CHAPTER 3: THE COLLISION
10:10am – Friday, October 7th/2016
Wade pushes himself back up from the sand-covered floor onto his knees. His eyes focus on the tile lines beneath him as he places his hands on his thighs. His mind wanders into dark thoughts about what will happen next.
“What the fuck do I do now?”
Wade asks himself,
“How do I even fix this?”
As he looks up at the picture beside him on the wall, he falls into the memory of when it was taken. Three months ago, taken with Leah, when they sat in the forest and romanticized the idea of marriage. His memory is suddenly shaken by a deafening slam from upstairs. The picture falls to the floor and shatters into pieces. The frame breaks, and a piece of glass lands in front of Wade, shaped like a V. Looking at it, he moves his head closer to the shard of glass with wide, fearful eyes.
Grip the glass that held our memories intact.
Grip it hard, and pull it to yourself.
You could have saved yourself a
lot of trouble if you did, you know?
Hope is a funny thing.
You held on to that much longer
than I thought you would.
You hoped I wouldn't find out.
Oh, I found out.
I watched you lie.
And now, I am the watchful
eye to your atlas,
and get to witness you drown
in your own karma.
See you soon, my dear.
Wade breaks his thought patterns staring at the glass by looking over to the picture on the ground. As he reaches for it, he hears the sound of a door opening upstairs and loud stomping coming down the stairs. He looks up to see the skin around Leah's eyes are red. He instinctively asks,
“Are you o-”
“DON'T, FUCKING, SAY, ANYTHING.”
Leah shouts as she kicks him in the chest and knocks him down onto his back. Leah stands over top of Wade with fury in her eyes and points at him with her finger held close to his face, about to say something. Stopping herself from screaming at him, she notices the colour of his Iris' are now white. Leah puts her hand down and moves in closer to his face. Wade, breathing heavily and scared, lays his body flat down to the floor calmly. His fearful expression transforms into a calm tone as if accepting his fate. He closes his eyes. Leah lets out a faint laugh and stands back up above him, looking down. Wade opens his eyes to look at her. Her face now meets his calm demeanour, and she backs away from him, never breaking eye contact.
“There it is..” she says.
Leah turns away from Wade and says,
“Be out by the morning..”
And as she's walking down the hallway to the front door, she says louder,
“..and you'll never see me again.”
The front door opens, and Wade shouts,
“WAIT! Leah!”
The door slams shut.
I could have brought you here,
if you didn't follow the path
of your family's past.
You could have reawakened yourself
beside me, into this world.
But you chose to sleep.
Sweet dreams, my dear.
Wade stands up in a panic—his vision changes. The colour of the walls fade as he begins to lose grip on reality. He slowly creeps across the sand and broken glass to pull his tired body up the stairs to his bedroom. The room is an unusual mess. Clothes are all over the floor, and the pictures that hang on the walls of the two of them are smashed, lying on the rug. The room seems different. All colour has been stripped from it. He walks over to the window facing the street and pinches a few blades of the blinds open. Peeking through, he sees that the sky is a flat grey, and the park across the street also is colourless.
“What in the fuck is going on?”
He asks as he lets go of the blinds. Turning around, he walks slowly back to the doorway. He looks down the staircase, wondering what he is going to do, and says,
“Where do I go? Oh my God, what have I done?”
With his voice echoing down the hallway, he stares at the colourless walls and is confused if he is awake or dreaming. Feeling lost and shaken, he fumbles down the stairs into the kitchen. He looks at the far wall above the kitchen table and takes a slow breath, taking in the image of a cross hanging, crooked from the winds. Stepping over the sand, he reaches over to centre the cross. As he touches the iconic symbol, a bright red light flashes in his colourless eyes. Letting go of the cross, he stares at the wall, frightened. Scanning the room, taking in the disastrous scene that used to be his home, then looking at the sand surrounding his feet and back up at the cross, he whispers to himself,
"Forgiveness"
Ha! God. You fucking idiot.
