Chapter 1

Text message:

Eve,

I'll love you until the day I die.

~Christopher

The world exploded.

"Incoming RPG's!" someone shouted.

Smoke engulfed the sleeping quarters. It took a few seconds for Christopher to wake up and fully realize what was happening. Confusion erupted as men scrambled for safety. Coughing, Christopher yanked on his army boots and stumbled outside wearing only his government issued boxer shorts and t-shirt. Bullets whistled through the air.

He dove into a foxhole where several of his bunkmates had taken cover. He looked out to assess the situation. In the distance, muzzle flashes looked like cameras popping at the Academy Awards as they strafed their position. Green and red tracers lit the night sky.

"What's happening?" he asked.

"Bastard's snuck in through the perimeter!" a sergeant stated. The sergeant pulled a pair of night vision goggles to his eyes and scanned the ridgeline. "Chatter indicates insurgents are getting reinforcements from a neighboring province! We're trying to scramble choppers!"

"Where are the crews?"

"They're being located! It's chaos on the north side!"

Soldiers yelled and screamed and emptied their M-16's unleashing drones of automatic gunfire. Return sniper bullets pinged and chipped away at the concrete bunkers. He could hear the thumping echo of large shells exploding in the upper valley. A rocket propelled grenade screamed overhead and hit the supply dump with a virulent purple flash. Explosion shook the earth blasting debris. Shrapnel nicked the American flag tattooed on Christopher's right forearm.

Another RPG impact rumbled the ground. Christopher pulled his t-shirt over his mouth and nose to shield his lungs against the choking fallout. Phosphorous shells landed in the center of the encampment releasing bouncing white orbs of smoke. Thundering echoes of F-16 Fighting Falcons roared a few miles away.

"Get me a damage assessment!" a panicked voice screamed from a nearby radio. "We're getting nailed over here! We need more guns in this fight!"

Christopher's training automatically kicked in. Without thought to his own safety, he scrambled up and raced across the air strip toward one of the waiting Apache attack helicopters. Spinning rotors stirred clouds of sand that nearly blinded him as he hopped through the open door. Noise of the heavy engine was deafening.

The pilot turned his head.

"Who the Hell are you?" he barked.

"Sergeant first class Christopher Parker, sir! I'm a gunner specialist! What can I do?"

"Where's your uniform, sergeant?"

"My tent's been mortared, sir!"

The pilot turned around and flipped switches on the consol.

"Man your position!" he said. "No sense sitting here like ducks."

Christopher dropped down into the gunner seat and pulled the safety harness across his chest. A few moments later, they got grid reports and received clearance for liftoff. Powerful thrust rattled the Apache and the imposing war machine rose into the air. Christopher's adrenaline skyrocketed. This was what he was taught to do. What he'd spent months readying for. All the classroom work and preparation was now being put into practice.

Tracers arched across the sky. Machine gun fire popped rapidly from the dunes and Christopher tensed over his controls. Insurgent forces were shooting from beneath blankets that masked their heat signatures. He couldn't get a lock.

"Over there!" the pilot stated, and steered the craft toward dozens of muzzle flashes.

Plinking sound of bullet impacts reverberated through the Apache's interior but Christopher wasn't overly concerned. The Apache's reinforced, double thick steel hull was well protected against small arms fire.

"Approaching target," the pilot said. "Maneuvering low overhead."

The Apache turned sharply and then dropped altitude. Christopher switched on the main gun turret.

"Enemy confirmed!" the pilot stated. "Just beyond the—"

A warning siren blared. Christopher's stomach jumped.

"They got a lock!" the pilot stated. "Evading!"

The Apache veered hard left and swooped up so quickly Christopher's stomach felt like it slipped to his feet. The interior alarm wailed.

"Evading!" the pilot repeated.

The Apache turned so sharply Christopher thought it would roll, but the craft came out of it and then dove low.

"Can't shake it!" the pilot hollered. "Evading!"

The Apache careened high setting off the stall warning. Fear coursed through Christopher. Sweat dripped down his spine. His heartbeat throbbed in his neck. Visions of his family, friends, and Eve raced through his mind.

"Brace!" the pilot screamed. "Oh shit! Brace! Brace! Bra—"

Explosion ripped through the craft jarring it violently sideways. The interior lit up like fireworks on Fourth of July. Exhaust turned crimson. Christopher's body strained against the harness as the craft freefell toward the earth. The Apache seemed to momentarily regain control and then twirled recklessly bouncing Christopher against the restraints. Smoke filled the interior. Warning lights flashed and buzzed in a maelstrom of chaos. He heard the pilot scream and then felt the hard smack of the Apache hitting the sand and spin wildly as the rotors tore apart. Christopher slammed against the controls and cracked his ribs. Sunburst of pain swept across his body. He grabbed for consciousness but it winked away.

Chapter 2

"Christopher!" Janet screamed.

She ran a hand through her shoulder-length, grapefruit-colored hair feeling frustrated at her young son's unexplained absence. If she didn't find him soon they were going to miss his dental appointment. And the office charges if you miss.

"Christopher!"

She roamed through the living, across the den, down the hallway, and then headed up the steps, all the while her strained voice shouting, "Christopher! Christopher!"

She poked her head into her daughter's bedroom. "Stephanie have you seen your brother?"

Stephanie was watching a movie on her ipad and texting on her phone. She looked up with distracted eyes and a questioning teenage expression.

"Who?" she asked.

"Christopher!"

Stephanie gave no sign of understanding and looked back down at her devices. "Who?"

"Real funny. He must be out back."

Janet's sight roamed the room: clothes everywhere, books and papers strewn about the floor, a small mountain of old Cosmo girl and Seventeen magazines stacked haphazardly in the corner. She'd been nagging Stephanie for a week to pick up, but as usual, she'd been ignored.

Why can't Stephanie be more like Christopher? Janet thought.

Although he was only eight-years-old, Christopher was already neat and organized well beyond his years. His bed was always made and his closet was always tidy. He got that from his father who had served in Operation Desert Storm and was always arranging and tidying the house as if they were about to undergo a spot inspection.

"I want this room clean by tonight, young lady!" Janet stated, taking her frustration at Christopher's absence out on Stephanie. "I'm tired of asking you!"

"Sure, mom," Stephanie replied, in a leave-me-alone kind of way.

Janet's irritation at Christopher's disappearance was turning to anger. The sixty bucks she'd have to pay for the missed appointment gnawed at her. Christopher was going to be in big trouble if she didn't find him in the next five minutes. She'd have Dan dole out the punishment when he came home from work. The army had made Dan good at handing out discipline.

She descended the stairs and hurried out the back door. Air was chilly and leaves on the large oak tree in the center of the freshly mowed lawn were dressed in pastel colors of early fall.

"Christopher!" she called, peering around for any indication of the boy.

He wasn't in the yard.

She walked around the side of the quaint single home.

"Christopher!"

He wasn't there, either.

A moment of fear seized her as she worried this may be more than him hiding from her because he didn't want to go to the dentist. He might be hurt or kidnapped. Images of flyers with the picture of an abducted child invaded Janet's mind. On the flyers were pictures of Christopher.

She fought the panic threatening to overwhelm her as she hurried around to the front of the house. There was no sign of him.

"Christopher!" she hollered. "Christopher, where are you?"

Stephanie's bedroom window slid up.

"Mom, who are you yelling at?" she asked. "The whole neighborhood can hear you!"

"Where is your brother?" Janet replied, hysteria building in her tone. "We're going to miss his appointment!"

Stephanie's eyebrows drew together. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play with me, Stephanie! Help me find him!"

"Who?"

"Christopher!"

Her voice fractured.

"Mom," Stephanie said. "I don't know who Christopher is."

"Your brother!"

Stephanie cocked her head. "I don't have a brother!"

"Where is he? Where is he hiding?"

"I don't know, mom! I don't know who you're talking about! You're not making sense!"

Janet felt a flare of fear. Real mother's fear. It shot through her like an exploding arrow. She ran back inside and searched frantically through the living room; throwing open closet doors and drawers and looking under the furniture, even though Christopher was too big to fit.

Stephanie had come out of her bedroom and stood at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were wide and her face pale.

"Mom, you're scaring me."

Janet looked at the walls. Pictures showed her and Dan, Stephanie as a baby, Stephanie taking guitar lessons, she and Dan at the beach, Stephanie's elementary school graduation. There wasn't a single picture of Christopher with his brown hair and bright smile. Not a single one!

"Where are they?" Janet huffed, barely able to keep it together. "Where are they?"

"What?" Stephanie asked meekly, looking like she was about to cry.

"Pictures of Christopher!" Janet screamed at the top of her lungs.

She rushed up the stairs with a heavy concussion of footsteps, passed Stephanie, who recoiled against the top railing, and swung open the door to Christopher's bedroom. Hysteria blasted over her. She stood petrified, unable to move.

Short of breath, she took a step backward and then another and then stood a moment, heart pounding, head swimming in hallucinogenic disbelief. Shock formed a lump in her throat and would not let her speak or swallow. In a rush of terror, she flew forward to the bureau and rummaged through the drawer for Christopher's things, throwing papers and file folders to the floor.

"Mom, are you okay?" Stephanie asked, as she slowly entered the room and stepped toward her. "Mom?" She paused. "What are you looking for in dad's office?"

"Where are Christopher's things?" Janet seethed, her voice manic high. "His clothes, his Star Trek bed sheets, his collection of army figures, his toy muscle cars? Where are they?"

"I… I don't know," Stephanie peeped.

Janet's instinctual emotions exploded with the force of dynamite.

"Where's my phone?" she shrieked, her eyes alive, her breath hitching. "Find my phone!"

"It's beside the couch," Stephanie replied, fearfully.

Janet raced down the stairs her feet barely hitting the wood. Her fingers snatched the device like a magnet to steel, but she fumbled getting Dan's contact info on the screen. Finally, she hit it.

