Chapter 1
“Mr. Hayes.”
When I look up, whiteness blinds me. It is so goddamn bright!
“Mr. Oliver Hayes.”
The voice is squeaky, like a ten-year old-girl’s. My eyes squish, blink twice. White morphs into a pale round blur. A face slithers near.
“Are you alright, Mr. Hayes?”
She seems way too cheerful. Her blonde bangs bounce on her glistening wide forehead as she bends to me. Wheat skin. Blue eyes. Nibble nose. Peachy lips. She reminds me of someone.
“Are you fine?”
Of course, I am fine! “Hmm,” I grumble. Illegible chatter echoes around me. Someone’s talking. No, there is a lot of talking. I try to look beyond the blondie. My neck and shoulders hurt just by moving a damn inch. A grunt spurts out of my mouth.
“Are you still feeling nauseous, sir?”
I take a few breaths to contemplate as her moon-pale face still clouds my eyes. “Na, missie,” I say, my voice heavy and throaty (I am calling her missie from now on, I guess).
“That’s fantastic!”
Her jumpiness infuriates the heck outta me. It’s only when she retreats that I get hit by the strangeness behind her. The room I am in is humungous. Table-bench arrangements scatter throughout a landscape of pristine steel. How many? Too many to count. In each of them perhaps, a lad is sitting and talking. To whom? The damn air for what I know. There’s no one sitting across from them.
My mind swirls. What is this god-forsaken place?
“Please remain seated, sir. He will be here shortly,” Missie says, flashing the teethiest white smile I have ever seen. And before I could ever ask her of my whereabouts (and who exactly will be here shortly), she hops away from my vision.
My vision? More like seeing through a hole in a thick fog.
Much like the other lads here, I am sitting on my own table and bench, talking to no one yet. I take a deep breath and a jolt of shiver shoots through my body from the icy air. Beige khaki pants feel smooth on my hands as I rub them for some dimension of warmth to creep inside me. As I let go, my breath spills a strong sour-sweet odour up my nostrils.
A glare catches my eyes from the front. A glass panel. One for each of us here. (Why does my neck hurt so much?) It’s more of a translucent gray slab. Too blurry to see through, but acting like a faint mirror of sorts, reflecting a daunting image.
Beak-like nose, crushed-leather dusky skin, face like a mangled road, two black holes for eye sockets… Is that me? And what’s up with my boulder-sized nose? Why is it so goddamn big? Convinced that it must be some optical trick, I reach my face, fingers poke the nose.
Yes, it’s real.
And it’s ugly.
For my hands, just saggy bags of flesh and veins. Like the flaps that wiggle beneath a chicken’s beak. It’s absolute lunacy! This old crumbling man is not me!
My breaths shoot hard and fast. I suddenly do not wish to be here, to be me, in this place, whatever this place is. Ginormous room, a looming gray sky for a ceiling, bright hanging lights, monotonous steel walls. The unsettling feeling of Deja Vu thumps in my chest. “This is a prison,” I mumble to myself.
My eyes close tight as they can. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. Why am I here of all places? What have I done? Why can’t I fricking remember anything?
Glowing lines appear on the glass panel’s top corner. A digital timer with white digit, making a tick sound with each blink.
10:00
10:00
10:00
Through the glass, a black creature walks in, possessing the dimensions of a human. A broad-chested, middle-aged man in an all-black attire. He sits just behind the glass. A face hangs on him. Sunken eyes, beak-like nose, dusky skin…
Heh heh heh!
He is giggling, ringing the air with his laughs, his eyes sparkling! My little boy! He is rolling on my chest, his hands waving in the air. He has soft black hair, and the almond-shaped eyes of his mother. I strangle him into a tight hug and kiss him like there’s no tomorrow. He is waving goodbye as he leaves with his sky-blue backpack. He is learning to penguin-walk in his favorite purple shoes. He is pointing at the flapping sparrows, the crinkling sunlight spilling through the leaves. He tries to grab this light. He is grabbing dirt in his fist and jamming it into his mouth. Bugs and lizards fascinate him.
“Son,” I blurt involuntarily, making sense of the spaghetti that is my memory.
His black figure shifts in his seat, says nothing. Maybe he didn’t hear me. Before I can call him again, he taps on the panel and the blinking digits go static, then start counting down.
10:00 (Tick)
09:59 (Tick)
09:58 (Tick)
“Son-”
“I heard you the first time, dad,” he says.
I eat my next words. His voice is deep and affirming, drowning all the fussing chatter. If my damn memory serves right, he is definitely my lad! I can’t help but smile. “How are y-”
“Good.”
My smile gets hurled across the room. His replies feel less like responses and more like slaps to my face. “Let me get a good look atchya,” I say.
“No,” he leans back and crosses his legs. His right hand whips up. He stares at his open palm, taps on it, slides and scrolls, as his eyes flash white, blue, and green.
