a corner,down a narrow corridor was a stairwell,and on the walls of the corridor hung pictures of disfigured angels,with broken wings and harps without strings.They were all crying blood,and from their mouths were music of depair and sorrow.All around the pictures scribbled all along the wall,repeated over and over like a broken gramophone,one single word that struck me so soundly.The one word,written with red crayon and in different fonts and sizes,all across the tattered wallpaper:

James.

I followed the steps up,and it led to an open garden.It was the very garden,the same garden on the very night of the confession.In contrast with the destruction below,the garden was as beautiful as before.Christmas lights decorated the barks of the trees,and butterflies fluttered amidst the flowers.The scent of spring now welcomed my nostrils,and the greenery of the garden made a stark constrast to the red skies above.A figure was behind a bush,shovelling soil from a ground and planting a stalk of grass into the dug hole.

She noticed me,and spunned around.She had her summer dress on,with her glasses gone.She was wearing that same old slippers she always wore while gardening,and her brown hair laid across her face,untidy but beautiful nonetheless.She stared at me blankly,almost as if she didnt recognise me.And then without a warning she stood up on her feet,dropping the shovel.Like before,he lips were parted,and they made a little hole in the middle of her mouth.Her eyes were teary then,as she walked towards me with trembling hands.Without a word and without a warning,she slapped me across the face.The strike was too sudden,but i thought i saw a flash of anger and depression in her eyes.This time,i felt no guilt or fear,but the desperate desire to recieve her forgiveness.For i have sinned,because she sinned for me.

'What are you doing here?'

'To see you.'

'Liar.'

Another tight slap across my face.My head spunned to my right,and it remained there,as if my neck was stuck.I placed my cold palm on the sore cheek,and under my breath i softly regained my composure.

'I did,i came here to see you.I am dead,Rachel.I died in a car crash.'

The look in her eyes changed,the anger subsided.The tension left her arms,and it came to a rest by her side.The tears finally succumbed to gravity,and it came rolling down her cheeks,just like months before,on the very night of my confession,my mistake.

'Victoria,if you remember her.She was...she was with another man when i went to her place that night.I asked her why,and she told me.She said one word,and it all came to me.She said,"Rachel",and it was true.I had you all over my head,you clouded my head like nothing else mattered.You were the void Rachel,the nothingness.And nothing hurts like nothing at all.I wasnt...i wasnt happy with Victoria,i realised.It was such a stupid thing to do,such a dumb thing to do.I kissed her and felt your lips,i touched her hair and smelled your shampoo.I looked into myself and i saw you.I...'

'You broke me...'

'What?'

'You broke me.You took me under your feet and you ran over it like a little kid on a muddle of mud.But love doesnt hurt,does it?I knew then,that i wasnt falling in love,just falling into pieces.And there i was under you feet,in pieces scattered under the bed while the both of you made love to each other on top.'

'Not under the bed but in my mind.I realised it long before i saw the man in her room that night.I knew you were right,that i loved you more.But i did not have the heart to confess my rejection to her,because i feared that what happened to you would happen to her.I lived in darkness,i lived under the shadow of you.Not...in a bad way of course but,i kept to myself all the months,thinking that if i dont commit the same mistakes,the mistake that i made on you,i might redeem myself for your death...'

'That's not true...You loved her.'

'I loved me!And that was the whole problem!I was so self-centred,i cared so much about my desires...'

'You were a jerk.'

'I know you are not going to believe this.You are probably going to think that i am saying all this because i am supposed to redeem myself before going to Heaven,that all this is an act.I dont care anymore,because i am saying this from my emptied heart,the months of sorrows building up inside now spilling out like waves.I tolerated Victoria for so long,loved you too litttle,loved myself too much,life too short...'

'Remember the carousel?'

'Carousel?'

'The one at the funfair you brought me to,remember?'

'Yeah,i do.'

'Remember what you said?'

'I said you looked beautiful in the afternoon sun.'

'And i told you that you looked like a knight on that wooden horse under your ass.'

'And you smiled.'

'You did too.'

'You blushed.'

'You did too.'

'No,i did not.I was feeling sick,that's all.'

'You smelled like spring grass then.'

'And you smelled like plain sweat.'

'Is that why you kissed me for the first time?'

'Oh,my little fetish.I'm sorry.'

'You met Mr. Kaufman?'

'Yeah,he told me to come here.'

'Did he tell you about the haze?'

'Yeah.'

'Can you see it yet?'

'Can i not see it?'

'Why?'

'So i can stay here with you.'

'Dont be silly.'

'It's true.'

'Like the confession about your fetish?'

'Like the confession of you in the afternoon sun.'

'He told me,that the only way to get out of here,for me,is to complete the picture.'

'The picture?'

'This,everything you see here.Complete it.Only if the last piece of the puzzle is true,he said.'

'I dont understand.'

'I want to try something.'

'What?'

Rachel leaned over and placed her arms around my shoulders,and she looked into my eyes,with that old love once again.She stared deeply,and her eyelids closed as she placed her lips to mine.Her lips felt wet ours met,and i wrapped my arms around her too.I pulled her closer,finally feeling her again,and she was no longer the void,but once again,a whole.

The haze came,the horizon vanished.It ran over the land of pills,the broken windows.The bricks on the ground and the worms in the couch vanished.The haze swept over the land like rain,and our clothes were soaked and drenched.The house vanished under our feet,and the garden disappeared as well.The haze came,and came over us like the coming of a rainstorm,with the both of us amidst it all,full of longing and love.

'Is it working?'

'Yes,it is.' she said softly,smiling again.