His phone rang once.

Twice.

A third time.

"Pick up!" she screamed, exacerbated. "Pick up! Pick up! Pick—"

"Hello?"

She drew a deep breath and shouted. "Where's Christopher?"

"Janet, calm down," Dan's voice was even and rational, he was always even and rational, another trait evolved from his army training. "What's wrong?"

Janet felt her legs buckle. She put a cautionary hand over her middle and took deep, steadying breaths to get the words out. Her eyes filled with tears and she suddenly smelled smoke.

"I… can't… find… Christopher!"

Momentary silence ensued from the other end. Dan cleared his throat and then said very directly.

"Who's Christopher?"

Smell of smoke intensified and she started coughing.

Chapter 3

Christopher came to in what was left of the ravaged, smoke-filled fuselage and started coughing. Pain knifed through him. His t-shirt was blood-soaked and in shreds and clinging gruesomely to his torso. His side ached and his brain was drowsy with a head injury. Tremendous ringing chimed in his ears, but he could hear the crackling roar of fire combined with sparking electronics.

He unsnapped his harness, reached out with his good hand, and shook the pilot's shoulder.

"Sir!" he choked out. "Sir, are you okay?"

He shook the pilot again and then stopped when he saw the long piece of metal sticking through the pilot's throat and bright red bubbles frothing from the injury. The pilot's eyes were open and fixed and the whole left side of his head was smashed in where his helmet had cracked. Christopher reeled back as nausea rolled his stomach. He had never seen a dead body before.

A gauge exploded spewing tiny spears of glass. Aloft on adrenaline and wracked with pain and fear, he kicked out a panel, spraining his ankle, and crawled from the burning craft. Flames rose into the night sky causing shadows to shimmy on the sand. Pillars of black smoke vomited from the wreckage.

Dazed and bleeding, Christopher trundled into the desert and tried to acclimate himself to figure which way he should hike to the base. His hands trembled violently at the thought of the dead pilot and his own dreadful predicament, alone and unarmed in enemy territory. It was stupid of him to climb aboard the Apache without a sidearm.

He figured the Apache had traveled around four or five miles. Rescue and recovery should be swift. His platoon was the best group of soldiers with which he'd ever served. They had trained together at Fort Bragg and had won so many commendations that they were assigned to Afghanistan as an intact unit.

Though RPG attacks on the base were quite common it never resulted in any real damage or casualties, except for tonight. In the seven months Christopher had been stationed in the desert, he'd only fired his gun about a half dozen times at enemy soldiers. He spent most of his time patrolling the local villages, providing security, and flushing out possible insurgents.

Something at the periphery of his vision caught his attention. He sensed a presence as a predator senses prey. A human shadow cut across the desert sand. Christopher heard voices. Were his men coming for him? Were they here?

No! These were foreign voices, not his fellow soldiers.

Christopher spotted an armed man and withdrew into the shadows before the man saw him. He limped toward a small dune hoping to hide, but there wasn't much place to conceal oneself in a desert with little vegetation.

Three more human shapes moved through the darkness and Christopher made a shambling attempt to run away but was blocked when two other armed men stepped from behind an outcropping of rock. The men wore turbans and dirty, black combat boots. Firelight from the burning Apache glinted off the barrels of AK47's aimed at him.

Realization dawned frighteningly that he was now a prisoner of war. He raised his hands high overhead in surrender, wincing in pain at the movement.

"Please help me," Christopher said. "I'm injured."

"Knees!" one of the men barked in a heavy, Middle Eastern accent. "Knees, Dog!"

The man stepped up and slammed the butt of his gun into Christopher's chest. Impact snapped his cracked ribs and pushed air from his lungs. Christopher reared back, gasping. Another gun butt smashed into the back of his skull, dropping him in a heap to the sand and nearly knocking him unconscious.

Another man dressed like the others walked from the dark surroundings. He was also carrying an AK47. He said something to the group and then stepped up to Christopher. He shouted in words Christopher had not been in-country long enough to have learned, pointed to the burning Apache, and then toward the sky. He said something else and then butted Christopher in the face with the stock of his gun. Pain was like a bolt of lightning. The man did it a second time, harder. Agony roared through Christopher's soul.

The men spoke to each other and seemed to be having a discussion. Then the hard steel tip of a boot nailed him in the side like being disemboweled by a sword. He howled as more of his ribs snapped.

The man kicked him in the side again.

And again.

And again.

Hurt was suffocating, consuming, devouring. Christopher's mind floated free of his body becoming a spectator, not a participant in his own beating. After a few more kicks the assault stopped and he heard the grumble of a diesel engine.

Hands grabbed roughly at his shoulders, pulled him up, and threw him into the back of a jeep. He crumpled against a steel ammunition box and metal container reeking of raw gasoline. The vehicle lurched forward.

"You will die, Dog," one of the men said, with a heavy accent, and then spit on him. "You will die soon."

Christopher felt consciousness slipping into a webby fog, slipping away to somewhere else.

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ALWAYS WRITING

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Chapter 4

Benjamin could only stand and stare, mouth agape, eyes feeling as wide as saucers focused on the now blank spot on the wall beside the huge, stained glass window above the Torah case. Terror momentarily froze his brain and paralyzed his body. Finally, he drew a shaky breath, exhaled slowly, and looked around. He was alone in the Temple.

In the back of his mind, his inner voice questioned; Was it a vision? A revelation? A miracle? Or something else?

His heart yoyo'd. His pulse beat in his temples. He had seen something he could not believe. Something that wasn't even possible. He forced himself to blink and channeled his thoughts to try and make sense of it. One moment, he was staring at the stained glass and the backdrop of sunlight against it and the next…

He stroked his thin beard with the tips of his fingers and then shook his head as if too clear it, as if he could clear it? Impossible! His mind skipped like a stone across water. In his twenty-plus years as representative of God he had never witnessed anything like what he just saw.

He turned away and started toward the back of the synagogue. If he had ever doubted his calling in life and devotion to a higher power, those doubts were now completely erased. Something beyond this world did exist! He was certain of it!

"Are you okay, Rabbi Greenberg?" a male voice asked.

Benjamin was in a near trance-like state of trying to comprehend the vision and hadn't noticed the young man holding a manila folder standing in front of the exit doors into the parking lot.

"I said hello," the young man said. "You walked right passed like I was invisible."

Benjamin stopped and for a long interval stared at the boy.

"Oh, I, uh…" Benjamin stuttered, attempting to compose himself. "I'm sorry, Zachary."

Zachary was here for a bar mitzvah lesson, Benjamin had almost forgotten.

"I'm ready," Zachary said. "I've been studying my lines all week."

"That's good, Zachary, that's real good." Benjamin hesitated, grasping at the first excuse he could think of not to teach the boy today. "I'm feeling a bit under the weather. Would it be all right if we rescheduled the lesson? I believe I'm due for a nap."

Zachary looked at him with a slightly perplexed expression. "Cancel?"

Benjamin nodded grimly. "We'll catch up on your studies next week."

"Uh sure, Rabbi," Zachary replied. "I'll call my mom and let her know to pick me back up."

"That would be best."

The boy withdrew his cell phone and walked toward the doors pausing long enough to say, "Hope you feel better, Rabbi."

"Thank you, Zachary," Benjamin replied. "Tell your mother I'm sorry."

"I will."

As soon as Zachary stepped through the doors and onto the parking lot, Benjamin hurried into his office and shut the door. His whole body was trembling and he thought about taking a slug off the bottle of brandy he kept under his talus in the top drawer of his desk. Sweat was beginning to make his shirt feel uncomfortably moist. He needed the brandy! Not wanted it. Needed it! The way Stephanie needed her vodka. Everything he'd ever known about reality had just come into question and he was having a hard time sorting it out. Confusion had tendrils buried deep within his brain.

He stepped to his desk, dropped down into the chair, and pulled open the drawer. He pushed aside papers: overdue bills for Stephanie's stint in rehab, his latest sermon on letting go of past regrets, the divorce form Stephanie didn't know about and he hadn't yet filled out; and underneath the talus, withdrew the bottle. He hesitated, thought again about what he had seen in the Temple and then took a swig straight from the neck. Liquid burned as it raced down his throat but the numbing warmth did little to calm his nerves. His soul was in overdrive. What he saw. Was it a glimpse of heaven? A glimpse of Hell? Purgatory?

He splashed brandy into his coffee mug and then stashed the bottle away. He drank a sip and swirled the liquid staring absently at the thin patina left on the mug's sides.

The vision certainly wasn't heaven. Whatever it was, he couldn't shake the scenes or sensations he experienced. He didn't just witness something surreal he had become a part of it.

He had come aware in another person's body. Walls around him were cinderblock and the floor was sand. He felt intense heat. A small barred window was the only ventilation. Light came from a single, white bulb hanging from a cord and layered with dust. He was on his stomach with his head to the side, bound in a reverse pretzel position with thick leg irons shackled to his ankles and his wrists tied behind him. Another rope bound his elbows just above the joints. A heavy object, probably a rock, was strapped on his back and pressed heavily on his body causing pain; not immediate burning nerve and severing of skin pain, but a mental, foggy anguish that enduring prolonged physical discomfort caused.

He remembered something else, too, a tarnished silver bowl with a few tablespoons of dirty water positioned just out of reach.

"Am I disturbing you, Rabbi Greenberg?"

The voice jerked Benjamin from his recollection and he looked up to see a middle-age man, short, and balding at the crown, standing in the open doorway of his office. Benjamin slid the mug into his desk drawer, collected himself, and cleared his throat.

"Not at all, Rabbi Goldman," he said, gesturing him in. "Can I help you with something?"

Rabbi Goldman wandered along the side of the room with his hands in his pockets and then stepped up to the desk. His look of concern sharpened his features.

"Coming in from the parking lot, I met up with the boy you sent away," Rabbi Goldman said. "He told me you weren't feeling well."

