Post by curvestone on Jun 14, 2007 15:14:05 GMT -5
Catharsis Part 5
By Nathan Cook
Sleet fell like razors on the people in the streets. I watched them scurry about as I sat in the back of the moving van. Dempsey was sitting beside me, puffing clouds of smoke from his ivory pipe.
It had only been an hour since our little episode on the road. We had just pulled over for gas in the first town we came to. It was a small city, but there was life everywhere. People rushed about like bees in a hive. We had been parked outside the same gas station for the past twenty minutes, and Dempsey and I were growing anxious.
From the angle I was sitting, I could see Reese through the window waiting in a line as long as the mighty Mississippi. His face screamed frustration.
“This isn't the way this was supposed to happen,” said Dempsey, pulling a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He offered it to me, and I accepted. “Originally, we were going to wait for you to grow up some more. After all, you're just a kid,” he said laughing. “We wanted to wait until you were maybe more mature, but this whole thing with your aunt just sped things up.
“You know what's been on my mind? It's positively unbelievable that anyone could ever become as a player as you are at your age. If it weren't for your looks, you'd have never been this... successful.”
“Yes,” I chuckled, lighting my cigarette. “It's all because I'm gorgeous.”
“No, it's because you look seventeen or even nineteen.”
“I didn't know I looked that old,” I answered honestly, slightly choking on the smoke of from the cigarette.
“Oh, come on. You're almost six feet tall, you look like you've been lifting weights every day since preschool, and your face really does seem mature enough to belong to someone going into college or even leaving it.”
I stared back at him wide-eyed, twiddling the cigarette between my fingers. And to think that all this time I thought my Casanova lifestyle wasn't the result of charm. Well, you win some; you lose some, but I scored plenty of times in the game, so why am I complaining?
During the course of my life, I made the decision to openly adopt the idea of God. My life seemed so strategic. This part in particular has helped fuel my belief that God has a plan.
It has probably become obvious to you by now that any lesson that I should be learning hasn't even begun to sink in. In fact, I think it's probably rather obvious that I'm still an arrogant, screwed-up kid at this point. God knew that, I think. If he didn't, I don't think what happened next would have happened at all.
“So who exactly were those people on the road?” I asked Dempsey as I let out a large circle of smoke.
Setting his pipe down beside him, he answered, “I know those men personally. We've had encounters in the past. They are mercenaries, but for the past year or so, they have been doing field work for a facility somewhere in the Canadian woodlands.
“For the past ten years, there have been rumors floating around having to do with what has been referred to as a P.O.W. Camp for mobs, gangs, and other underground organizations. According to my sources, it was supposed to be a prison camp designed to wear down anyone they could catch. For a long time, all it was was rumor, but about two years ago, mercenaries and bounty hunters started showing up in massive numbers. People started to disappear like rabbits. Things finally started slowing down last year when most of the bounty hunters were intercepted by different mobs and were either interrogated or eliminated. I'm guessing none of the interrogation payed off, because to this day, no one knows where that camp is located or who's running it.”
“Wow,” I said nonchalantly. “Frankly, I don't believe a Canadian P.O.W. Camp sounds very threatening.”
“Well, I'll be sure to recognize you from now on as the insouciant fish swimming toward a fisherman's hook with his mouth open. Really, it is something to worry about. People don't come back from there. I've never heard of anyone ever escaping or being set lose, not even in a body bag. What do you do you think about that?”
“I'm walking on sunshine,” I said smiling. “What can I say?”
“Well, I know what I say, 'It's overcast and sleeting. Where is that sunshine hidden?'”
I laughed, glancing over to where Reese was in the store. He wore a look of horror on his face, waving frantically for us to move. I turned, throwing my cigarette out of the truck, but it was shot right out of the air.
Bullets ripped through the gas station's windows. Reese dodged them like a cat, flinging himself into one of the aisles, as the glass shattered and several of the people of around him were taken down at the knees.
Quickly cutting across the cracked pavement in the parking lot, the SUV drove in front of where Dempsey and I were sitting. The same men were all there excluding the previous driver and the man that Dempsey shot.
Without warning, the car peeled away, and where it had been parked, a gorilla of a man was now standing. The giant held a knife in one hand and a leather belt in the other. At his side was a semi-automatic handgun. He approached us steadily, the sleet beat at his skin like a thousand tiny bullets.
Confidently, I jumped out of that back of the moving truck. The razor-like drops were unbearable against the skin. The blinding pain made it hard to concentrate, but I gritted my teeth and pressed on.
