The Crossing

“Put that down,” a voice hissed angrily from somewhere in the corner of a dark room that looked more like an errant garage. A man with large open sores and mangled limbs sat whimpering in a chair as he pushed a bag of ice onto a patch of mottled skin. His hands desperately clinging to the relief it temporarily provided.

“I need a doctor, I need help…please…” the man cried, pleading to the dark voice.

It was hard to imagine the type of pain one would have to be in to put ice on places already kissed by frostbite. I looked down at my own shoes, heavy with dirt and snow, and felt the sting of the cold through my socks. My feet ached, and I wondered how long this poor man had been suffering. He wore far less; his wounds were exposed to the freezing air. His lips were beginning to turn a deep, velvet blue.

Bitter air stung against the backs of my clothes as I peered closer through the hole in the door, trying to see why the man wasn’t being helped. If only I could see better, clearer, maybe I could come back. Maybe I could get someone, anyone…

“Thought you could peep on things that are none of your business young girl…see the load of trouble it will find you in my dear.”

The angry hissing voice sounded from somewhere behind me, or next to me, maybe even in front of me. The disorienting voice clung to the blood in my ears, pulsating louder and louder. Prickling the hairs on my back, sending chills into the pit of my stomach as I stood still, frozen to the spot as a sharp, firm grip tightened around my neck.

“Like a deer in a headlight. You see what happens when you freeze, don’t you?”

The man’s nodding tone seemed to point off towards where the man sat in agonizing pain.

“Jumped right out in front of my car. The lights must’ve dazed him—stunned him, maybe. I thought the first hit would’ve done it, but no… it only maimed him, and terribly at that. But he did it to himself. I knew impact would be deliciously inevitable. Terribly messy but I don’t have much damage on my car to report. That’ll teach you not to wander in front of strangers. Maybe next time you’ll remember to use the crosswalk—if you get the chance. Or better yet, simply wait for the car to pass. Impatience gets you nowhere… as you can see. Ah, such games we play. Never thought you’d run into someone with this much time on their hands, did you?”

He paused, a shrill laugh cutting through the cold, as if our private hells were his evening entertainment.

“By the time I am done with you, I will have a good mix of broken, pretty bones to hang in my garden. The fractures and pulverized pieces will reflect the sunlight beautifully for years to come. Each of your screams will fill me with so much joy. It was almost as though the two of you wanted to be here, wanted to feel my pain as I express it through my latest sets of mediums…. you two might be my favorite and most challenging pieces…but it’s the quiet after that keeps me on my toes. How killing seems to settle the voices and the peace it brings me after is like no other. It’s a violent, calculated rush leading up to the end, just like some of my favorite songs…”

The man pushed a button on the stereo to something rather unsettling as a cassette tape whirled in the distance, skipping once or twice, and then landing on the start of four seasons. The intense, darkly poetic violin riffs struck into the cold like an intense storm as beauty met the devil— and the man continued—his voice growing more depraved with each word—

“The car, it just opened him up, beautifully done. I couldn’t have cut better lines myself. But you…you…are a blank slate…”

He stopped, staring at me. His face blissfully unaware. The words slowly playing out in front of me like a nightmare. Running slow motion until they evaporated into nothing.

“You will be the most fun. The experience between flesh and bone meeting sharp, burning metal for the first time will be symphonic. Some pain is so intense it doesn’t allow for screams or tears, only knocks the wind out of you. Teaches me something new every time, fascinating. But dear, do keep in mind, I have been doing this for years, and years, and years…and each experience is never the same. People don’t listen, that is what brought the both of you here, to me. You rush, and stumble and fight what is coming each and every time, but it all ends the same exact way. Oh, how I can’t wait to see what you do when no one else is around to watch…just me, and you. The most personal of life’s moments, death and dying. My favorite part, and the best yet, we get to share in this together.”

I held onto the last set of words, how deliberate they felt and tasted—having yet to sink in. The whimpering man sat helpless, his pale face and heavy eyes wide, as though the world stopped for him and him alone. How strange, the snow kept falling quietly outside, accumulating around a ground I would never step foot on again. If I had known death was lurking in this room, would I have walked up to the peephole and looked in? The whimpering man strained some as he was dragged across the floor. His broken body, limp, falling into a pile to wait.

The angry man’s voice broke the silence. His breath fogging out between us, words I couldn’t understand. Something shiny darted in my direction, its sharp metal hitting my chest. A cracking noise splattered, burning me. I felt the cold sinking into me, deeper, and deeper until the world around me fell quiet. I no longer was sure if he was talking to me, or himself. But, one thing was sure, I was beginning to agree with him. Nodding slightly, and before I even realized, I was laughing too.