It all came flooding to his consciousness, all at once, in one violent spasm. Heart pounding in his ears, Tom fought to inflate his lungs. But, when he tried to open his mouth, it was impossible. He was unable to utter a sound—in fact, to his horror, he realized he was paralyzed and unable to move. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he was able to move again. Tom was more silent than the grave from which he had arisen. Staring with heavy-lidded eyes, he sat up, clutching his hand to his heart. As he wiped the sweat from his face, his mind was burdened with the intense flutter of broken scenes that had taken place moments before.
Instantly, it all came rushing back to him: the images of smoke and flames rising from the nose of the Grumman Wildcat, the eerie sound of the stalled engine, and a violent thrusting throughout the cabin as the plane continued a death spiral, plummeting to earth. His eyesight was blurry, his arms flailing in a desperate attempt to clutch onto something that would save him from this horrible fate. Tom remembered the sight of houses that looked like toys, trees that looked like dots. He recalled the all-too-real images of his life faintly passing behind clenched eyelids before he was being dragged down by the inescapable fate of war. He sensed death surrounding him in a cold embrace. A rush of fear shot through his body.
Somehow, death escaped him, and he awoke in a field untouched by the battle. His hands frantically searched his entire body, feeling for his legs, then his waist, arms, and across his face. Jesus Christ, I must be one lucky sonuvabitch, Tom thought to himself. As he fell back to the ground in relief, he looked up at the sky, amazed at the absence of his men—of the enemy, even. It was as though no traces of aerial combat remained. Then the loneliness, the sheer depth of his aloneness, took Tom’s fear to a level he never knew. Where the hell am I? he thought. It was as though God had adjusted the whole world’s colors while he slept, as easily as twisting the dial on a radio set to find a clearer station. Everything was brighter than it should be; the sky was not a mere shade of blue but radiant hues on the horizon, tinged with reds and pinks and sometimes lavender, the very shades that go unnoticed by man.
The movement of the clouds was barely visible, and even the birds wheeled in slow, idle arcs. All time had ceased, and the sky was impassive to the carnage of war. It occurred to him that it must be a dream; perhaps he was still in the plane. I must have passed out. As he lay on the ground, his thoughts circled around in his mind as he attempted to put the confusion to an end. From the parade of random recollections came some order— a subtle consciousness of who he was flowed beneath the thoughts and their loose connections to his waking life. Subsequently, a few moments later, Tom analyzed them in a lazy manner. Maybe these thoughts are intended to be kept. Some are composed as if from a book he once read. Some are rather silly. In another moment, they are gone, leaving no trace. If they are yet in his mind, there is no breadcrumb trail back to them.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes. Maybe my luck’s finally run out? Tom thought. This thought scared him more than anything else did. Tom’s eyes that once danced with light were now empty; his once-peach complexion became lifeless and pale. His mouth—so quick to smile in life—lay stiff, clutching a cigarette between pursed lips. He pulled the worn black-and-white photo from the pocket of his uniform. His thumb ran across the crumpled folds. With one hand, he drew the cigarette from his mouth, and with the other, he carefully traced his finger over Nora’s mouth in the photo.
“I wouldn’t worry about that now, boy,” a voice said from the distance.
“What’s that—is someone there?” Tom called.
A man emerged from a nearby clearing. He limped slightly, like Lord Byron, no more and no less. Notwithstanding that defect, he stepped firmly on the ground, making his way toward Tom. He had on clothes that any gentleman might wear. His suit, a grey hue, appeared to have been repainted by the moonlight and now stood vibrant in the golden rays that fell unfettered from the clear sky. Yes, it seemed his greatest ambition was to be a gentleman (in appearance at least) and, to his credit, it must be said that he succeeded so well in his resemblance to a gentleman that it was difficult to tell the two apart.
“Are you—are you one of the good guys?” Tom asked.
The man did not respond, uninterested by Tom as he stood gazing at the pocket watch clasped to his vest and rested against the nearby tree where Tom was laying.
“Did you pull me from the wreckage, Mister?” Tom inquired, tucking the photograph safely back into his right uniform pocket.
“Can you not remember?”
“Well, you must have carried me quite a ways. I suppose I ought to thank you then,” Tom said, getting to his feet. “But I must be getting back. They’ll all be looking for me. Say, do you have any idea where we are? I can’t seem to get my bearings.”
Again, the man did not answer. “If you just point me in the right direction,” Tom said, now becoming impatient.
“Off they go, like lambs to the slaughter.” The man laughed.
“How do you mean that?” Tom asked. No response. “They’ll be looking for me, don’t you understand? They’ll think I deserted or, worse, they’ll take me for dead. I can’t have them writing my folks back home that I’m dead or that their only son is a traitor.”
“Why should that matter?” the man said, looking up from his pocket watch with an impish smirk.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tom yelled. Then, remembering the man’s kindness, his voice softened. “You know, you’re a strange bastard. You don’t make any sense. Stop mucking about and tell me how to get out of here.”
