Someone Special

Avart lay sprawled out on the sand as he marveled at the beauty before him. The sun sat high on its lofty throne in the blue sky as it scattered tiny diamonds amongst the waves and sands. The sight alone was enough to stop a philosopher mid-contemplation and force them to smell the salty roses. It wasn’t even the natural spectacle of the beach that had him captivated though. Nor was it the calm breeze that tenderly wafted all of his worries away. It was his wife; the brightest diamond in the sea. There she stood, halfway submerged in the water, her sun-kissed skin glimmering like a finely cut gem; her long fluffy hair billowing in the wind.

As content as he was just lying there, basking in the moment, something inside of him kept tugging at him to get up. Even the waves gently lapsing up on the shore nipped at his feet, pulled at him… beckoned him towards her. A sinking feeling arose in the pit of his stomach that metastasized into a full-blown panic attack. All the other cheery beachgoers froze in place, their sounds fizzing out as swiftly as the drops of seawater on Avart’s ruddy skin.

A sense of urgency galvanized him into action then as he shot up and began sprinting towards her. The incoming waves didn’t make it easy as they clawed at him and threatened with each pass to pull him under. When he was almost close enough to touch her; to glean every glorious detail off of her immaculately sculpted face, Avart fell.

The low rumble of waves clashing with each other suddenly exploded into the crackling of lightning and thunder. The beach devolved into an unkempt street. The artificial orange haze from streetlamps replaced the sun’s unrelenting radiance. He looked down into the puddle he had just fallen into. The man he saw was barely recognizable, and it wasn’t the raindrops frolicking around in the puddle muddying up his reflection that made his image so distorted. It was the haggardness of it all. The dark bags under his eyes. The unruly stubble spreading up his cheeks. The tinged beer-glass glaze covering his eyes. He looked like a mess.

It had been a couple weeks since Avart had taken leave of his duty on the police force. Against his will, he was required to take a sabbatical for mental health concerns after he had been deemed ‘too close’ to a case by his officer in command. On top of that, his cognitive acuity and judgement had been considered officially impaired by a panel of pencil-pushers that were apparently familiar with the effects of grief on people.

He was fine though. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. Throughout the last couple of weeks he was too occupied trying to convince himself nothing was wrong that he didn’t allow any time for dealing with his actual emotions. Amidst the booze, drugs and self-abuse addled late nights he had created a sort of dome impervious to the hurt that awaited him outside of it. Maybe he should’ve listened to them though. Maybe if he had he wouldn’t have found his brown trench coat sullied in sidewalk water as he pursued the suspect that he had been forbidden to.

Using his connections still in the department he had tracked down the perpetrator, but his rash and foolish approach had cost him the chance at any civilized conversation. At Avart’s first overture the seedy man had made a break for it. It was his fault, as he wasn’t even sure what he hoped to accomplish from the confrontation. It all mattered naught however. All he knew was that by the end of the night someone else would be suffering as much as him.

After a brief foot chase led to Avart’s tumble, the man had ducked into a dilapidated little bungalow in the projects. Mounds of weeds pushed through the cracked pathway as Avart pushed through the heavy rainfall towards the house. Warily he drew his handgun and encroached on the door. He could hear shouting between two men and a scuffle inside.

“Open up! Police!” He screamed from outside, making sure his voice could be heard over the wicked symphony of raindrops and thunder.

The arguing went silent. It was almost as if the sky held its tongue for a moment with Avart, in anticipation of the perp coming out with his hands up. That’s when his train of thought derailed. That’s when he remembered he wasn’t even a cop at the moment and had been decommissioned for this very reason. He was too close to this… and it was clouding his judgement. The demons were too busy cavorting around in his head pulling strings, pressing buttons and tampering with machinery; ignorant of consequence.

By the time he realized the mistake he had made gunshots rang through the night, mocking the thunder in all its fury and contempt. Two shots peppered the window beside him sending shards of glass cascading onto the patchy front lawn. He knew then he had to act immediately… He had heard three shots go off inside the house and only two had left. Avart kicked in the door.

Inside the hospital room his wife rested listlessly on the bed, like a lily pad floating on the surface of an undisturbed pond. Instead of being supported by the water though, she was being supported by machines; piercing and ravaging her beautiful body with their needles and tubes. The doctor had informed him before he opened the door that she wasn’t going to make it past the night. “Severe internal hemorrhaging,” is what the faceless woman had said. After he had heard the prognosis everything else faded into obscurity. Words and all.

