CHAPTER II - METAL
Stephen’s eyes hurt, as if they were inflamed, or awakened from a very deep,
unsatisfied sleep. But it was that he was trying to open his eyes that hurt.
All was white, blinding white - surrealistic white. Even brighter than the lights
of the pick-up truck driving towards him before, he thought as he tried to cope
with the pain.
He tried rubbing them, closing them shut,
holding them tight, and then releasing them. And it would make the pain go away
for a few seconds, but it returned. Only after mere minutes, the pain and blur
in front of him seemed to fade. And he stared into four pairs of eyes right in
front of him that seemed a thousand times more shocked than he was confused.
‘What?’ Stephen just thought as feelings of redundant
exposure rose.
Stephen shook his head to clear his vision. They
were three guys and one girl - barely adults. They looked beaten up from a
fight or something, showing sores, small traces of blood on their face and some
ripped clothing. One of the guys was most conspicuous, for his eyes went all
over the place, looking Stephen right in the eyes, then down, then straight to Stephen’s
stomach, and then swiftly gazed away, only to repeat the same exact routine
again.
Stephen’s gaze went around. The four figures
were sitting on a wooden bench, just as the one Stephen was sitting on. They
were in the middle of what seemed to be a hall. There was an old lady in a
crème night dress at the far right, seemingly asleep, but mostly her pose stood
out. It’s the kind of pose you leave when you fall asleep s**t-faced drunk -
legs spread, back against the wall, head bend slightly to the left and your
hands laid to rest far away from your body. The image shocked Stephen a little.
It wasn’t pretty. Not even close.
The room seemed to be made out of perfect
marble. Despite the stinging headache that rose, he leaned down to touch the
ground. ‘As smooth as marble, yes,’ Stephen remarked. Every bench was the same;
dark brown oaken and with grooves. Each one had a green-leaved plant at its
right side, every single one. It all seemed out of place.
The hopping foot of the conspicuous fellow
right in front of Stephen distracted him.
“Excuse me, young man?” Stephen asked.
He looked away. The others looked down,
minding their own business.
“Hello?”
Stephen repeated somewhat louder. The old lady released a loud snort, coming
from the deepest corner of her nasal cavity.
He left it be, but neither the snort nor the
vague individuals in front of him put his mind at ease.
Stephen returned to his eyes, rubbing them
harder than before to get rid of that nasty feeling he’d felt since the pain
went away - there was a sore spot under his left eye he discovered. Stephen thought
back at the accident; the pick-up truck impacted from the left - it must have
been the collision.
There was a door to the far left. It had a
clock above it, Stephen noticed. It was 8 AM. He peeked back to the old lady,
whose pose hadn’t changed in the meantime. There was another door next to the
old lady - it was blue colored which stood out against all the white. The door
said ‘women’. Another door opposing it said ‘men’.
‘A little time alone seems good right now,’ Stephen
thought. ‘Not in some weird way, really,’ he felt the need to convince his
subconscious. He just wanted to get away from these freaks for a minute. He had
the dire urge to splash some water in his face, trying to wake up - trying to really
cope what had been happening. He stood up and walked.
Stephen entered the bathroom in peace, his
mind free to wonder. His hand reached for a light switch, as he was used to doing,
but there wasn’t any. It wasn’t needed too; the bathroom was just as bright as
the room he came from. He looked up. There wasn’t even a light bulb. And all of
a sudden he wasn’t happy anymore that his mind was free to wonder.
Another thing that caught Stephen’s attention;
there wasn’t a toilet. Like, none at all - no toilet. And he started to doubt whether
he entered the right room. There was a sink, though. One with a huge long
mirror above it and stretching out until next to the sink, going all the way
down. It was now that Stephen saw, there was really something wrong.
He stared at a pair of glassy and red eyes,
the left one surrounded by darkness. ‘Ah, now that’s what hurt…’ There were
scratches and bruises, nothing out of the ordinary. After what he and Roxanne
had been through it seemed just pure dumb luck really.
‘Roxanne!’ he suddenly thought. ‘God, would
she be okay?’ He put his hands to his mouth as the stress kicked in. And a
sudden twinge rose in his side and caught his attention.