"That's right." Benjamin replied, with a defensive jut of his chin. He leaned back in his chair as the numbing effects of the brandy swam through his system. "I've got a bout of stomach flu or something."

Rabbi Goldman gave a shaky laugh and made it known that he had smelled the brandy by sniffing loudly. "Or something?"

He stepped beside Benjamin.

"Could this something be Christopher?" he asked.

Benjamin's guard went up and his defensiveness heightened.

"It's been seven months," Benjamin said. He felt a muscle twitch in the corner of his right eye. "I'm fine."

Rabbi Goldman nodded sympathetically. "I know you are, but it's not you I'm worried about."

Benjamin pushed back his chair and stood. "Stephanie's fine, also! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and take a nap!"

He came around from behind the desk and headed toward the door.

"Ben," Rabbi Goldman called after him in a gentle tone.

Benjamin stopped and turned his head. "Yes."

"The Lord has reason for everything, even Christopher. Don't lose faith."

Benjamin made a gruff noise that could have passed for a laugh and waved his hand dismissively. "Faith got me through Christopher's death and Stephanie's grieving, how could I lose it now?"

Rabbi Goldman took a deep breath, seeming ready to say more, and then gave a morose nod of understanding.

Benjamin headed out looking confident, but his shoulders sagged as soon as he was beyond Rabbi Goldman's sight. It was a little past three o'clock and Benjamin was going home to what felt like a tomb. Stephanie would be drunk when he got there. She always was by mid-day. Ever since those three army officers came to their door late that dreadful Tuesday night and informed them that Christopher was gone. It was her way of coping with his death, he understood that, but it was also ruining the incredible love they once shared.

Benjamin felt a bit dizzy as he walked out to the parking lot. October air was crisp and clean, immersed in the chill of coming winter and the scent of turning leaves. Sky was cobalt blue and the sun shone with an intensity that warmed his face and shoulders. He thought about God and the notion that an all-powerful being was watching over humanity and playing us like chess pieces in some grand game for which we could never comprehend the outcome. If Christopher's death was a part of God's plan, then it damn better all be worth it.

Benjamin drew a long, slow breath and tried to change the subject in his mind. If he thought too deeply about the logic of life and death he would begin to question the true meaning of God and religion; did God create humanity or did humanity create God? That wasn't a good thing considering the tragedies he's had to endure.

Perhaps, Rabbi Goldman was right? Perhaps, he was losing faith?

It was a chilling thought.

But now the vision.

Why?

For what purpose?

Questions bloomed. Was it God's way of showing him that something beyond this mortality existed? That the Bible, and Torah, and Koran, and all the other religious doctrines out there were true? Although Christopher was gone from this world was there another where he lived? Is there a place where we all go when we die?

Benjamin considered the questions and a chilly horror rippled through him. If his vision was the afterlife it was not a destination he wanted to explore.

He unlocked his car door, slid into the driver's seat, cranked the engine, and headed out. He glided onto the familiar onramp, drove through the intersection, and cruised down the highway navigating through the ebb and flow of traffic.

Like a dream one remembers vividly upon waking but then slowly disappears as the day's events unfold, as each second passed the vision faded from the forefront of Benjamin's priorities and the troubles of his life and marriage oozed back into the moment.

Stephanie's attempt at alcohol rehab had failed and she thought AA was a joke. She had seemingly given up on hope and life simultaneously, accepting and content to spend the remainder of her days in a vodka-induced haze; an existence Benjamin hated, yet in his own way also contributed too. He was no puritan by any meaning of the term and spent many days after Christopher's death drinking away the hours alongside his wife. But God's calling was stronger than the booze and he got control of his out-of-control situation and his path through life, except for a few stumbles off the wagon every now and again, especially after what happened today.

But Stephanie, his dear and treasured Stephanie, had lost the battle with her demons. She and Christopher were very close as siblings and when he joined the army and went off to war his absence caused her many sleepless, worry-filled nights. His sudden loss affected her deeply and possibly irreparably.

Not a week after her thirty-days of rehab were up, Benjamin found her passed out at the kitchen table with her face in a pool of her own vodka-stinking vomit. She promised it was just a misstep, but by the following week she was back to downing a bottle a day. He wanted to divorce her but thought of himself as a selfish heel for desiring an easy way out of an awful situation. Their wedding vows were sacred to him. Through good times and bad, till death do us part, weren't just a babble of words, they were the mantra which had gotten the two of them through horrible times that just kept coming.

By the time Benjamin turned into his driveway his thoughts were almost entirely on taking care not to upset Stephanie and making sure she got to bed okay. As he parked, his vision of the prison cell faded even more from his mind and by the time he stepped up to the porch it was gone from his mental priorities.

He steeled himself, unlocked the door, and headed inside his emotions thick with dread. The medicinal/sterile odor of vodka spiked the air. Stephanie was in the den, sprawled in her usual chair with a half empty glass of clear liquid on the little coffee table beside her. Noise of him entering must have woken her and she barely acknowledged him as he entered the room.

"Hi, Steph," he greeted, trying to act cheerful to see her.

"Hey," she slurred, and yawned, her eyes half-open. "How… how was your day?"

He sighed. The sight of her in this inebriated state depressed him. She was still pretty, still had a nice shape to her body, and had beautiful grapefruit-colored hair like her mother, and he should want her more than anything, but he didn't. And the guilt of his lack of love weighed heavily upon his shoulders.

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

"My day was fine," he said. "How about yours?"

Stephanie smiled and her heavy lids closed. Her chin dropped to her chest and she let out a snore. He stood a moment staring at her and feeling dispirited, remembering the good times and intimacy. He was a stranger to her now, someone she saw through brief moments of sobriety; a roommate who shared a bed and an occasional meal, nothing more.

He stepped into the kitchen without a backward glance. An empty bottle of vodka was on the counter and another half-empty one was on the stove. It looked like Stephanie had attempted to make dinner and pieces of baked chicken and dirty plates were everywhere. Benjamin opened the fridge and took a plate of two-day old roast beef that he had made himself, heated it in the microwave, and then grabbed a slice of white bread, silverware and a napkin, and headed to the basement to fiddle with his toy trains.

Toy trains were his childhood obsession and now as an adult he had acquired a collection any enthusiast would dream to own. Most every night he tinkered away at this and that, built new track, or painted a miniature building. It was his refuge from the duties of his sanctimonious position and the torture his home life had become since Christopher's death.

Tonight was especially exciting for him because yesterday Fed Ex had delivered the antique 1920's steam engine he'd bought off Ebay. Anticipation of an evening with his new toy tickled his insides as he unwrapped the packing. Upstairs, the floor creaked signaling that Stephanie was out of her chair and probably going to slink up to the bedroom. Her new bedtime was most people's dinner time.

"Goodnight, Steph!" he shouted up the steps.

She mumbled something and he heard the bedroom door shut. Now, he could relax and enjoy.

Toy trains took him to a different time and a different place, when Stephanie was a doting wife and Christopher was alive and living down the street and all that marriage and life was supposed to be was real and happy. A time when friends, relatives, and neighbors gathered at his house every Fourth of July for his annual pool and grill party. When Stephanie talked of having children of their own and raising a big family.

A lump jumped into his throat as he realized those days were gone forever. Since Christopher's death, his dream had become a nightmare and he saw no way to awaken from it. He didn't want a divorce. He loved Stephanie, truly cared about her in the deepest, spiritual, soul-connected definition. But her drinking and the mess of her life had become unbearable. She refused further treatment for her alcoholism and refused to change her lifestyle. She believed God took Christopher away on purpose. That the almighty is a vindictive entity and so there was no reason to uphold Its' values.

Her behavior would have been tough to take in any marriage, but he was a rabbi, a spiritual leader. People looked to him for divine guidance and yet he was partnered with a woman who cursed the divine. As Stephanie's faith shriveled it sapped moisture from his own, planting heretical ideas into the black, terrible depths of his psyche.

He pushed this ugliness from his brain and concentrated on the new train engine. Carefully, he placed it on the tracks and was delighted when the little red lights on its side brightened. He stepped over to the control panel and slowly pushed the throttle forward. Tiny puffs of white smoke coughed from its chimney as the little engine began to move. Benjamin smiled.

The track rippled.

He blinked several times to adjust his eyes. A small section looked as if a stream of water was running across it. He leaned closer, hesitant with wonder, and squinted to help bring it into sharper focus. There appeared to be a rip in the fabric covering the miniature hills. Only it wasn't a rip. It was a hole. A small pool of light spilled out.

Temperature rose significantly and his body broke into a sweat. An image of a woman's face appeared before him. She looked in her early twenties, pretty, with styled blonde hair and large, arctic blue-colored eyes.

"Help!" he heard someone cry out weakly.

The woman faded and he felt himself being pulled into a different scene of the world.

He was back in the small prison cell made of concrete blocks, bound in the reverse pretzel position and panting little puppy gasps. Two bearded men were standing on either side. One held a whip. The tarnished silver bowl with a little bit of water just out of reach.

He heard the sound of leather against flesh and felt hot, searing pain lightning across his back. He screamed in a voice that was not familiar. Another leather against flesh sound and pain rocketed between his shoulder blades. Agony was unearthly.

Stop! Benjamin tried to say but no words would come. His mouth would not move. He was incapable of operating the jaw muscles. He could not control the body he occupied. He could not struggle against the restraints.

A gruff voice said something in a foreign language and another blast of pain tore through him. His thoughts turned to Stephanie and he worried if she was also being tortured and then suddenly the basement appeared around him and he found himself standing beside the miniature tracks. The little engine was still circling but the rip/hole in the fabric was gone.

Benjamin stood as if frozen, his eyes glued open. For a good ten seconds, he was too surprised, stunned, and totally horrified to move. His knees were quaking and his insides felt like a bowling ball had settled. He looked around the basement. Everything appeared normal: laundry piled haphazardly on top of the washer, boxes of old mementos in the corner, crates of toy soldiers and miniature cars that Stephanie kept after they'd gone through Christopher's personal affects.

