“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” the man in the leather cape peered down at Tristan.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Tristan met the stranger’s eyes, grinned, “Know of a good place to stay the night?”
The man let his cape fall open and the light from the street lamp glinted off something metal. Everything around Tristan suddenly seemed much clearer. He could see every kink and whorl in the wood of the raised sidewalk, taste the warm bitter smoke from a nearby fire, and sense the curvature of the black sky. The sky itself sealed over him, trapping him like an insect in an overturned water glass. There was no way he was going to die in this backwash.
Tristan’s mind reached for his revolver seconds after his hand had. He stepped back, straightened his right arm, then stopped. The stranger drew his cape back with a flourish. He had an accordion. Tristan blinked, then started to chuckle. Of all instruments, it had to be an accordion. He lowered his gun, smiled.
The stranger began to play, music spinning out of the box with a smoothness that was unfamiliar. Tristan had always thought accordions were wheezy, with the brassiness of a rickety carousel. But the music carried a nobility to it, a warmth and richness that made tears come to his eyes. It was then that Tristan realized he couldn’t move.
Tristan struggled, every muscle in his body screaming for one small step. His foot inched forward, and he fell to his knees, the sound descending on him like gas. The pain at first seemed superficial, a stinging that spidered up his legs. Then his stomach clenched and he was coughing, gasping for air against an assault that wouldn’t stop.
He was aware of the woman before he even saw her, her pale eyes watching from the safety of an alleyway. It was Aki, curled into a ball, her white hair covered by a scarf.
There was no way Aki could be there, Tristan knew it. He must have crossed into the dream state that precedes death, although why his mind chose to show him Aki was beyond him. He was still coughing, the contortions of hacking causing Aki to blur and jerk. “Any moment,” he thought, “Any moment she will split into pixels and dissolve like a TV losing reception.”
Above him, the accordion stopped. The man bent over him, digging through his pockets. He heard a crunching sound as the man threw down his phone, then the skitter of his cards; Driver’s License, Visa, Bank Card. The stranger huffed, then picked up Tristan’s revolver. He held it, muzzle towards him, toying with the cylinder. Shrugging, he tucked it under his cape and walked down the sidewalk, each plank creaking under him.
Tristan tried to stand up, but it was all he could do to raise his head an inch. There was a pitter of feet, and Aki stood over him. She reached forward into the empty air, pulling on the door to the other world. “Push,” coughed Tristan, “The sign says ‘push.’”
Aki pushed the door open, then grabbed ahold of his arms. She dragged him to the threshold, then rolled him inside like a log. He could see her flicker in the doorway, then blink out like a flame trapped under a blanket.
__
Tristan wasn’t sure how long he had been floating in a tank of water. All the days seemed to blur together, the first so painful that he couldn’t properly recall them. The pain itself seemed to have riddled his mind, and he could imagine holes bored through his brain. Inside the holes, there was music, blackness, and an anxiety of something forgotten. “I think I left something behind,” he said to Sam, his physical therapist.
“I’m not your shrink,” Sam tucked a rubber band under Tristan’s right leg, “but I’m pretty sure that’s because you lost your ability to ambulate. Get that back and you should feel tip-top. Now let’s start on that exercise I showed you yesterday.”
Tristan pulled on the band and willed his leg to move. Between the strength of his arms and the weak muscles of his legs, he was able to lift it almost out of the water. “Maybe,” he grunted, “maybe it really was something I lost, like my phone.”
“Did you lose your phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there you go. Don’t stop, I want ten more reps out of you.”
Tristan could feel sweat trickle down his face and plop into the tank, “It’s not that. It’s something I can’t remember losing.”
“Don’t get all philosophical on me. I went into this kind of work to avoid that sort of thing,” Sam corrected Tristan’s grip on the band, “If you lift like that, you’re going to hurt your back. Tighten your core. There you go.”
The band slid through Tristan’s fingers and his leg flew down with a splash. A mini tidal wave crested the top of the tank, water spilling onto the floor. “Aki,” Tristan gasped, “Aki is still in the backwash.”
“Okay, friend, I’m calling Dr. Witz. I think we had enough physical for today,” Sam’s eyebrows pinched together as he bent to wipe the floor. He left without collecting the band, and Tristan tried to loop it around his left leg. Now that he remembered, it was even more important that he got well. Aki, defenseless little Aki was in danger. Aki, who didn’t even know how to open the door to this world, Aki, who . . . saved him. Was he remembering that correctly?
“Hello Tristan,” Dr. Witz called through the door.
“Come in, I’m decent,” he cracked. There was nothing decent about floating naked in a tank of water. Witz, for her part, always kept her eyes glued to his face. It would have been funny if his body wasn’t broken if his thoughts weren’t a confusion of dark music.
Dr. Witz stepped through the doorway, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, a pencil over one ear, “How are you doing today, Tristan?”
“Not too terrible. I just remembered something, and I think I scared Sam.”
