What a perfect morning it…could have been.
As they bury me now, six feet down, my body lies too snuggly. I can still hear their fading cries. Yet, with each shovelfull of dirt tossed atop my coffin their voices become more muffled. Alien wailings from a distant world. A world of light and oxygen. The echo, reverberating inside the box I am in, is quite disorienting.
Thump, thump, thump.
Vibrations pang through me like piano keys. Forward then back, rattling my brain against my skull. A scrape here, a thud or smashing wallop there. Ceaseless. It is becoming more than disorienting…it is annoying. This is quite the predicament I am in. A very nettlesome quagmire. I wonder how other people would react in this extreme situation. Would they just lie here and die?
I will not!
Outside, above me…I think words…I can barely decipher them. Oh man, it hurts my head to strain. Wait a second, it sounds like they’re saying goodbye…goodbye Timothy. Who the hell is Timmy? My name is Dwight…oh my God they have the wrong guy.
Idiots!
I try to scream, but my voice has not yet returned. Nevertheless, I scream within my mind. What a throbbing headache I have… Yes, I must try to control my breathing…like that Lamaze stuff. How long can I survive in this thing anyway? What am I saying, everyone thinks I’m dead and within an hour, I will be. Dead as the morgue…ha-ha, that would be funny if it wasn’t really happening. Is this darkening casket strong enough to withhold the weight of gravel and dirt and sand that is slowly being loaded atop me?
Who am I kidding…it’s strong enough. This ain’t no cheap burial box, I can tell by the silk in here. There are even little butterflies and crosses embroidered in the damn thing. Oh, now isn’t that just special. Is that…yes, it is. Someone stuck a bowling pin down by my feet. My ex always beat me in that game. Bitch! What is that smell…. cinnamon? Man, what did they pour it all over me. I can taste the crap. Well at least it’s not formaldehyde or paraldehyde or some other embalming fluid. Or maybe it is. Who am I to know what’s what.
God something must’ve gone wrong. It’s much too late now. It was the hospital…no it was the funeral parlor. You know what, I don’t remember a funeral parlor…why am I in here? Is this a sick joke?
Wait…I hear them. The people outside above me. The woman is crying about Timothy again. For Christ’s sake don’t they realize I am, or was, unconscious. It was the guy in the ambulance next to me who died in the car crash the other day. The guy in the bed next to me. The guy that was leaking all kinds of different bodily fluids everywhere. That’s what you get for ending up in a hospital in Jersey. Nurses, doctors and orderlies that are all overeducated and underexperienced.
How long ago was that car crash? It feels like yesterday. Maybe it was longer, maybe a lot longer. Hold on…I remember something. Bits and parts. My car had an airbag. It inflated just before impact. It saved my life. From what I remember of the ambulance ride, the other person was for all accounts and purposes…dead. Maybe he didn’t have an airbag or was not wearing a seatbelt.
God, it’s so hard to remember anything let alone details. My hands…yes, my hands. They are coming too. Oh, it feels good to flex them…to feel the tingle…to feel the dull arthritic ache in them again. Maybe there is some hope. Just a little longer and I’ll try to make my way out of here. Wait. Yes…I remember now. I remember how it started. It was the orderlies. They left me downstairs on the gurney, just outside the hospital’s morgue a few days after the accident. The moron who was pushing me walked down the hall and stopped outside the bathroom. He was waiting for something or…someone. Yes, that’s right, a woman came along, saw me there, assumed I was dead and then met the orderly down the hall. They spoke about something…of what I have no idea. Maybe it was about the insane gas prices, or what to order for lunch or maybe…it was about me.
The woman kept looking over in my direction, at me, at my body, lying on the gurney. I think she was actually smiling. Yes, those two were conspiring…gossiping about me. I saw her give the orderly an envelope, it was a fat one. He then went into the bathroom smiling like a barracuda; she came and pushed me into the morgue. She said something. What was it…it was something peculiar. Oh yeah, I recall it now. She said to me as she leaned over face to face, “Karma Mr. Matheson.”
Weird. At least she got my name right. More memories, like swarming locusts grazing my mind. The woman had too much cover-up on. Like one of those anorexic women on the cover of a modeling magazine. Her hand movements, flourishing like a magician. Exquisitely maintained chartreuse fingernails reached into her coat pocket. Fumbling for something. Oh my God, it’s a needle.
“This is midazolam,” a grin formed on her maw. She pulls off the cap, bolsters the clear fluid into the tube, and flicks the silver tip with a chipped fingernail.