Fingers numb, Benjamin shut off power to the new train engine and the little machine slowed to a stop. Final wisps of white smoke drooled from its stack.

Pressing a hand to his racing heart, Benjamin stepped slowly from the room and headed quickly up the stairs. He hurried through the hallway and up the second flight to their bedroom. Stephanie was a snoring lump in the bed. Light from the hallway illuminated her form.

"Stephanie!" he said, trying to rouse her. "Wake up! Something happened! Wake up!"

She groaned, having sunk into deep slumber.

"Come on, Stephanie!" he urged, shaking her shoulder. "This is important! Wake up!"

He pulled the blanket down to her waist and jumped back with surprise. Terror iced every nerve in his body.

"What?" she croaked, coming wide awake. "What is it?"

Blood drained from Benjamin's head and rushed to his feet. His eyes scanned the room for something he could use as a weapon.

"Who?" he gasped, his breath hard to gather. "Who are you?"

She smothered a yawn with the back of her hand. "What?"

"Where's Stephanie?"

"Huh?" She blinked into full coherency. "I'm right here. What's wrong with you?"

"You're not…"

He back-pedaled slowly, across the room toward the bathroom.

"Why did you wake me?" she asked. "Benjamin, what are you doing?"

He shut the door without answering and felt a blast of hot air.

Chapter 5

Tony felt a blast of hot air and balked it off as nerves. He knew he was going to die someday, everyone does. He just didn't like being told when it was going to happen. Especially, for a crime he didn't commit. He could never kill an eight-year-old boy. The jury had it wrong. He had befriended his neighbor Christopher Parker, that's all. The judge, biased motherfucker, everyone knew he hated blacks, had Tony convicted even before the guilty verdict was pronounced.

Judgment day was upon him. There was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable. All the t's were crossed and the i's dotted. He was going to die at the age of forty-six. The state was going to do it.

At the moment, he felt amazingly calm. Almost at peace with what was about to happen. Weird sensation of the comprehension of the finality of his life. There must be meaning to this? Having always been an atheist he now hoped and prayed that there was something beyond this existence. He would meet God or something or somebody who would make him understand why he was taken so young for a crime he didn't commit. He must have a purpose in the afterlife more than the present moment and that's why this was happening to him. He was supposed to die for some greater purpose. That's how he rationalized it.

On his last night before the end, Tony had laid on his thin mattress in the death cell thinking about his life. Born into poverty, he had worked his way from a dishwasher in a truck stop diner to head chef in an expensive fine dining establishment. After a few years, he saved enough money to buy a small rancher in a nice community where he met and married an amazing woman, Valerie. They had just opened a new savings account to eventually open their own restaurant when Christopher Parker went missing and then was discovered shortly thereafter a victim of a grisly murder.

Tony thought back to those courtroom days nearly a decade ago. The prosecution, the pictures, those horrible, horrible pictures, thrust into his face.

The shed where two investigative police had found Christopher Parker's body was by their own description, a slaughterhouse. Photographs showed a mutilated corpse surrounded by pools of blood splashed onto the walls and soaked into the wood floor.

Authorities accused Tony of beating Christopher and then killing and partially dismembering him. Cell phone records placed Tony at his own home across the street from Christopher's house at the time. Neighbors saw Tony talking with the boy just hours before Christopher went missing. Tony had been the only suspect in a town mad for vengeance and retribution. Townspeople, some who he'd known for years, called him a monster and the devil. His own family shunned him after the evidence was revealed and the guilty verdict read. Even his beloved Valerie wanted nothing more to do with him. It was heartbreaking.

The whole community breathed a giant sigh of relief the day he was shackled and sent away forever. The only person who believed in his innocence was ma.

Ma's belief got him through tough days in prison, long days of solitude and reflection during the awful hollowness of isolation. Days when death seemed a more comfortable option than life, only to have reality rear its ugly head and give him a tingly, jolt-to-the-stomach realization that his time was limited. He would go through periods of disbelief, then shock, and then he would yearn for freedom and cry unabashedly at the hand fate had dealt him, paralyzed by fathomless despair.

An innocent man condemned to die.

The last three years since his appeal had been denied was like a nightmare from which he could never awake. Each minute, Hell, each passing second, was like a slow drip toward the inevitable. A maddening wait for the end of his life.

And now that day was upon him.

For his last meal, Tony had chosen fried chicken with corn bread and grits. The smell of the freshly prepared food brought his mind briefly back to his childhood and long, lazy days trawling for crawfish along the Mississippi basin. By prison standards, the entree looked and smelled delicious, but he couldn't bring himself to take even a single bite. His stomach had been knotted tight with dreadful apprehension.

They had brought him to the holding cell dressed in orange prison garb, but now corrections officers watched as he disrobed and put on a white jumpsuit. They escorted him to another holding cell.

Two stays of execution were phoned in while he waited for his death and for a little while Tony thought the corrections officers might actually lead him back to his cell to continue his purgatory. But eventually the calls stopped and the guards came for him for real.

He heard the turn of a deadbolt and a whispery creak as the steel door opened.

"Mr. Campbell, it's time," one said with finality, from outside the cell.

The guard's voice caused the tiny hairs on the back of Tony's neck to prickle, detonating the reality of his situation. He'd never feel happiness again. He'd never take another walk outside. He'd never enjoy another good steak. He'd never kiss another girl. He'd never listen to music. He'd never see the moon or feel the sun shine warmly on his face. Everything and all things were going to disappear forever.

In a whirl of panic, Tony's fingers locked onto the steel bars like leeches and he began a long, shrieking cry.

"I'm innocent!" he sobbed. "Don't let me die like this!"

With a little effort, the corrections officers pulled him free and he was led wobbly-kneed from the cell down a long, sterile hallway with the warden ahead and a reverend with a somber expression keeping pace beside him. Lights from the fluorescents above seemed extra bright and their electric hum nearly deafening.

"Please don't make me walk so fast!" Tony pleaded through tears, as he wept into his handcuffed hands. "Don't make me go so fast!"

Three more guards standing at the end encircled him as the other guards ushered him toward a door. The guard in front took out a set of keys and slid one into the lock. Click echoed loud as a thunderclap and the door opened.

The room was bright and clean, surrounded on three sides by clear glass windows. A single, metal chair, with tubes going in and coming out was at the center. Tony looked through the windows at the small crowd gathered in the witness room adjacent to the execution chamber. He recognized most of the faces from the trial. There were Christopher's parents, Janet and Dan, his sister Stephanie, and Christopher's boyhood friend Roger, now all grown up. Under harsh questioning, Roger had attested to seeing Christopher and Tony together that fateful day. Mrs. Wilson from the neighborhood, who had initially called the police on Tony because of her own malicious suspicions, was also present and toward the front. And there was ma, sitting in the back row dabbing at her eyes with a white handkerchief. She looked old and haggard, gray and worn out from the stress his life had brought upon her.

Tony's throat constricted. Every muscle in his body shook uncontrollably and he fought back the urge to crumple.

One of the corrections officers clasped Tony's arm tightly and directed him where to go. Severe panic hit. Survival instinct told him to run, to scream, to fight for more time on this planet. His head swung frantically around while his mind conjured any means of escape.

Crushing sadness of the impossibility of freedom hit like a lead wrecking ball. His life was over!

He stumbled and went nearly immobile as the guards maneuvered him into the seat. His hands trembled fiercely as they strapped them down. Mindless instinct caused him to impulsively struggle free, forcing the corrections officers to tie the binds tighter, cutting off circulation to his fingers.

"Don't fight it," one prompted him. "It'll go easier."

Tremendous shivers rolled over Tony.

"Will it hurt?" he asked, meekly.

"Not as much as what that boy went through," the guard muttered, through clenched teeth.

The guard looked up at him with an accusatory expression, controlled anger filling his eyes.

Tony's hope crushed into profound sadness. Presumed guilty until the end. How awful that he would leave this world a reviled, hated man, the flaw in his justice system never to be revealed.

The warden stepped in front of him and unfolded a piece of paper. He looked at the room of spectators, then at Tony, and then at what was written down.

"This court," he read, with an unwavering gaze and steady determination. "Having sentenced the defendant Tony Campbell on this second day of September, 2017, to be executed by lethal injection, now carries out that sentence. Mr. Campbell, do you have any final words?"

Distraught, Tony's mind was a thick, toxic sludge of despair.

"I'm innocent!" he cried out, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "I'm innocent, dear God!"

The crowd of onlookers didn't react. Tony looked at them but wished he hadn't. They were staring at him. He could see them through the glass; see the loathing in their eyes. Ma got up and headed for the exit.

"Don't go!" Tony screamed, as they placed a black hood over his head. "Momma! Momma! Don't leave me!"

Darkness.

Long, silent seconds ticked by and then the feeling of a sharp pinprick as a needle dug an intravenous line into his vein. The effect on his bloodstream was both immediate and soothing as the preliminary narcotic drugs took effect infusing him with peace and calm. Anxiety dissolved. Endorphins flooded his system and his fingers and toes started to tingle. Although the feeling numbed his body his mind remained sharp, clear, and aware of what was occurring.

Artificially induced bliss swelled and his thoughts drifted through the divine moments of his life: playing baseball with his friends on Conner's field, graduating from the University of Mississippi, his move up east, getting a job at Jack's Burgers and Fries, the first time he ever saw Valerie and fell instantly in love.

He wondered if he would meet Christopher Parker in the afterlife? Then he could ask him who the killer really was. Who was the bastard who had taken Christopher's life and then veered his own life so completely out of control?

A tunnel of light appeared in his mind. Blinding, milky white light, and with it came a new feeling of total peace and harmony with the universe. He was dying. This was it.

Weird to feel his breathing shallow and then stop.

His bloodstream still.

His pupils dilate and freeze.

