Synchronicity

Beep… Thud-Thud, Thud-Thud.

Beep… Thud-Thud, Thud-Thud.

Beep… “Is mine too fast or is his too slow?” thought Mark as he removed his fingers from his wrist.

Beep… A rhythmic reminder of his mistakes.

Beep… Empty chairs of flaking pleather.

Beep… Disinfectant burning through the air.

Beep… A little boy in a monstrously framed bed.

Beep… A reminder.

Beep… Then, a deadly silence.

Beep… The only sign of life.

Beep… And remembrance of death.

Beep…

#

“You’re going to put my soul in his body?” questioned Mark unsure whether he wanted the answer.

“I don’t deal in souls” responded The Swapper sitting at the other end of a dark mahogany table. “Your essence, your energy, your vitality, that is what your son gets.” continued The Swapper in a flat mortician’s timbre.

Looking around, Mark couldn’t remember how he got here, to this place; a palace in proportion but a tomb in tone. He knew he drove, but between here and the hospital there was nothing, nothing at all.

“We need to go now” insisted Mark with a hesitant urgency. The Swapper, creaked forward, docking her arthritic claws.

“Does he live? Your boy, has he died?” Mark swallowed hard but couldn’t respond.

“Then there is nothing to be done”.

#

Beep... “This is my time,” said Mark’s wife with no tone or inflection.

Beep… “I need to talk to you,” responded Mark equally flat.

Beep… Mark’s wife didn’t stir, except her thumb, gently rising and falling the length of the little boy’s face as if this one movement, this gentle stroke, would bond them together forever.

Beep… “Can we go outside, where our son can’t hear us?” begged Mark gesturing towards the dimly lit hallway.

Beep… A deep sigh and a rise as Mark’s Wife followed Mark into the hall, away from that incessant

Beep…

#

The hallway buzzed and faded at the edges. Mark could see his wife and his wife alone. Everything else was shapeless, breaking into unreality.

“I can bring him back,” stated Mark straight and unwavering. An immediate tear rolled down Mark’s Wife’s face, another streak of mascara on an already painted face.

“You can’t fix this," she said, eyes fixed on a cracked tile, trying desperately to force all her grief into the hairline fracture breaking the tile in two.

“I found someone, someone who can help," said Mark pleading for belief. "She helps people, people like our son.”

Mark forced his hand from his side. It jerked and wavered as it neared her shoulder. Slowing, slowing, more and more as if tethered to an elastic restraint. She was going to reject him, he knew that. It was going to be unbearable, he was sure. But if he could just touch her…

Her shoulder slumped and fell away. His hand drifted back to his side.

#

Walls marbled with deep lines of mould, the air thick and fetid, The Resurrected stared unblinkingly across a linen tablecloth stained black from whatever lived in the air.

The Resurrected’s mouth ached open. Slow as molasses, words rolled out. “Yes, I was brought back”.

Mark waited patiently, not knowing if The Resurrected had reached a full stop or a dead-end. His eyes wandered to the marvellously patterned walls. Rows and rows of Rorschach tests, with only one answer, one face.

“Don’t make me ask” thought Mark “I can’t ask you to relive your death.”

The moment’s silence had grown long and Mark had grown impatient.

“Tell me what it was like?” asked Mark leaning into the once man.

“Like being teleported.” The Resurrected explained in a slow drawl. “I was down there. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned. They say it’s tranquil, a peaceful way to go, but they have never been to the bottom of a lake. Then, I was back in bed, my father gone, his life for mine.”

Mark searched The Resurrected’s face. “Is this what my son will come back as?” he thought.

#

Mark’s house had grown dim. The walls bare, the pictures taken down. He wanted to keep some but, his wife had taken them with her. He couldn’t say “no”, it wouldn’t be right.

Mark sat there, waiting, on the carpet worn down to the steps beneath by years of happy plodding. He waited like he had been for the last half an hour. He wasn't excited and they weren't late but there was nothing else to do but wait.