He swung first with the belt, but it was in vain. I hopped back. The ape-like man came again, this time jabbing at me with the knife. Quickly, I ducked. Again, he swung with the belt. This time I was ready. As swiftly as I could, I dodged the belt and stuck my arm hand out in its path.
The belt stung terribly, but I took it. The belt rapped around my hand, and I clinched it tightly. I kicked, swinging my foot over the belt. With all the power I had, I pushed down on the belt, forcing it from the hand of that insanely large man.
Gripping the end without the medal buckle, I began swinging the belt over my head. I stopped suddenly. The belt buckled flew into the man's head with considerable force. The ogre knelt over in pain.
I turned to Dempsey, but he was in the front of the moving van. With only moments for me to react, the gargantuan man was back up and swinging his knife like a deranged lumberjack.
Before that Paul Bunyan lookalike had a chance to chop me into little pieces, Reese was up and ready. That crazy guy was armed with the most unlikely items imaginable. In his hands were two one liter bottles of ginger ale. They were the first to let fly, and boy, did they fly! When he unscrewed he shook those up and shot them off like a couple of homemade rockets. The two bottles hit the man directly in the head. Next, he took two roles of toilet paper that were partly drenched in gasoline and chucked them at the giant man. They rapped around him like a house getting tee-peed. Reese then pulled from his back pocket a small cigarette lighter. Now, I've seen plenty of considerably cool things in my life, but the sight of that toilet paper igniting was just too awesome for words to truly do it justice.
Under normal circumstances, that fire would have kept burning, maybe even in rain. Alas, the sleet that was tearing down through the air utterly over-powered the flames, but Reese was expecting that. He was ready with a large bottle of gasoline. Reese quickly slashed open the side of the bottle with his own pocket knife and screwed off the top. He threw it at the man. The gasoline poured all over him. In the trail of gasoline that was left by the hole Reese cut and by the lid, Reese dropped the lighter. That lit up like a Christmas tree.
Next, Reese began hurling light bulbs at the man's legs and feet. Following this, Reese began chucking metal containers filled with chewing tobacco and taco cheese.
The ogre-man could no longer take it. He toppled over like a tower of blocks. With a large sigh of relief, I fell to my knees on the pavement. I took the man’s knife and gun which were both lying on the ground beside him.
I turned to Reese, who was clearly exhausted. He was lying down in chips bags, his feet propped up on a couple of beer cases. It was right about that moment that I got the strangest feeling something was missing from this scene.
Tires squeezed behind me. Dempsey yelled, but it was too late. The SUV was back, spitting out bullets like raincloud turned on its side. I ran like hell.
Oddly enough, they never fired a shot at me, as far as I know. Reese and Dempsey befell heavy fire, but I was not once fire upon. Instead, the SUV charged me. It swung around me, the side door flying open. The last things I remember happening after that were being pulled into the SUV, seeing Reese diving into the front of the moving van and driving with Dempsey, and a sharp pain in the back of my neck followed by darkness.
I truly hate getting drugged.
I woke to sunrise on my face and the smell of a woman over me. Tired, I looked around. My drowsiness made it difficult to concentrate, so I took the details slowly as they came. I was lying in a sleeping back, clearly. Two feet to my left was another sleeping bag along with the source of the smell. She had raven black hair and skin like white pearls. She was beautiful.
Slowly, I sat up. My head was throbbing. I was lying in a clearing on the side of a dirt road, a field on one side, rocks on the other. Behind me was an old, white van. Where was the SUV from earlier?
Getting out of the sleeping bag, I rubbed the tiredness from my eyes. It couldn't have been past five in the morning. Steadily, I wobbled to my feet. My head still throbbed like mad, but I could bear it.
I dragged my feet. The ground was dirt and dry weed, but seemed to pose now great threat to my feet. I looked around me but saw no snakes, fortunately. The bushes I met were small, and whatever trees there were in the area were small or far off. I had this uncanny feeling as if I should instinctively recognize this place, as if it were some longed for destination that I have seen before in my dreams.
To be quite honest, I hadn't advanced more than forty feet before I reached the end of my trail: two large rocks and giant, tangling bramble and thorns.
There was rustling behind me. What I saw when I turned around was the most beautiful thing I could have ever imagined. I hadn't gotten a very good look at her before. Her hair looked like long strands of night as it flowed in front of the sunset, and her eyes were jade. The snow white of her face was more beautiful a color than the sun rising behind her. She was captivating. Instantly, I was overwhelmed by her and felt closer to love than I could have ever imagined.
“Who are you?” I asked, treating each syllable with care.
