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Realms (May 7, 2013)

***Special thanks to Althea Thompson for sending me a review copy.***

Jake Tucker coughed in a half sleep, a raspy, dry hack that burned in his lungs. He was dreaming of drowning, of being pulled into murky, dark waters by some unseen hand. Above, through ripples of water, he could see the sun, a blurry orb, disjointed like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and fading quickly. His lungs tightened, felt as if they would burst. Water pressed around him. He flailed his arms and kicked his feet, but it did no good. He sank farther and farther away from the surface, away from that tiny wriggling light. He coughed again, and in his dream he could take the pressure in his chest no longer and sucked in a mouthful of water, welcoming the cold liquid and the death it would bring. It rushed down his windpipe and into his lungs. He tried to inhale again, tried to draw oxygen from the water, but he was paralyzed. Suffocating.Jake Tucker hacked, a forceful bark that brought up a wad of phlegm, and awoke. Thick, acrid smoke filled his living room. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa while watching the evening news and . . . and what? He’d been waiting for something. Something to cook. But what? Panic seized him.He rolled to the floor where he found a layer of cool, fresh air. Pulling it in through his nose, he coughed again, expelled soot and smoke from his lungs. The kitchen was engulfed in flames. Wicked things as tall as a man and angry, they clawed and licked at the doorway to the living room, blackened the jamb and molding. The linoleum peeled and melted, curled around the edges.

But what had he been cooking? What had caused the fire? Jake thought of heading for the front door, but there was something he needed to get, something he was forgetting. He drew in another breath and hacked again.

Yes, Jovie, his cat. He’d put her in the cellar but couldn’t remember why. The cellar door was in the kitchen, though, the kitchen that was now an inferno. But he couldn’t just leave her down there. She was family to him. Pushing to his knees then his feet, Jake pulled his T-shirt over his nose and mouth and stumbled through the smoke. He struck his knee on something hard. The coffee table. He was moving in the wrong direction.

The fire roared like a living beast hungry for the flesh of man, but it sounded like it was all around him. It was spreading fast, growing, gaining strength, sucking the oxygen from the air. Oxygen he so desperately needed. He wheezed, coughed. His eyes burned and watered. But still he felt his way through the gloom. Sweat droplets dotted his forehead and cheeks now, soaked his shirt. The temperature in the house rose exponentially, slowly baking him.

Over the raging flames he heard a low meow. Jovie. She was just on the other side of the door. If he could only make his way to her. He tried to follow the sound of her yowling but the smoke and fire were so disorienting he repeatedly came back to the same wall, the one with the family photos on it. His parents and grandparents. His siblings. Marta, his wife, his long-mourned wife. And Raymond, his son. Dear Raymond.

Jake leaned against the wall. His mind was slowing, trudging through mud. His chest felt like it was in a vise. Pressure grew around his lungs and heart, squeezing his ribs until they hurt. The pain, a deeply intense ache, radiated down his left arm and up into the left side of his neck and face.

“Raymond!” But Raymond couldn’t hear him. He was three thousand miles away in California. “Raymond, I’m sorry. Please.”

He coughed again and this time brought up some blood. The pressure in his chest worsened, like someone was standing on him. His left shoulder blade felt like it was being ripped from his back.

Still Jovie meowed, over and over, rhythmic, like seconds ticking off time on a clock. The charcoal smoke swelled around Jake; the heat built. He dropped to his knees and tried to crawl to the sound of Jovie’s cries. His eyes burned and watered so badly he couldn’t see a thing.

Raymond was on his mind, though. His son, Raymond. He’d never see him again. Never . . .

The eggs. Yes, that was it. He’d put eggs on the stove to boil then went to lie on the sofa and watch the eleven o’clock news. The pot must have burned dry and started the fire.

In one last moment of semi-clarity Jake Tucker almost laughed at the irony of it all. Done in by a pot of eggs.

He fell to his side and rolled onto his back. A ceiling of smoke hung above him like a phantom. Maybe it was a ghost; maybe it was the angel of death come to take him over to the other side where he could see Marta, hold her again, tell her face-to-face all the words he’d spoken to her photo over the past five years.

Somewhere in the distance but not too far Jovie still wailed. But her holler faded quickly as if she was on a boat drifting away into the fog, farther and farther away, so far that he could no longer hear her. Jovie.

The weight on his chest had increased, and his left arm had numbed. He couldn’t feel the left side of his face either.

Then the swirling smoke began to change colors, red and white and blue. It flashed and stuttered, red-red-white-blue, red-redwhite- blue. His mind fixated on it, on the colors, the rhythm. They must be the colors of heaven. The gates were opening and welcoming him home, bidding him come near and see his Marta.

Jake coughed again; his chest spasmed. Smoke was such an awful thing to inhale. He had to remember to turn the stove off next time. He still couldn’t remember why he’d put Jovie in the cellar. He couldn’t hear her anymore.

Something in the house cracked. Sounded like wood busting, splintering. A hideous sound. But he didn’t open his eyes. He was being pulled under, just like in his dream, but instead of fighting it he had succumbed to it. There was no way out now. This was how it was going to end. And how it would all begin.

Suddenly he felt a presence there with him and opened his eyes. A face materialized out of the smoke, hovered over him. Small, soft, white . . . the face of an angel. Blue eyes that seemed to glow from their own light. Hair the color of flax and pulled back off her face. A girl. A young girl, just a child. She smiled at him and placed her hand on his chest. Her smile was sweet and innocent, the smile of a child who’s never known the worst of this world. Oddly, in the midst of such chaos, such hellfire, she showed no signs of fear.

When she spoke, her voice was meek, the voice of all that is pure and right. “Mr. Tucker, you can’t go yet. Raymond needs you.”

Raymond. His son. His dear son. How did she know about Raymond?

“He loves you.” She smoothed his hair with her hand. “He needs his father.”

She had freckles across her nose, a spattering of them shaped like a butterfly.

“Tell Raymond you love him. Tell him how much you love him. Tell him you forgive him.”

Her hand lifted from his head, and she faded from view. She was an angel, had to have been. His time had arrived, and he was about to be ushered into eternity by this precious little angel.

In the distance, so far away, he heard a faint knocking, then more wood breaking. The house was falling apart around him, but he didn’t care anymore.

“Live, Mr. Tucker. Live. God has given you life.”

He heard his name. A man calling him. Muffled. Another angel. They were coming to get him, coming to give him eternal life. A strong hand wrapped around his ankle and pulled. Something went over his face, something cool. He was floating now, breathing in the clean, fresh air of the heavens. His chest no longer ached, and the numbness was gone in his arm and face. He felt new again. Whole. Young.