Stephen’s mouth dropped. He couldn’t believe
what he had just noticed. It went hand-in-hand with the pain, so it must have
been real. But only utter ‘what the f**k?!’ he thought. He stepped forward to
the mirror and gave the situation a better look. It was large, sharp and it
looked like just another scene from the Saw series, given its disturbing color
and alarming severity. The metal plate, whatever it had come from, had made its
way deep into his body, leaving a load of dried up blood on it. He tried to
touch it; it was okay. He tried getting it out with a jerk, but it was stuck
hard and hurt so bad that tears exploded from his (already) torn up eyes.
“F**k,” he actually said out loud with a hint
of a groan. Stephen wasn’t the one for lonely monologues at all. He rested his
arms on the sink, looking in the mirror. ‘This isn’t real. Why am I not in the
ER?’ He was panting from the pain the object had caused, but soon it rested
like a victorious foe. And like the defeated party, Stephen tried to lick his
wounds - not literally, though. He splashed some water in his face. It felt
good to feel something cold. He drank some too, since his throat had gone dry
badly. He looked up but didn’t look much better. More awake, maybe, but his
eyes could tell he was in debate - the thoughts of ignorance made him angry, as
always.
Stephen walked back out of the bathroom again, full of energy by his recent
trauma, stood in the middle of the isle, next to the old lady who woke up by
his sudden present energy - eyes wide open.
“What the f**k, is going on?!”
The room remained silent, but all eyes were upon
him.
“Yes, I know you saw it! Don’t pretend you
didn’t!” Stephen pointed at the group of four.
He sighed. Some old tendency from his job
emerged in him - being a production manager at a set of an independent
television-studio. It was that feeling when one of his interns fucked something
up real stupid, and it was obviously showing. And a decent face-palm was never
left out.
“Okay,” he proceeded calmly and took a moment.
“Listen up, I have a piece of f*****g metal in my f*****g side and I’m not even
f*****g bleeding anymore. Can someone, please
tell me, what the f**k is wrong with me?” He said, laying out his hand in front
of him as if he was presenting a hand of (actual) nuts.
The old lady collapsed back to sleep with a
snore, but one of the fantastic four lifted his head. It was a blonde guy - a football
player maybe, he had the looks for it, and the posture.
“Dude, I have no idea,” he threw a smile as if
he was in pain. “Just…” he paused for a second. “Sit down and I guess they’ll
help you soon.”
“How long have you guys been here?” Stephen asked
them. The hall looked like hospital waiting room, maybe, but it was odd. For
one, there was no real bathroom.
“Couple of hours, I think,” the football
player said. His voice was deep and somewhat mocking.
“Did you guys walk in? Were you brought in by
an ambulance or something?” Stephen was desperate for some info.
“No, we all woke up here. Mrs. Snore was
already in,” he laughed a little retarded, poking his buddy in the side, the
most silent of all (not the conspicuous one). Stephen hadn’t really noticed him
until now. The guy had black hair, his skin was pale and his eyes seemed deep,
surrounded by red flesh, like a demon ready to stare into one’s soul. He barely
responded to the poke. He just threw a subtle smile as his eyes remained
focused on the floor, for whatever reason.
Stephen still felt uncomfortable. He had
always been inpatient in his own way. He could sit for hours, but he had to
know it was good for something. If he didn’t know what would happen, the
thought that he wasn’t in control over the situation, he would grow anxious. Stephen
stumbled back to his bench and rested his back against the wall, trying to let
everybody know he wasn’t happy by putting as much sound into his actions as
possible - sighs, moans and bangs, but nobody cared.
His mind returned to wonder again. ‘Roxanne!’
he thought again and also stated to himself he shouldn’t forget about his “lovely”
wife all the time. He felt like the headache, sore eyes, and above all, that
the piece of metal sticking out of his side weren’t an excuse to keep
forgetting. He wondered where she would be. Maybe the doctors were already
looking at her. Maybe she needed immediate surgery. ‘Oh man, I hope she’s okay.’
Would she be in even worse shape than Stephen even was? ‘I mean, I’m still
walking.’