She moved toward me, holding her hands in front of her as if to back me down. “I don't want to hurt you,” she assured, her hands quivering.
“Nor I you,” I said with a concerned sort of smile. I saw the fear in her eyes; a blind man would have seen it.
She stopped, lowering her hands. I must have surprised her, for the look on her face couldn't have meant anything else, but it wasn't any sort of frightened look. She was confused. I don't blame her. She was expecting a murder, no doubt, but she was so beautiful. I couldn't see anything dangerous in her eyes, and I didn't feel any hidden strength in her presence. She seemed lost to me.
“How does a girl this beautiful get mixed up with mercenaries?” I asked, half thinking aloud.
Once again, she was startled. Still confused, she answered but not that question. “My name is Haley,” she said.
“Like the comet, but more beautiful.” She
blushed. “ Sebastian,” I said, reaching out my hand. She put her hands to her face, shaking her head.
“Why are you doing this?” she said, slowly breaking down.
“Doing what?” I answered, my voice as gentle as a mother speaking to her children at night.
“Being so... kind, so different. I've been preparing to kill you, but I can't. I was ready to kill you as soon as look at you,” she said, a tear dripping down her face, “but now that you're standing in front of me, I just can't do it. I was ready for a monster, but you can't stop putting a spell on me. Ever since I woke up and saw you walking away, I felt something... different,” and that is when she cried. “I'm not ready for any of this,” she cried. Reaching into her a back pocket, she pulled out a small gun and threw it to the ground beside her. With that, she began to fall to her knees, but I caught her.
As I knelt in the dirt with her in my arms, I couldn't help but spill a tear myself. “Oh, Haley! I barely spoke two sentences to you. It's obvious that you're heart is far too kind for this work. How long have you been working with these men?”
“Two weeks. Most of that time was with you. I don't know the first thing about any of this.”
“Hold on,” I said abruptly. “Are you telling me that they've kept me asleep for over a week?”
“Yes,” she said, still cry on my shoulder. “I took care of you.”
There was long pause spent mainly with Haley crying on my shoulder, and me just holding her and thinking about Haley's small gun and the week I spent in her care. Finally, I whispered in her ear, “Thank you with all of my heart, Haley.” And then, leaning out of the embrace, I looked into those beautiful eyes and lost everything to them. “Thank you, Haley. Thank you... for my life.”
© Nathan Cook, 2007
By Nathan Cook
Sleet fell like razors on the people in the streets. I watched them scurry about as I sat in the back of the moving van. Dempsey was sitting beside me, puffing clouds of smoke from his ivory pipe.
It had only been an hour since our little episode on the road. We had just pulled over for gas in the first town we came to. It was a small city, but there was life everywhere. People rushed about like bees in a hive. We had been parked outside the same gas station for the past twenty minutes, and Dempsey and I were growing anxious.
From the angle I was sitting, I could see Reese through the window waiting in a line as long as the mighty Mississippi. His face screamed frustration.
“This isn't the way this was supposed to happen,” said Dempsey, pulling a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He offered it to me, and I accepted. “Originally, we were going to wait for you to grow up some more. After all, you're just a kid,” he said laughing. “We wanted to wait until you were maybe more mature, but this whole thing with your aunt just sped things up.
“You know what's been on my mind? It's positively unbelievable that anyone could ever become as a player as you are at your age. If it weren't for your looks, you'd have never been this... successful.”
“Yes,” I chuckled, lighting my cigarette. “It's all because I'm gorgeous.”
“No, it's because you look seventeen or even nineteen.”
“I didn't know I looked that old,” I answered honestly, slightly choking on the smoke of from the cigarette.
“Oh, come on. You're almost six feet tall, you look like you've been lifting weights every day since preschool, and your face really does seem mature enough to belong to someone going into college or even leaving it.”
I stared back at him wide-eyed, twiddling the cigarette between my fingers. And to think that all this time I thought my Casanova lifestyle wasn't the result of charm. Well, you win some; you lose some, but I scored plenty of times in the game, so why am I complaining?
During the course of my life, I made the decision to openly adopt the idea of God. My life seemed so strategic. This part in particular has helped fuel my belief that God has a plan.
It has probably become obvious to you by now that any lesson that I should be learning hasn't even begun to sink in. In fact, I think it's probably rather obvious that I'm still an arrogant, screwed-up kid at this point. God knew that, I think. If he didn't, I don't think what happened next would have happened at all.
“So who exactly were those people on the road?” I asked Dempsey as I let out a large circle of smoke.
Setting his pipe down beside him, he answered, “I know those men personally. We've had encounters in the past. They are mercenaries, but for the past year or so, they have been doing field work for a facility somewhere in the Canadian woodlands.
