The Day’s Best Ally

I heard the clear snap of the rifle, but I never felt the bullet that tore through me that day. I had been wandering around in a trench, trying to find the rest of my guys, when I heard the crack, and everything, as they say, went black. I awoke to find myself lying in tall grass on the side of a dirt road, still dressed in my tattered and dusty uniform. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I had that feeling you get after a much needed sleep where you don’t wake up, but sleep all through the night.

I stood up and looked around. It appeared to be around midday. The sun felt warm, but with that crisp feeling that lets you know autumn is approaching. I was on the edge of an immense field of grass, as far as my eyes could see, and the narrow dirt road lay behind me. My feelings were mixed. I at once had the feeling that I had both seen and felt all this before.

I say felt, because two memories, or I should say impressions, at that moment, swept over me. One occurred when I was very young and staying at my grandmothers house. I can only recall looking at my shadow on the ground, on a day much like this one, and feeling unspeakable joy. That was it. The other one took place years later when I was driving through Oklahoma, passing by field after field of green grass. I had that same feeling of solace, but mingled with the sadness that adulthood often brings.

It was these two sensations that overwhelmed me in that instant. I knew I had been here before, but I couldn’t explain why. I had no idea where I was, or how I got here. All I knew, was that I was here, and a road lay before me. Since there was nothing else I could do, I started down that road.

As I walked, I tried to reconstruct all the preceding events that I could remember. I had been part of a great war in Europe. I was a rifleman. I got separated, in all the confusion of gunfire and smoke, from the rest of my men, in a large trench that we were clearing. I heard the shot, and that was it. I couldn’t understand why everything else before this moment seemed so hazy. I wasn’t sure if I was dead, or in some surreal dream. If I was a ghost, what a strange and beautiful place to haunt. There was nothing I could be sure of, except that I needed to keep walking.

Having no way to keep track of time, I walked down this road for what seemed like hours. All the while, the sun never went down and never changed its position in the sky. It remained fixed. The air was clean and pure– refreshing, compared to the acrid gunpowder smoke and artillery I had been forced to breathe for so long; its caustic effects having nearly numbed my senses. As I walked, I familiarized myself with my surroundings, which wasn’t very hard, considering that I remained surrounded on all sides by the same green fields on either side of the road. There was no wildlife, or even the sound of birds, and for all I could tell, I seemed to be the only living creature around.

Concerning the silence, this seemed itself to be a sound. I had never known such stillness. The world I was from could not compare, even in the quietest places I’d ever been. I could hear my heartbeat. Hear the sound of my breath rising and falling in my chest. I walked a little further, and even though I wasn’t tired, I sat down in the grass. I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere. What was this place? I hung my head in thought.

After a few moments, I looked up across the field. In the distance, I spotted what looked to be a house standing at the very edge of the horizon. I could barely make out its features. Now, I had looked at this same spot, before I sat down, and knew for certain that it had not been there before. I couldn’t explain it.

Curiosity urged me to my feet, and I began to make my way toward it. The closer I came, the more I was able to make out the details of the house. It was a two- story cottage, with four windows and black shutters for each room, a chimney, and a door in the middle. The foundation was laid with red brick, and the upper half was painted a light green. I approached the house cautiously, and stood outside. There was no one outside, and I couldn’t hear anything coming from the inside. Again, this sense of deja vu overwhelmed me. Why did I feel like I knew this place?

I stood there for several minutes, trying to decide what to do, when I started to feel like I was being watched. I looked up, at that moment, to the far right window, and saw what appeared to be the bottom half of a woman’s figure dressed in a simple summer dress. Her head and shoulders were obscured in shadow, and I couldn’t see who it was looking at me.