The conversation had thrown some light on the
four in front of him, but Stephen still was unsure about what exactly was going
on. He had been in a hospital before. The waiting rooms were crowded. There
were doctors running around. Nothing like this. Maybe they brought them into
one of them private clinics more up in the Hills, where the rich could enjoy
their doctor’s visits without having to converse with the working class, and
maybe didn’t need a toilet? Maybe there wasn’t any room anymore in the bigger
hospitals? Stephen could only guess. It could explain why Roxanne wasn’t there
with him, though.
He started to ache about the whole night,
especially the fight. ‘She didn’t deserve that,’ he told himself. He started to
think maybe he’d been too hard on her this whole time - for years. That maybe
she was a little bit right. They’d both been stubborn ones without doubt. They both
would never yield. It had never been a problem before they moved into the
Hollywood Hills. They were just the same. Broke, horny, but most of all; there
to rebel. And it had worked. But as time passed, they started to make up their
own lives where they could. And they wouldn’t diverge for one another.
‘Maybe I should have grown up a little bit
more,’ he thought. There was just so much left to leave behind, he felt like.
They were at the top of the mountain, in the penthouse of the world - with the
royals of fame. Why settle for something tame when there is so much reason
around to be wild? Wild ‘n free; once their motto, now supposedly his only
dream. And the feeling emerged to him that it was actually pathetic. It was
just childish really.
Were there other things Stephen might have
done wrong? Maybe too much. Well, for one, he had been screaming at these folks
right here, who actually were there under the same circumstances as him. And a
feeling of guild came up in Stephen, as he thought of it.
“So, what happened to you, guys?” Stephen asked
calmly after feeling selfish for putting his own problems first. He thought
about how they also had been through some hell of a night, reading their
appearance and mood. Not even to mention the old lady who looked like a class A
hobo, whatever her story was.
“Car accident. Got pretty beaten up. Some
a*****e drove through a red light,” the football player answered. He looked like
the one to make decisions. He had charisma. He was used to speaking, Stephen could
tell. But it was also showing he wasn’t in the mood. He looked tired. Indeed,
beaten up.
“Yeah, I can relate. Me too. I was driving on
Sun Set Boulevard when I got hit by a pick-up truck. Or an SUV. Something like
it - something heavy for sure. Can’t remember anything after that,” Stephen’s
mind wondered as he tried to remember anything, but it was hard on him. It was
dark, there were a lot of lights, and most off all; he was distracted. Nothing
struck him. Only those two brights coming to get him.
Stephen caught the football player’s eyes
again, but something had changed. Something made him interested about what Stephen
was telling.
“I think it was a red car that came up to me,
I couldn’t see clearly. Its headlights were blinding me. I thought-”
“It was a red light you stupid f**k! Not a red
car, a red light! What are you, blind?!” The football player suddenly yelled.
And he stood up. The others were suddenly more awake too. “Of course, it’s so
obvious!”
‘Something red flashed,’ Stephen suddenly
remembered. It had all been so intense. The fight, the lights - the night. He
must have missed it. And his heart shot into his throat as though an apple was
stuck in there, and he ached. He had never wanted to hurt somebody. He thought
he was the victim in this situation. The pick-up truck looked almost twice the
size of his Volvo as it speeded towards him, he could recall. But as he looked
into the football player’s eyes he grew scared.
“Wow, hold on now. Are you sure it was me?” Stephen
calmly stood up too, trying to find high ground to get some grip “I mean,” Stephen
almost chuckled now as he tried to find some comfort while standing up. “Sun
Set Boulevard is a long road…”
“Sun Set Boulevard, West Hollywood, are you
f*****g kidding me?! This is not a victim convention. We’re just here because we
were in the same f*****g accident! And you caused it!”
“What?!” The girl on the bench all of sudden
joined the football player.
“Okay, okay. Now, calm down. I’m sure we can
fix this. I was-”
The girl on the bench now also jumped up.
“Well, you really fucked us over didn’t you?