“For the past ten years, there have been rumors floating around having to do with what has been referred to as a P.O.W. Camp for mobs, gangs, and other underground organizations. According to my sources, it was supposed to be a prison camp designed to wear down anyone they could catch. For a long time, all it was was rumor, but about two years ago, mercenaries and bounty hunters started showing up in massive numbers. People started to disappear like rabbits. Things finally started slowing down last year when most of the bounty hunters were intercepted by different mobs and were either interrogated or eliminated. I'm guessing none of the interrogation payed off, because to this day, no one knows where that camp is located or who's running it.”
“Wow,” I said nonchalantly. “Frankly, I don't believe a Canadian P.O.W. Camp sounds very threatening.”
“Well, I'll be sure to recognize you from now on as the insouciant fish swimming toward a fisherman's hook with his mouth open. Really, it is something to worry about. People don't come back from there. I've never heard of anyone ever escaping or being set lose, not even in a body bag. What do you do you think about that?”
“I'm walking on sunshine,” I said smiling. “What can I say?”
“Well, I know what I say, 'It's overcast and sleeting. Where is that sunshine hidden?'”
I laughed, glancing over to where Reese was in the store. He wore a look of horror on his face, waving frantically for us to move. I turned, throwing my cigarette out of the truck, but it was shot right out of the air.
Bullets ripped through the gas station's windows. Reese dodged them like a cat, flinging himself into one of the aisles, as the glass shattered and several of the people of around him were taken down at the knees.
Quickly cutting across the cracked pavement in the parking lot, the SUV drove in front of where Dempsey and I were sitting. The same men were all there excluding the previous driver and the man that Dempsey shot.
Without warning, the car peeled away, and where it had been parked, a gorilla of a man was now standing. The giant held a knife in one hand and a leather belt in the other. At his side was a semi-automatic handgun. He approached us steadily, the sleet beat at his skin like a thousand tiny bullets.
Confidently, I jumped out of that back of the moving truck. The razor-like drops were unbearable against the skin. The blinding pain made it hard to concentrate, but I gritted my teeth and pressed on.
He swung first with the belt, but it was in vain. I hopped back. The ape-like man came again, this time jabbing at me with the knife. Quickly, I ducked. Again, he swung with the belt. This time I was ready. As swiftly as I could, I dodged the belt and stuck my arm hand out in its path.
The belt stung terribly, but I took it. The belt rapped around my hand, and I clinched it tightly. I kicked, swinging my foot over the belt. With all the power I had, I pushed down on the belt, forcing it from the hand of that insanely large man.
Gripping the end without the medal buckle, I began swinging the belt over my head. I stopped suddenly. The belt buckled flew into the man's head with considerable force. The ogre knelt over in pain.
I turned to Dempsey, but he was in the front of the moving van. With only moments for me to react, the gargantuan man was back up and swinging his knife like a deranged lumberjack.
Before that Paul Bunyan lookalike had a chance to chop me into little pieces, Reese was up and ready. That crazy guy was armed with the most unlikely items imaginable. In his hands were two one liter bottles of ginger ale. They were the first to let fly, and boy, did they fly! When he unscrewed he shook those up and shot them off like a couple of homemade rockets. The two bottles hit the man directly in the head. Next, he took two roles of toilet paper that were partly drenched in gasoline and chucked them at the giant man. They rapped around him like a house getting tee-peed. Reese then pulled from his back pocket a small cigarette lighter. Now, I've seen plenty of considerably cool things in my life, but the sight of that toilet paper igniting was just too awesome for words to truly do it justice.
Under normal circumstances, that fire would have kept burning, maybe even in rain. Alas, the sleet that was tearing down through the air utterly over-powered the flames, but Reese was expecting that. He was ready with a large bottle of gasoline. Reese quickly slashed open the side of the bottle with his own pocket knife and screwed off the top. He threw it at the man. The gasoline poured all over him. In the trail of gasoline that was left by the hole Reese cut and by the lid, Reese dropped the lighter. That lit up like a Christmas tree.
Next, Reese began hurling light bulbs at the man's legs and feet. Following this, Reese began chucking metal containers filled with chewing tobacco and taco cheese.
The ogre-man could no longer take it. He toppled over like a tower of blocks. With a large sigh of relief, I fell to my knees on the pavement. I took the man’s knife and gun which were both lying on the ground beside him.
I turned to Reese, who was clearly exhausted. He was lying down in chips bags, his feet propped up on a couple of beer cases. It was right about that moment that I got the strangest feeling something was missing from this scene.
