James Gregerson sat under a wilting sky and watched the clouds press down on the already dark beech forest, and all the while he thought nothing of the rain. But it came. In sheets and then mixed with blowing dust it came and fell on him. His head drooped over and his neck bore the force of the storm in cold gusts, but he didn't move, and the rain and air and pressure didn't touch his mind; no, his singular thought was this: the way she opened the door and let it click into place.
How did he know right then?
Now, as the rain soaked him, he couldn't remember one word she'd said, but his thoughts fell in a groove scraped into the soft wood that was her shape slipping through the doorway and then closing the door.
She hadn't known he was watching her, and he hadn't said anything until she turned around. He just watched her move into his apartment very carefully, slide around the door, and work the handle without a sound.
"Oh," she said when their eyes met for a moment; not one more time that morning did she look up -- the liquid eyes he'd loved avoided him.
He said hi, but his body didn't move toward her.
There rose up an image of her sitting on the edge of his couch, her hands together between her legs, then one rubbing the other, her eyes lowered. Still no words -- just her movements: first her arrival, and now her posture as she explained the two of them away.
The same day James took a car to the airport. He stared at the departures and fingered his passport until he located the next flight overseas: Paris. Three lines later he sat in a middle seat waiting for the pills to kick in; he drank bourbon until the blackness came.
Hours later he woke with a pain in his back and the sound of the sleeping passenger cabin grating on his ears. Before his second artificial sleep, he grabbed an airline napkin and wrote down the name of a remote French town he'd read about in a history textbook years prior. The square napkin seemed to lap up the ink to satisfy its thirst; small black lines stretched out beyond the town-name James couldn't pronounce, and it smudged on the opposite side as he stuffed the wadded up paper into a pocket.
Sleep came again.
In a dream the napkin opened and could've passed for a throbbing spider's web. The ink from his pen touched the flimsy corner and the one name he'd written swelled and grew over the intricate lines. The folds of the napkin lifted over his head and the still-growing name seeped into his skin like a cold tattoo. It froze his veins until the chill felt like liquid fire. He startled awake, the image of his hands and arms covered in black receded slowly, and yet the heat throbbed throughout his body as his blood pressure rose.
"Excuse me." James scrambled down the aisle to the washroom, where the booze and the reality of his impulsive trip came rushing up at him together. Even when he calmed down, the pain in his blood continued to the very tips of his fingers and the furthest reaches of his scalp.
Back in his seat, James apologized to the passengers he'd climbed over. The elderly lady by the window had met his eyes; she looked down and back to him. It was too soon for him to pretend he was asleep again when she asked if he spoke any French.
"No," he laughed and immediately hated himself for it. "No, I don't."
"You have family there."
"No. I'm, just -- "
"Ah, I'm sorry." She breathed out her nose and held up her hand. "There's a chateau my husband and I met at. I'm sure it's nothing like it was then." A half smile grew from the corner of her mouth as she said, "We're going to see it."
James looked over the seats in front of them and said, "Is your husband sitting somewhere else?"
"No," and she didn't look away from his bloodshot eyes.
It was his turn to apologize, and he said it hurriedly.
The old woman placed her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, too." Her fingers were cold to the touch, but just under his newly forming gooseflesh another roaring fire started and spread within. His eyes closed and she mumbled something about a nap.
Her eyes were a deep grey with purple rings around each iris. Purple rings. A couple more pills would slide down easily, his brain would give in, and he'd wake up with the opportunity to move. Yet, her steady gaze grew into thoughts about the chateau she was going alone to visit, and he imagined her arriving and standing on a wide lawn, her memories kneading a lump in her throat, her tears welling up from the grey.
James woke. Passengers filed out of the plane, and his heart pounded at the empty seats on either side. He jumped up and searched the cabin for the old woman. Nowhere.
The napkin in his pocket cried out; how long had he forgotten his plan? He reviewed the memories of the past couple days, and he whittled them down to two things: the girl who wouldn't look him in the face and the old woman who did.
Somehow he'd passed through the plane and the airport, the old woman constantly in his thoughts, and now he stood on a busy street watching cars and people. He waved down a taxi and showed the driver the town-name on the napkin. A flash of color made James turn; "No! Follow that car instead!"
It was her. He'd seen, for a moment, the white hair and then the eyes. He didn't question the idea that he'd seen her eyes, that he'd had time for his own eyes to focus on such a detail. "Please! Follow that car!" He didn't question why he wanted to follow her, either, but the impulse grew as the car turned into traffic; he let the napkin go and it fell to the floor.
