'Til Death Do Us Part

Eventually, I will tell you what happened while I traveled the netherworlds, but that all hinges on what happens in the foreseeable future. I had come out from under my unnatural hibernation in remarkably good shape. There were no ill effects that I knew about; they would manifest later. I had lost weight and I was as thirsty as I had ever been, but after downing three huge glasses of water I felt right as rain, even more so. Now I know this sounds weird, but power is the word that comes foremost in my mind. Maybe healthy would be a better descriptive, but not as accurate, or as powerful. I just don’t know, and I really don’t have the time to dwell on it.

***

These are as near to the events as I can remember. Having lost the majority of my journals, I am thankful that I have found the power of an almost photographic memory with which to recreate the events. Some of them are indelible; it would take more than death itself to erase them from my mind. I should know.

A lot has happened since Little Turtle. I’ve lost a lot of friends, loved ones, and even a significant portion of myself. But we’re the closest we have ever been to a victory. Okay, scratch that, we are the furthest from defeat that we have ever been. We’ve almost pulled into a stalemate. I consider that a huge improvement. Hey, we take what’s given to us and do the best we can.

For three earth days I walked in Eliza’s world, on her side it was significantly longer. My thoughts are that it had much more to do with the perceived passing of time rather than actual, but tomayto, tomahto…who gives a shit when you’re in hell. Okay, not literally, but it wasn’t a walk in the park either. Henry just perked his ears up when he…what? Heard me think that? Is that possible? He was sitting with me doing his best to absorb the cold that flowed through me. He gave me a wide grin and laid his massive head back down on my lap.

“Son of a bitch,” I said aloud. “You can read my thoughts.” Henry’s little tail wagged furiously, his eyes were shut. The economy of movement in this dog was a study in perfection; it was damn near an art form.

But I’m digressing and it’s pretty much on purpose. I sat down here today with the express reason of relating all the events that happened while I was under Eliza’s spell? Was that it? More like poison. But do people that go through traumatic events like a car crash really want to relive the whole damn thing, like when the safety glass shatters and chunks of sharpened fragments imbed themselves in the side of your face, rupturing your eye? Or how about when you’re thrown violently sideways and the gearshift goes up and under your rib cage busting out your sternum, bone fragments cutting through the aorta, your life blood bleeding out inside of you. Are these things you want to revisit? I don’t.

My wife says it will be cathartic, I say bullshit, she just wants me to get out from under her feet. I have not come out of this last battle as well as I went in. I know it and she knows it. I’ve been diminished, that’s the best way I can put. I need to be around those I love CONSTANTLY and I think I’m driving Tracy a little nuts. But even in the best of times I had that effect on people. At least Henry doesn’t seem to mind my constant ministrations.

“Damn, with the tail again, Henry? You’re not even awake, I can hear you snoring.” His tail didn’t stop.

Fine, I’ll corral my thoughts, kicking and screaming mind you and I’ll probably lodge a formal protest when I’m done but let’s see where this journey brings me. Back from the edge or over it, right now both are viable alternatives to the way I feel now.

The kiss…that damned kiss, it would have been more humanly (humanely?) of her to just rip my face off and be done with me, but cruelty is (was) Eliza’s game. She survived the centuries with it as her guide, her driving force, and she was adept. She knew where I would end up, my guess is/was that she was hoping that I would never recover, that I would always be left to wander there, but she never took into account the power of love. How could she? She only ever had a taste of it, a morsel from her brother, whereas the Talbots basked in it like a Spring Break co-ed in coconut oil. (Good visual? Tracy probably won’t appreciate that, but she’s the one making me write this damn thing so she’ll have to damn well live with it!) Sorry, honey, if you read this

The damned kiss, I felt myself slipping away the moment our lips parted. Black dots began to invade my vision. First they were barely bigger than a black fly (which I have since come to loathe here in Maine. Want to know the seasons in Maine? It goes, Summer, Fall, Winter, Mud and Black Fly, I shit you not!) I should have picked a better locale for my last stand or final resting spot. Sorry, I am avoiding this trip down memory lane like a fat kid avoids fourth period gym.