That's just asking for more demons.
Is that where you got your idea of sending me home?
Or was that never part of the plan?
Good luck with that, Wade.
Wade walks towards the front door but pauses at his reflection in the glass panes on either side of the door frame. The reflection he sees in the glass is a silhouette of himself backlit by a bright burning white light. One he can only imagine is the sun coming through the windows. He can hear the sound in his head of the whistling from the winds earlier. Afraid of opening the door, his body starts to shake.
"My world has turned to black and white."
Opening the front door, Wade notices the world seems void of sound. He sighs in relief. Walking outside, he steps onto the porch to a grey new world and looks around. The sand is gone, and his car is neatly parked on the road.
“What the fuck?”
He slowly steps down the front porch onto the grass and looks up and down the street. Everything is calm. Nothing seems real. Wade wonders if he is still trapped in a dream.
'Do my dreams have colour? I don't even remember.'
Row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream..
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream.
As he enters his car Wade looks into the mirror to see the scratch mark is no longer on his face. He thinks, 'Did any of this actually happen?' Wade looks closer into his eyes to see that they don't even look the same anymore. He shouts,
“WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME?”
In a panic, he puts the keys in the ignition and starts the car. The radio plays a calm dream-like melody, and the time displayed on the dashboard is '11:11am'. He looks at his arm as the dashboard glows inside his tinted car. His skin tinges a darker tone of grey than the flushed red he was used to.
“This is fucked.” and accepts he is dreaming.
With a deep exhale, he smirks a psychotic smile, throws the car in drive and makes his way down the road. Wade reaches into his pocket for a smoke and pops in the lighter. Driving for a few minutes, he turns down the last road before leaving his subdivision. He sees a dog lying in the middle of the road. He stops the car and gets out.
“Are you okay, boy?” he asks, closing the door.
He sees no movement coming from the dog's limp body. As he gets closer, a screeching sound starts to play faintly in his ears, and Wade looks around the neighbourhood. Nobody is in view, all cars are parked in their driveway, and the wind is calm. The sound grows louder as he gets closer to the dog, and Wade stops a few feet from the animal. Staring at the dog with the intense sound playing in his ears, his car engine shuts off by itself. He looks at the car as the headlights shut off and looks back down to where the dog was. It is gone. As he looks around in confusion, a woman walks out of the house in front of him and starts walking straight toward Wade.
“Did you see a dog here?”
He asks as the lady is staring straight into his eyes. The woman starts walking faster toward him, almost rushing at him until she stops dead in her tracks in front of him, opens her mouth wide and releases a drawn-out, high-pitched screech.
There is no Latin word for 'Karma'.
There is only this biblical quote,
“quae seminaverit homo haec et metet”
which means
“What a man sows, that he will also reap.”
Wade backs up in fear, covers his ears, and closes his eyes. The sound is deafening. He squints his eyes open to look up, and the deafening sound disappears. It echoes throughout his head. The woman has disappeared. Wade falls to one knee and looks around the neighbourhood. There is no woman, no dog, and not another soul to be found. Breathless, he stumbles over to the car and gets in. He turns the ignition for the car to start, to no avail. It putters and stalls. Wade looks out his window to see multiple people rushing out of their homes, speed walking towards his car. He tries the engine again in a panic, and the vehicle starts. He quickly locks his doors and starts driving towards the exit of the subdivision. The people stop before touching his car, with their mouths open. Sounds of their screams are travelling into his car. He screams out loud in terror and skids the vehicle out onto County Road 5. Travelling east towards the blinding white sun, the screams fade. He looks in his rearview mirror to see that the people are gone, and there is nothing behind him but empty streets. In a panic, he slams on the gas. He is hyperventilating now. All of this focus goes to the tightness in his chest and the dizziness that wants to take him out of this fucked up chaos. The car lighter pops out of its hole, making a ding that throws Wade into a mad attack of surprise and fearful question. Overwhelmed, he starts to come unhinged and yells,
“AM I LOSING MY FUCKING MIND?”
