for once one loses that, they are truly adrift.
― Ryan Gelpke
Going Mad
It's finally fall and the weather's turned cold. It's going to dip below freezing the next few days and I'll appreciate having a fire to take away the chill.
But the iciness I'm feeling right now won't be banished by hot rum toddies or sitting next to the flames because this disquiet makes my blood run cold and chills me to my soul.
Fact is, I've been having flashbacks or visions, not just in dreams, but sometimes when I close my eyes.
I see strangers' faces and have fleeting memories of places where I've never been, and whereas Marnie helps me repress these, Ember seems to stir them up.
At that moment, the door bell chimes and I can see the frosty outline of Marnie through the opaque glass.
"Figured you'd be here," she smiles as she comes in, her skin and hair fresh from the scent of outdoors.
"Thought I'd take a mental health day," I say breezily, "care for a rum hot chocolate?"
"Do you have whipping cream?"
"You know I do, " I grin, "I'm always prepared for you."
"I know," she whispers, eyes soft.
And that's the problem―the girl melts me just by a few words or a look.
I get her seated by the fire and put out a tray of croissants and cheese, and of course, her hot chocolate―just the way she likes it.
And that's another problem. She always gets her way with me, but that can't go on, because I need answers and she can't put me off any longer.
I wait until she's eaten a croissant and half-finished her hot chocolate, heavy on the rum.
"So, you need a mental health day, you say," she says offhand, "what's the problem, Jim Hay?"
"Naw, he doesn't have an assignment for me right now―actually, the problem is us."
She stops in mid-bite and puts down her croissant. "Why, what did I do?"
"It's what you haven't done. I need to talk about what happened that day on the way home when we both thought we were dead."
"But we weren't," she says, matter-of-factly, "so why not leave it alone?"
"Because I can't, Marn―something is wrong and I won't sweep it under the rug any more―that in itself is killing me. We need to talk."
"You know I don't want to talk about it," she says. "It's over but you won't let it go."
"I won't let it go because I can't. It's disturbing my sleep and lately it's affecting my life. Won't you just come clean about it, for once―for my sake, damn it―can't you do that for me?"
"What's the point, Blake? I don't know any more than you―even less, because I closed my eyes and only opened them once the car was stopped."
"But you were there, Marn―it wasn't just a delusion of mine. We went though a wall of cars as if they were virtual, not solid. And we ended up in the middle of the jam with everyone gawking at us as if we just dropped out of the clouds."
Marnie's face is grim. She sits there, rigidly staring ahead, arms folded across her chest.
"You see?" she moans, "there's no point in endlessly revisiting this, because I don't have any answers and neither do you."
"But you know cars just don't disappear and by all rights we should have been crushed in a mass of tangled metal, but not a scratch on us, or the car. How can that happen?"
She throws up her hands in frustration. "I have no idea and neither do you. Did you ever think maybe the cars began to move just before we came to a halt and we just sneaked through a gap into the middle? That's possible, isn't it?"
She's thrown me a curve. It's something I never thought of before.
"It's possible," I concede, "but I saw us go through that wall of cars."
"No!" she shouts passionately, her eyes full of fire. "You only imagined that. You told me yourself everything went white for you. You were just like me―you didn't see anything and now you've invented a myth."
"No, actually both things are true―I saw both things."
"How can that be true?" she challenged.
"I don't know―maybe the Mandela effect."
"Thee is mad, boy," she smiles sweetly.
I can't argue with that because she might be right.