Witz stared at him, her blue eyes penetrating.
“I just realized that I lost my ability to speak French,” he fibbed, “A whole part of my mind is gone and it’s like I can’t reach it.”
Witz’s face was inscrutable, “What does ‘a key is in the backwash’ mean to you?”
Sam had misheard it; Tristan couldn’t repress the smile of relief. “The backwash is what I call the things I can’t remember. It’s like a place full of water and bits of things. And music,” his mind raced ahead of his mouth. Key, what could that be? “It was like I found a key when I realized that, you know, that I used to speak French.” Maybe Tristan’s mind wasn’t as scrambled as he thought, he was doing pretty well at confabulating.
“Hm,” Witz was tapping her pencil on the side of his tank. Tap. Tap. Tapity-tap. If he were a dolphin, he could stick his head under the water and know if she was buying his story.
Himself not being
a dolphin, he simply had to keep going, “Do you think maybe I could take a spin in the wheelchair? I know I was in there this morning, but it would make me feel a little more like my old self.”
Tap. Tap. Tapity-tap. Tap. Tap. “Yes, I think that might be okay. I’ll speak to the duty nurse.”
As he watched Witz leave, Tristan did a victory dance. It was not much of a dance, just a bit of nodding and some arm lifting. He felt buoyant until the door opened and a petite woman with black hair strode into the room. “Theresa,” he tried to sound delighted, but settled for neutral, “I didn’t know you were on duty.”
She glared at him with her black eyes, “What are you up to, young man? You plan to bust out of this place?”
It would have been funny if she wasn’t right. Even then, it could have been funny if she didn’t speak so loudly, her voice clipped with a permanent brusqueness. “Yeah, I’m gonna wheel my way outta here. Jailbreak!” Tristan made exaggerated wheeling movements with his arms, “No one will notice me, especially not in that bright orange anti-gravity suit.”
“Don’t get smart with me. This is how you ended up here. No regard for anybody,” she pushed a button and the sling grumbled to life, its hydraulics inching Tristan to the top of the tank. Once his body rose out of the water, the pain started. Tristan wanted to banter back something witty, but all he could do was clench the straps with his arms, trying to relieve the pressure on his legs. Theresa pulled what looked like a snowsuit out of a cabinet. This was the worst part, the part where each of his legs was inserted into the pant legs. As Theresa lifted his right leg, Tristan tried to help. “Getting stronger, huh?” she gave him a glare as she fit the footed leg over his. After repeating the process for the left leg, Theresa looked at him deadpan, “Pelvis thrust?” Tristan lifted his hips the best he could, and Theresa slid the top of the pants behind him. He leaned forward and she pulled the suspenders over his shoulders, snapping them to the front. She pushed a button and the anti-gravity suit inflated. Tristan sighed.
Theresa ducked out of the room, returning with a wheelchair, the footrests already in place. She pushed another button on the sling, and it rotated until Tristan hung in the air over the wheelchair. It hummed slowly downwards until his bottom met the seat. Theresa unstrapped him, pulling the sling out from under him.
“Alright, Theresa, see ya later,” Tristan reached for the door, pulling it open. The last thing he saw as he rolled inside was the expression of surprise in Theresa’s eyes. It flickered, then like a match doused with water, fizzled out.
—
Tristan was on the same wooden sidewalk. There was a stain stretching across the planks, something dark had spilled there. In front of him was a two-story building, the bottom floor taken up by a bar. Next to that was a windowless cinema, its blank face staring into a narrow alleyway. He was in the exact same place.
The sidewalk creaked as he rolled his chair across it. He rolled to where it ended at the alleyway; there was a scattering of debris, but no sign of Aki. As he backed up his chair, a hand covered his mouth.
“What are you doing here?” Aki pressed in close to his ear.
“Mmph,” Tristan responded. Aki uncovered his mouth. “I was looking for you.”
“That makes zero sense. Go back to your time.”
“Come back with me.”
“Tristan,” Aki walked around his chair, squatted, “there’s something you don’t know about me.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a harmonica, “I belong here.”
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You might remember I said I had something I was working on secretly. Well, it's done and here it is:
I decided to give Smashwords a try and see what happened. It was strangely easier than I thought it would be. If you follow their directions, your book just flows through the process with no flags. Anyhow, here's the elevator speech on this little book:
Everyone loved Charon Runds, a popular medium who channeled both human and animal spirits. Everyone except his sister Sandrine. But when Charon turns up dead, a supernatural set of events leads Sandrine closer to her brother than she was in life. Much closer, in fact his spirit possesses her. Unwittingly, Sandrine is sent on a quest to discover the identity of her brother’s murderer in the quirky town of Cobblestone Keep. Armed with a box of origami cranes and a stolen employment file, Sandrine is on the case. Will she discover the identity of the murderer before they strike again? If you enjoy cozy mysteries, this novella is for you.