Late September was a little cold for swimming, he thought, but this was his only chance, and he would take it. He fancied himself an opportunist, but opportunities were few and far between for Chris.
The leaves had begun to fall from the trees and the blacktop path was littered in a litany of red, orange, and brown. Now, walking four or five yards behind the modern day Romeo and Juliet, opportunities were waning even thinner. He felt like a little toy dog, a novelty pet, being shown off as if saying, “Oh, I have one of those.” A wave of disgust rose up in him as she grabbed her new lover’s hand. That should be HIM there.
The familiar thoughts that sometimes kept him up at night crept into his mind like a disease. Was he sleeping with her yet? They had been dating for what did she say a month? Was this new guy taking my role in the bedroom? Was he anywhere near as good as I was? A red rage surfaced within him making him feel like his blood turned to molten lava, he had to keep this on the down low. The last thing Kelly wanted to see was jealousy and an inability to be “just a friend.”
“Hey, I forgot to ask you, how do you like your job?” Mark turned back and asked.
“Eh, it’s pretty good. Pay isn’t bad, my boss is nice, but I still have a lot of homework, probably more than you even.”
This produced a grin from both of the lovebirds, who had just started their junior years of college.
“That’s cool, that’s cool. I can’t wait until I’m out in the real world, making my own way.”
What did this spiky-hair, earringed, Abercrombie-wearing idiot know about the real world? He had to be kidding! This kid who got whatever he wanted from mommy and daddy: college education, cars, clothes, DVDs, stereos, he knew nothing about “making his own way.”
“Well, it’s not all fun and games,” Chris replied
“That’s all you are about is fun and games,” she laughed. It was the infectious laughter that always caught him off guard. He felt the lava in his veins cool and all of a sudden the world wasn’t so bad. He sped up to walk alongside her, and nudged her, the way that always annoyed her when they were together.
“I thought you liked my kind of games?” Chris said through his chuckles.
“Oh you,” she blushed.
Are the one.
A breeze picked up and the leaves blew in a circular motion on the blacktop.
The sign on the chain link fence read simply “The Pool” in black lettering. It was an apt title if not an odd place. Two three-foot deep kidney-shaped pools and a kiddie pool all inside a fenced off area. It was a nice place in the summer, but in the fall it was questionable. Who goes swimming in the fall?
“Hmmm, the kidney shaped pool or the kidney shaped pool? Choices, choices, choices,” Chris joked, and all three of them laughed.
Kelly took off her white shirt and Daisy Duke jeans shorts to reveal a light blue bikini. Her nipples poked through her top, and Chris felt his mouth water as he gazed on what he used to call “handfuls of sunshine.” Her stomach was flat as a washboard and her legs seemed to go on forever. It was like seeing her erotically for the first time again. Three months since they broke up, and two weeks since he saw her last. After seeing her every day for a long time, that two weeks seemed like an eternity. Some wounds were slow to heal.
Not for Kelly Murphy though. A month and a half after the break up, she had found Mark Tullowsky, all American-boy, a Division 3 football player who didn’t start, clenched on to a 2.0 GPA, and never worked a day in his life.
Join us
I must be hearing things, he thought. Chris looked around, and saw nothing except the other idiots who came out today. A few old people fully dressed, a group of suburban mothers, and their rambunctious young kids. I must be hearing things he thought.
The leaves fell down by the pool.
The rage that had burned like a brushfire in him before had subsided, and the lack of adrenaline brought back his feelings of sadness. Why did I ever agree to this, he asked himself. It was ridiculous. What am I a masochist? Do I like hurting myself?
He put his dollar into the Coke Machine to the right of the stone dressing rooms. Chris reached down to pick up his water bottle, and noticed that his feet were covered with dead leaves. The strange thing was that he felt no breeze and he was facing a wall. Still, leaves were of no concern to
Come with us
Chris. The voice was still a whisper.
“Hello?”
He turned around and saw no one except a group of eight year olds practicing cannonballs and angry mothers yelling about splashing and horseplay. He paid it no more thought.
Chris took off his Jeans and white T-shirt and jumped into the pool, making sure to splash the new guy and ruin in Mark Tullowsky’s boy-band hair. How long did you spend on that? One hour? Two? Want it perfectly gelled eh?
“Oh look who decided to join us,” Kelly said, throwing a splash at her ex-lover.
“Ah man, my hair,” the Abercrombie boy lamented, while running a hand through his short crop.
“Hey, you chose to go swimming, you gotta expect to get wet,” Chris laughed. He threw a glance towards Kelly, but she seemed not to catch the reference.
“I know,” Mark replied, his voice trailing off.
Chris smiled, this perfectly toned athlete who outweighed him by a good fifteen pounds was...afraid? What a loser! It was too good to be true. He splashed the Abercrombie boy again.
“Dude, knock it off, I told you.”
“What are you going to do melt?”
Mark shook his head, shocked and disappointed that a paralegal who wouldn’t last a quarter in one of his games got the best of him. But he had Kelly to think about, and she was worth it. “I’m going to get a Coke, I think, you want one, Kel?”
“Sure.”
He pulled himself out of the pool, cool and composed, leaving Chris with cheeks as red as some of the fall foliage that was blowing into the pool. “You blew it!” the voice of Adam Sandler from Billy Madison screamed into his head. But there was always the rebound...
