Chapter 10: Redemption
Redemption, if that's what it was, came not all at once, but in a slow, agonizing drift as the seconds, minutes, and hours drifted by like leaves on the surface of a slow moving river. Every minute that passed seemed to increase the odds of survival, but the passage of one minute to the next did not guarantee it.
For the first hour Rachel and I sat in stunned silence, with our arms crossed over our chest as our brain processed the reality of our situation. The first hour was the worst except perhaps for the dying hour which would come later. I just didn't know if later was this afternoon or at some point 40 years hence. Did anyone really?
The tears came next, and mine and Rachel's started within moments of each other. They were hot tears that spilled from the corners of my eyes slowly at first and then with increasing rapidity. They were not the tears of sadness or regret. Those would come later. These were the tears of fear and each one that fell only increased that fear in exponential rapidity.
I felt trapped by time itself. There was nothing to do but wait. Patience is a virtue, they say, but what was I waiting for? Each minute that past moved us ever closer to relief or death and I was powerless to stop the flow of the river of time. It was terrifying beyond what written words can express.
The sobs came next and my hands shook in nervous jitters and I wondered if this was the product of my emotions or some hellish poison that coursed through my blood. Rachel and I found each other and we clung to each other like shipwreck victims in a frothing, angry sea.
Her tears were as hot as mine and we held each other closely, and fiercely. A single thought occurred to me as I held her. What if she went before me? 'God please no', I prayed. I could not bear witness to the hell of watching her die before my eyes, knowing that nothing could save her. And also knowing my own death loomed perhaps only minutes after hers.
I shivered and pulled her closer to me. "I love you." I whispered between the shivering sobs that racked my body.
And I did love her. The sound of my voice was racked with fear and sadness, and Rachel sobbed harder at my words.
When the sobbing subsided in slow choked gasps, I kissed her face tenderly and she kissed mine. Her tears tasted salty, and I was overcome with a terrible sense of loss. I smiled at her beauty, for she was beautiful even in what might very well be her death.
She smiled back with wet eyes and tear streaked cheeks. Even now there was the radiance of life in her. 'This can not be happening', my mind screamed, but it was happening. And it was hell.
"I think I have bad taste in men." Rachel said trying to turn the corner of her mouth up in a smile, but not quite able to force it to come.
I laughed in emotional release, more than humor. I would not have thought it possible, but somehow she could still bring laughter to me. And the fact that she could still radiate that glow that was uniquely Rachel touched my heart beyond anything I have ever felt before.
"Well I have had my share of bad dates Rachel, but I don't think anyone will top this." I replied finding that sarcasm and humor were as a good a defense against how I really felt as any.
She grinned at me with humor but also with a sadness that twisted in my heart. I would remember that face for as long as I lived, which might not be a very long time at all.
We hugged again tightly each taking comfort from the warmth of the other.
"I am so fucking sorry." She said as she pressed her body into mine fiercely.
"Me too." I said. And we cried again; two lost souls clinging to hope in a frothing sea of anguish.
* * * * * *
What seemed like years of hell later, I looked at the clock in the kitchen. It read 2:47 pm which my mind translated into 2 hours since we began our death watch, as I had come to think of it. We estimated that we had ingested Chad's hellish cocktail at around 9:00 pm the night before. That left us with 12 hours or so to wait for whatever may happen.
We had no basis for this theoretical deadline, but if felt right and I was learning to trust those feelings. Only hours left to redemption, or maybe much less than that to death.
The more time that passed the more I was convinced that this was a cruel game of God's.
Each minute that passed seemed to give more hope, but rather than sooth me, the clock seemed to be marching toward death. Unstoppable and irrevocable time marched toward death that lurked near enough that I could feel its cold breath on my skin. Was it seconds away? Minutes? Hours?
I feared that should I dare hope, that it would be snatched away just when I dared to believe in it. How cruel would that be?
My mind was no longer numb, but surprisingly full of lists. My mind seemed to speed ahead as if in some race against the Devil himself, burning up the emotional energy churning through me by making list after endless list. Lists of friends I wanted to say good bye to. Lists of people I had wronged and should apologize to. Lists of regrets and opportunities lost. My whole life seemed reduced to lists and lists.
When I was a young woman in college, there was a game we used to play in our dormitory. We would sit around in a circle of someone's drinking cheap beer, hoping that our R/A did not smell the alcohol or marijuana smoke that drifted through room. Those were the days when I was young and sure that I would live forever.
The game didn't even have a name, but we played it several times on nights when there just didn't seem like there was anything better than being with good friends drinking cheap beer.
It always started with the same question, "What would you do if you found out you only had 1 day to live?"
We started at random and went around the circle telling the group what we, the immortals, would do if we found out we were mortal and on a short clock. This idea was clearly ridiculous, because when you are 19 you can not die. It's against some primal law of nature, and no one is surer of that law as the young. Just ask one.
The answers always were fun and always ended up in the same place: a 24 hour orgy of sex, drugs, and all things hedonistic. The more depraved the squandering of those 24 hours, the more right the idea felt. In retrospect this game was our way to rage against the passage of time as each of us marched slowly toward the final reality of death.
Today I didn't rage, but whimpered and cowered as the death clock marched on toward whatever lie ahead.
And I made lists.
I was also surprisingly full of energy. My lists upon lists piled up in my mind, but there was one list that always was on top of the pile. This list had but one word written upon it: Ron.
I paced up and down the hall and across the living room as my mind whirled. I noticed crumbs on the floor from where I had eaten cookies while watching a movie the week before. I bent to pick up the offending crumb and thought how ridiculous that was. I dropped it back on the floor. Suddenly I had a violent desire to grind it with my foot into the carpet until it was nothing but dust. But then I may soon be dust myself, and I let the crumb lie where it fell. I felt my stomach roll threatening to empty itself onto the carpet next to the crumb. How far down the path of madness had I traveled?
