Page 68 of Things Get Dark
“What?”
But he turns and dissolves into the crowd, breaking the spell. The sound of his Cuban heels click-clacking on the marble floor seems heightened, ringing in my ears. I want to follow him. Need to follow him. I lean forward, but my feet are cemented to the ground. I look down. The floor tiles I was counting sway gently back and forth. The grout between the dancing tiles shivers, undulating like waves. I reach out, and my fingertips brush the soft marble tiles much sooner than I thought possible.
My knees are bent. I’m crouched in the middle of the hallway. But I don’t remember how.
Panic erupts inside me. My semi-friendly stomach butterflies morph into a swarm of ravenous locusts. It takes monumental effort to get to my feet. The floor seems to extend farther and farther beneath me, and for a flash, I feel like a giant.
I have to get out of here, away from whatever is happening. But every direction looks the same. Marble statues begin to stretch though I know that’s impossible. The figures in the grand paintings lining the walls turn and leer at me, then grip their frame, climbing out. I can’t tell who is real and who is just an artistic creation.
I stumble about. My feet feel so distant from me now, so detached. Looking down, I notice cracks in the leather of my brogues. They enchant me, and my eyes follow them from one side to the other, the floor tiles shifting underneath. I watch my feet intently as I force them to move, step by ponderous step. Thunderous pumps erupt from my chest. I can actually feel each pound of my heart and the adrenaline streaming through my veins. What is happening to me?
The pair of feet swerve into my view, and I tumble to the floor. Fractals of glass scatter around me, casting unending colours into the champagne-scented air. A million tiny knives pierce my palms. I squint and focus on my hands on the floor. Crimson swirls into flaxen, making love atop an expanse of shimmering grey.
“Sir, are you all right?”
A golden-haired angel hovers over me, a halo resplendent above his statuesque features. Then the world shifts as he grabs me by the hand, and pain sears through my fingers. I yelp.
“Apologies, sir.”
A few seconds pass. Or perhaps a few lifetimes. My vision swims, then focuses, and I realise it’s the waiter from earlier, his face made up of angles twisting into concern. On the floor, the crimson-flaxen union demasks: champagne mixing in with blood. I look away, only to see my hands bleeding, shards of glass dotted about my palms.
“Wha—” I try. “What’s happening to me?”
An array of creatures has gathered behind the angel. They shift and shimmer, changing from Victorian gentlemen to Venetian doctors, conquistadors to courtesans. Their masks pulsate, lines stretching out and contracting, bending into whatever best suits the character before me. Another pulse of pain shoots through my hands, and I back away.
The waiter gently grasps my forearm and leans close. “My name is Gabriel. You’re okay. You’re safe.” His voice warbles like a low note on a guitar.
“What’s going on?” I ask, eyes darting to the crowd behind him.
“Let’s get you somewhere private, and I’ll explain.”
“O-Okay.”
Gabriel extends his hand to me, and I brace, then grab it. A short, sharp tug from him gets me on my feet. Walking has never felt this peculiar. Pressure descends on my right shoulder, and I see a hand resting atop it. I’m being led away by Gabriel. Despite the fear, his presence calms me down, and I feel myself being carried away on another influx into another reality. My hands feel milky calm, my clothes feel dry, though a faint part of my mind knows they’re wet with champagne, and my heart has simmered down.
Suddenly, I see heaven before me. My angel leads me atop a cloud, and I ascend, floating towards paradise. The smell of jasmine swirls forth to greet me with a caress across my cheek. It’s only as I near the top that doubt creeps in, and suddenly every bad thing I’ve ever done floods my brain. Then I remember…
There is no Heaven without…
I turn to see the path to Inferno, flames licking at the feet of those who stared at me before. Their characters have shifted, their masks flickering. Victorian gentlemen replaced by Silicon Valley despots, courtesans replaced by witches. My cloud breaks, and I fall, suddenly hitting what I realise I must have been climbing this whole time: a staircase. Beneath me is nothing more than a crowd of guests at a Halloween party staring at some crazy person having a psychotic breakdown.
Chapter Three
Soft skin touches mine.Gabriel turns my head to his, and I’m lost, utterly lost, in his eyes. Sunshine in marbles, with the eclipsing moon dead centre as a pupil, constellations of stars circling the core of the universe. The entire cosmos contained right there in front of me. Expanses of life reach out before me. My mind is awash with countless possibilities, all the wonders that lie in these eyes, these infants of infinity. Planets dance and novae flare; gods create and destroy as meteors guide lost souls through the complex labyrinth of space.
A radiant comet pulls at me and beseeches me to follow it, and so I do, merging with the hurtling streak of light, and together we dash through the skies. In the light-filled expanse, I see beings I could have never known existed. Some sit in calm, watching as time unfurls before them. Some use gigantic shards of frozen dust and gas as golf clubs, knocking planets to the other end of reality. Others dance on the surface of suns. In the distance, beings allow themselves to be slowly drawn into a black hole. My comet and I meander through all this.
In the distance, a pinprick of light calls to me. The comet veers towards it and lets me know that the pinprick is the Sun. I’ve never seen it this small. A fairy light on some great cosmic Christmas tree. My mind is pulled towards a memory, which plays itself out on the surface of the comet. I’m lounging on grassy ease in a park near my student house in university. It’s the advent of spring and I’m deep in the throes of this week’s hangover. My mother has just called me to say that Dad passed away last night and I need to come home. I’m only three months away from finishing my course, but that suddenly seems impossible. The sun burns me so brightly, snuffing out my peace, roasting my comfort like chestnuts, only for them to be eaten by the birds whose songs drill away at my head. How strange to think that such intensity could now seem so insignificant, so distant.
But then the intensity roars up inside me. Memories of my dad pour into me, filling up my body until I’m drowning. Stardust circles me, each speck carrying a day at the beach or an argument in the kitchen or a cup of tea one of us made for the other. The sunshine that had seemed so far away beams through the stardust, sending fractals of grief-tinged colour around me. There’s the day I passed my driving test; the day he dropped me off at university halls; the day he buried me up to my neck in sand; the day I grazed my hand in the park, and he kissed it better.
Suddenly I’m choking. Gasping for air is futile as the sun gets brighter, blinding me and suffocating me.
As we pass the sun, I see Earth up ahead, framed by planets no human has ever set foot on. We’re hurtling towards home, but I still can’t catch my breath. My throat is full of sorrow as we shoot past the moon. Fire erupts around me, burning my clothes away as I fall, clasping at my neck as I separate from my comet. It disintegrates as endless blue races towards me.
The sharp chill swallows me whole as I plummet deep into the water. Everything is dark, and I float, weightless, quiet. Floods of water purge the stardust from my throat, and I breathe easily again, despite being below the water’s surface. Deep serenity falls over me, and I feel myself drifting into a vacuum.
A voice: “Sorry about this.”