This all happened in an instant, for when I blinked, she was gone. Uneasy, I walked up to the door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again. Still nothing. It wasn’t in my nature to enter strange houses without being invited, but I felt that I had been called here, for whatever purpose, and I was determined to see it through, spectral visions notwithstanding. I tried the door handle and it gave. I then slowly opened the door and peered inside. “Hello?,” I called, but received no answer, so I stepped inside. In front of me, just past the door, was a staircase. To my right, was what looked to be a kitchen, with a small table and chairs in the middle. On the table, was a bottle of red wine, one glass, and a plate with a small loaf of bread and a knife beside it. The bread looked and smelled like it had just been made. I could still see the steam rising off of it.

It wasn’t until now, that I realized how hungry I was. The long walk and confusion had made the hunger keen. I didn’t know why, but I felt like I was being invited to sit down. That the table had been set for me. I still had the vision of the woman in the window, and wondered if someone was here, or I was imagining things. I couldn’t think of my hunger then, and decided to look around.

I walked up the small staircase, and when I got to the top, I saw there were two rooms with the doors closed on either side. I went to the door of the room where I had seen the woman and knocked. No answer. I turned the door handle, which was unlocked, and stepped inside.

The room was empty except for a small bed that was made up, and a writing desk in the corner. The room looked like no one had been in it for ages. The sun shone through the window, and I could see a small film of dust covering the floor. I walked over to the window, perplexed, knowing I had seen her. I glanced down at my feet, and saw two small footprints on the floor, next to the windowsill.

She had been here! I was relieved to know that I hadn’t been seeing things, but a new mystery presented itself. There were one set of footprints, but they didn’t lead to, or away, from the window. It looked like she was standing here one moment, and then she wasn’t. As I stood there, trying to take all of this in, I heard a door shut downstairs. I rushed out of the room and flew down the stairs, to the living room, which was just off the kitchen, where I thought the noise came from. I walked through the room and tried to open the door, but it was locked. I was sure this was the door that I heard.

“Hello!,” I called out. “My name is Sam. I seem to be a little lost, and I was wondering if you could please help me?”

No answer.

“I’m sorry to just walk in uninvited, but I wasn’t really sure what to do.”

I still received no answer, and I was starting to doubt that I ever would. Maybe no one was here. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. My head was swimming. I sat down on the couch next to me and put my head in my hands. I closed my eyes. I felt overwhelmed. I sat like this for awhile, trying to figure things out and make sense of it all. When I finally raised my head and opened my eyes, the room was lit no longer with sunlight, but with the two lamps on either side of the couch. It was dark outside. I walked over to the window and looked out. How was it possible that it could be dark? I hadn’t gone to sleep, but had just closed my eyes for a few minutes. Who lit the lamps?

I paced back and forth across the room trying to take it all in. That’s when I saw it. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. Hanging over the fireplace in the middle of the room was a large painting. The painting was of a house just like this one, sitting in the middle of a green field. Every detail was the same as the house I was in.

“Christine,” I whispered. Time stopped.

A flood of memories, feelings, sensations, washed over me in a single moment. Everything came together. I had been married. I had been happy once.

Christine.

This painting had been one that I treasured. The last one my wife painted before the accident. She said it was going to be our dream home. A simple house in the middle of a field of green. That’s why everything felt so familiar since I woke up here. I had been here before. A million times after I lost her, I would sit and stare at this painting. I lived in it. It was the last thing I had of her. How could I have forgotten?

I met Christine eight years ago, on a Sunday, before the war began. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I happened to be visiting a church that I didn’t normally go to, but a friend, his name escapes me, invited me to come. It was there that I saw her for the first time. We were introduced, and I sat beside her during the service.

I don’t remember anything about the service that day, but I do remember exactly how I felt during it. I felt an immediate connection, even without words. A feeling of electricity, an energy I can’t describe. I knew I needed to see her again. Somehow, after the service was over, I managed to stumble through asking her out. We did, and we were never apart after that.

Our relationship was one that I would describe, as never really having a beginning. Yes, there was a moment in time that we physically met, but I felt like we’d been together my whole life. We were just brought together when we were both ready. When we both had the capacity to give to each other what we needed. To appreciate one another.