So the spots began to expand—black fly, mosquito, house fly, horse fly, fucking wasp, crow—then the sensation of my head bouncing off the frozen tundra. For a while there was nothing more than the sensation of pure and utter blackness. I was aware, but I was alone. It’s hard to describe. I did not have the sensation of falling, but I also wasn’t rooted to anything. I was afraid to move not knowing if I would fall into an abyss or into a wall. Terror began to mount; I had never felt so powerless in my life. There was nothing I could do. If she had just left me there, I would have been gone in a matter of hours, though the concept of time meant nothing there either.

By degrees the veil was unwrapped from my eyes, for time unimaginable there was a gauzy light that seeped into my vision, slowly that changed to a pre-dawn storm morning muted light. Then blissfully (at least at first) I was able to see, at least shapes, bathed in shadow but it was something. The human mind deprived of stimuli will begin to make its own nightmares up, like I needed any help in that department. The expanse that started to show itself could have been Mars as barren and rocky as it was. Or it could have been Eliza’s parched, dry, dead heart, either would fit. I found myself standing on a significant sized boulder, had I moved I would have fallen a good two or three feet, not enough to die but maybe twist an ankle maybe bust a knee cap, who knows I’m getting up in there in years stuff doesn’t work quite as well as when I used to take it for granted, like when I was a teenager.

I gingerly hopped down and tried to orientate myself, but the light did not come from a single source in the sky it was just an illumination across the entire expanse of my visage, that it was an ugly pea green did little to help with my discomfort.

“You ready for this, Talbot?” I asked myself. I even jumped a little it was the first sound I’d heard since this ordeal started and it startled me, God I hope nobody reads this. BT sees this and he’s gonna call me a little girl. One direction seemed as good as the next so I took off for what I figured was north, but only because that was the direction I was headed, there wasn’t a clue at all to let me know whether I had chosen wisely.

I whistled a little Zeppelin, When the Levee Breaks I think, maybe a bit of In My time Of Dying, followed by In the Evening, but my song choices started to sound a little ominous so I left it to the professionals. The light never changed in brightness as I trudged on through, at some points I could feel a ‘shifting’ in myself like I was being moved. And occasionally I swore I heard Tracy or the kids, maybe even a bark or two from Henry, but it was so far away it could have been brought along a non-existent breeze from a place that ceased to exist.

At times I felt that the ground I was on was sloped upward but the horizon never changed, odds were my dominant leg was pulling me just enough off course to lead me around in huge circles, learned this in the Marine Corps but without a compass or a point of reference there was no way for me to make any corrections, and I had a sneaking suspicion that even if I had a compass there would be no magnetic North anyway. No it would be much better to believe that I was still somehow on Earth.

If rocks were a life form I would have been inundated, with teeming abundant, prosperous life! But the world I was in was sterile, no sun, no water how could anything survive here. Then had I not stumbled over it I would have completely passed it by. As far as plants go, this would have been the one that the greenhouse threw out after the planting season was over. It would have been at the bottom of the large dumpster in the back of the building covered by the dried manure and broken bags of decorative rock. Right then that little runt of a twisted stick popping up from the soil was singularly the most beautiful thing I think I had ever seen.

I cried as I dropped to my knees to get a better look. No I didn’t cry out, like ‘Aha!’ I actually cried. You know, the kind where moisture actually flows from the eyes…yeah that kind. A starving horse would have passed this thing over, yet, at this moment I would have staked my entire life on it. This represented a chance; if this was alive, there was more…that was for sure. Life is adaptable. Like a typical selfish human my first thought was to pull it up and take it with me, if I could have punched myself with enough force to make it worthwhile I would have.

It took me long moments before I could leave my new best friend behind. We had shared so much. I told him about my plight and he listened patiently. I knew it was a ‘he’ because he didn’t interrupt me once. (I’m dead meat if Tracy sees this—WAY worth it though). I kept moving on, this was a barely habitable