Open Mind: Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15

As my consciousness returned, I felt panic wash over me. I could feel nothing – no warmth or cold, no pain, no hunger, not even the clothes on my skin. I could hear nothing, and for several moments, I could see nothing. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. I had no sense of my body parts and organs, so I couldn’t muster the strength in my throat and lungs to make my voice louder. It all felt like floating in an endless pool of flavorless Jell-O.

I noticed the blackness of my vision was growing lighter at the edges of my consciousness. I thought about blinking my eyes, but it remained only a thought with no way to follow through on it. A pale white figure came into view, piece by piece. The figure was formless, vibrating and shuttering as if it were placed behind the blades of some huge industrial fan. As time passed, the figure became clearer. I could make out the gnarled branches of a translucent oak tree, but the whole tree appeared to be upside down. More white trees started to fill in the space behind and beside the grand, central oak tree.

The dazzling landscape portrait started to resemble the film negative of a memory wedged deep in my subconscious, like a crinkling snack cake wrapper shoved between Grandma’s couch cushions. Something about the view called to mind a moment in time … the moment that I’d been attempting to conjure up in the moments before I lost consciousness.

In a flash, the rest of the scene filled in as if a tidal wave of monochrome paint had splashed all over my field of vision. A windshield framed with shattered glass. A limp air bag deflated and hanging from the dashboard. My vision swirled and shifted through the scene. Black clouds against a softly lit sky. The sketchy white of a highway stretched out far beyond my vision.

Without my effort or control, the vision shifted to my side. Something deep within cried out and pleaded with me to stop turning, but I couldn’t. I lost control of my consciousness, and while I couldn’t summon the memory in that moment, I could feel my soul screaming out at the implication of it. I could hear a rumbling, both far in the distance yet immediate in my mind. Like an echo, I heard my father’s final words to me:

You’re making a goddamn mess, Skylar.

When my vision finally rested, it settled on what was mostly a familiar sight. The steering wheel broken and hanging by a few stray wires, the driver’s seat upside down, but the occupant was thankfully absent. The only thing in the entire scene that still shuttered was a small dumpling-shaped mirage that hung from the steering wheel, with shades of color that I couldn’t perceive from anywhere else. There were shades of gray and pale yellow that only stood out for the lack of other colors.

“I can’t believe they actually pulled it off,” came a voice. It echoed and rattled in my brain at first like a sudden crash of a symbol. The shape of the figure came slowly into greater focus – the small body of light hanging by a thick string. No, a tail.

“Did you just speak?” My voice floated out of my consciousness and echoed through the air. It didn’t feel like I’d said anything with my voice but that my mind had spoken for me without my permission.

“Just the same as you,” the voice said. “You get used to it after a bit.”

I could sense the figure turn to me and could finally understand what I was seeing. It was a possum, or at least the figure of a possum if it were made from the most washed-out Polaroid.

“You’re a possum,” I blurted out.

“No, I am in the form of a possum. Well, an opossum if you want to get fussy about that sort of thing.”

“Are… are you Annie?”

The possum shot me an offended, perplexed glance. “Does this sound like a little girl’s voice to you?!”

“Your voice is not that deep, dude.”

“Your perception of my voice is off then, dude,” the possum shot back. “And my name is Wilcox, by the way. A strong, confident man’s name.”

“Whatever you say, rat boy,” I snapped. “I’m not here for you. I’m trying to find my friend, Annie.”

The possum rubbed his two tiny index fingers together, back and forth, feigning innocence. “I could be your friend, Skylar.” His voice was weak and pathetic – an effeminate wisp of a voice that betrayed his assertions of manliness.

“How do you even know my name?”

“Everyone knows your name by now, Skylar. You made quite an impression when your spirit arrived.”

“Arrived?”

“Yes, arrived,” Wilcox insisted. “The Vulture warned that you’d arrive, and here you are.”

I shook my head, or what felt like my head, in disbelief. “This is too many layers of absurdity today for me to even begin to understand what you just said.”