I loved her more than I had ever loved anything in my entire life. I can’t even say that I fell in love with her, for I had been loving her before we even met. We were married. A simple wedding with only a few people. We began our life together, and for the next several years, I was the happiest I’d ever been.

I lost you, Christine, on a Sunday. I’ve hated that day ever since. You got in your car, after kissing me goodbye, and I never saw you alive again. A car crash took you from me.

I was never the same after that. A sickening void descended on me, and I gave myself over to it completely. The darkness provided the only sense of relief I could find, and I welcomed it. Life was nothing to me anymore. I was completely broken, and still coming more and more apart. A furious gnawing ate at my heart, wasting it away like a cancer that wouldn’t stop.

I began drinking, shifting in and out of bars every night. I stopped sleeping through the night, and would find myself laying on your side of the bed clutching your pillow. The bed offered no rest. It only reminded me that you weren’t there. I don’t know how long I went on like this, but I began to form a plan.

I knew that I didn’t have the courage to outright kill myself, but I couldn’t go on living either. Day after day was turning into a monotonous chore just to get through. I had heard in the news of the increasing conflict in Europe, and knew that our country would probably be going to war. That’s it! That’s my solution, I thought. If I couldn’t kill myself, maybe someone else could.

I signed up with the Army, and told them I wanted to be an infantryman. I had finally found my way. Within a couple of weeks, I shipped out to begin training. Not long after that, I found myself on the front lines. For whatever reason, though, providence wouldn’t allow me to die, and I just kept on living. Battle after battle I fought, until the day of the trench. Until I found myself here.

But why was I here? What was the point of all of this? I walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. I poured myself a glass of wine and drank it down quickly. I cut a piece of the bread and ate it, mechanically, lost in thought. The shock of everything that had happened in the past few minutes, rolled over me in waves. I must be dead. I had achieved my goal, but was this the Hell I was destined to? To live in my wife’s painting, forever surrounded by the memories of her, but never getting to be with her?

The weariness of all this began to overtake me, and I put head down on my arms on the table. I fell asleep. How long I slept, I don’t know. My dreams were filled with shadows that began to fade with music. I woke up with a start. I heard music from the next room, from the piano there. A soft melody, Beethovens’ ‘Moonlight Sonata’, my wife’s favorite. She would play it often in her somber moods.

I hurried into the room where it came from. There at the piano bench was the woman from the window. When I came in the room, she stopped playing, and stood up, turning around. It was Christine.

“Christine? —-H-H-How?”

I was nearly speechless. I felt my throat tighten up and tears immediately formed in my eyes.

“It doesn’t matter now, honey, I’m here now.”

My knees buckled as I tried to walk towards her, and I fell down kneeling at her feet. I grabbed the folds of her dress and buried my face in them, sobbing uncontrollably. All the years of grief, all the pain, all the longing came pouring out, in that moment in torrents. For all these years, I had bottled everything up. I couldn’t control myself now. I didn’t want to.

She knelt down beside me and clasped my head against her chest. Convulsively, I sobbed, as I had never done before. It had been so long since I’d cried. Since I’d laid my head against her chest. While she was living, I had done this often. We’d go to sleep at night, and I would lay my head down against her, listening to her heartbeat. It’d been so long.

“W-W-Why did you have to leave?”

“I’m sorry, love, it was my time.”

She pressed me tighter. I could smell that familiar scent I knew so well. It was her. She was here.

“I needed you so much. I was so lost without you.,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I know how much you’ve been hurting. I never wanted you to have to go through all this.”

She helped ease me over to the couch, and we sat down. I was shaking all over. I couldn’t believe this was happening. My eyes were looking at her, but I could hardly believe them. There she was across from me, looking as beautiful as she had the last day I saw her. I tried to compose myself.

“Christine, what’s going on? How is this possible. How are you here?”

