The Word

Waking up on the floor of my newly renovated apartment. I notice my head is bleeding right above my eye. A little black notebook is laying on the blood-stained floor. The small, lined notebook is filled with blank pages. A chunk of pages have been ripped out from the back. Upon closer inspection the word FOR is lightly written but not fully legible. As I orient myself to my surroundings, I hear a swarm of people running around the apartment. I quickly run to the front door, checking the door is securely locked. The apartment is completely ransacked. Nothing looks familiar.

“This apartment building has been checked, lets move on.” I hear from the lobby entrance of my floor. I dash to my destroyed kitchen searching for a large knife or anything I can use to arm myself. Where am I? This isn’t my home. I run back into my bedroom, pick up the little black notebook and scour every single page. Nothing. As I sit down on my blood-stained floor, a page from the notebook suddenly disappears from the back of the book, leaving another page gone.

Confused and overwhelmed I close my eyes to catch my breath. I am suddenly taken to an old memory. A fight between an older woman and a young girl in a single-family home. I can see the younger girl is me and the woman is my fragile Mom. Yelling takes over. I slam my childhood front door. Get into my 90’s Honda Civic and drive off. My Mom drops to her knees and weeps on floor. I am driving 90 miles per hour, through the quiet, Colorado mountain town. Rage begins to fill every part of my body. “Wake up”, I yell. I instantly blast back to my apartment floor. Filled with dread over how I treated my mother. I never had the chance to right any of those wrongs. I pick up the notebook and notice a few more pages are missing from the back.

“Let me in”, a man yells from outside my bedroom window. Terrified I crouch down on the ground attempting to scrunch under my bed. Blood continues to gush from my head with a bright red furry. “Girl I can see you. Help.” Not sure who to trust I gingerly crawl over and unlock the sizeable balcony door. The male rushes through the door knocking me back down on the ground.

Drip. Drip. The sound of a heartrate monitor is heard. “Is she going to be alright”, a woman laments in an echo. “Let’s get the Chaplain in here. I’ll be back once the test results are in”, stern voice belts.

The mood is calm. I see vignettes of my life as far as the eye can see. Some draped in a cool blue while others are filled with red furry ready to explode at any moment. A warm light surrounds me as I float through my memory roadway. The little black notebook appears in my hands. The word on the first page begins to fill in. FORGI. Without notice I am thrust back into my apartment. I am tied with computer cord to my kitchen dining room chair. My arms and legs are tightly secured while the male is standing by the front door on his phone. “$20,000 you have a deal.” He nods with a furious rage then punches my front door leaving a permanent dent. “What notebook?” The man slowly grimaces showing all his murky teeth as he slowly turns towards me. Quickly ending the call, he storms over to me.

With a growl he begins turning the apartment over in search of the notebook. I desperately panic as I rush to untie the cord from around my arms. The cord is wrapped so tightly it’s nearly impossible to break free. The man walks back over to me in a scary rage. “Your done anyway girl. Where is it?” he slowly yells. Shaking my head all I can hear are the sounds of a hospital room. People crying, erratic heart beats, and prayer. The man comes closer to my face, snot and sweat drape his face as he looks at me with contempt and pity. “You did this to yourself. Your time… is almost over. I have a chance to get back in. Where is the notebook?” He grumbles as his foot tips my chair until I am dangling on edge. Tittering between safety and another bloody disaster. “Have it your way.” He lets the chair fall to the ground in a horrendous blow. Blood continues to spew from my head. The sound of hospital monitors begin to chime like a chaotic symphony. “Code blue. Code blue now.” A nurse yells in the background.

I am thrusted back to my memory roadway. Peace consumes me as a warm blanket. I notice all the times I fought with my Mom, cheated on my spouse, stole even just a few notebooks from work. Thinking I was getting away with something but severely exposed now. Breaking my Mom’s heart when I disobeyed her, defied her, and left her when Dad died. The warm light stops in front of me. He hands me the notebook with only 3 pages left. The word in the notebook is much brighter now. FORGIVE. In my spirit I can hear the sweet gentle words “Forgive, give it all to Me. Quickly.”

The warm light dissipates as the man drags my tied-up body down my apartment stairs. My head is bleeding profusely as I attempt to get a grip on the situation, I’m in. We make it to the bottom of the stairs as I notice one page left in the notebook. The man clenches the notebook as he grips me even harder. Once outside of the apartment building, he puts me in a position where I can’t move. He whips out his phone. “We have a deal” He grunts in evil pleasure. As the final page begins to fade away, I notice 9 more men and women pull up to the front of the apartment. They are all dressed in the finest apparel. They were breathtakingly beautiful from head to toe. They each had their own regality, with beautifully chiseled faces. Their eyes were ruthlessly wicked. I could tell they were not the good guys. They all exited their expensive cars with such ease. The leader was adorned in a blue regal sash carrying a $20,000 coin that glistened in his powerful hands.

As they approached, I was flooded with the sound of prayer from the hospital room. Desperate to go back to that warm place I quickly looked around in anguish. As I focused harder on what the light instructed. FORGIVE, GIVE IT ALL TO ME.

The man holding me yelled with fury as the men and women abrasively grabbed him. Throwing him recklessly into the back of the leader’s trunk. The coin quickly turned into worms and creepy things.

The doctors in the hospital room quickly did compressions on my chest. Blood spewed from my soaked bandages. The entire room was in a panic. I could feel my Moms hand. It was tightly clenched around mine. Tears soaked her face as she looked upon my mine. For a brief second, I gently opened my eyes. I was able to muster a tiny hand squeeze to let her know I was sorry. She looked into my eyes for the final time. Not afraid but knowing I was ok. As my eyes slowly closed, every hospital monitor went dead.