While his cab rushed through the city, James didn't notice one landmark, nor did he care; a fearful thrill twisted his stomach as he shouted at his driver to keep up or turn. Panic rushed from his gut up his neck every time he thought she was gone, but they pressed on and on. Soon, however, James sat back and buried his head in his lap.
"Monsieur -- Sir?"
James didn't look up, and the car drove out of the city. He tried to fight the black that crept under his skin, but he saw a corner of the napkin under his boot, and he was back in his apartment breathing heavily as he stared at the girl he thought he knew. And then she was gone.
"Sir?" The car stopped.
James gave the driver what he could, but in the end he got out and watched the taxi speed away.
Clouds, dark and thick, grew overhead. Wind swept a fog from the roadside ditch that curled upward into wisps. Paris and its lights had been swallowed, and James was uncertain which direction to try. He turned and walked into a stand of trees with the idea that he'd sit and think awhile.
But the rain came down on him, and he didn't think about where to go, or how to get out of the dust-filled rain, but of her slipping into his apartment. The rain was no match for the burning fluid in his veins; try as it might to chill him, he only felt the fire, and it returned with a doubled fury.
For no reason he could explain, and in the midst of growing pain, he remembered an odd statement the old woman had made: "We're going to see it." It snapped James's attention as if the memory of the phrase was audible, and he looked around. He screamed and fell to the ground, for he saw her purple-ringed eyes, the grey of them throbbing and the pupils widening in the dark -- it was as though he stared into a looking glass with his face an inch away, yet not into his own eyes, but hers.
Thunder and lightning combined to complete his terror; just as the City of Light had succumbed to the storm, his consciousness was swallowed in darkness.
The crunch of gravel under his boots woke him, and he realized his feet had carried him far away in his sleep, for the sun rose before his face. Storm clouds rumbled in the west. He stopped walking to look at the red sky and to breathe. Somehow he knew if he closed his eyes he would see the old woman, and he suspected that he'd run from her in his dreams -- why he should have been afraid he didn't know now, even though the memory of her pulsing eyes was fresh.
A cry for help nearby broke into his reverie. To his right, just over a swell of land topped with gnarled trees, he saw a smoke column and within it new flames.
More screams for help set his legs running through a fence and up the grassy hillside. He heard the crack of the fire, and as he leaped through the ancient trees, heat stopped him. His arms covering his head, he moved around to the back of the house. A bearded man pulled at his sleeves. "No! No!" But James continued to look at the windows for any signs of people.
And then he saw her; the old woman -- yes, it was her -- standing on the back porch, her arm waving for James to come.
All sound ceased. His pulse slowed. He felt his face smile, and her eyes welled over with tears as he climbed the stairs and took her hand. "The top floor. Go to the top, James."
He kicked the back door in, and before he went farther, he looked back. There was nothing to see but waves of heat that made the porch swim. He took a deep breath and turned toward the flames.
Immediately he was driven back. A lull in the wind caused the fire to hesitate and pull back toward James, and he turned himself against it. Soon, however, the wind picked up and sucked the heat away from him and he ran while he could to find the stairway. Small explosions on every side. Family pictures curled and dead. The ceiling crumbled. Finally, he found the stairs and crawled with his belly scraping the edges of each step.
It was then he heard the moaning cry. From a room at the top, he knew, and he pushed forward even as the skin on his arms and face surrendered to the fire. He began to shout. His tears fell; his vision blurred. Room to room he searched until he found another door -- to the top. A second lull in the wind allowed him to wrench it open, and he ran up, his arms again a shield for his head.
A young girl lay on the floor. He fell at her side and gathered her in his arms so that her face was buried in his chest.
On his back and with his arms around the girl, he slid down the first and then the second set of stairs. For a moment he paused; he waited for the wind to die. The thought of pain came to him. His arms screamed and his face passed into numbness, but he felt the change in the air and plunged forward.
French phrases whispered. A machine's constant beep. The smell of starched sheets. These first openings of James's mind vanished when the nerves along his forearms awoke, and then those on his cheeks followed, and he arched his back and gasped.
A call for the nurse. A cold hand. A yet colder needle.
He breathed while the pain subsided and opened his eyes.
The room was full of people he'd never seen. He looked from face to face, but the old woman was not there. Someone spoke up, and the couple next to the bed moved away to make room for a girl in a summer dress. She looked at him. In the eyes, she looked at him, and he knew her. She smiled and knew his burns saved her.
But he only saw her eyes: deep grey, purple-ringed.