07:49
07:48
I lick my lips. They feel like sand. None of us has said anything for about a minute. “Don’chya have anything to say?”
He chuckles. Still no reply. Still ogling at his damn hand.
“I am talking to you, son,” I try my intimidating father voice, low cracks betray me though.
“What?” his eyes snap back at me.
“I know ya heard me.”
“I got nothing to say to you,” he sniffs, returning to scrolling on his palm.
My hands ball into fists, nails digging into the flesh. “Why’d ya come here then?” I say, a curdle of spit dripping which I manage to slurp in.
My son chuckles again, louder this time so I don’t miss it by any chance.
I wanna punch some real sense into him, goddamn it! This behaviour is unacceptable. I clear my throat wanting to be bold in my following words. “Why ya doing me this way, son?” I say. “Why am I here? What did I do? What is this damn place you have got me in?”
Finally, that gets him to put away his flickering palm. He uncrosses his legs, and slants forward. His face is clenched now, dead serious. “I am not falling for this who, what, where drama again, dad,” there’s no remorse in his tone as he says this, not a hint of fatherly respect. “I will give you only one answer to all your bloody questions. You are a selfish, a truly goddamn selfish man! You put yourself above everyone… even your own boy. You are here because of this. And you will wither away your final years… and perhaps die in this very place ’cause you decided to. Does that clear ya head?”
I am stunned. No words to offer, just listening to the haunting ticks go by.
05:32 (tick)
05:31 (Tick)
05:30 (TICK!)
He waves his finger at me, pressing the air with a vicious intensity. “You make me come here again and again, then ask, why did I come here? The nerve!” he reels back and stares away.
“I am sorry, son…”
“You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.”
I hate to admit, but he’s right. I don’t know nothin about nothin. I must have done something really bad to end up here, old, aching, and alone. “I…” my voice becomes quail, a grim and quivering old man’s plea. “I don’t wanna be here, son.”
“Oh, you made it abundantly clear that you do,” he fires back, staring right into me, his eyes glistening blobs of red.
Red.
Everything is red.
My son is wailing. Tears gleaming in his eyes. I am screaming at him like a hag. His screeching cries bleed my ears. He is holding me, no… he is begging me. I shrug him off. I am furious at him, as furious as I’ve ever been!
He sniffles and wipes off whatever tears that betrayed him with the back of his hand.
Enough of this fodder! It’s time to get me some answers. I hold the cold table and creak ahead. My shoulders don’t approve of this. Pain explodes in the joints. “Did I… hurt you in any way, son?” I say with genuine fear in the crackle of my voice.
His face scrunches, ridiculed by this question. Shaking his head, he looks at me with a faint smile that I have seen before countless times but don’t recall when. “This is pointless,” he shrugs. “I come here each time, just in the tiniest of hopes that you will change… you will change for me, dad. But you won’t. Nothing’s gonna change. You are never coming home!”
Home.
The sweet scent of strawberries. Cozy and cackling fireplace. I am kissing her moist forehead. (who?) A green backyard extending till the golden horizon, I am walking through the grass barefoot. Love the way it tickles my feet. Feels nice and cold, but the right amount of cold. My hands are grazing the ragged bark of an oak, the musky smell it eases into my lungs like fingers through honey. A running stream gleams in the sunlight, snaking down in the distance, I see it.
I smile, basking in the nature’s bosom. My world no short of what they call Paradise.
All shatters when I gaze around, with aches sewn in every strand of my muscles. The towering cold and gray walls, the spotless white porcelain floor, the bright strobing lights giving me a goddamn headache. I know what this is…
Hell disguised as a Paradise.
I stare at my son, truly pleading this time as I do. He’ll listen to his father, won’t he? I ask him, gulping in my saliva so I don’t drool like a has-been, “Could ya take me home, son?” My hands join. “Could ya do that for your old man?”
“No,” he says.
02:24
02:23
“Listen to ya father, damn it!” I shout, spit sprays all over the glass. (So much for slurping in.)
“I will not!” he whips at me, crossing his arms. “I am done listening to you. The only reason I am physically here is because I am legally bound to. ”
Eh? What is he on about with this legally bound stuff? And how can he shout at me? Scream at me? My own son!
“What, you angry?” he says, smirking like a little devil. “Good.”
“Shut your hole, boy. These manners I taught you? Eh?”
“Apparently, you would have no idea what you taught me, would you? What my damn name is? What my age is? Am I married? Do I have kids? What’s going on in my life? No. You just want your son to get you out of this place as that serves your interests best.”
“No-” I start, but he doesn’t let me.
“Say, you don’t really remember anything? Let me give a couple pointers,” he corrects the seam of his charcoal suit and scans a good look at me. “You are the last person I want to see. Even the thought of you infuriates me! I dread the fact that I have to call you, of all people, my father,” he says as if incriminating me for my heinous crimes. “I can’t imagine I ever cared for you. I was so mistaken… Well, not anymore.”