“This drug will do nicely until they come for you,” that smile clear as water again.
What the hell is she doing with that thing? I screamed mentally as she jabbed it into my arm. The clear liquid sped into my veins and began to mix inside me. Burning my insides, my vision clouding.
“This is not happenstance Mr. Matheson. It’s kismet,” she said. Then she opened one of the slots in that big hulking corpse-holding thing in that icebox of a room. “Predestination.”
She slid me in. The hatch closed with a thud.
The skinny woman in the business suit left me there…in the morgue. I smelled the chemicals, tasting the decay in the dark. It was cold in there, inside that black freezer. Man, there had to be at least twenty bodies inside that thing as well as me, the now motionless guy. Whatever was in that needle immobilized me. I could only move my eyes, unable to command anything else. That was it.
I must have slipped into unconsciousness again because I don’t remember how I got from the hospital to a plot in a graveyard. Here I am now in this coffin. A premature burial. I wonder if I got a requiem. Yeah right… The only survivor of a horrific car crash, going from one form of a box to the other. A metal car, a linoleum room in the morgue, a wooden casket. All three equally claustrophobic in their own way, yet all failing to kill me.
Thump, thump, thump.
The dirt…the light…the dark. My limbs are flexing. My legs…yes. My voice…I can feel it wallowing inside of me, near return. It won’t do me any good if I die here now will it. For the love of God, give me the strength. I begin kicking the tips of my shoes, knocking over the bowling pin, smashing into the coffin lid. Pressing upwards with all my might, my hands and the crown of my head pushing against the lid. A slight flex is my response. Not enough…more. Oh shit! I think I just broke both of my big toes on those last few kicks. It hurts like hell. Must block it out. Cannot die here…not now…not after having been through so much. C’mon I got to get it together…I can do this! Yes, I can feel it inside me. Adrenaline is releasing into my bloodstream. A surge. Christ…my heart feels like it’s pumping battery acid. My arms…my legs are rock hard. My will…my desire. I want out! It’s now or never. And I’m not gonna die in this shithole box.
Yes…it’s shifting open. More…more…more. The dirt. Yes, the blessed graveyard dirt is seeping in. I can feel a gap. I’ll slide as many fingers through as I can. Good, now I have a decent grip. Can’t stop. More…all that I have. Oh my God, if I grit my teeth any harder, I swear they’ll shatter. The fetid dirt is spilling into my face into my eyes. Can’t see anything... I must focus. I must do this. I can do this! Hell…I can barely breathe. My arm is out. I twirl to my right and stick the other through. It feels like a busload of sumo wrestlers are sitting on top of me. Christ…my chest! No. I cannot be pinned in here, cannot hold my breath much longer. I must reach the surface. Is that a ray of light…oh sweet sunshine come to daddy. I never thought I’d see you again. My left-hand bursts through the surface, flexes open twice. I do the same with its opposite.
I can hear voices outside. Yes, it’s the people mumbling earlier. They’ll help me. I stick my filthy head out of the earth. A woman behind me shrieks. She screams, “Oh my God. Timothy. I’m so sorry…”
My response to her is not audible. It’s the lumps of dirt I spit out of my mouth on the ground before me. Yes, freedom. Even the grave cannot keep Dwight Matheson.
I will survive.
A man comes over. He is holding a shovel. His grasp on the handle hardens. He looks me in the eye as I wobbly make it to my feet. The sunlight mirrors off his John Lennon glasses. I can see the reflection of the forest that surrounds us. We are in an opening, a clearing, within the sea of evergreens and northern red oaks. If I were to guess, I would wager we were deep within the Pine Barrens in Jersey, far away from society…from the hospital. Yet, there are makeshift gravestones around us…a very unusual setting. I am now extremely vexed.
“Can you help me out here,” I say, as I start pulling clumps of slop from my hair with my left hand. I extend my right towards the old-timer.
He hits me with the shovel. It connects with my shoulder hard. It hurts. The second shot slaps me on the side of my head, directly atop my ear. I fall to my knees atop the burial plot I just escaped from.
That one hurt more.
A sickening crunch is heard as he connects the flat of the blade against my nose. My blood flows, spurting this way and that, mixing with the earth. I hear the woman crying. “Oh Timothy. Why…you were so young. Your whole life ahead of you.”
