Green To Go

There was little natural light illuminating the tiny living room, which was probably a good thing. The place was a mess. Empty food containers and beer cans littered the floor and coffee table. Ryan sat in a tattered recliner in the centre of this clutter, like a desert island surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam from his sunken ship. The curtains were drawn closed over the rooms solitary window, but as several of the rings holding them were broken, a thin strip of light breached the darkness. However, it did little to disperse the gloom hanging in the air, which seemed almost physical. The room was sparsely furnished. Apart from the armchair and coffee table there were only three other items. An old wooden dining chair stood up against the wall, next to the curtained window. A television, which sat on then carpeted floor, and which had been rendered useless since the electricity had been disconnected. The other piece was a large, oak bookcase which took up the entire wall across from the window and dominated the area in an almost claustrophobic manner. Books were stacked higgledy-piggledy on the shelves, in no apparent order.

It had been eighty-seven days since Ryan had left his apartment. After Mary’s death, he had slumped into a deep depression, and relied on take-aways and home deliveries to survive. Most nights he slept in the same recliner chair in which he spent his days sitting and drinking. He changed his clothes rarely and bathed even less. He had long since alienated any friends and colleagues and was now truly alone. Mary’s death had been sudden and unexpected and had destroyed Ryan in the space of a few seconds. They had been walking along the road hand in hand, laughing about something Ryan couldn’t even remember now. Mary was nearest to the kerb, and he recalled thinking how his mother had always said it was politer for the man to walk nearest the road. Then if a car should pass and splash through a puddle, the gentleman would take the worst of it. If only it had been a puddle that had been dripping from his face a few minutes later.

Neither of them had heard the truck coming, at least there was nothing out of the ordinary in the sound it made as it approached. It was a sound you heard around city streets a dozen, two dozen times a day, which just became part of life’s background noise. There was no warning at all. One minute he had been holding Mary’s hand, the next it was snatched from his grasp as the speeding truck missed him by inches and slammed into Mary then continued on to crush her against an electricity pole mere feet in front of him. He didn’t even notice the blood dripping from his face, her blood, as the people began to scream and rush about him. He was paralysed, unable to process what had just happened. People shook him, sat him down, talked at him, but he just stared blankly into the distance.

He was taken to hospital and treated for shock, checked for injuries, and remarkably had none. However, he was mentally scarred and had been sedated and kept in hospital for a few days after the accident. He latter heard that the driver of the truck had experienced a fatal heart attack at the wheel, and that Mary had died instantly and not suffered. The driver had also died, Ryan never found out if it was the heart attack or the crash that killed him, and frankly he didn’t give a shit. Knowing wouldn’t change anything. Apparently, he was lucky to be alive, it had been a million to one chance the truck had missed him. It was a terrible accident and there was no-one to blame. Ryan didn’t feel lucky, not one bit. He wished he had died in the accident, as now he was not living, he was barely existing. After being released from hospital he had returned to their empty house, lay on the sofa and wept for what felt like hours. He ignored friends phone calls, and this was not a problem after a while as he paid none of his bills and both his house phone and mobile no longer worked.

Until 3 days ago he had just stared blankly at the television, never changing the channel. That was when the electricity had been cut off, but even so, he still stared at the blank screen. Then something changed. At first Ryan didn’t even register it. Then had thought it was his eyes playing tricks, or an illusion created by the constant darkness he lived in. In the dead centre of the TV screen, a small green light slowly began to glimmer into life. Ryan looked on with unflickering eyes, just the merest green glow illuminating his face.

It took a while for his addled mind to register that this was not normal. With no electricity, even some sort of malfunction should not have been possible. He shifted slightly in his seat, and for the first time in many days, the cogs in his mind began to slowly grind together, shaking off the gathered rust. The green dot began to slowly swell to the size of a golf ball, as Ryan looked on, now fascinated by what was unfolding in front of him. The centre of the ball began to widen and draw outwards, until it resembled a child’s drawing of a U.F.O. Ryan suddenly realised he was also hearing a very high pitched tone, which was barely audible. He thought that perhaps he had been hearing it from the start but couldn’t be sure. It was just there. No longer slouching, but sitting up-right, leaning forward from the edge of his chair, Ryan stared intently into the light. He could see now that it was not a solid colour, but many different shades of green that swirled and wrapped around each other. The object appeared to have taken on a solid, 3Dform as it fluxed and continued to spread, until the expanding centre now touched the edges of the screen.

The accompanying tone had now dropped further down into Ryan’s hearing range and began to resonate in his head until it felt like his skull was vibrating in synchronisation with the sound. Like the multiple hues that began to evolve on the T.V. the sound was not just a single tone. Ryan could now hear many undertones, like whispering voices babbling to be heard over one another. As the volume of the tones increased, he could see this reflected in the green light on the screen, the centre line oscillating in time with the sounds. Pushing the straggly, greasy hair from his eyes so he could see better, Ryan wiggled forward to the edge of his seat. The green light was now quite intense and reflected brightly in Ryan’s pale blue eyes. He watched the spikey green line peak and trough intently, as the circle at its centre continued to swirl its layered green maelstrom. Slowly, in his mind the sound and vision began to synchronise, matching their highs and lows. Then he understood. He knew that this was a message from Mary. She was communicating through the television, and he knew what she wanted.

Ryan stood up and approached the T.V. placing his hands one either side of the screen. Then he began to mumble under his breathe, muttering unintelligible words and phrases, staring into the swirling green centre of shape on the screen. The movement on the screen began to amplify dramatically, spikes of colour now hitting the top and bottom of the screen. And with this the whispering in his head became louder, more persistent, urging him on. It was like he was hearing and understanding two or three conversations at the same time, played back at double speed. One was urging him on, pushing his mind to it’s limits, forcing the synapses in his brain to make more and more new connections, unlocking new areas to his sub-conscious. The other was a litany of chants and phrases, which he was repeating urgently as he pressed his face against the television screen. He remained like this for almost a full hour, barely moving, only his mouth constantly spewing whatever he was hearing in his head, the activity reaching fever pitch.

Then it stopped. Everything stopped. The voices in his head, the lights on the screen just vanished and the following silence rang in his ears. There was a pressure shift in the room, which felt somewhat like walking into an airlock, a pressure on his ear drums. Then the television sprung into life again, but this time it was his face that was drawn on the screen in different shades of green. As he pressed his face harder against the glass, he felt the cartilage in his nose begin to shift painfully, not that Ryan noticed. Then it softened and his face sunk into the television screen and ripples spread from around his head like a pool of green liquid mercury. He pushed harder and harder, as the set began to consume him, almost a reverse birthing, as he pushed to get inside. He pulled his arms in and begam to grab and pull at anything he could get a grip on, until finally his feet disappeared with the slightest popping sound.

The room fell into silence again. Only the television screen gave any clue to what had transpired. It had frozen in a multi shaded, green image of Ryan’s screaming face.