In English, she said, "I'm sorry."
"No," and he smiled. "We saw it, didn't we?" Again he smiled as her brow furrowed and sleep came for him. It came and he dreamed of her eyes.
How did he know right then?
Now, as the rain soaked him, he couldn't remember one word she'd said, but his thoughts fell in a groove scraped into the soft wood that was her shape slipping through the doorway and then closing the door.
She hadn't known he was watching her, and he hadn't said anything until she turned around. He just watched her move into his apartment very carefully, slide around the door, and work the handle without a sound.
"Oh," she said when their eyes met for a moment; not one more time that morning did she look up -- the liquid eyes he'd loved avoided him.
He said hi, but his body didn't move toward her.
There rose up an image of her sitting on the edge of his couch, her hands together between her legs, then one rubbing the other, her eyes lowered. Still no words -- just her movements: first her arrival, and now her posture as she explained the two of them away.
The same day James took a car to the airport. He stared at the departures and fingered his passport until he located the next flight overseas: Paris. Three lines later he sat in a middle seat waiting for the pills to kick in; he drank bourbon until the blackness came.
Hours later he woke with a pain in his back and the sound of the sleeping passenger cabin grating on his ears. Before his second artificial sleep, he grabbed an airline napkin and wrote down the name of a remote French town he'd read about in a history textbook years prior. The square napkin seemed to lap up the ink to satisfy its thirst; small black lines stretched out beyond the town-name James couldn't pronounce, and it smudged on the opposite side as he stuffed the wadded up paper into a pocket.
Sleep came again.
In a dream the napkin opened and could've passed for a throbbing spider's web. The ink from his pen touched the flimsy corner and the one name he'd written swelled and grew over the intricate lines. The folds of the napkin lifted over his head and the still-growing name seeped into his skin like a cold tattoo. It froze his veins until the chill felt like liquid fire. He startled awake, the image of his hands and arms covered in black receded slowly, and yet the heat throbbed throughout his body as his blood pressure rose.
"Excuse me." James scrambled down the aisle to the washroom, where the booze and the reality of his impulsive trip came rushing up at him together. Even when he calmed down, the pain in his blood continued to the very tips of his fingers and the furthest reaches of his scalp.
Back in his seat, James apologized to the passengers he'd climbed over. The elderly lady by the window had met his eyes; she looked down and back to him. It was too soon for him to pretend he was asleep again when she asked if he spoke any French.
"No," he laughed and immediately hated himself for it. "No, I don't."
"You have family there."
"No. I'm, just -- "
"Ah, I'm sorry." She breathed out her nose and held up her hand. "There's a chateau my husband and I met at. I'm sure it's nothing like it was then." A half smile grew from the corner of her mouth as she said, "We're going to see it."
James looked over the seats in front of them and said, "Is your husband sitting somewhere else?"
"No," and she didn't look away from his bloodshot eyes.
It was his turn to apologize, and he said it hurriedly.
The old woman placed her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, too." Her fingers were cold to the touch, but just under his newly forming gooseflesh another roaring fire started and spread within. His eyes closed and she mumbled something about a nap.
Her eyes were a deep grey with purple rings around each iris. Purple rings. A couple more pills would slide down easily, his brain would give in, and he'd wake up with the opportunity to move. Yet, her steady gaze grew into thoughts about the chateau she was going alone to visit, and he imagined her arriving and standing on a wide lawn, her memories kneading a lump in her throat, her tears welling up from the grey.
James woke. Passengers filed out of the plane, and his heart pounded at the empty seats on either side. He jumped up and searched the cabin for the old woman. Nowhere.
The napkin in his pocket cried out; how long had he forgotten his plan? He reviewed the memories of the past couple days, and he whittled them down to two things: the girl who wouldn't look him in the face and the old woman who did.
Somehow he'd passed through the plane and the airport, the old woman constantly in his thoughts, and now he stood on a busy street watching cars and people. He waved down a taxi and showed the driver the town-name on the napkin. A flash of color made James turn; "No! Follow that car instead!"
It was her. He'd seen, for a moment, the white hair and then the eyes. He didn't question the idea that he'd seen her eyes, that he'd had time for his own eyes to focus on such a detail. "Please! Follow that car!" He didn't question why he wanted to follow her, either, but the impulse grew as the car turned into traffic; he let the napkin go and it fell to the floor.
While his cab rushed through the city, James didn't notice one landmark, nor did he care; a fearful thrill twisted his stomach as he shouted at his driver to keep up or turn. Panic rushed from his gut up his neck every time he thought she was gone, but they pressed on and on. Soon, however, James sat back and buried his head in his lap.