I run my hand through my frail hair. Many fall out. “All of this…” I say, frantically looking about everywhere to make some sense. “It’s too much for me, boy!” Arms land on my khakis. They hurt. “Give ya father a break, Ya should make me understand. Instead… ya go haywire on me! Is this how you treat me?”
“I don’t care,” he shoots erect and pats the crease of his pants. “There’s no time for who’s and what about’s anymore,” he says. “Just one question I’ll leave you with,” he walks close to the glass and bends to my level. “If you could live forever, when and how would you decide to die?”
Ting!
00:00
00:00
00:00
I stare blankly at the blinking digits, then back at my son. I wanted to ask him about his life, his work, his goals and aspirations, and why he is so goddamn rude to his own father. But he takes no time to even look at me and fishes out a pen from his coat top pocket. Unreadable lines flicker on the panel, he signs on them. The words Thank you! flash in a bold font. Under the glass where the table begins, there’s a four-letter inscription.
R.H.W.O
“Hi, Mr. Hayes!”
The ever-annoying Missie’s giddy face pops in between me and the glass, gleaming like a crystal ball, bouncing hair, teeth like a row of marble blocks. I look across from her and my son is already gone. No traces of him.
“Your visit-session has ended, sir.”
“No thanks to ya, missie,” I say, watching the horrendous smile that still isn’t leaving her face.
“Let’s get you out of here,” she says, cocking her little head sideways.
My heart skips a beat. What does she mean by getting me out? I ask her, “Ya gonna get me out of this place? For real?”
“Of course, Mr. Hayes!” She chirrups like a bird, her eyes sparkling like two little diamonds under the brilliant lighting. “We have to move you to another room for breakfast. You can’t go without having breakfast, can you? Hehe.”
Goddamn it. She really got me there. Her face suddenly seems quite punchable.
“Here we go,” she hands me a wooden stick. Of course. A withering old man like me must need a damn stick to put one foot after another. Fantastic. Once the cane is in my grip, it feels sturdy yet delicately made, the texture is polished dark timber topped with a coffee-brown rubber handle that sinks in my fingers real nice.
“Let me help-” she begins, but I cut her off.
“Stay in ya lane, missie!” I almost scream, springing outta nowhere. But I agree with my instinctive outburst. Shouldn’t be needing her help for this. I can perfectly stand and walk all by myself, can’t I? Grabbing my cane tight as if holding onto it for dear life, I rock back and forth, back and forth, then shoot up.
The ol’ man still got it!
When I whip around, my back cracks like an egg-shell and the sheer pain hits me like a whip. Stars twinkle in front of my eyes, teeth biting the pain. A total of five breaths manage to bring me back.
“This way, Mr. Hayes,” she says, turning, the squeaky-clean white lab coat swishing behind her. I expect to be put in handcuffs. But I guess they consider me more of a danger to myself than to this place or any others. Valid point.
Following her, my stick taps the hard floor. Tap. Tap. Tap. The chatter, like an old radio going somewhere in full volume, seeps into my ears however much I try to block it. The other prisoners here come into view in their separate seating arrangements under the dazzling shine of lights. They are all… old? Way more than me, for sure. I pass an oldie and he’s monumental levels of disgusting. His skin, like wax, is literally melting away. Another one, a dark, balding and drooling man two files down - he’s laughing hysterically talking to an empty glass. He’s got gums for teeth. His appalling face makes my insides shudder. And what is that damn smell? Ugh. The woman next to me somehow reeks of rotten flesh. I never knew anyone alive could give off such a stench. They must be dead. Yes, they are all dead, they just don’t know it yet.
Agh!
My steps fumble. I had to take a breather to avoid falling splat on my face. Walking with this stick is weird as heck. But I can’t risk moving even an inch without it. Who knows whether my body could ever afford a single broken bone in this state? Staring at my feet does help in maintaining balance, though. Something I didn’t notice before, I have got neat shoes! Brown and all shiny-like. Nice.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Finally getting the hang of it, ol’ man.
Right then, whatever smile that snuck up to my lips is snatched away when I take another good glimpse at this place. The disgusting oldies, the whimsical and annoying blondie, the freezing air, stacked metal walls with no windows as far as my blurry vision can see. I do not belong here! I have to get out of this place somehow. Go home. Teach some sense to my kid. (Nothing a good beating won’t solve!) He gotta respect his ol’ man like he should. The boy has lost his way. Many children do. No worries. I will guide him. That is what fathers do. I will fix his horrid manners and I will get out.
“Wait!” I say, stopping and grabbing my stomach.
Missie spins, her coat waving behind her like a cape. “Are you alright?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I gotta take a shit.”