“Listen, Kelly, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
Her impatient gaze said it all. Those big, beautiful brown eyes bore into his soul, exposing the little boy inside. It was like holding a gun to his head and making him expose everything under the interrogation lamps.
“I have feelings for you still, more than Mark does. You two don’t go together like we do, you don’t have what we have, and I think...”
“Chris, that’s not why we are here today. I told you I just wanted to be friends, nothing more. I’m with Mark now, but I think I need to be by myself right now.” He watched as she turned from him and walked away, wondering when she would be in the mood to talk to him again. He didn’t know what hurt more, the fact that Kelly was upset, or that Mark Tullowsky had been the bigger man. He fought back tears, as he reclined against the cool stone side of the pool in a place actually not littered with dead leaves and began to think.
You don’t need her. She is pain. Come with us.
Chris turned his head slowly as if he was in a cheap slasher flick, and saw the source of the voice. Or was it the voices. Swirling and hovering at the edge of the pool was a cluster of fall foliage. The red, brown, and orange leaves swirled hypnotically in front of him. He was entranced.
What is going on? He thought to himself. What am I hearing?
We are the spirits. They replied in a sexless voice. We want you to be one of us. Only you.
The voices in his head were unreal. He had heard too much stress could make you crack up, and he felt like he was under a truckload of cement here, but it felt like these voices were coming from outside of his head like...teleportation? Telekinesis? Telepathy! It was some sort of telepathy. His mind was racing a mile a minute, his brain began to fizzle, and he knew it was over.
We choose you.
“What are you?” the young man whispered to no one.
We are the spirits. We want to take your pain away.
Why? Chris responded.
There is no why, just become one of us. Just watch what we can do.
The leaves began to spiral and blow towards the changing rooms, towards the Coke machine where Mark Tullowsky stood making his decision. The leaves blew right up against his back, and Chris watched as Mark Tullowsky yelped out in pain. A thin red line began to form on his back, and red blood began to drip down his wet back. Mark looked around flabbergasted, and then ran into the men’s room. Over towards the benches, where they all had put their belongings, Kelly Morgan threw on her shirt and shorts walked towards the bathroom with a concerned look on her face.
We can hurt him. We can hurt her. We can make her yours. Come with us.
It was strange. Overpowering. It was like holding a lollipop to the little boy with the boo-boo on his knee. It sounded so good. One of the spirits. One of them. They promised no more pain, and he hurt so bad. It was a sweet release.
What do you want me to do? All reason and logic were gone. There were only the spirits now.
It was like a dream. Ten minutes after his encounter with the spirits, Chris stood on a ridge over looking a softball field right past a playground. To his right were the woods, to his left, the parking lot where Mark Tullowsky’s new Ford Wrangler was parked. This was where the spirits wanted him to go.
All of the leaves or spirits lined the steep, twenty-foot ridge. They rustled in the cool breeze, but he knew that the mystical foliage would be moving for him wind or no wind. Something big was about to happen. The ground looked like it was moving beneath his feet. He felt the tension as the leaf/spirits goaded him towards becoming one of them. It sounded like he was the center of attention in a crowded stadium, and everyone was cheering him on.
Become one of us!
Become!
You are the one!
Chris gave an exalted look towards the rustling leaves all around the ridge. They wanted him. They really wanted him. They could take the pain away. This was what he wanted. Rationality and logic were gone, and impulse reigned supreme in Chris’ mind.
“I will become one of you!” he cried out to the sky.
Without hesitation, he jumped off the ridge.
It was a mighty leap, and Chris hit the ground about three-quarters of the way down. He rolled down the rest of the ridge and lay on his back looking up at the now partly cloudy sky.
It was one fluid motion, like a wave, as all of the leaves rose in a waveform, and dropped on top of him.
Am I dead? Am I one of the spirits now? Answer me. Am I becoming one of the spirits? What is happening? Please, tell me!
No answer.
There was total darkness and the overpowering smell of wet leaves. These questions rushed through his head for what seemed like hours. He no longer felt like the person he had been for the past twenty-two years. Why should he? He was going to become one of them now, one of the spirits. This was just another test. It was a whole new awakening. Let there be light!
The sun broke through the leaves, and Chris’ body was pulled out and put on a stretcher by two paramedics. Immediately, they began buzzing around him like worker bees.
“He’s ok, just seems a little disoriented. Maybe a slight concussion, start splinting the ankle.”
“They said I was going to be ok.”
The paramedics paid no notice. “You will be all right. Can you hear me?” One said as he shone a penlight into Chris’ eyes.
“I can’t hear you now,” he whispered back.
“Ok, good, just relax. You had quite a fall, we are going to tend to your ankle,” the paramedic said, unaware that Chris wasn’t even talking to him.
From the side, a middle-aged man holding his daughter told a policeman. “I saw everything, he tripped over the ridge and went flying. Then, it was like an avalanche of leaves falling on him. Poor kid.”
All over the ridge and parking lot, people watched the scene. It seemed as if there were forty people gathered there. Lying on the stretcher, while his ankle was being attended to, Chris looked over to the ridge and made out a shape he would have recognized anywhere.
“Kelly,” he said reaching out to her.
She and Mark turned and walked away.
“All right, son. Let’s get you to the hospital,” one of the paramedics said. Chris didn’t reply as the ambulance door closed, and his final view was of Kelly and Mark, walking away hand in hand.
Copyright © 2003 by Mike Fixler