Prologue

A Story by capmango

Copyright © 2004 Glenn R. Wichman. All of my short stories may or may not be part of my Great American Novel. If I ever get around to writing the novel, this is probably the prologue.

My first thought is that probably I'm dead. There's an odd measure of relief in that thought. There's good reason to believe that I'm dead. I'm lying down, supine. Certainly a dead-person trait, but not enough by itself. I think I'm in a cemetery. It seems like a cemetery. There's grass and trees, and it is quite peaceful. The green of the lawn is interrupted by occasional snow drifts. I don't feel cold.

Then there are my feet. They look like dead feet. I'm not wearing shoes. My feet are dark -- grime-encrusted, black, blue, misshapen and ugly. Odd that they would bury me with no shoes, but then, I think I was probably homeless and poor. That seems right.

The kicker, though, is the grave marker just beyond my feet. It's a stone cross, like they use to mark graves. You would think, though, that it would be just above my head, not just below my feet. So odd that they buried me barefoot and upsde-down. But the cross isn't stone. I see now that it is metal, a framework of steel triangles and squares. Whoever sprang for the cross could surely have gotten me some shoes. It occurs to me that if I am really buried, I ought to be underground, and I shouldn't be able to see all this. But, never having been dead before, I'm not sure if the rules are different for dead people.

My perspective is changed by a squirrel. He enters my field of view from the left. He scrambles on to my tattered jeans, then up onto my ugly left foot, where he perches himself to appraise me. He clearly doesn't see me as a threat. I suppose the little gears in his squirrel brain are turning, working out whether I am likely to have any food. The gears in my own brain are turning, but they are also jammed with rust and quite reluctant to move. Just putting a coherent thought together is hard work. My temples throb and I can feel the sweat on my forehead as I work to interpret the signals my senses are sending to my brain. I felt the squirrel when he was on my leg, but I can't feel him now on my toes.

The squirrel has convinced me I'm not buried. Finally bored with me, the squirrel hops off my feet to head on his way. His hop should have slammed him right into my grave-cross, but somehow he lands on the grass between me and it. The scene is painfully jarring to my poor head until my perspective shifts again. I can see now that the cross is not right at my feet. It is much further away, and therefore, much larger. I feel a sense of accomplishment at figuring this out -- at remembering that things look smaller when they get farther away. Somewhere, a mile or two beyond my cold black toes, an enormous steel cross stands against a steel grey sky. The color of the sky makes me think it might be very early in the morning. I start to wonder if I could look in other directions if I wanted to.

Looking around feels like it is going to be a lot of work, so instead I close my eyes and try figure out something easy. Like what my name is. That should be an easy one to figure. I can get it narrowed down to four or five choices pretty quickly, but then I get stuck, and the hurt in my head increases beyond my capacity to push through it. Closing my eyes isn't helping me, so I open them again.

It takes some time for the next thing to happen. What happens is that white, gentle snowflakes begin to drift down from that huge grey sky, landing on my feet and on the rest of me, like the beginnings of a cold white cotton blanket for my grass-green bed. And my mind realizes that it is time for me to decide whether or not to let the snow bury me.

The first question: Can I move? What if I try to move my hand? A left-hand appears at the left edge of the scene. I suppose that it is mine. It is dark and dirty, not so bad as the feet. The forearm attached to it is pale and pasty. It's almost disheartening to realize that it is indeed my arm. In the meantime, the blue of my jeans has been fully hidden by a thin, thin layer of white. Am I moving that slowly, or has the snowfall increased?

Bit by bit I work on all the components necessary to leave this lawn. I can move my knee. I can roll onto my side. I can get up on an elbow.

My first attempt to stand up ends with disaster. The snow and grass cushion my fall, and taste good as they hit my mouth. On my second attempt I stay standing. Or is this my third? I've lost count.

I rub my head, I rub my eyes, I look all around me. I am moving faster now. Maybe even as fast as normal people move. I am in a big empty park in a city. A big city. I've never seen a bigger one. I must be on a hill, I can see far in every direction. Far in the distance, I can see a bit of traffic moving, but I don't see anyone nearby.

Where is my dog? No, I remember now. My dog is dead. I don't need to look for him. I drop to my knees and sob. I want to lie back down and wait for the snow to finish me off.

I have a memory. I remember I was at the Grand Canyon. I remember that at the Grand Canyon I chose not to die. I know myself to be very far from that place now, both in distance and in time, but I know that the choice remains. If I was going to let myself die, it would have happened before now. I struggle back to my feet.

The snowflakes aren't gentle anymore. They are making it hard for me to see. I don't know what city I'm in, and I don't know why I'm here, so how do I decide what direction to go? The last thing that I glimpse before the snowfall brings my visibility to zero is that big steel cross. That is the direction I head.

My progress is slow. My feet aren't working properly. I feel like they can't quite get all the way to the ground, no matter how hard I push down. I don't know that I'm still moving in the same direction. I don't know that I will find shelter that way anyhow. I do know that moving is better than standing still.

Before I can see them I can hear them. It is probably a dozen voices, singing in harmony. The song is in French. I don't understand the words, so I must not speak French. Following the sound, I find myself on a run-down street of glass storefronts. Apparently, I cannot read French either, as the store signs are meaningless to me. The stores are all closed and dark, save the one that singing comes from.

Now I am close enough to see the owners of the voices. They are sitting in plastic chairs in a circle in a barren space with a cement floor. I think they will welcome me, if I can make my feet bring me just a little farther. My feet give out as I push through the door. The singers cease their singing and rush toward me. They are surrounding me as I collapse. I know I will not die. For now, that is enough.