Sidewinder

The Sidewinder

Chapter 1

    As I stare out at a beautiful meadow, the sun sinks beyond the horizon. I begin to wonder where I am, or even how I got here. Just as I'm thinking that, a lovely doe leaps out from the woods that stand to the left side of the meadow and I stare at the beauty of the bounding deer. About half way across the meadow, the deer stops and stands magnificently. Then the deer begins to stumble about and, shortly thereafter, falls over. As I run to see what happened to the deer, the meadow starts to sway to the left and then to the right beneath my feet. I faintly hear a woman crying out my name. "Phillip!! Phillip, wake up!!" I try to ignore the voice but it grows even louder until I blink and find myself looking at the waves of the water of the Hudson Bay from a large height above them. Dangling by a rope wrapped around my left leg, I'm practically helpless as to my predicament and then the very thing keeping me suspended starts to slip. The woman from my dream continues screaming my name as I try to find her in the sea of my confusion. I look up to find a large bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the rope keeping me from falling is actually the seatbelt from the passenger side of an SUV; however, before I was knocked unconscious, I was not in a vehicle. The woman screams my name again and draws my attention back to my predicament. I scan the length of the bridge until I see a beautiful blonde woman, looking quite frantic, staring down at me. I curl up my upper body trying to grab the seatbelt. I attempt once, and fail, falling back down to my original hanging position. Once again I reach up, this time just barely grabbing the seatbelt. I hang on tightly as I flip my body so it is facing upward, and then I begin to climb up the seatbelt and into the car, half of which is hanging off the bridge. Upon reaching the seat, I begin to feel it teeter off the edge. It's apparent to me that any second I will be on a path to the water. I quickly try to climb to the top of the car but can't and lose my footing when I slip off the seat cushion. Before falling too far, I grab door and hang by my arms. The woman screams again in fear. I look at her and I can see the fear in her eyes. I climb up the door and onto the top of the car. The car then begins to tilt to the point where I know it will fall. "Jump!" shouts the woman. I take the first step to run to the top of the now diagonal SUV. I make it to the rear of the car and I leap for the bridge. It's as though the whole world slows down as I pray that I can reach the ledge of the bridge. As my gaining altitude quickly turns to my losing it, my fingers brush the ledge of the bridge and my body is forced backward into a falling position. The sensation and hopelessness that comes from falling now envelops my mind and it's as though I'm suspended for a few short seconds before smacking the cold Hudson River. The world grows dim and I slip into unconsciousness.
    I once again stand looking into an open meadow. The woods still to the left of the meadow. The peaceful serenity of the great outdoors overwhelms me. Then out of the woods, instead of a doe, a woman walks. Clothed in a white dress, she walks toward me. As she gets closer, I can see her mouthing something but I can't make out what she is saying. It looks like one word is coming out of her lips but I can't make it what word it is. The ground begins to shake beneath me once again. As the ground shakes harder and harder, the woman's words, instead of being unbearable, are now reverberating through the meadow like she is talking into a microphone. She says one word, "Fight!" That word now exiting and then reentering my mind several times before the ground shakes harder and more violently, then I blink and I'm staring at the ceiling tiles of what looks like a hospital.
    I pick my head up quickly and frantically try to figure out where I am. As it turns out, I am in a hospital and on the end of the hospital bed, Beth Spears, the woman who was screaming my name back on the bridge, is resting her head. She's asleep and I intend not to wake her, so I lie on the hospital bed, and begin to think about my childhood. . .
    I ran around my kitchen, in circles around my mom, and then I ran into the living room, adjacent to the kitchen, where I found my little brother, the bad guy. I drew my plastic sword and my brother and I have a pre-duel. "So. . . We meet again Lord Dignitus." I said with the voice of an 8 year old boy. My brother, Roy, laughed maniacally and tried striking me with the sword. I blocked the attack and swung back at Roy. He also blocked my attack and I turned to run. I ran outside and climbed the tree that stood in the middle of the yard. I climbed the tree with such agility that I had about five minutes to get prepared for my brothers attack.
    My memory then changes to a time when we were a little older. I was around eleven and Roy was around nine. Roy always liked to pick fights with guys bigger than him. One time, he and another guy named Billy, who had about fifty pounds on Roy, got into a fight. Roy was only around seventy-five pounds at this time but he was a spitfire. Roy told the guy he was a sumo wrestler and he got it from his mom. The guy, being furious, ran at Roy and caught him up in his much bigger clutches. About that time, the boy head-butted Roy and broke his nose. Then I ran in from the right of the kid and punched him in the ribcage as hard as I could. The boy dropped Roy and turned to me, who was only about twenty pounds bigger than Roy. Billy quickly decked me and I took it but didn't fall. I looked at Billy and said, "Pick on someone your own size." Billy laughed and I punched him in the gut. As he keeled over, I grab Roy and we run as fast as we can to get away from him.
    Beth picks up her head slowly from the end of the bed and she looks up at me, expecting me to still be unconscious. When she sees that I'm awake, a huge grin slips across her face. "Hi." she says with that smile still on her face. She sits in the chair that's in the white room and just says "Hi." with a smile.
"Hi." I say back. "How long was I out?"
"Four days. Do you remember what happened? They said you might not remember." she said.
"I remember. Do you remember my brother, Roy?"
"Yes, you never told me what happened exactly."
"I don't like to talk about it, but it was my fault." I say.
"Phillip, you can open up to me."
"I know but it's not easy."
    The doctor, dressed in scrubs, then walks in and says, "Hello Mr. Rice, I'm glad to finally see you awake, you've been out for quite a few days, do you remember what happened?"
    "I remember hanging by a seatbelt, and then falling from the bridge." I say.
    "Well there's nothing wrong with you except a broken ribcage. It's not that big of a deal but I do believe we are going to keep you overnight just in case. Actually, I'll go check on that right now." The doctor says as he turns on his heels to walk out the door.
    After he leaves, Beth just looks at me and grins. "Well, that doesn't matter now anyway. I'm just glad you're ok."
    Beth looks beautiful, her hair falls perfectly past her shoulders, gorgeously curled. Her blonde locks are the perfect color, and her green eyes deep and caring. It's safe to say that I have an attraction to her. Unfortunately, she's way out of my league, and the man she's dating is in her league. Her and I have just been really close friends since the end of our high school years.
    The doctor quickly pokes his head in and I move my eyes to meet him. "Yes, we are going to keep you overnight." He says with a smile. I give him a quick nod but doubt he noticed since he pulls his head from the room.
    "I remember one time, Roy and I were playing paintball and it was the two of us against a bunch of other guys," I tell Beth. "I covered the left side and Roy covered the right side. We had it covered pretty well; I was behind cover and I turned to check where the guys were and as I turned the corner to check, so did one of the other guys. Without thinking - and I don't know how I did it - I grabbed the guys paintball gun and flipped him over my shoulder and then shot him. Roy covered me during that, and then I covered him while he did the same thing basically. Needless to say, we won. Good times."