#

“Daddy” a sweet voice cried.

“Honey” replied Mark dripping with shame.

“You call me if you need me," said Mark's wife to their daughter as she closed the front door.

Mark scooped the little girl up.

“She’s so light, so frail. How could my boy ever have stood a chance?” thought Mark as he wordlessly sailed his daughter into the kitchen.

#

The ready-made meal slowly danced around the microwave. Mark stared as if it was his concentration heating the meal. Ping! The dinner bell released Mark from his stupor.

“When was the last time I spoke?” he thought.

Mark turned to his daughter hoping something would come to him, something to say, something nice, something sweet, something…

#

Mark plated the ready-made meal, trying to hide the unhealthy congealed glow from the underside of his daughter’s food.

“Where have you been, Daddy? I’ve missed you.” said his daughter earnestly.

“I’ve missed you too," replied Mark. But it wasn’t true, he had only thought of one thing.

“I’m going to bring your brother back.”

“Really?” asked his daughter with sickening delight.

“Yes, but I’ll have to go away," responded Mark as he reached out for comfort.

“But, I don’t want you to go. Please don’t go, Daddy.” His daughter begged as her little hands tugged on his ratty sleeve.

“It’s the only way”.

#

"It's not true," said The Resurrected’s Brother standing at Mark’s doorway. “It didn’t happen like that, there was an accident, that’s true, but my brother didn’t die. Well, technically, he did, but for minutes. My Dad, he drowned trying to save him”. The Resurrected’s Brother stood one step lower than Mark, making the five-inch difference between them twelve. "She has warped his mind, filled it with dark fantasy and lies," said the man crumbling before Mark.

“That stench”, Mark thought “That stifling smell of mould and decay had latched on to him too”.

#

Beep…”What did you tell our daughter?” demanded Mark’s wife.

Beep… “How I’m going to fix this," responded Mark.

Beep… “Have the doctors spoken to you?” asked Mark’s Wife flatly.

Beep… “Yes," Mark responded staring, pleading, desperate for her to look at him with just a glimmer of kindness.

Beep… “So, you know?” asked Mark’s Wife without a hint of compassion.

Beep… “I know what they said.” retorted Mark angrily.

#

Mark pounded the dark mahogany table. “We need to do this tonight.” The Swapper’s house seemed larger now but somehow more constricting, like being lost in the dark; nothing there but black and fear and everything living in the space unseen.

“Is your son still with us?” asked The Swapper.

“We need to do this tonight” responded Mark.

#

Beep… ”Are you ready Mark?” asked The Swapper.

Beep… Mark looked at his son and then the two syringes on the bed. A rancid yellow liquid, 100cc in each.

Beep… “He is so small," thought Mark “surely, I’ll need more than him”.

Beep… “Are you ready, Mark?”

Beep… “Maybe we should wait?” replied Mark.

Beep… “Do you want to end this, Mark? Do you need the pain to go away?”

Beep… “But he is still alive.”

Beep… “It’s you or him, Mark”.

Beep…“I choose him, I’ll always choose him but is this right?”

Beep…Mark stopped.

Beep… It all washed over him.

Beep… Mark looked down at the little boy in the monstrously framed bed.

Beep… Those empty chairs of flaking pleather.

Beep… That smell of disinfectant and mould and decay.

Beep… That damn machine.

Beep…

Beep…

Beep… His mind focused.

Beep… Just one question.

Beep… Over and over.

Everything else faded away.

“Am I scared or am I wrong?”

“Am I scared or am I wrong?”

“Am I scared or am I wrong?”

“Am I scared or am I wrong?”

“For your boy” demanded The Swapper.

Beep… “For my boy” responded Mark resolutely.

Beep… Thud-Thud. A belt closes around an arm.

Beep… Thud-Thud. Veins pop, ready to receive.

Beep… Thud-Thud. Two syringes plunge.

Beep… Thud-Thud.

Beep… Thud-Thud.

Then nothing, silence, perfect synchronicity.