“I’m really conflicted right now. I just need you to know that. I was really hoping you wouldn’t arrive near me, because that’s a lot of pressure and I’ve got so much going on right now you would not even believe. Turns out that my cousin on my dad’s side is here now, and he chose to take the form of a dragon. A dragon, can you believe it? Not even our culture from back when we were alive, and also not even a real thing! Dummy picked a dragon just because he wanted to be able to fly.”

“Well, that is pretty cool though.”

“I can fly, too!” Wilcox let go of the handle from the roof of the truck and floated in the air, levitating just above the crushed dome light that flickered ominously. “Didn’t have to appropriate an Earth culture with some fake dragon to do it, either.”

“Isn’t taking the form of any animal an appropriation of Earth culture?”

Wilcox scoffed. “I wouldn’t expect an unwelcome visitor like you to understand the nuances of real spirit culture.”

“I’m trying to find my friend. Are you going to be able to help me or not?”

“Well, see, it’s not so much a matter of whether or not I am able to help you. No one here can help you. She’s just gonna have to come get you.”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Deadly. No one else here is going to have the kind of instant, beautiful bond that you and I have.”

“Oh yeah, that is kind of weird.”

“How dare you call our friendship weird!”

“How do we have a bond if you don’t even know each other?”

“Well, I know Annie. And since I know Annie, I guess that technically makes us best friends by association.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works. And how do you know Annie?”

“This feels less like a conversation between friends and more like an interrogation.”

“It’s neither of those things!” I sighed with exhaustion. “I don’t want to keep going around and around with you. Either you know where she is or you don’t. And if you don’t, you are wasting my time.”

“Harsh,” Wilcox hissed. “Harsh, but fair. I don’t think she is here yet. Even if I don’t know exactly where she is, I can usually at least sense when she arrives.”

“So what do we do? Do we just wait for her?”

As soon as the words left my thoughts, I could hear a metallic screech ring out across the field. It cracked across the space like a bolt of lightning and straight through my spine. Wilcox and I exchanged a quick glance -- I could sense the panic in his pure-white eyes.

“It knows you are here. We have to move -- NOW!” He whipped his tail towards me and wrapped the end of it around my wrist. I instinctively pulled my wrist away, but his grip and strength were unnaturally strong for such a small creature. It felt like pulling a rope wrapped around a semi-truck. He pulled me through the driver’s side window and onto the pavement. The glass that surrounded the window should have sliced up my skin like a cheese grater, but it didn’t. I didn’t feel a thing.

We cut across the road and into the cluster of trees in the median of the highway. It was strange -- I normally would have been out of breath at this point. Between the panic and the sprint into the trees, my asthma would have taken me out. But I couldn’t even feel my breathing, or my feet touching the ground for that matter. All that I could feel was the rough skin of the possum’s tail wrapped around my wrist.

In the tiny forest of the highway median, there were many small trees trying desperately to grow out from under the towering elder trees. Many of the older trees had fallen over, rotted out and breaking down. It was in one of these hollow trunks where Wilcox drug me. The trunk was leaning over another fallen tree, and we crawled inside the leaning trunk. Wilcox let go of my arm as I clawed my way into the space. Once my feet were inside the trunk and hidden from view, I exhaled a sigh of relief. Wilcox rested on my shoulder.

I looked down at my bare feet. I would have sworn that they’d be covered in scrapes and cuts, but they were as clean and untouched as they’d been that morning. I remembered the days on my grandparent’s plantation when I'd crawl through the creekbed and the fields all day long in nothing but my shorts and a tank top. I'd come back home covered in chigger bites and cuts from hidden twigs and rocks.

“Why can’t I feel anything?” I muttered to Wilcox.

“Because you aren’t here,” he snapped in hushed tone. “Now be quiet!”

We listened intensely for several minutes. Once or twice, I thought I heard the gush of wind from a pair of enormous wings, but there was no sign of The Vulture anywhere. I squirmed as the thought of staying cooped up in that tree trunk for any long became unbearable. I shimmied down the trunk.

“Skylar, don’t!” Wilcox hissed.

“We can't stay here forever waiting – we will never find Annie in this stupid tree trunk!”

Once I had worked my way out of the trunk – in direct opposition of Wilcox’s continued protest – I rolled over on the ground, hopped to my feet, and brushed the nonexistent leaves and dirt off my pants.