His extremities loosen.

A spot of color appeared at the very core of this tunnel. Tony gazed at it with his inner eye and caught a glimpse of what appeared to be walls made of concrete blocks. Amazingly, he drew a deep breath and in the back of his throat tasted the hot, dry air of a desert. He felt instantly dehydrated.

He came aware in some sort of a prison cell. He was on his stomach bound in a reverse pretzel position with heavy leg irons shackled to his ankles and his wrists restrained behind him. Another rope bound his elbows just above the joints. A heavy rock was strapped to his back and pressed on his shins and feet. Ropes strangled his flesh causing searing pain. He screamed out but it was not his own anguished voice that he heard. It was the voice of someone else, someone in great pain that he was experiencing.

Is this Hell? he thought, through the agony.

On the sandy floor, just out of reach, was a tarnished silver bowl filled with a few tantalizing spoonfuls of dirty water.

"Help me!" his voice cried out, sounding nothing like his own.

Surroundings dimmed into dark and pain subsided. Ground beneath him turned soft and comfortable. Swishing gurgles of a working dishwasher sounded in his ears. Aromas of baked chicken drifted into his nose. He opened his eyes and his vision jumped into focus. He was on a sofa facing a twenty-seven inch, flat screen television. Ping of a microwave oven came from the other room.

Tony bolted up like defibrillator paddles had shocked him out of a heart attack, and nearly leapt off the couch. His head flew from side to side as he took in the interior surroundings and let them fill his field of vision: short corridor leading to a small kitchen with the living room to the left and the dining room to the right; bedrooms in the back. Pictures on the walls showed a much younger he and Valerie at the beach, he and Valerie on their wedding day, Valerie getting her Master's degree, and one neon print of a giant palm tree jutting out over a cobalt ocean.

He recognized the surroundings but couldn't believe it. His mouth dropped open. Adrenaline fizzled through his veins. He was at home!

He scrambled from the couch nearly knocking over a lamp and raced to the window. Outside, the world was exactly as he remembered nearly a decade ago: the small tomato garden in the back, the overgrown Azalea bush, Valerie's red Toyota parked in the driveway.

His breathing increased. He patted himself to feel if he was solid, fearing momentarily that he may have become a ghost. His skin felt warm and soft, his bones hard. He was wearing what was once his favorite blue t-shirt and jeans that fit snug.

"What's all the commotion?" a voice asked, sending chills of excitement up his spine.

Valerie stepped into the room with a disgusted expression on her face. Even with that look she was still the prettiest thing he'd ever seen, with coco-colored skin, rich brown eyes, and long, artificially straightened black hair.

"Val—" Disbelief caused Tony's voice to catch in his throat.

"Your ma's gonna be here in less than an hour and your clothes are still all over the place!" she said, dividing an angry glance between him and the mess on the floor. "Come, now! You said you'd help me clean!"

Tony stood nearly immobile, his jaw moved to speak but shock caused words to freeze in his throat. His mind marveled in disorientation and amazement. The last years of his life were so clear in his head: prison, his trial, existing on death row, three years in solitary confinement, and his execution. Events of his life that appear to have been erased were as real to him as the world he existed in right now. It couldn't have all been a dream.

Or could it?

"Don't just stand there," Valerie said. "Pick up so I can run a vacuum."

Numb, Tony grabbed his sneakers and the small pile of discarded clothes and headed toward the laundry room. Movement outside caught his attention. He stepped to the window and looked out across the street. His breath halted and his eyelids froze open. His face stiffened with shock. If there had been food in his belly he would have retched. But all he could do was stand there with absolute incredulity and overwhelming relief and disbelief.

Christopher Parker was outside standing on the sidewalk talking with his friend Roger.

Tony reached for the doorknob to go outside. Pain burned through his shoulders. Temperature rose and he started panting for breath. A flash of white light popped in front of his face.

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ALWAYS WRITING

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Chapter 6

Light came from a single, white bulb hanging from a cord and layered with dust. Christopher came fully aware in a hot box of a cell, alone, and panting little puppy gasps. The cell was small, about six feet by nine feet. Only one window about 18-inches square with bars on it allowed for ventilation. A tarnished, silver bowl in the corner held a few teaspoons of dirty water.

He was bound in a reverse pretzel position with thick leg irons shackled to his ankles and his wrists. Another rope bound his elbows just above the joints. A rock was strapped to his back and pressed heavily on his body making the agony exquisite.

"Help!" he cried out, his voice as weak as his body.

His belly ached with hunger. His mouth tasted like old tin cans. He could feel his face was swollen and bruised. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten and he didn't know how long he'd been unconscious.

The door pulled open and two bearded guards entered carrying something he couldn't see. Their features blended into the shadows, but they were definitely not American. One withdrew a whip and Christopher simultaneously heard the sound of leather against flesh and then felt pain; instant, hot, and debilitating, across his back. He screamed. The guard whipped him again and then the other one removed the rock, reached down, and unbound the restraints. Relief flowed through him as his arms and legs fell flat.

The guard grabbed Christopher's shoulders and heaved him to his feet. His knees felt liquid and he stumbled off-balanced. The guard with the whip helped grab a shoulder and the two forcefully held him up.

"Eat!" the other guard demanded and held out a small, wooden bowl.

Detestable smells of spoiled fish caused Christopher to instinctively turn away.

"Eat!"

The guard holding the whip seized his head. The other guard pinched Christopher's nose and pried open his mouth with a metal spoon. Disgusting sticky rice filled his throat as they forcefully shoveled it in. Christopher drew a swift breath, choked and gagged, but swallowed the lump. Another lump clotted his mouth. He swallowed.

Despite the horrid taste and physical cruelty it actually felt good to get something into his belly. The guards let go for a moment and Christopher caught his breath, steadying himself on wobbly legs, his shredded, bloody, military issue underwear clinging to his body. The tattoo of the American flag on his forearm was clearly visible.

The guard with the whip shoved the bowl at his face.

"Eat!"

Christopher reached out and took a small portion. It was hard to see through his mucky, swollen eyelids. He put the rice into his mouth and swallowed trying not to move his swollen jaw.

The other guard reared his foot back and kicked Christopher's genitals. Pain blew through Christopher's loins and hunched him over. He bit off a cry. The guard pushed him against the wall and punched him in the stomach. Christopher crumpled to the floor. Another guard kicked him in the side and then used his boot to roll him onto his back. The guard dropped his heel down onto Christopher's stomach driving out his breath and the sticky rice he had consumed.

As Christopher vomited, a guard covered his nose and mouth forcing him to swallow to keep from choking. Blood rushed to his head. His eyes bulged like they were going to explode. He couldn't breathe. He kicked out blindly. He couldn't think. All he could do was swallow, swallow, and swallow, so as not to suffocate.

The guard lifted his foot off Christopher's belly. Christopher rolled onto his side and vomited more rice-muck, now speckled with bright red drops of blood. The guard stood over Christopher with an expression of utter pleasure on his face.

"Look at you now, Dog," he said sinisterly, in deeply accented English. "You look like shit!" The guard spit in Christopher's face. "You smell like shit! You are nothing but a piece of shit!"

Christopher heard shouts in the distance and then a burst of machinegun fire. Men called out frantically to one another. Some were American voices some foreign. Another burst of machine gun fire and then the sound of a mortar going off.

The guards panicked. One reached under Christopher's arms, pulled him to a staggered, standing position, and then handcuffed his hands behind his back. Two other guards rushed into the cell and grabbed his arms on either side as a third came in and shoved a dirty sock into his mouth. The third guard kneed him, the other two let go, and Christopher dropped to the floor.

Blood ran from his nose and eyes. Guards picked him up again and dragged him toward the door. He looked out at a seemingly endless desert of fine, white sand. Bolts of lightning from a far off storm struck vividly against the indigo backdrop of waning light. Smoke rose from several demolished vehicles. Two long rows of soldiers marched adjacent to an area filled with high-tech military equipment. Stirred sand billowed around their boots. A few more soldiers were heading into makeshift tents and withdrawing what looked like anti-aircraft missiles.

Tears slid down his cheeks. His head hammered with pain and his sunken belly growled with starvation. He looked at his gaunt and battered body. Small black flies were feasting on an infected cyst on his thigh. He looked at his hands. They were chaffed and cut and two fingers were black and obviously broken.

"March!" one ordered, as Christopher attempted to regain some semblance of balance.

He took a small step and the world turned to jelly.

He collapsed.

"Up!" a guard thundered. "Up, Dog!"

Another mortar exploded and shook the ground. Dust sprinkled from the ceiling. Guards went frantic and yelled at each other with fast, distressed words. Panicked faces blurred then faded, as Christopher heard them shout at him to get up.

He lay there motionless and started to pray, fighting against his thoughts from convincing life to slip away through the beckoning black hole the pain created. He fought to stay in touch with reality enough to keep alive. He knew it was vital to remain hopeful and focus on something to keep him determined to live. He felt his eyes flutter up into their sockets and his tortured mind disengage.

Chapter 7

"Is mom going to be okay?" Janet heard Stephanie ask.

She watched Dan take a deep breath and hold it in his lungs for a moment before letting it out in a long, histrionic sigh. He shook his head with his lips set in a grim line.

"I don't know. I just don't know."

He closed the door to her bedroom pitching it to near darkness. Sun was shining outside but the Venetian blinds were drawn tight. Daylight reminded her too much of Christopher and how he liked to play in the yard.

Where is my son and why doesn't anyone remember him?

She drew the bedcovers up to her chest.

Am I insane?

She'd spent the last two days since Christopher's disappearance blown away by grief, holed up in bed, too depressed to eat, too sad to want to interact with the world. Memories of him were crystal clear in her mind. Her pregnancy, giving birth, changing his stinky diapers, his first day of pre-school, the chest full of toy army men he liked to play with, his love of 1960's muscle cars, his best friend Roger.