Avart gingerly approached his wife. There was a tightness in his chest that made every breath labored. An added weight in his step that made every footstep a task. Maybe it was because he was still dealing with the shock of it all, or that he just didn’t want to say goodbye. Either way he eventually found himself standing beside his wife’s bed; his words too frightened to reveal themselves behind his numb tongue.

He reached for his wife’s hand and squeezed it delicately. Her eyes opened as if she had heard a curious sound in the distance. She craned her head slightly to the side and smiled at the sight of her husband. “Hey Avy… What happened to you? You look like shit,” she said with a blithe cadence.

Avart let out a light chuckle. “You hit your head that badly you forgot how I look already? This is my normal face babe,” he replied, beaming.

“Impossible. I definitely wouldn’t have said yes to that tired and worried mug you got there. What’s wrong?” She asked.

It was just like his wife to act like nothing was wrong. To be his anchor and pillar of strength, even on her deathbed. “What am I going to do without you? I can’t… I just can’t,” he stammered. Anger then began to flood his mind washing away the sadness, and words began to pour out like water from a ruptured dam. “I swear to you. I will find the guy that was driving that car. I will make him pay. I will not rest until-”

“Avy,” his wife interrupted softly. She gestured with a frail hand towards a bag on the chair. “Get what’s inside there and bring it.”

Inside the bag there was a small black Moleskin notebook.

Inside the battered old house, rickety floorboards squawked in displeasure under Avart’s weight. He could no longer hear any voices or movement over the storm outside, but just as time had chipped away at the layers of paint on the walls, fretful nerves were now chipping away at his composure. It was too quiet. He peered into the cramped living room to his left. The bouts of lightning outside illuminated a man, lying motionless in front of the riddled window.

It wasn’t the man Avart had come for… so he continued his inquest.

“Come out with your hands up! I won’t ask again!” He shouted as he edged through the room towards the kitchen in the back. All that awaited him though was a sink full of dirty dishes and a dated pine table. Fearing that he had lost the man, he bolted towards the back door and through into the disheveled backyard. No one was to be found.

“God damn it!” Avart yelled into the rain. The sky replied with a louder roar, almost as if it were ridiculing him and his trivial human dilemma. Holstering his gun, he returned back into the house; his pallid face dripping with water and disdain.

He hurled the ragged kitchen table against a wall and slumped down into a corner with his face in his hands. That was when he noticed a glimmer on the floor where the table had been. There was a large glass jar rolled over against the wall filled with what looked like at least $20,000 in cash. He unscrewed the top and a folded note was neatly taped to the underside of the lid. It read:

One day we’ll get out of all of this

and I’ll be able to give you the life you deserve.

Here’s our ticket.

You’ll always have my hand my angel.

Underneath those words there were two handprints pressed over each other in purple ink: a smaller hand in a larger hand.

The note was just as puzzling as what his next move would be. He didn’t have any time to make sense of it all before a creak in the other room caused him to reach for his pistol. Avart peeked into the front room to find a young girl; her dark frizzy hair made up in two ponytails with purple barrettes, her skin as russet as her innocent brown eyes. She was nestled on the ground with the unmoving man.

Her hands were inside of his.

Avart returned to his wife’s side with the mysterious black book.

“Open it up,” she said.

Inside the Moleskin there were photos attached and the names of different places in the world; displayed enthusiastically in her overzealous fashion. Every two pages was dedicated to another place and filled with colorful, bombastic motifs. “I don’t understand,” he exclaimed, giving her a perplexed look.

She gazed at him with her round glowing eyes and smiled. “You never did have a clue did you?” She giggled, but her sweet lilt sputtered out into grunts and coughs. Avart felt his wife’s hand graze his as she said, “These are all of the places I wanted to take you. Since I won’t be able to now you’re going to have to go to all of them and write to me about it in this nifty notebook. And Avart… I want you to take someone special with you. The world is no place to be alone.”

Tears welled up in his weary eyes. Avart surveyed the girl and thought of his wife’s words. He had come here to make the man responsible for her death suffer, but ended up destroying someone else’s life. His wife knew all along that this would happen. He looked at the jar and back at the girl. He was going to make his wife proud.

After all was said and done, it was discovered the girl had no other family. She had nothing and was all alone in the world just like Avart. He adopted her at the first opportunity.

Eventually his wife’s killer was found and brought to justice, but not by Avart. He had a new reason to live. He saved the money the girl’s father had amassed and when she was older, took her around the world to all the places his wife had listed in the notebook. She got out of it all, and he found someone special.