“Now you can either join me in looking for Annie or you can --”

“Skylar?” came a voice from behind me. I spun around to find myself face-to-face with Annie. Unlike everything else I had seen since I had woken up, Annie retained her fleshy, Earthly tone and complexion. She had an ethereal quality to her, but she was distinct from everything else around her.

“You found me,” I said with a relieved smile.

“It wasn’t hard. You are very loud,” she said teasingly. “Who are you yelling at, anyways?”

“See, I told you!” Wilcox said as he emerged from the trunk.

“What the hell is that,” Annie said.

“It’s Wilcox,” I answered. “He said he’s a friend of yours.”

At that moment, another identical, gossamer opossum appeared beside Annie, floating as Wilcox did. “What did I miss?”

Annie and I exchanged worried glances as I scurried away from the opossum that I’d followed to the trunk. He groaned loudly as his body hit the ground with a dull thud. With a pained cry, a pair of black wings erupted from his back.

“Two birds...” he screeched, “one stone...”

In an instant, the sound of wings flapping all around us became overwhelming. It sounded like we were trapped in the middle of a hurricane, and the trees whipped around violently.

“Grab my hand!” Annie snatched me by the wrist, and in an instant, we were back in the doctor’s office. I choked and sputtered as I became abruptly aware of my lungs and the air in them. Annie embraced me and asked me over and over if I was okay. I could feel her tears soaking my shirt on my shoulder. I couldn’t speak.

“Give her space, Annie,” the doctor snapped. “All of her senses are likely firing at once – it's overwhelming.”

“Don’t … let go …” I muttered, each syllable a struggle.

“What happened in there?” Dr. Lau demanded. “You weren’t there long – how did you find her so quickly?”

“I’m … loud,” I said. I could feel Annie laughing gently as she caught her breath. She let go of me and moved backwards. In one of her hands was a stuffed opossum doll.

“Wilcox...” I said.

“She saw him?”

“The Vulture knows,” Annie said. “I’m not sure why, but he chose to disguise himself as Wilcox. It must have been there when Skylar arrived.”

“Maybe it knew that it couldn’t convincingly mimic you, Annie,” the doctor suggested. “Mimicry is not one of The Vulture’s strong suits.”

“The fact that it had a trap laid out as soon as Skylar arrived is not good. I think we should stop. Her being there is attracting too much attention. I can handle The Vulture on my own at this point, but it’s too dangerous to have Skylar bumping around in there.” She shot me a quick worried glance. “No offense, Sky.”

“Sky?”

“Sorry, was that weird?”

“No, it’s fine. You’ve just never called me that before.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why I said it.”

“It’s okay, really. I like it.”

Dr. Lau’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. I caught a quick confused sigh before she shook her head. “Focus, ladies.”

“Fine,” Annie muttered.

“Skylar made it in more quickly than even you did.”

“Oh yeah, I remember,” I snapped. “You hit me in the goddamn forehead."

“And her memories are intact! I would say that’s a good sign,” the doctor argued. “As long as Skylar sticks with you, The Vulture shouldn’t be an issue.”

“I just think it’s too much of a risk with the two of us.”

“Then we leave the Open Mind subject with the most potential high and dry before she can reach her full potential – great plan, Annie.”

“At least she’ll be alive.”

“Don’t I get a say in all this?” I asked. Both turned to face me. Both of them seem hesitant and afraid of what I might say next, but in two completely different ways. “Nothing has changed for me. I heard my father while I was there.”

“What did he say,” the doctor asked.

“’You’re making a goddamn mess, Skylar.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It was the last words he said to me. I had a Snicker’s bar and it was everywhere. He wouldn’t normally let me have one in the truck, but he was so drunk, and I had snuck it in there. He’d reached down to get a towel to clean it up and …"

“I see...” the doctor whispered.

“He’s as right about me now as he was back then. I’ve made a goddamn mess of things. I don’t know if finding him will fix things, but if there’s even one chance in the world that I can clean up the mess that I've made, I have to take it.”

Annie looked at me directly in the eyes – something she rarely did. “Are you sure?”

“I am.”

“Then it’s settled,” the doctor proclaimed. “We will resume therapy next week!”