What is wrong with these people…what in God’s name is she talking about…who in the blazing blue hell is Timothy? I run my hand across my mouth and pull three broken teeth from the reddening mess. Then I try to stand.
The man, some old dude, who looks like the bastard with the pitchfork in Grant Wood’s American Gothic raises the shovel again. His eyes are red. It looks like he has been crying…actually, it looks like he has been crying for a long time.
“Whoa…hold on buddy,” I extend my hand wobbly; I spit forth bile, blood and dentine. Slowly, I raise one knee, then I raise the other. I must not lose eye contact with the old man…the demented farmer. The woman cackles again.
“My Timmy…” Another sinister scream. “Timothy come back to us.” Her next shriek is akin to the sound of a cat being stabbed with a pitchfork. Startling the wildlife. Yes, there is something undeniably wrong with these folks. The cheese has unquestionably slid off both of their crackers.
Birds take flight from the treetops, soaring deeper within. Hundreds, all black. Except for one. It chooses to witness the horrific scene below as it shifts on the branch. Its eyes are yellow, the size of dimes. Its body looks stretched, missing patches of feathers. Its beak looks like it broke before and healed improperly. The grotesque thing squawks at me with its uneven maw. Appearing to relish my misery and pain. There’s something happening peripherally, a man and a young girl by a freshly filled grave. A person, alive and making gurgling noises, is lying on their back, before them, being skewered with the end of a shovel. The man is scooping out pieces of a breathing torso. Mixing the flesh and blood into the soil. And the little girl is drawing something in a book behind them as the bird flies over. It seems pleased. This is a place of sacrifice.
My attention is quickly snapped back to the crazy duo before me. I take a deep breath, accidentally swallowing some of my own blood and graveyard dirt along with it. I sure hope I’ve not left one form of death for a more violent alternative. “There must be some mistake,” I am conscious enough not to step forward. I must not upset them any more than they are already. “My name isn’t Timothy,” I turn my gaze to the woman, yet I keep the farmerman also within my sights. “There must have been a mix up at the hospital. I survived the car crash. I shouldn’t be here.” I slowly bring both of my hands out in front, and just as slowly wave them forward.
The man walks over next to the woman, puts his free arm around her shoulder. She cries as he speaks. “Oh no, there was no mistake. You’re right where you’re supposed to be.” He wrinkles his nose in disgust, eyes bloodshot. “It was in your best interest to stay in the ground.”
What is he talking about? Did Mr. and Mrs. Gothic escape the lunatic asylum? This certainly isn’t looking good for me. I must attempt to pacify them.
“I have money in the bank, I can pay you.” I lower my hands. “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll walk outta here. I swear to God, I’ll send you a big fat envelope of cash wherever you want me too.” I sigh clearing my throat. “I’m sorry I’m not this Timothy you’re speaking of maam. My name is Dwight…”
“Matheson,” the old man cuts me off.
My bloody jaw dropped open, saliva and bile dripping downwards. “How do you know who I am,” I say flabbergasted, the blood waterfalling from my nose. The danger of these two is now tangible. I see the woman reaching into her purse. She is still crying about Timothy.
The geezer twirls the shovel around and shoves the blade into the dirt in front of him. The shaft vibrates rapidly, the ring of metal echoes. That grotesque bird flutters down and perches atop it, like its drawn to dismemberment. “We don’t want money. We want justice. Like I said, you’re right where we want you to be Matheson. In this grove. This liminal space.” He nods towards the woman. “Six months in jail is unacceptable. The state will not dispense proper justice. So, we shall deliver appropriate actions for your heinous actions against Timothy.”
“Who the hell is Timothy!” I scream aloud. The veins in my neck bulging like highways of magma. “I don’t know anyone by that name!”
From her purse the woman withdraws a gun. It is loaded. The hammer is cocked. She points it in my direction. She walks towards me. It is aimed directly between my eyes. I feel cold metal against my sweating forehead. “Timothy was our son, and you killed him. You worthless drunk.” They bellow together. “Die!”
The trigger is pulled.
Within that millisecond of the bullet being aggressively sent forth from the weapon’s chamber and penetrating my skull I achieved total recall.
The car crash.
Yes, I remember now. I was leaving the bar late at night. I had had far too much to drink. I risked driving home. A red light ahead, it appeared much too quick for me to react. The car…the other car. It was making a left turn. I slammed my brakes too late. The air bag deployed and saved my life. The front end of my vehicle barreled through the driver’s side of the other car taking his.
The other man’s name was…Timothy.
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