There was no Roger. No chest of toys. Nothing to indicate Christopher was real.

Christopher happened!

Why was she the only one who remembered him?

She couldn't stop shuddering. Her body ached with depression, immense sadness, and the beginnings of bedsores. She could smell her own odor. She rolled onto her side and stared vacantly where a picture of Christopher used to hang, or so she believed.

Something moved. Her attention tweaked and she sat up. There, beside the electrical outlet. What was it?

She squinted as if her eyes were out of focus. They weren't. A small section of the wall no larger than a shoe box was rippling as if the solid plaster had turned into a liquid and a slight wind was dappling its surface.

Goosebumps popped over her skin. She slid from the bed and stepped toward the anomaly. The section of wall turned silvery, like mercury in an old thermometer. She knelt, hesitated, and then touched it. Her fingers felt like she was pressing on soft jelly. She pushed harder and her hand moved through the consistency of thick mud. She pulled her fingers back and wiggled them. They were clean, no paranormal residue.

Determined to figure out what was going on she pushed her fist forcefully into the substance and continued going all the way up to her elbow. It was hot on the other side, dry warmth, like sticking her hand into a pre-heated oven. She pulled her arm out and a hole remained. She leaned closer to peak through and gasped at what she saw.

"Mrs. Parker," said a man's voice from the doorway.

Janet jumped, her spine becoming a steel rod, and spun around. She hadn't heard the door open. The man wore a starched white button down shirt with a casual suit jacket and a narrow red tie.

"Look!" she gasped. "Look at the wall!"

The man leaned around her, his expression remaining neutral.

"Do you see it?" she questioned, fiercely. "Do you see it?"

The man cleared his throat.

"Mrs. Parker," he said, formally. "May I call you Janet?"

"Do you see it?" she asked, again. "Do you see the hole?"

He crossed the few feet of space between them.

"My name is Dr. Burrows and—"

"Look at the wall!"

Dr. Burrows stopped and maintained his neutral expression. "Janet, I don't see anything."

She swung her head around. The hole and the ripple were gone.

"It was there!" she punctuated. "It was there! A hole! I put my hand through it! I saw what was on the other side!"

"Other side?"

"Other side of the wall!"

"I assume the rear lawn."

"No! No!" she stated. "Something else!"

"What did you see?"

She put a hand on her chest which rose and fell with each heavy breath. "It was a horrible place! Just horrible!"

Dr Burrows took another step toward her almost invading her personal space. "Please explain further."

"I don't think I want to," she replied, taking a step back, her eyes examining his face. "Who are you, anyway?"

"As I mentioned before, my name is Dr. Burrows. I'm a mental health specialist."

She nodded. "A psychiatrist. Of course you are. Dan called you, didn't he?"

"Your husband is worried about you. Now please, it's important that you tell me what you just saw."

She hesitated. The image was too terrible to want to keep in her mind.

"You won't believe me."

"It doesn't matter what I believe. What's important is what you believe."

She sat down on the edge of the bed, but almost immediately her adrenaline compelled her to stand up and walk about the room. After a few moments, she stopped and turned toward him.

"Okay, I'll tell you what I saw."

Dr. Burrows leaned forward with interest.

"It was a horrible place," she began. She ran a hand through her hair; the strands as tangled as her thoughts. "A prison cell I think, because there was a small barred window and the floor was sand. It was hot. Really hot. A man was there. He had brown hair like my Christopher, but he was all grown up. He was in the corner tied to a chair that had been knocked onto its side. He was asleep, or passed out, or dead, I don't know which. He was wearing gray underwear and the fabric was shredded and bloody. And his face…" She shuddered. "It was so bruised and swollen I couldn't make out his features. There was one other thing about him. I saw a tattoo of the American flag on his forearm."

"An American flag?"

She nodded. "There was also a tarnished silver bowl a few feet away from him. But I couldn't see if there was anything in it."

Dr. Burrows stared at her. "That's a pretty detailed recollection. Do you think this man and your son are the same person?"

She shook her head. "They can't be. Christopher is only eight."

"Have you considered the possibility that in this vision of him he may be grown?"

"Christopher isn't a vision!"

Janet stared back at the space on the wall where the mysterious rippling had appeared.

"It was more like…" she said. "Like an immersion into another world."

"An immersion? Could your son also be a part of this immersion? Could he exist only there, perhaps?"

Emotion welled and flooded her. Dr. Burrows had it all wrong. Christopher was her boy who grew up in this house! He played with his toy cars and soldiers in the yard. He liked to go fishing with his best friend Roger from down the street. She knew her son's life and what he enjoyed doing. Whoever was on the other side of the wall could not be her son!

Or could it?

Feeling a mix of misery and desperation, Janet met Dr. Burrow's gaze and leveled her voice.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" she said. "You think I'm nuts. Everybody thinks I'm nuts." She rubbed her forehead. "Perhaps, I am."

"I believe that you believe you saw something," Dr. Burrows responded. "In your mind you think it was real, and that's okay. That doesn't make you mentally ill. It just makes you a little confused."

"Confused!" she exclaimed. "That's what you're labeling it? I know Christopher is real! I know he is a part of this family! Somehow he's gone! I don't know if everyone is playing some kind of morbid joke on me! I don't know if it's a parallel-universe thing! I don't know if I'm in the wrong dimension! But I do know I gave birth to Christopher and I'm not just going to forget he ever was!"

Dr. Burrows gave her a long, analytical stare. She avoided meeting his eyes.

"Have you been under a lot of stress lately?" he asked. "Intense stress sometimes produces—"

"It's not stress! Analyzing my life won't do any good! This is not about me! It's about my son!"

"I understand," Dr. Burrows replied, in a calm, reasonable tone. "I know this situation is difficult to accept."

"Accept! Accept what? My son is missing! Does that make me insane?"

"The fact that you can ask yourself that question is a good sign you're not. Tell me, did the time your husband spent in the armed forces cause significant changes in your life, especially when his heart condition caused him to be discharged unexpectedly? Sometimes, the brain creates imaginary situations when people's real lives aren't running as smoothly as—"

"Stop with the clinical bullshit!" she stated. "It's not stress! It's not Dan's absence! It's not my imagination!"

Dr. Burrows squared his jaw and watched her face closely as he spoke.

"According to your family, your friends, school records, hospital records, immunization records, and so on… there never was or has been a Christopher Parker. You have one child, your daughter Stephanie."

Janet reeled back in denial. "You're wrong! You're all wrong!"

"This is reality." Dr. Burrows emphasized.

She felt an overwhelming sense of loss at the reasonableness of his words. She stepped back to the bed, crawled on top, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

"What you saw just now in the wall," Dr. Burrows said. "Do you believe that was real, too?"

Janet turned away from him feeling defeated, scared, grief-stricken and confused. The hole in the wall was impossible, she knew that, yet she also knew she had placed her hand through it. She had seen a man suffering on the other side.

Shivers rolled down her spine and she pulled the blanket around her.

"I… I don't know," she said, carefully avoiding his inquisitive stare as she spoke.

She was having trouble interpreting what was possible and what was illusion. Her logical mind told her all this couldn't be: alternate realities, vivid dreams, and worlds beyond her bedroom wall. She was starting to doubt her own sanity and her convictions about Christopher being real, and beginning to fathom the possibility that he really could just be a figment of her own imagination.

"No one believes me!" she stated. "Not even Dan!"

Worry and fear consumed her. She wrapped the blanket more tightly around her as her eyes released a light sprinkling of tears.

"It's not that your husband doesn't want to believe you. He wants nothing more than for you to be happy and well. But there's just no record of you ever having a son. There's no proof he ever lived or was ever born."

Dr. Burrows dug into his front pocket, brought out a handkerchief, and handed it to her. She dabbed at her cheeks. He pulled out a small tablet.

"I'm going to prescribe some—"

"No! No medication! I don't want to be medicated! I have to think clearly! I have to remember!"

She scrambled from the bed and bolted toward the window. She tore down the Venetian blinds and yanked up the pane. Harsh, white sunlight spilled in through the trees.

"Christopher!" she screamed to the outside world. "Christopher, where are you?"

Dr. Burrows moved beside her and held her shoulders as she sobbed. Dan rushed into the room.

"What's happening?" he asked, his voice tight. He looked pleadingly at Dr. Burrows. "Is she okay?"

"Christopher!" Janet wailed. "Oh, God! Where are you? Where are you?"

She turned away from Dr. Burrows and collapsed into Dan's embrace. He hugged her and she wilted.

Dr. Burrows gave Dan a stern look and said with gravity, "I think she needs some time away to figure things out."

"No!" Janet stated, her watery eyes darting back and forth between them. "You don't understand! None of you understands!"

"Meadowbrook is an inpatient psychiatric center about forty minutes from here," Dr. Burrows continued. "I think a short stay would do a world of good."

"No!" Janet contended, feeling as if she were being sent into exile. "I won't go! Who's going to find Christopher? Who's going to keep searching?"

"I will!" Dan said, so assuredly it brought her to an abrupt silence.

She looked up at him surprised by the snap in his tone. He pulled back to gaze more deeply into her eyes and then hugged her again, his warm voice saying against her hair. "I will do everything I can to find him."

In a stupor of grief and not knowing what else she could do or say, Janet settled, accepted, and nodded slowly. She sniffed, wiped her eyes with her fingers, stepped away from him and even managed a small smile, though the rest of her face did not participate.

"Promise?" she peeped, her face wet with tears and snot.

He nodded, leaned forward, and kissed her cheek, tasting the salt of her sorrow.

"Okay," she whispered, in between little sobs. "I'll go."

Dan reached for her hand and held it between his. "It'll only be for a little while."

She forced herself to look anywhere but at him. Weakness came over her and she felt like she was going to collapse. She looked over at Dr. Burrows and he had turned into a heart monitor machine. Where Dan had stood had become a steel counter top and sink. The room turned into a hospital room.