He opens his windows and screams,
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO ME?”
This is only the beginning, Wade.
Don't lose yourself just yet.
You have a long way to go.
Driving down the long stretch of road, Wade finally reaches the church. He pulls up into the empty parking lot and looks at his clock. It reads '12:12pm'. Getting out of his car, he takes a look around the empty landscape. There is a thin ring of trees surrounding the church and an empty field across the street. There are no other buildings in view. Distraught at the fact he has lost all colour in the world around him, Wade stands still in the sunlight, head tilted back with his eyes closed, hoping he hasn't begun to lose any of his other senses. When he opens his eyes, he faces the church with its elaborately crafted doors and brass handles. Eager to be on what should be safe ground, he runs to the front doors and grabs hold of the handle. Red flashes like crimson fire strike his eyes again, and the vertical details in the wooden doors light up in front of him like glowing veins. The lightning bolts of colour smash into his iris, and an electric current jerks him away from the door handle. The colours fade to grey. He is motionless as he watches the door slowly close.
Maybe Jesus can help you
restore your faithful eyes, Wade.
Maybe he will bring you back
to a colourful world once again.
Let's hope, you brave soul.
Let us hope.
Wade repeatedly tries the handle again in hopes the colour will return to his eyes. Yet, nothing happens. He mutters to himself,
“Oh dear god, please help me.”
Wade rips open the humongous church doors and steps inside. The doors swing shut behind him as if a gust of wind helps close the doors for him. The bang echoes throughout the room, and he looks around. There is a little boy at the front of the church who turns around to see Wade standing there, helpless. The boy says, “Hello.” and Wade just stands in one spot, staring in fear. The boy looks back up to the front, where no service is being made. Wade walks forward, and with every step, it feels like his boots are sticking to the floor. He looks down to see the floor reflecting the lights off the ceiling and checks the bottom of his boots for anything sticky. There is a grey-coloured liquid on his boots, and he swipes his fingers on it to see what it might be. Wade lifts his hand from his boot and smells the liquid dripping off his index finger. It smells like copper. As he steps further into the church, he notices there is no trail being left behind him and starts walking faster toward the altar.
To his left are confession booths. He makes a quick turn and heads for one with the door open. As he gets inside and closes the curtain, the black window on the wall opens up for the priest to ask,
“Hello, my son. Do you have anything to confess?”
Wade looks down at his hands, which are trembling, and says,
“Yes, um, Father. I am having a very hard time trying to decide if I am in a horrible dream right now or if I am going crazy.. Can you please help me?”
and looks through the window again. No response.
“Hello?”
The man is no longer there. Wade sticks his eyes up to the small grate, where he peers to the other side. There is no one there. He steps out of the booth and looks around. The child is also gone.
“Hello?”
Wade says out loud,
“Father? Little boy? HELLO?”
The sound echoes back and forth through the church like a skipping record. The tone of his voice in the echoes drops pitch with every reverberation. He screams as the pitches get deeper and deeper. Wade's mind bends to the point where he falls over on his side and passes out.
Oh, that's so cute.
Little boy, falling asleep in the church.
You are so adorable when you're angry, Wade.
So very adorable.
The way you lay bleeding on God's floor like that,
is just the sweetest little image in my head.
I'm so happy you are finding your answers, my dear.
Hey, Wade.. wake up.
Open your eyes, Wade.
OPEN YOUR EYES.
Wade awakens on a bench outside of the church. His eyes open to what looks like the evening sky, and he gasps for air as he sits up. His head hurts, and he looks around for anyone. As he stands up, he gets dizzy and slowly calms his steps to the church's front doors. He tries to open it, but the doors are locked. He reefs on the brass handle some more and steps back in frustration.
