Fadeaway

A surreal brush with death

Billy is a normal boy, living in a normal world, or so he thinks. At age 10 the world his world is very simple, yet elegant. There are however, some odd things about young Billy’s reality. The first is that there is no color, nothing but shades of gray. This may seem weird, but poor Billy cannot remember anything different, as far as he is aware that is how things have always been. Billy also lives alone, there is no one else around, not outside, not on the street, not anywhere. Again, none of this bother little Billy. He lives a happy life, things are nearly perfect in this world. There is no one to tell him what to do, no one to dictate bedtime or tell him to go to school, no supervision of any sort, no rules.

Billy plays happily, exploring the great unknowns of his nearby neighborhood, and a local shopping complex. In a world with no people, there are no boundaries. Billy excitedly wanders into the nearby supermarket. This world is his to do with as he pleases. He runs to the toy section. He is so excited that he doesn't notice the loose floor tile on the ground until it’s too late. He trips and falls, smashing his knee against the surface below. Billy lies there for but a moment and then stands up, there is no pain. He glances at his kneecap, there is no blood, no bruise, no sign of injury at all. This does not strike Billy as odd. He turns back towards the toy section and then something very interesting happens. For a moment, Billy is transported away from this idealistic grayscale land to a new environment. He recognizes this place as his bedroom, there is now color, and also great pain. He feels it heavily in his chest and coughs harshly, the room is hazy and it is quite hard to see through the smog that fills it, his eyes sting and water. Billy shuts his eyes to soothe them and immediately, he’s back to grayland Walmart. He stands stunned for a moment considering what he just witnessed, it was but a flash, less than a second, but he feels moved by this vision. After a moment he decides to no longer think about it, puts this occurrence out of his mind. Moments later, it happens again, this time he is being carried. He’s slung over some man’s shoulder. The thick oppressive air is getting to him, and it’s uncomfortably warm. He begins to close his eyes again, but then realizes that he can faintly hear his mother, from far away, she sounds as though she is crying. This new horrible world slowly begins to fade, turn gray, everything morphs and Billy can nearly see the aisles of the supermarket toy section again, He takes a deep breath and the color returns yet again. The toys fade away and he is more engrossed in the horrid, painful, multichromatic world than ever before.

At this point he notices that he can hear sirens and people yelling commands at one another, there is a lot of movement around him. He recognizes the front door of his house as he is carried through it and further outside. The air is no longer thick, he can see clearly, though his eyes and chest still hurt. He looks around and notices black smoke pouring from the door he was just carried through. The man finally sets him down, in an ambulance. Billy is now nearly awake, he realizes where he is as his mother and sister come into view. Tears running down their faces, they cry out his name and move forward to hug him. Billy looks up to see the man who had been carrying him in full view, he is wearing a bulky oxygen mask and a hat. His outfit is brown with a neon stripe running down the side. Billy finally recognizes this as the uniform of a local firefighter. The man turns to Billy’s mother, he removes the breathing mask, “this boy is conscious, but he needs medical treatment. He inhaled a lot of smoke.” “Is he going to be ok?” she exclaims. “He’ll be fine, he just needs to be checked out by a doctor, he’ll probably need to spend the night in the hospital for examination, but after than that, he should be good”. The man looks at Billy “I'm glad we got you out of there, had it been much longer we might have lost you”

(This story was inspired by a personal experience brought on by an accidental overdose of lysergic acid)

Author's Note

Ignore grammar problems.
Please tell me if you think the ending is confusing?

Reviews

[Marie]

I never ignore grammer problems; however I din't find any in this story. The ending is quite clear, and the story is good.