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ALWAYS WRITING

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Chapter 8

Worst part about getting old is you know you're going to die soon.

Roger remembered hearing those words when he was a young man working as a bartender. The old man sitting at his establishment who had quoted that saying all those years ago had looked haggard and drained, gray and wrinkled, as he downed shots of whiskey with beer chasers and drunkenly reminisced about the boredom his life had become since he'd retired from working in a machine shop after forty-five years.

A week later, the old man's daughter ventured into the tavern for a consolatory drink after booking her father's funeral. Roger easily seduced her into bed and then never saw her again.

How quickly time passes.

Fifty-seven years later, Roger is now the old man lying in a hospital bed dying of prostate cancer and filled with misgivings. Although his belly felt relatively okay compared to what the after-effects of the chemo treatments had done to his well-being, hospice said to expect quick and sudden changes to his health. It was a frightening, surreal feeling knowing that his life was about to end. Wondering what was going to happen when his body shut down. Where his consciousness would go? Would he meet God?

He'd had a long time to philosophize these questions. First diagnosed nearly ten years ago, it was a shock, but not totally unexpected. His own father had died of prostate cancer when Roger was a teenager. Back then, there were little treatment options available. But now, designer drugs and targeted chemotherapy had kept him alive for nearly ten years longer than what would have been possible just two decades previous.

For ten years Roger had been aware of how fragile mortality is. Ten years, wondering if this would be the day he got too sick to live on his own. Jenny had left him a year before the diagnosis, fed up with his drinking and womanizing. He didn't blame her. By his own admission he was an arrogant asshole much of his youth and the early years of his marriage, exploiting his extraordinary good looks to have sex with as many woman as he was capable of bedding without his wife's knowledge. Infidelity had been a game to him and he ended up paying a terrible price to play.

But that was a lifetime ago.

Cancer put an immediate halt to the drinking and chemotherapy plus the passage of time dulled his good looks. At first, the realization that it was no longer possible for him to win a bar fight or easily talk a young lady into getting naked was devastating to his ego and he floundered for a time in sea of introverted misery. Eventually, reason told him just being alive was reward enough and it was impossible to escape the erosion of youth.

Since that bright moment of cognition, he had tried to make the most of every day, volunteering in the community and getting in touch with old friends while making new ones. In fact, his oldest friend Christopher Parker had just left from visiting. Christopher had done nearly all of the talking, reminiscing about the past and all the good times the two of them shared as kids; fishing at the neighbor's pond and hanging out. It was only after the nurse interrupted to inform them that visiting hours were nearly over did Christopher leave.

"I'll see ya soon, buddy," Christopher had said, as he stepped away from Roger's bed and out the room without looking back.

Roger knew why Christopher hadn't turned around. Christopher was crying. Roger doubted he would ever see his oldest and dearest friend again.

Alone, sick, and terrified of the unknown, Roger looked down at his speckled gray hands and knobby knuckles swollen with arthritis, and then with tremendous effort pulled up the sheet to assess his frail body, once thick as a bull's and chocked with muscle. His torso was now skin stretched over a xylophone of rib bones. There was no meat left, just pale skin and sinewy tendon. He'd lost his appetite weeks before and until three days ago (Or was it four, he couldn't recall?) he'd been force-slurping down baby food and applesauce. But now, parched and dehydrated, he had no saliva left to swallow and barely the energy to lick his chapped lips. His physical mechanism was shutting down. This was it.

Death!

The end of everything.

A terrifying understanding that he'd never get better. He'd never feel better. His life was over and he was not okay with it. He had wasted too much precious time on frivolous, self-indulgent matters. He'd let friendships slip away because of his drinking. He'd spent too much time worrying about what other people thought of him and trying to impress those who didn't matter in his life. He hadn't lived life true to himself and destroyed the greatest relationship he ever had by not expressing his true feelings for Jenny. His ego hadn't allowed himself to be happy.

Now, it was too late. His time was done. Regrets could never be resolved.

He laced his hands over his thin, frail chest. He could feel his lungs filling with fluid. He knew the death rattle would soon begin. He'd gasp and choke on his own breath as he drowned in his own bodily fluids. Slowly suffocating, slowly slipping away into the unknown.

The monitor bleeped his feeble heartbeat but Roger couldn't turn his head to look at the screen. He'd lost all control of muscle function and felt his bladder loosen and release final, stale drops of urine. Pins and needles prickled his fingers and toes. Weird, colored lights flashed across his field of vision. Breathing became difficult and he struggled in vain to draw oxygen.

Death was pulling at his soul and he was fully aware of its stringent grasp.

There was no pain. No sense of suffering. He heard himself choking, gasping, but his consciousness wasn't a part of it. He thought it strange that he was so clearly alert. Whatever was happening to his physical wasn't affecting his sentience.

Roger remembered reading renowned physicist Stephen Hawking describe his personal assessment of death as the shutting off of a switch. That we are merely machines and that death simply shuts the machine down for good.

But this wasn't what was happening at all. Roger was getting more clear-headed as his body withered away. He was more cognizant of what was happening around him. He started to feel separated, as if he were something beyond his mortal mechanism. As if he were a conscious creature that had spent a lifetime caged in a container of flesh and bone and as the container failed the creature was being set free.

His lungs would take in no more air. His heart stopped beating and he heard the steady whine of the monitor announcing his physical was gone. He comprehended everything. His body was deceased and he knew it!

His consciousness disengaged and awareness floated up toward the ceiling like a buoyant bubble. He looked down at himself. Saw the deep wrinkles of his forehead, his hollow, sunken cheeks, his fixed eyes, and his absolute pale skin. Tension in his body had dissolved leaving it looking like a clay model.

Death? he thought in awe. It's not so bad.

A crack slid up the hospital wall. And then another. And then the whole wall sifted away as if made of loose sand.

Pleasantness turned instantly and voraciously ugly. Hunger tore into his belly and thirst ripped into his mind. His dry mouth filled with a terrible sour, vomit flavor. Heat was suffocating. Landscape appeared in front of him, people walking in a long line across a seemingly endless desert of fine, white sand. They appeared to be soldiers. Ratty and beaten, their faces long with despair. Military people on either side guarded them with guns drawn.

Roger looked down at the body his consciousness now occupied. Bloody, tattered remnants of military issued underwear hung on a strikingly bruised frame. A tattoo of an American flag was on his right forearm.

Someone shoved him from behind and shouted a word he didn't understand. Another man wearing a ragged uniform and carrying a gun came up and shoved Roger's shoulder again nudging him toward another line of weary soldiers. His belly rumbled with insatiable starvation as he limped toward them, pain in his ankle biting into the bone.

Roger looked up at the sun, a blazing orange stain high in the sky burning relentlessly. The sun grew larger, swelling like a balloon, filling beyond capacity. It overcame the sky then expanded and overtook the Earth turning all the colors of a brilliant tropical sunset and then into pure white light.

Chapter 9

The pop of white light dissipated and Tony's heart beat rapidly. He realized if he didn't get control of his breathing he was going to hyperventilate. Everything around him, this entire existence, was completely surreal, yet as real as anything he'd ever experienced. He wondered if he had died in that prison death chamber and if this was the afterlife? Or was he experiencing life repeating itself in an endless loop of time and events?

His sense of time and space was jaggedly altered as he watched through the window with utter astonishment, as Roger said goodbye to Christopher and then strolled down the sidewalk toward his house at the end of the street.

Tony must have died. There was no other way of explaining this intangibility.

Perhaps, he surmised. Death is merely a chance to make right what was wrong in your previous life, tricking us into thinking there is only reality?

Tony gathered his wits, readying to speak with the boy he had been found guilty of murdering, and stepped out from the laundry room door. His brain was leapfrogging as he walked through his back yard and crossed the street.

Christopher had taken out his cell phone and was tapping at the screen but stopped as Tony stepped up to him.

"Hello, Christopher," Tony greeted, feeling airy disbelief.

Christopher looked up from his cell phone and then back down, giving Tony little attention.

"Oh, hi, Mr. Campbell."

Tony stared at the boy, feeling a strange, ominous dread knowing his possible future. Horrifying pictures the police had thrust into his face washed through his mind. Christopher's body mangled and mutilated. His throat cut. His milk-white skin and the stark red blood splashed against it. For a moment, all Tony could see was that mutilated body.

"You okay, Mr. Campbell?" Christopher asked, snapping Tony out of his daze. "Do you need something?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Tony responded, blinking and shaking his head slowly. "How, how are you doing? How's your mother?"

Christopher flashed him an odd look and Tony knew why. It had been months since he'd said anything to Christopher except an occasional hello if they were passing on the sidewalk. To walk up and start a conversation must be freaking him out.

Christopher gave an elaborate shrug. "She's fine. Look, Mr. Campbell, I gotta go."

Christopher started toward his house, a quaint, single home with yellow siding and a detached garage. A huge oak tree in the center of the lawn dominated the other trees in the development.

If this isn't the afterlife, Tony thought. If I've somehow gone back in time, then Christopher is in mortal danger.

"Christopher, wait!" Tony said.

Christopher stopped. Tony stood, trying to collect his thoughts, feeling sweat beading on his forehead. He wanted to warn Christopher about the future and what was going to happen. About the fragility of his life. But how could he? Christopher would never believe him. The police would never believe him. Who would ever believe him? He had died by lethal injection because nobody believed him.

"Be careful," Tony said, feeling a bit helpless trying to convince Christopher of the possible clandestine danger. "Just… be careful."

Christopher shot him another odd look "Okay Mr. Campbell, I will."

Christopher turned and started a slow jog toward his house. Tony didn't blame the boy for acting blasé. After all, they lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Who would expect a killer to be lurking in the shadows in such a tranquil community? This is why the community had hated him so much after the crime.

But that was another life, another existence. As far as he knew, as far as he felt right now, it was gone forever.