“Hello?” he shouts, looking around.
He starts to walk towards his car when he hears the church bell ring. He looks up to see the bell swinging very hard, left to right. The ding gets louder, and Wade starts to run toward his car. As he opens the door and looks behind him, the enormous church bell swings off its metal bracket and down the side of the slanted roof. As it smashes down the side of the church, it breaks in half, and both pieces stick into the grass with a loud 'gong.' The tone from the impact rumbles his car and pushes Wade away from his vehicle.
“Holy FUCK.” Wade shouts.
He stands up and jumps into his vehicle. When he starts the car, the church doors open. The little boy steps outside and stares directly at Wade. He starts walking towards the car. Wade puts the car in reverse and drives back up the driveway onto the road. The boy continues to walk towards him, and Wade hits the brakes in the middle of the road to put it into drive. As he shifts, the car stalls. The boy reaches his vehicle, opens the locked door, and rips Wade out of the car onto the concrete road. Wade becomes completely paralyzed while being dragged back into the church by the boy. Looking up into the sky before entering the church, he notices clouds start to form above the building. When the doors open, the screeching of the winds starts to enter his ears.
You hear the music yet?
God is singing for you, Wade.
He's singing your favourite song!
The high-pitched sounds are intensifying as Wade is being dragged towards the front of the church. When he reaches the altar, the boy lets go of him and drops Wade in front of a large crucifix. The boy whispers,
“Here you go, Father. He's all yours now.”
Wade lifts his eyes to the statue of Jesus hanging on the cross. Its eyes turn red. Everything is black and white aside from the burning eyes staring down at him. The screeching sounds come to a stop. Blood starts to drip off the chin of the statue and fall onto Wade's forehead. He screams,
“Stop! Please, forgive me! PLEASE!”
The mouth of the statue opens wide and repeats the words,
“Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves. Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves. Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves. Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves. Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves. Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves. Intratis Helices. Sequitur Aves.”
Wade is in shock. His mouth is open, blood is running down his cheeks, and he lies on the floor, paralyzed in fear. The statue's eyes stop glowing, the mouth shuts, and everything goes quiet.
Get the message you were looking for, Wade?
“Sir! Are you okay? Oh my dear God! Is that blood?”
A little boy asks, running up to Wade. The boy hovers over Wade, who is staring at the crucifix.
“Sir, are you okay?”
the boy asks as Wade lies expressionless. Wade can see that this boy is the same one that just dragged him in here and panics.
“GET AWAY FROM ME! YOU FUCKING MANIAC! STAY AWAY FROM ME!”
The boy steps back in fear and starts to cry. He runs towards the back of the church and yells,
“Father, there is a crazy man here, and he is bleeding!”
The priest walks over to Wade, grabs him by the shoulders and says,
“Son, are you okay? Let us help you.”
Wade pushes off the priest and yells,
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
He sits up and looks around the grey room with heavy breath. The priest says,
“Excuse me, but you are in a church of God. You may NOT act like this! What happened to you? Why are you bleeding?”
Wade pulls himself off the floor, keeping his focus on the door. He walks towards the exit.
“Sir! We can call an ambulance if you need medical attention!”
Wade replies,
“It's not mine, and you guys are FUCKED.”
The priest gasps and clasps the child's ears. Wade walks out of the church, and the door slams shut behind him.
Wade's car is parked in the lot where he originally left it. He looks up to see the church bell is still there. He pauses for a moment before getting into his car and whispering to himself,
“I need to get the fuck out of here.”
He gets into the vehicle and drives to the end of the driveway, looking left and right on the road. To the left is a forest, and to the right is an open road with birds flying overhead. He looks at the time, and it reads '3:33pm'. He looks right again, and the birds are gone from the sky.
If you just spoke the truth,
I wouldn't have had to do this to you, Wade.
This is just the beginning.
Welcome to the spiral.
3:33pm – Friday, October 7th/2016
