The old man sat alone in the dark alley drinking. Forgotten by all, he fumbled for a butt that he had found and put the cigarette to his dry cracked lips. Striking the match against the wall, it ignited, and cast an eerie glow upon his face. He inhaled deeply; pulling in the smoke and hacking it back out in a wretched cough. Three draws from the stub and it was gone, as he reached again for the bottle wine that lay in his lap. A soft rain began to fall, while distant rumbles of thunder foretold of a storm ahead. The rain felt good landing on his face as he turned the now empty bottle skyward in a vain attempt to retrieve another drop of wine. He smiled a crooked smile and tossed the empty aside. Still starring at the heavens, he stood up on tired and shaky legs. He watched as a hot violet bolt of lightning snaked its way across the now angry sky and the old man shouted and shook his fist at the heavens as if to say, “ Forget me will ya”…. with that gesture complete he began removing his worn and tattered garments, till he stood naked as the day he was born. Possessed now with a newfound energy, or just simply possessed, he began to climb a downspout that was attached to the wall behind him. The rain came now in heavy sheets, making his climb most perilous. Onward and upward he went, till the top of the building he arrived. Lifting his skint and naked body over the ledge, he now stood atop of it all, facing the intensifying storm square in the eye. Jagged bolts of lightning popped all around him as he spun on the ledge with the grace of an acrobat, hoisted his bum skyward. The lightning now hissed above his head as if to say, “Jump you old fool, go ahead and Jump” (HISSssssss..pop)                               

And with images of his life passing before his tired eyes, he lets out a scream and lunges backwards over the edge, releasing it all. Simultaneously an updraft from the storm hurtles his body upward, landing him in an untidy heap on the gravel rooftop. Staggering to his feet, he looks around in astonishment and begins to weep. Sadness overwhelms him, hell, he could not even kill himself and he pondered his wretched life and wondered how it ever came to this. Once he was a respectable member of the community. Once he had a wife and kids that is until that Christmas night 26 years ago. He, his wife and children had just left his brothers house where they had celebrated Christmas. He rarely drank anything at all, except when he visited his brother on holidays where they would sit around and watch the ballgames on TV. And drink…drink to the good old days when they were younger and more virile, back to a time where responsibility took a back seat to a good time. Usually when visiting his brother, he would limit himself to only a couple of beers but for some reason tonight, one he could not fathom he would drink more than his share. It was as if an outside force was controlling he every move.  Ignoring his wife’s pleas to stop and just go home. He kept on drinking until he could barely stand. He remembered all this now, just as he has remembered it for the last 26 years. It was like a bad movie that kept playing repeatedly. He would remember how he insisted on driving, despite his wife’s cries to call a cab or at least stay the night at his brothers. He recalled hitting her for the first time ever and wanting to see her dead. He could not take another minute of her nagging and the voice inside his head kept prompting him to reach up and grab her by the throat and choke the life out of her. If it were not for the children screaming for their for their daddy to stop, He is certain now that he would have done what the voice in his head was urging him to do. However, he did stop and after forcing her into the car, he drove off toward home. This would be the last memory of him and his family together, for what happened next is still a foggy recollection. He remembered waking up face down in the snow. Blood pouring from a fresh wound above his left eye, obscuring his vision even more than the alcohol did. Looking around he was able to see the lifeless bodies of his family lying in the snow. He crawled to where his son, or what was left of his son was lying, from there, he was able to see the other misshapen figures that were once his family, but were now only bent bloody objects against a backdrop of white. It was then that he heard the voice in his head start laughing in a most heinous manner and proclaim, “ you owe me now, you got what you wanted and you are free”. Free? He thought, “I just destroyed my life…I killed my family and I am Free”. Hot salty tears rolled down his face, and burnt like a fever on his dry cracked lips. He knew that he would never again be free and that this would remain with him as long as he lived. With the light around him growing dim, he fell face first into the snow. He looked up to the now clearing sky from his untidy heap on the rooftop and pleaded forgiveness, like he had a thousand times before. This time however, something was different. He could see a full moon slipping from behind a break in the clouds, and the light that shone from it illuminated a crystal castle nested in the opposite cloud bank. Waving and smiling at the castle gate were his wife and kids, they were saying something, but he could not quite make it out. He shouted at the top of his lungs at them, begging them to speak up, but all he could hear was the sound of a man talking. What was he saying that was so important that he could not hear his family? The cobwebs in his mind began to clear and He began to make out now what the man was saying as the image of his family began to fade. “ Hey Doc, I thought you said he would respond to the Thorazine, but there is still no change. He just sits there, starring out that window like he has for the last 26 years”.

“I know,” said the Doctor, “I thought he would, but in extreme cases such as this, he might never return. At least he is not suffering”.

J. Allen Wilson © 2002