Tires squeezed behind me. Dempsey yelled, but it was too late. The SUV was back, spitting out bullets like raincloud turned on its side. I ran like hell.
Oddly enough, they never fired a shot at me, as far as I know. Reese and Dempsey befell heavy fire, but I was not once fire upon. Instead, the SUV charged me. It swung around me, the side door flying open. The last things I remember happening after that were being pulled into the SUV, seeing Reese diving into the front of the moving van and driving with Dempsey, and a sharp pain in the back of my neck followed by darkness.
I truly hate getting drugged.
I woke to sunrise on my face and the smell of a woman over me. Tired, I looked around. My drowsiness made it difficult to concentrate, so I took the details slowly as they came. I was lying in a sleeping back, clearly. Two feet to my left was another sleeping bag along with the source of the smell. She had raven black hair and skin like white pearls. She was beautiful.
Slowly, I sat up. My head was throbbing. I was lying in a clearing on the side of a dirt road, a field on one side, rocks on the other. Behind me was an old, white van. Where was the SUV from earlier?
Getting out of the sleeping bag, I rubbed the tiredness from my eyes. It couldn't have been past five in the morning. Steadily, I wobbled to my feet. My head still throbbed like mad, but I could bear it.
I dragged my feet. The ground was dirt and dry weed, but seemed to pose now great threat to my feet. I looked around me but saw no snakes, fortunately. The bushes I met were small, and whatever trees there were in the area were small or far off. I had this uncanny feeling as if I should instinctively recognize this place, as if it were some longed for destination that I have seen before in my dreams.
To be quite honest, I hadn't advanced more than forty feet before I reached the end of my trail: two large rocks and giant, tangling bramble and thorns.
There was rustling behind me. What I saw when I turned around was the most beautiful thing I could have ever imagined. I hadn't gotten a very good look at her before. Her hair looked like long strands of night as it flowed in front of the sunset, and her eyes were jade. The snow white of her face was more beautiful a color than the sun rising behind her. She was captivating. Instantly, I was overwhelmed by her and felt closer to love than I could have ever imagined.
“Who are you?” I asked, treating each syllable with care.
She moved toward me, holding her hands in front of her as if to back me down. “I don't want to hurt you,” she assured, her hands quivering.
“Nor I you,” I said with a concerned sort of smile. I saw the fear in her eyes; a blind man would have seen it.
She stopped, lowering her hands. I must have surprised her, for the look on her face couldn't have meant anything else, but it wasn't any sort of frightened look. She was confused. I don't blame her. She was expecting a murder, no doubt, but she was so beautiful. I couldn't see anything dangerous in her eyes, and I didn't feel any hidden strength in her presence. She seemed lost to me.
“How does a girl this beautiful get mixed up with mercenaries?” I asked, half thinking aloud.
Once again, she was startled. Still confused, she answered but not that question. “My name is Haley,” she said.
“Like the comet, but more beautiful.” She
blushed. “ Sebastian,” I said, reaching out my hand. She put her hands to her face, shaking her head.
“Why are you doing this?” she said, slowly breaking down.
“Doing what?” I answered, my voice as gentle as a mother speaking to her children at night.
“Being so... kind, so different. I've been preparing to kill you, but I can't. I was ready to kill you as soon as look at you,” she said, a tear dripping down her face, “but now that you're standing in front of me, I just can't do it. I was ready for a monster, but you can't stop putting a spell on me. Ever since I woke up and saw you walking away, I felt something... different,” and that is when she cried. “I'm not ready for any of this,” she cried. Reaching into her a back pocket, she pulled out a small gun and threw it to the ground beside her. With that, she began to fall to her knees, but I caught her.
As I knelt in the dirt with her in my arms, I couldn't help but spill a tear myself. “Oh, Haley! I barely spoke two sentences to you. It's obvious that you're heart is far too kind for this work. How long have you been working with these men?”
“Two weeks. Most of that time was with you. I don't know the first thing about any of this.”
“Hold on,” I said abruptly. “Are you telling me that they've kept me asleep for over a week?”
“Yes,” she said, still cry on my shoulder. “I took care of you.”
There was long pause spent mainly with Haley crying on my shoulder, and me just holding her and thinking about Haley's small gun and the week I spent in her care. Finally, I whispered in her ear, “Thank you with all of my heart, Haley.” And then, leaning out of the embrace, I looked into those beautiful eyes and lost everything to them. “Thank you, Haley. Thank you... for my life.”
© Nathan Cook, 2007
and 
all
time for me 
echoes, hope you all are doing well 