Now my dad is going to find out and I’ll be grounded until next year! I was
supposed to be at home watching my stupid brother. Thanks, you’re a f*****g
idiot!” She started yelling. Stephen quickly reconciled that this was the second
time in supposedly twenty-four hours that someone had called him an idiot. He
gazed over to the conspicuous guy, still on the bench. He didn’t seem the type
to get angry at all, but even his eyes blazed red at the moment. The other guy,
he just stayed silent as if he knew he’d win in the end - gazing almost
hypnotizing. Maybe there was even a smile, Stephen couldn’t be sure.
“Babe, sit down,” the football player
commanded.
“No! What, you’re not going to be a p***y
about this, are you?” She threw him a look like she couldn’t believe him. “Sir,
can we exchange insurance details?” She sarcastically asked her boyfriend
high-pitched while pretending to be as innocent and sweet as she could, lifting
one heel high into the air. “I could have f*****g died right there! Are you
kidding?!”
“Babe, sit down! I will handle this.”
Stephen tried to conquer some ground.
“Well, shouldn’t you have taken care of your
little brother then instead of going out like a spoiled teenager?”
“Shut up!” the football player and the girl
yelled at the same time and Stephen backed out, raising his hands as though he
surrendered.
“Okay, okay, I get it. I’ve got money, though.
I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“It’s not about the money, you freak. Can’t
you see my face?! Can’t you see my girlfriend’s face?!”
“Hey!” the girlfriend shouted. The football
player turned her a gaze that said; ‘not now’ and then returned. He sighed deep
for a full second.
“I had a commercial planned for tomorrow, you
know?”
Stephen didn’t see this one coming, and wanted
to face-palm himself again. He’d met a popular guy, he was pretty sure. But a
commercial? An actor? Then he remembered he was still in Hollywood and anything
was possible. Everyone grabs anything that can get them further ahead. And in
today’s world, everybody just wants to get all the way there - no matter the
cost.
“-You think you can fix that, huh? Because I
don’t think so! These bruises are visible through ten layers of foundation! Do
you know how hard I had to work to get where I was?! All for nothing! They just
drop you at this stage!”
Then in a split second, he turned around. He
released a loud roar, grabbed the plant next to the bench and threw it across
the hall, ending in the middle of the isle, next to the old lady who didn’t
give a single response and was now smiling as she was far gone. The pot broke,
mud slid over the perfect white marble floor and the green leaves caressed the
smooth surface. And then nothing. It was all gone - vanished. Dropped right
through the floor as if it didn’t happen.
They all just watched the empty white marble
floor there with their mouths wide open, and one of them wasn’t even awake. ‘This
is not real,’ Stephen repeated in his head, but this time also saying it out
loud - not even thinking. It had turned dead quiet in the hall after the
intrusive sound of the pot breaking. Then Stephen noticed something green in
the corner of his eyes and he couldn’t believe it. The green-leaved plant he’d just
watched flying through the hall in slow-motion was there again. Just sitting
there. As if nothing happened!
Stephen and the football player looked each
other in the eye, exchanging confusion - telling each other utter ‘what the
f**k just happened’ through some weird connection constructed out of mimicry.
Then the door underneath the clock opened and
everybody turned to look. An older guy, probably in his sixties and in a neat
brown suit walked out. He had sky white hair, a beard and wore glasses -
perfectly round ones. He posed relaxed, putting his fighters together as though
he was praying, but his eyes were wide open - inquiring.
“Stephen Doyll?” he asked full of grace.
“Present,” Stephen replied fast and dry. “Right
here,” putting up his hand in the middle of the crowd as he slowly walked up
towards the man.
“You can come in now,” the man said, gesturing
towards the door and stood there patiently waiting.
‘Thanks doc,’ Stephen thought, but wouldn’t
say it out loud. ‘Just one more minute and the football player would have
mashed in my head.’ Stephen gladly followed the guy’s forthcoming directions
and walk past his savior.
“This is not over, yet,” the football player
reminded him. Stephen didn’t look back. He thought it would be better to keep
on walking. Maybe he could sneak out later, leave a note for him with his
insurance details and be done with it, hereby averting an angry fist to his
already blue eye.
Stephen walked through the door, only to come towards
more white and weirdness.
prev chapter
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