“I was allowed to come here. You were brought here, because this was familiar to you.”

“Am I dead?”

“No, but you’re in a place in between. Your body is still fighting.”

“I don’t want to keep fighting. I want to be with you.”

“Sam, that’s what I came here to talk to you about.”

She took me by the hand as she said this, and I remembered how soft and graceful her hands had always been. She used to get mad every time I stared at them. It used to embarrass her, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop myself now. I looked up into her eyes.

“Darling, I’ve been allowed to come here, to tell you that you can’t keep living this way.”

“What way?,” I said, a little defensively.

“This constant grief and self destruction you’ve been putting yourself under for so long. You’re tearing yourself apart, never allowing any healing to come and ease this wound. In order for you to live, you have to let me go.”

I stood up and paced the room.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “You were my best friend, the love of my life. We had plans. We were going to travel. We were going to build this house!” I pointed to the painting. “I never wanted much, in this sorry existence of a life, I only wanted you. I only wanted to come home and see you, have children, grow old together, but that’s over. You’re gone, and I’m left here. This is not what I wanted.”

At this she stood up, and I saw the passion rise in her eyes. I remembered it well. We seldom ever argued, but many times we had heated conversations, and that same look would come over her face when she felt a strong conviction about something.

“Sam,” she said in her calm, and melodic voice. “You have no idea what it’s like out there, past the borders of death. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Been places you couldn’t even conceive of. My whole life, I was taught that death was something to be feared. Some kind of ending to all the things I’d loved and cared about on Earth, but it’s not true. It’s not an ending. It’s the beginning of a whole new way of being. I couldn’t describe it to you if I tried. It’s beyond words.” At this she grew quiet.

“But Christine,” I said, “It was an ending for me. When you left, all hope left with you. I loved you so much. I love you still. The thought of living out the rest of my life without you, is more than I’m capable of.”

“You don’t know what you’re capable of,” she said, “because you haven’t tried. I came here to tell you, that there are greater things in store for you, than you could ever realize. Why do you think you were spared so many times out on the battlefield? Life isn’t done with you yet. You still have things left to do. We will be together again, darling. There’s nothing I want more. But right now you have to live for the both of us. There’s people out there who need you, who are counting on you to be there. This constant grief is eating you alive. It’s not good for you, or me. You’re not honoring my memory by continuing to mourn for me.”

She walked over to me, and kissed my lips softly. “Sam, I loved you more than I thought I could’ve ever loved another human being. You came into my life at a time that I needed you most. Your love was something I could always depend on. I didn’t want to leave you any more than you wanted me to. I was happy. I’m here to tell you, though, that we’ll be happy together again. We’ll have a life together soon, but just not right now. You’ve got stuff to do.”

With this she took me by the hand, and led me into the adjoining room, the one that was locked. We stepped inside, and we were back in our old bedroom that we shared together. Everything looked the same as it had been.

“It’s time for you to get some rest. You’ve had a long day.”

She laid down on the bed and I lay beside her, putting my head on her chest. I listened to the old familiar sound of her heartbeat.

“I love you, Christine.”

“I love you too, precious. I’ll see you on the other side.”

I drifted off into the best sleep I’d had in years.

Epilogue

Sam woke up in a military hospital. He had been shot in the chest, but the bullet had narrowly missed his heart. The doctor that operated on him, said that he thought, for awhile, Sam wasn’t going to pull through, but that he was a fighter, and that’s what saved his life.

He was sent home with an honorable discharge. In the years to come, he became one of the most respected and loved men, in the small community in which he lived. He helped many people, and though few could say that they really knew him, everyone he came in contact with could readily attest that he was always there to lend a listening ear.

He remained happily single for the rest of his life, and took any opportunity he could, to talk about his great love, Christine.

Christine did come back for him one night, his last night. She appeared at the edge of his bed, soon after he laid down.

“Christine! You’ve come back! I knew you would.”

“Yes, love, are you ready to go home?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”