Falling

Fourteen (Panic)

A ray of hot sun, like a finger, presses against my closed eyelids—tapping me awake. A flash of light shreds the silly putty that pretends to be my brain, tormenting me awake.

My eyelids fly open, my naked eyes begin searching. My brain questions. Where am I?

My left hand reaches out, to the side. Soft coverings are hiding something more solid underneath. I roll over onto my side and peer over the top of the bundle. Lyla!

What time is it? My eyes sweep across my right wrist, hunting for some clue for the time. One o'clock! I'm supposed to be at the Kitchen already!

I throw my legs over my side of the bed, bare feet bang onto the hard wood floor. Clothes! Where's my clothes?

My clothes are a slumbering pile of wrinkles gathered in a far corner of the room.

"What are you doing, Sam?"

Lyla's words stumble over the bed, almost awake but still carrying the sound of cotton sheets rubbing together.

"The Kitchen! I have to go!" The words are rushing out of my stammering lips.

"What time is it?" Her words are expelled from deep within a windy yawn.

"One o'clock in the afternoon! That's what time it is!" My words sound hard and angry.

Just call in sick," she mumbles.

I'm standing over her wilting body. Her eyes are not in any hurry to give up their bedtime project—sleep.

A whirlwind of emotions are cascading through my body. None of which I am able to properly name.

"What did you give me last night?" Now, I'm sounding indignant.

Her eyelids flip open. "You mean in the coke?" She says dismissively.

"Yeah...apparently in the coke!" I'm not dismissing anything!

She sits up in the bed, grabbing a fistful of blanket and wrapping it around herself.

"Just a little D. I didn't think you'd object to a fun night"

"D, what's that?" Now, I'm shaking.

"Just a little fun juice." She stands and places a warm hand on my cheek.

"Nothing to get all hot and bothered about," her voice rises in pitch.

I don't have time for an emotional battle. I've got to get to the Kitchen!

She drops the blanket and her warm skin snuggles into mine. My arms wrap around her invitation, my legs go all wobbly as we fold into the warm embrace of the bed, casting a spell from which I can't escape—fog.

The present moment slides into foggy brains and seething bodies. One o'clock is forgotten.

What's left of the day moves gently into velvet lips, lightly touching and eyes swimming with a love hangover.

She pulls her face back a few inches. I can smell her candy breath.

"How do you do it, Sam?"

Her eyes are searching deep into mine, like she's trying to penetrate some foggy notion that's not yet become her friend.

"What?"

My brain is flopping around like a fish out of water.

"That eye thing that makes people want what you want," she whispers.

Her soft lips are puffing warm breath into my ear.

"I don't know.

It just comes on me when I need it," I reply, not sure I understand it myself.

"Where does it come from?"

Her teeth play with my earlobe, a little squeeze punctuates the puffing words.

I reach out and gather her smiling face between my hands, my eyes gather into ebony and little half moons. "Forget it. Mary will understand.

"It all started when I found that little book in the top drawer of the lamp table." The words clunk out of my mouth and pull a memory string down a long hallway.

"The book is the key?" Her eyes take on a hard stare, like she's looking for some lost thing.

"Yeah. There was this red thread marking a certain place...and...red underlining," my words are gathering around a small bead of light.

"Then what?"

She lets the bed sheet fall, as if tempting me with with a reward for my answer.

"It said that if you want to enter the kingdom you had to be born again," the words fumble on my lips...then...fall over. My eyes are filling with emotion that requires more than a spoken answer.

"Born of what?" Her voice is picking up speed, like it's racing to the finish line at all costs.

Mary!

Her overstuffed shadow rises up somewhere at the end of a dark hallway in my brain.

"I've got to go!"

"Just call her!" Her eyes are pleading.

"It's too late"

I twist away from her trap and grapple with the pile of wrinkled shirt and pants.

She stands, dragging the ends of the blanket behind her. She pushes her body into mine, lips reach up and gather mine into a soft embrace.

"Born of what?" She whispers.

Her sweet breath seeps into my head, like a gentle wisp of cool fog.

"Spirit," I whisper, breath on breath.

"Call Mary," she insists.

We can have diner downstairs. You know...the corner booth...Just the two of us.

We can let the world spin on its own for a while."

The pulsing through my body is telling my brain to stay.

"Well, I guess I can make up some kind of excuse," I offer, my eyes swimming in hers.

The vinyl seats smootch as we slide into the corner booth. A soft light casts lazy shadows across the table.

She reaches for my hands.

"Stay another night?"

I think she's stolen the eye from me. My body is pulsating other ideas that chase away any other decision away.

"Okay!" It's like I'm stepping off a cliff...falling. But I don't care. Her arms catch me. Her soft lips wrap mine in a warm stream of ecstasy.

Something pops, like when a light bulb gives off its last burst of energy and then goes dark.

"I have to go tomorrow," I say into the cloud that gathers diner in the corner booth into a rum and coke.

Later...bed. The light has gone out and I don't care.

There's one last conscious thought that circles around in my brain. And, then surrenders to Lyla's embrace. I still have to face Mary in the morning!