Deliverance: Part I

When we dream, what do we see?

The room had been dark for as long as he could remember. Silhouettes and shadows of creatures he knew didn’t exist haunted him just the same, moving in and out of what must have been the bedroom closet. He was in a large bed, with a thick comforter layered on top of him. He did not know, nor did it matter whose bed it was, just that it was warm and inviting. He had no perception of time or day. He found himself questioning even what year it might have been. 2079? 2080? 2090? Who knew. The fear of a strange environment was tarnished by the comfort of the bed, far beyond anything he could remember sleeping on in the past. More so, he found it strikingly difficult to recollect anything of the past. Who he was, where he came from, what he did for a living. Even his name slipped from his mind, only to return seconds later. I’m Damien. Damien Boyd. That- he feared- was the extent of what he knew about himself. Such a terrible thing it was, he thought, to wake up and find yourself in an unfamiliar bed, trapped inside a mind that has no memory of the past, or any concept of identity. What fool forgets his own story?

It was twilight. He could only discern so because the moon shining in from the window across from him was high above the clouds. He could have placed a book on the edge of the bed and read it with ease if he wanted to, but found the thought of not knowing how to read frightening. No- he never had any memory in which he was alone with a book. There wasn’t even a memory of him learning what a book was. It must have been one of those things that people figure out on their own over the course of their lives, such as the precise moment that algebra makes sense. He disregarded it just the same, letting his mind wander between thoughts. The dominant one, which returned to him several times, was that there was a weight at the other end of the bed. He hadn’t moved at all since he could remember, and it was possible there was someone else in the bed with him, but no recollection of a relationship or marriage meant he was sleeping with a stranger.

He reached over and felt a smooth, naked leg. It connected, logically, to a hip, than a curvy stomach. A thin, feminine arm was wrapped around the side, between the upper abdomen and the breast. Damien moved his hand over her arm, working his way to her fingers. He felt a sudden desire to embrace them gently, and feel the comfort of knowing another human was there for him. He squeezed her fingers, and imagined what she must have looked like. He didn’t bother to turn around and face her- no- he loved the allusion. She could be the most beautiful woman in the world, or the worst, and he would love her just the same. Though in his mind he imagined her as quite exotic, being in her early thirties. His imagination showed her as having a curvy, hourglass figure, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. She was five and a half feet tall, much shorter than he thought he was. He held her fingers firm, with his eyes closed. Together he- and this beautiful woman- were walking through a forest, clusters of brightly colored trees- maroon and indigo and dark green leaves dashing to the ground before the first snow of winter. They didn’t say anything, but stared at each other in a very particular way. She giggled in between humming verses of “La vie en rose”. Her bright red lipstick glowed in the sunset, and a light breeze brushed her hair over his face. She moved her lips close to his ears.

“Hold me close and hold me fast, this magic spell you cast, this is la vie en rose”

Slow. Slow. Evenly tempoed came each blissful word, pronounced with such finesse that calmed Damien to his core. He smiled, responding,

“When you kiss me, heaven sighs, and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose”

His eyes were shut, the only sensations he felt was the cool autumn breeze and the smell of strawberry lipstick drifting deep into his soul. His nose was only inches from her lips. It felt natural to slid his mouth gently towards her, his lips hardly touching hers. “I want this moment forever. The build up before the big moment- it’s almost better than the actual thing. This desire, this passion.”

She laughed, then finished what he had every intention of doing- kissing her. Their lips embraced each other. Damien thought of the song again, it played in his mind over and over.

“Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be…”

The music tapered off and the wind died down. Damien pulled away from her lips and opened his eyes. He stared at her, and watched what seemed to be a gray hue come over her face. He became startled, jumping away from her as blood dripped down her face, originating from a single wound- right between the eyes. She didn’t scream, didn’t jump. Damien frantically moved his eyes around the area, only to find a woman standing several feet away from him, her gun still pointed in the air. Her laugh was deep and hearty, sparking anger in Damien’s heart. Almost on cue, the woman finished the song. “Le...vie...en...rose…”

Damien woke up from what must have been a dream, screaming at the top of his lungs. His body tensed up and revealed thick, manly muscles that proved nothing else but years of dedication to extreme physical fitness. By now the room was full of morning’s light, casting itself over the bed where he- and his presumed mistress- had laid together the night before. She pulled herself out of the covers and placed her hands over his chest, gently moving them up and down to console him. “What’s wrong honey?”
His breathing steadied itself, but the panic did not. He saw her hair, dark brown and somewhat aged, draped over the bra and shapely abdomen which he felt last night. Her pale face reminded him of housewives who never went outside anymore. She didn’t acknowledge his lack of a response, but consoled him just the same. In that instance, two children, no older than six, rushed over to him from the doorway. “Daddy, daddy!” They said, dressed in their pajama’s. Damien looked onward with confusion and the sudden realization that he was actually married. The boys climbed on the bed and wrapped their arms around his neck, squeezing ever tighter. Damien sat still, unsure of what emotion he should be feeling. A warm feeling rose up inside of him, empowering him to hug what could only be his family.
The woman stared into his eyes, a wrinkle under her now sullen eyes. “You don’t remember, do you? This happens all the time, darling.”

Damien stuttered, still indecisive about what he should say. “What happens?”
The woman ushered the children off of the bed and took Damien by the hand. She led him into a beautiful wooden kitchen, complete with a marble island and stainless steel utensil rack that hosted several culinary knives. Damien saw them, and instinctively threw himself to the ground, into a barrel roll. He had visions of a war- a bloody, violent battle in which he was commanding several soldiers. Buildings were crumbling around him, and debris had just struck a man running at him with a knife. He closed his eyes, reopened them, and found himself crouching behind the kitchen’s island, worlds apart from any danger.

The woman grabbed him by the arm, urging him to stand up and follow her. Dizziness descended upon him, but she kept him balanced until he could collapse into a chair. She grabbed him hands and spoke to him with the air of an instructor, telling a student a valuable lesson. “Your name is Damien Boyd. You’re 37 years old. I’m your wife, Victoria, with whom you had two children. You suffer from extreme memory loss due to a bullet wound you suffered in the military.”
As she explained this to him, fragments of his memory came back to him. He pictured a city at the edge of a river, with a downtown district under attack from rockets. People, especially soldiers, fled as their companions died. Many innocents alongside soldiers were sacrificed- all for an unknown cause.

Damien stared into the eyes of his wife. She reached her arms around him, embracing him. He had a sudden vision of her, dead on the ground, with his arms around her. Where this vision came from, however, was uncertain.

“I keep imagining you as dead,” he whispered into her ear. His voice was quiet, almost frail. She said nothing, but her cries grew ever louder.

“It’s funny,” she said in between breaths, “I’ve always imagined you as the one who dies.”
He thought about that statement, and how true it must have felt to her. Though he couldn’t remember much of the war outside of explicit flashbacks, he knew it was a bloody, violent affair, full of dead bodies that became nothing more than absent sacks of flesh. The thought of friends he fought alongside, being blown to ash, passed before him. Yes, it must have been a horrible affair, but to pretend to feel emotion over something he didn’t remember felt like a lie. An injustice to the people he must have served. “Maybe I am the dead,” he whispered, almost silently except for a wheeze of air, in which the syllables floated off his tongue.

“No, darling. You are not the dead. You’re still alive. Still breathing, full of life. One day, yes, you will wake up to find yourself six feet under, but today is not that day. You have a grand reason to stay alive. At least for now. Just know that you’re fulfilling a beautiful purpose, and I need you so very much.” Victoria’s voice morphed into that of an older man’s mid sentence. She coughed loudly, and turned her head away from Damien. He had no idea what he meant by any of that. It was strange- she almost seemed like a different person.
======= The next part will be released next Saturday! To see more from Modern Comics, visit www.modernreformers.com

Author's Note

Draft edition of "Deliverance"