The Fence Mender

Chapter Seven

Xander couldn't remember such an active day. Most of his time off duty was spent in the quiet solitude of his loft with a stack of fiction to keep him company. He sat down in his chair watching the sun beginning to set behind the horizon. The picture of Liberty was still clutched in his hand. It took him a moment to think of the right place to put it, but the radio seemed the most appropriate. He kicked his feet up onto the desk and drifted off to sleep.

Two hours passed as Xander slept awkwardly in the chair, his mouth open as he snored lightly. The radio began to flicker, the lights ramped up, and a familiar frequency appeared on the readout.

"Xander?" said Anna, cutting through the static. "You there?"

He didn't react; he was still resting peacefully without any care or concern.

"Xander?" she said again, this time a little louder.

His eyes snapped open as his feet slipped off the desk, almost throwing himself out the back of the chair and onto the floor. He could see the frequency with his tired eyes, rubbing them to clear things up. Immediately, he went for the microphone.

"Hello? Anna?"

"So you are home," she said, her voice softening up. "I was beginning to wonder."

"I'm here. I was sleeping," he replied, still rubbing his temples, trying to shake off the sluggish feeling

"This early?"

"Had a long day."

"Doing what?" she asked, his attention turning back to the picture.

"I had the day off, so I spent it seeing the city, what little of it there worth seeing."

"It can't be that bad."

"This place is a graveyard," he said, reverting back to his usual cynicism. "The only thing that separates the living from the dead is the zip code."

"You're in rare form."

"Sorry," he said, trying to get his thoughts together. "It's just that...."

"What?"

"It seems like I've seen everything I'm going to see, done everything I'm going to do."

"You think you're the only one who's ever felt like that? Trust me, you're not."

"I saw my future today, Anna, and it was bleak."

"And what did you see?"

"I saw myself in fifty years surrounded by shelves of books and a thousand more like me just waiting to die."

"You should be so lucky. Some people never make it that far."

"What kind of life is that?" he asked, his frustration becoming more apparent.

"What would you rather do?"

"I don't know. Something. Anything. And I know what you're going to say. You're going to tell me that I'm taking it for granted and I should be happy with what I have instead of griping about what I don't...."

"No," she said sternly. "I wouldn't because I'd be lying."

Her blunt honesty silenced him. His anticipation was that she would either coddle him or browbeat him over feeling sorry for himself.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you're right. Everything about this world is ugly. It's hard, cold, and every morning I have to fight the urge to get out of bed. But I do it."

"Why?"

"Because what other choice do we have?" Her voice cracked. Her frustration level began to rival his own.

"I don't know," he replied, his mind beginning to wonder. "It's just that—what we do here, it's not living—it's a distraction."

"Again, you're right. So what?"

"You're not helping."

"No, I'm not telling you what you want to hear," she said, taking the reins. "You already know the answer, but you refuse to accept it. I can't help you if all you want to do is wallow."

"I'm not wallowing."

"We all do it. You're not the only one going through this. That frustration, that emptiness—it's what connects us."

Xander had no reply.

"You're not alone," she said softly.

It was exactly what he needed to hear, but they were only words. Words were no longer soothing to Xander. Logic was not going to solve this problem, nor were reassuring platitudes. He realized how truly empty he had become when even his conversations with her had become sour and sad reminders of everything he would never experience.

"You there?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "I should get going."

"So soon?"

"Big day tomorrow."

"All right then. You got a move yet?"

He looked over at the chess board. It was the furthest thing from his mind. There were days where he would spend hours contemplating his next move in anticipation of the game.

"No. Nothing yet."

"Ready to admit defeat?" she asked, desperately trying to inject some levity into the conversation.

"Maybe. I'll talk to you tomorrow." He flipped off the dial, not even waiting for a response.

It had been said that no man can live without ties to this world, that the most dangerous of men were the ones with nothing to lose. But there are things worse than nothing, a deep aching, longing for pleasures in life that were always at arm's length. Hell wasn't fire and brimstone, but a state of mind. A cold, unending emptiness, a void that cannot be filled. It was not the absence of hope, but an overabundance of it, dreams and wishes unfulfilled. What would Hell be without hope?