Tony walked across the street toward his own house. He caught Ms. Wilson staring at him from her kitchen window, her face crinkled with disgust. Tony knew early on that she didn't like black men by the way she treated he and Valerie when they first moved into the neighborhood. He'd even overheard Ms. Wilson once make a comment to Roger's mother about how the two "Negroes" might lower the surrounding property values.

Through all the past years of his former life, he could still recall how Ms. Wilson mirthfully told the jury she had seen him talking to the boy like he just did, hours before the body was found.

Was history repeating itself? Tony would do whatever it took not to let that happen.

He waved a friendly hello to Ms. Wilson and she shut the curtains with a quick draw of her hand. He headed back into his house.

"Where've you been?" Valerie scolded, from the kitchen. "You were supposed to vacuum!"

He halted mid-step and felt a creepy chill. His head thumped with the pulse of his heart. The house was different. Not the structure, but the walls. Color had changed from white to blue. He looked around. Everything else appeared to be the same.

"Did you hear me?" Valerie asked, and walked into the living room. "You've been gone nearly ten minutes."

More chills. Valerie had changed. Not her physical features but her hair. It was now dyed red and cut pixie short.

"I, uh…"

Words would not come. His heart pounded so fast it was making him dizzy and he reached to the back of the couch for support. A young woman suddenly appeared as a thin, ghostly mirage in the middle of the living room. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, pretty, with styled blonde hair and large, arctic-blue colored eyes. Sadness permeated her face.

The room rippled and suddenly the living room shrank down to the cell. Air was hot and dry. Pain throbbed through Tony's body with each contraction of his heart. It was hard to see through swollen eyelids. He was lying on his side too weak to sit up. His hand was picking feebly at a gross, sticky rice mixture within a tarnished, silver bowl and he was forcing the muck down his throat. It tasted terrible, but he was famished and knew instinctively he must have sustenance to stay alive. He heard panicked shouts in a foreign language and then an insane tattering of machinegun fire. Men frantically called out to one another. Some were American voices some foreign. Tony tried to scream for help but was unable to control the body he occupied. Another burst of machine gun fire and then the sound of a mortar going off. Ground rumbled. An aircraft flew overhead, shooting its cannons in a low, successive roar.

The door to the cell burst open and the living room returned like the changing of a camera slide. Tony gripped the back of the couch trying to gain a grip on reality. Colors of the walls had returned to their normal white, but Valerie's hair was still red and short. The ghostly, young woman with styled blonde hair and arctic-blue colored eyes was gone.

"You okay," Valerie asked, her forehead bent with concern. "Your eyes just rolled up into your head. I thought you were going to pass out."

"What's happening to me?" he whispered, in a thin breath.

"You're just stressed because your mother's coming," she replied off-handedly, and headed back into the kitchen. "The vacuum is in the closet."

Tony's legs felt leaden. He rubbed his hands over his cheeks, his eyes, and through his hair. This was not reality! He stepped slowly toward the closet and looked at himself in the hallway mirror. He was a young man, probably in his thirties, but he didn't know his exact age for certain.

Perhaps, this was some higher power's way of giving him a second chance at life because his first life was taken so wrongly? Perhaps, there is no death and you just continue re-living events until you've corrected all of your mistakes? Perhaps the world is just a grand illusion that he had somehow become aware of and now stepped outside of?

Segments of his religious upbringing popped into his head. Although, he always thought of himself as an atheist, he was raised to be a devout Christian. But who's to say Christianity has the nature of humanity and the laws governing our behavior correct? Who's to say we die and our souls either proceed to Heaven or Hell, depending on how virtuous we lived our lives? Buddhists believe in reincarnation and so do Hindus?

But why the subtle changes in environment? Why the visions of the jail cell and the complete immersion into another person's consciousness? A person who is suffering and in great pain?

"You're mother's here!" Valerie stated, with irritation. "She's early and you didn't vacuum! Can you see if she needs help with her things?"

Tony shook his head as he tried to piece it all together and saw the air in front of him give a little ripple.

Chapter 10

Air in front of Dan appeared to ripple and he squinted as if doing so would clear his vision and the woman he was staring at wouldn't look so incredibly familiar.

Impossible! And he knew it. Couldn't be Janet! Janet's been gone for years!

He worried his pacemaker might short-circuit his heart was pumping so fast. He couldn't help but continue to stare at the woman from his seat on the park bench under the willow tree. The physical resemblance to his long deceased wife was remarkable. Same shoulder-length, grapefruit-colored hair and the curvature of her face matched exactly. Even the proportions of her figure were as he remembered. The woman glanced over. Dan hadn't the chance to catch his breath before she walked over stepped up to him. His insides rocked as if a bolt of lightning had struck him. He felt his face flush.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked.

Amazing! Nearly identical voice.

"Excuse me?" he said, with exhilaration.

"I asked if you needed something from me?"

He forced himself to keep his breathing normal. "What do you mean?"

"You're staring at me like I got toilet paper sticking from my bum."

He smiled at her candor. It earned him a smile in return and the woman seemed to loosen.

"I'm sorry," Dan said. "You look like someone I used to know, that's all. You're just as beautiful. I don't mean anything by it."

Humility crossed the woman's face and her cheeks pinked. "Well, that's awfully kind of you to say, thank you. What's your name?"

He took a deep breath, got to his feet, and held out his hand. "Dan Parker."

The woman stretched out her small hand and they shook cordially. Her skin was soft against his rough palms.

"Hello, Dan. I'm Janet."

His whole body froze and he nearly stroked out.

"Say again?" he asked, gripping her hand.

His eyes bore into hers with intensity she clearly didn't understand.

"I do need these fingers for later," she said politely, and pulled from his grasp.

He studied her face; her mouth, the smoothness of her cheeks, the arrangement of her features, the way her hair curled, the little freckle beside her nose, the brownest eyes nature ever created. His stomach whirled. His thoughts spiraled.

Couldn't be her! She'd be sixty-eight years old! This woman is at least twenty years younger!

He was projecting the things he had loved about his Janet onto this woman because of the remarkable physical resemblance and her name. It had to be his imagination!

No!

His blood went cold. It was her!

"This can't be," he muttered, not knowing if he'd spoken the words loud enough for her to hear.

Reason told him it was outlandishly impossible that this woman was his deceased wife. But she was!

Janet's smile vanished and a look of puzzlement took over. "Excuse me?"

"You're alive," he whispered, with numbing realization and conclusion. "You're alive! Thank you, God!"

His insides were jangling. Janet moved her gaze nervously around. She shifted a shoulder in a subliminal hint that she wanted to walk away.

"I gotta go," she said. "It was nice meeting you."

She turned and headed down the sidewalk. Dan started after her and the woman drew a quick gasp of surprise.

"Janet!" he said passionately, as he walked in front of her, turned around, facing her. "I may be older, but it's me! Don't you recognize me?"

She held up a cautionary hand to keep him at bay.

"I understand how you can be mistaken," she said, her voice a notch shriller. "But I'm not this person you think I am."

"But it's me! It's me, Dan!"

"I'm sorry if you think I'm someone I'm not," she added, and quickened her trot. "But I have to go!"

She walked at a furious pace and then broke into a slight run. Dan spun around and hurried after her desperate to reconnect what her death had severed.

"We were married for twenty-seven years!" he exclaimed, his voice rising to frenzy. "Look at me! Look at me! You'll remember!"

"No!" she stated. "Leave me alone!"

"Please!" he said, keeping stride with her. "Give me an hour! I'll prove it! Please, Janet! I'll prove it!"

"Get away from me!" she shouted. "You're crazy!"

"I can't let you go! Spend time with me! Please!"

"Get away from me! Get away!"

She took off at a full run.

Dan gave chase his words flying from his mouth. "Janet, stop! Janet! Please stop! Janet! Janet! Stop!"

His voice attracted the attention of people strolling along the lawn.

"Help me!" Janet shouted. "Get this man away from me! Get him away!"

A passing jogger raced up and grabbed Dan's arm, trying to stop him. Dan's army combat training kicked in. He swung around and punched the guy in the gut then flipped him over onto his back. He threw his own leg across the jogger to pin him down, twisted the jogger's knee, and snapped the jogger's ulna bone against his shin. The man shrieked.

Adrenaline jacked, Dan hopped up and took off after Janet.

"Help me! Help me!" she screamed, as he chased after her.

He couldn't let her go. He loved her too much. She was his whole world and when she died that world crushed. He didn't know how or why she had come back into his life as a younger woman but he had to try and get through to her. Make her understand that she is meant to be with him.

"Janet!" he shouted. "Stop! Please, stop!"

A police officer noticed the commotion.

"Help me!" Janet screamed. "Oh God, help me! This man's crazy!"

The officer gave chase. With a desperate, wild lunge he tackled Dan by the legs and they both went scrambling to the ground where they struggled for a moment. Dan twisted sharply to break free of the officer's grip, and then threw himself on top of the man. He pinned the back of the officer's neck with his forearm, grasped the officer's left arm and snapped it at the shoulder. The officer screamed. Dan reached into the officer's holster and withdrew the gun.

"I've got to talk to Janet!" Dan sobbed. "I've got to!"

"Drop it!" a voice ordered.

Dan turned and saw a man in a business suit holding a police badge in one hand and aiming a gun at Dan with the other. Uniformed and plain clothed police officers suddenly appeared from everywhere.

"Janet!" Dan screamed, and raised the pistol into the air. "Don't leave me—"

A gunshot rang out, pain hit Dan's leg, and he crumpled.

If you enjoyed this sample, please purchase the book using the link below or for all other ereaders at my blog. Thank you.

Kindle-

dp/B00ATFC3JM

. /dp/B00ATFC3JM

Nook-

w/imagination-neil-ostroff/1114142488?fb_action_ids=4351185702381&fb_action_types= &fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%224351185702381%22%3A562414780453142}&action_type_map={%224351185702381%22%3A% %22}&action_ref_map=[]

ALWAYS WRITING

.