"Monsieur -- Sir?"
James didn't look up, and the car drove out of the city. He tried to fight the black that crept under his skin, but he saw a corner of the napkin under his boot, and he was back in his apartment breathing heavily as he stared at the girl he thought he knew. And then she was gone.
"Sir?" The car stopped.
James gave the driver what he could, but in the end he got out and watched the taxi speed away.
Clouds, dark and thick, grew overhead. Wind swept a fog from the roadside ditch that curled upward into wisps. Paris and its lights had been swallowed, and James was uncertain which direction to try. He turned and walked into a stand of trees with the idea that he'd sit and think awhile.
But the rain came down on him, and he didn't think about where to go, or how to get out of the dust-filled rain, but of her slipping into his apartment. The rain was no match for the burning fluid in his veins; try as it might to chill him, he only felt the fire, and it returned with a doubled fury.
For no reason he could explain, and in the midst of growing pain, he remembered an odd statement the old woman had made: "We're going to see it." It snapped James's attention as if the memory of the phrase was audible, and he looked around. He screamed and fell to the ground, for he saw her purple-ringed eyes, the grey of them throbbing and the pupils widening in the dark -- it was as though he stared into a looking glass with his face an inch away, yet not into his own eyes, but hers.
Thunder and lightning combined to complete his terror; just as the City of Light had succumbed to the storm, his consciousness was swallowed in darkness.
The crunch of gravel under his boots woke him, and he realized his feet had carried him far away in his sleep, for the sun rose before his face. Storm clouds rumbled in the west. He stopped walking to look at the red sky and to breathe. Somehow he knew if he closed his eyes he would see the old woman, and he suspected that he'd run from her in his dreams -- why he should have been afraid he didn't know now, even though the memory of her pulsing eyes was fresh.
A cry for help nearby broke into his reverie. To his right, just over a swell of land topped with gnarled trees, he saw a smoke column and within it new flames.
More screams for help set his legs running through a fence and up the grassy hillside. He heard the crack of the fire, and as he leaped through the ancient trees, heat stopped him. His arms covering his head, he moved around to the back of the house. A bearded man pulled at his sleeves. "No! No!" But James continued to look at the windows for any signs of people.
And then he saw her; the old woman -- yes, it was her -- standing on the back porch, her arm waving for James to come.
All sound ceased. His pulse slowed. He felt his face smile, and her eyes welled over with tears as he climbed the stairs and took her hand. "The top floor. Go to the top, James."
He kicked the back door in, and before he went farther, he looked back. There was nothing to see but waves of heat that made the porch swim. He took a deep breath and turned toward the flames.
Immediately he was driven back. A lull in the wind caused the fire to hesitate and pull back toward James, and he turned himself against it. Soon, however, the wind picked up and sucked the heat away from him and he ran while he could to find the stairway. Small explosions on every side. Family pictures curled and dead. The ceiling crumbled. Finally, he found the stairs and crawled with his belly scraping the edges of each step.
It was then he heard the moaning cry. From a room at the top, he knew, and he pushed forward even as the skin on his arms and face surrendered to the fire. He began to shout. His tears fell; his vision blurred. Room to room he searched until he found another door -- to the top. A second lull in the wind allowed him to wrench it open, and he ran up, his arms again a shield for his head.
A young girl lay on the floor. He fell at her side and gathered her in his arms so that her face was buried in his chest.
On his back and with his arms around the girl, he slid down the first and then the second set of stairs. For a moment he paused; he waited for the wind to die. The thought of pain came to him. His arms screamed and his face passed into numbness, but he felt the change in the air and plunged forward.
***
French phrases whispered. A machine's constant beep. The smell of starched sheets. These first openings of James's mind vanished when the nerves along his forearms awoke, and then those on his cheeks followed, and he arched his back and gasped.
A call for the nurse. A cold hand. A yet colder needle.
He breathed while the pain subsided and opened his eyes.
The room was full of people he'd never seen. He looked from face to face, but the old woman was not there. Someone spoke up, and the couple next to the bed moved away to make room for a girl in a summer dress. She looked at him. In the eyes, she looked at him, and he knew her. She smiled and knew his burns saved her.
But he only saw her eyes: deep grey, purple-ringed.
In English, she said, "I'm sorry."
"No," and he smiled. "We saw it, didn't we?" Again he smiled as her brow furrowed and sleep came for him. It came and he dreamed of her eyes.
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