The man tucked away his watch. “All in good time,” he said.
As he got nearer, Tom got a clearer look at his features. The man’s hands were long and lean. His face was pale and yellow, like the wax of an old candle, and furrowed with wrinkled lines. The man was so thin that he cast no shadow.
“Why do you still keep the photo, Tom?” the man asked.
“How do you know my na— Say, what’s that any business of yours?” Tom answered.
“And the letter…”
Tom’s words spat out with the cruelty and swiftness of machine gun fire:
“You nosy sonuvabitch! What right do you have to go through my things?”
Tom knew the letter of which the man spoke. It was a dirty secret of sorts that Tom kept tucked in the pocket along with the picture of Nora. Many days and nights when Tom was alone, he would unfold the tattered letter and read repeatedly the words Nora wrote. With each line, his mind became clearer, more resolute, as though the growing physical distance between them had now become an emotional abyss. She could always find a way to conceal her lies beneath tender words.
As the man leaned closer, Tom noticed a diabolical feature that he had not noticed. It was the man’s eyes. Little red eyes like red-hot coals. Tom drew back in horror. The man’s smirk grew wider, and his haughty demeanor grew more apparent. A roar that Tom mistook for laughter bellowed out from the old man. Tom had a faint idea of who the man was and stood in stunned silence.
“You pictured me differently, did you not, Tom?” the man asked. “That I had a black cloak and scythe? That idea is out of date. No one believes it now.”
Tom only nodded.
“I am not all that bad, Tom,” the man assured him. “After all, I am the one who pulled you from the burning plane. I came to you like a dream, like an angel of mercy.”
Tom nodded, but he could see that what this man had to offer was not mercy.
This man who had struck a million bargains with other men just like Tom had, over time, acquired a pure knowledge of the human heart. He offered Tom a dangerous sentiment. “I pity you,” he said. “God brought down his hand heavily upon you.”
Tom was silent. He had no time to reflect on this unusual address because he heard a sharp hissing at his side. He looked around frantically, searching for the source of the hissing.
“It doesn’t seem fair, does it, Tom?” the man asked, circling Tom like a lion stalks his prey. “You were always so good, so righteous. Begged like a dog on your knees every night, did you not? Why has he forsaken you?”
“What is this place, really? Is this hell?” Tom asked, his voice pitched higher as he backed away from the man.
“Look around you, Tom. Does this look like the hell you’ve heard the Christians preach about?” The man continued his encroachment.
“No.” Tom’s heart was racing and his hands were shaking. He wanted to believe this man, but he was so very afraid.
“My dear Tom,” exclaimed the man, almost affably, “you can see for yourself that my Kingdom is not one of fire and brimstone. None of my souls suffer. I’m not that cruel. I cause no one pain.” Suddenly the man burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter more dreadful than anything Tom had ever heard.
“The gates of paradise are open, Tom. Will you not join me?”
Tom nodded slowly. He felt as though he was in a trance. Dropping Nora’s photo and letter, he began to follow the man into the distance. But something caused him to stop dead in his tracks, a final fleeting thought tumbling across his mind. It was a Bible verse he’d once heard. “They are false disciples, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like true followers of Christ.”
“Well, it’s no wonder,” Tom thought, “when even Satan could disguise himself to look like an angel of light — an angel of mercy!”
Tom had spent many long nights embroiled in a restless regret. Moments of his past, seeping into the present, demanding that he re-live them repeatedly. He knew what it was to take the easy way out, and he knew what it meant to surrender. Never in his life had he felt more like giving in, never had he wanted more to just give up and accept this man’s offer.
The man turned and motioned to Tom but, just then, a wind stirred in the Technicolor wasteland, buffeting Tom with grass clippings and leaves. The photo of Nora swept up off the ground, as if lifted by an unseen hand, and pinned itself against Tom’s chest, against his heart. He moved his thumb across the dried ink of his own words scrawled on the rear of the photograph:
Small gift just for you committed, in a written candle faded, these few words posed as if like that, are born to one who knows: Je comprends bien la douleur exquise.
He seemed startled, as if he read some other meaning. He stopped walking towards the man and fell to his knees. His hands folded in front of his face. His words, like a whisper, came away with fiery intensity.
“Praying won’t make a difference, Tom,” the man said. “He won’t hear you.”
Tom did not answer. The etching sound that lightly danced across the clearing was enough to set Tom’s back straight, but nothing more ever happened. Tom felt a sense of the abandonment the man taunted him about. There was a fleeting moment when Tom felt that he knew everything there was to know, but it evaporated more quickly than summer rain off the burnt earth. Then his lids, which were drooping and leaden with a forced wisdom, snapped open as violently as if he’d been woken by the air raid sirens wailing. He slowly turned around, walking away from the man and back towards the field.
He didn’t know where he was going, only that he had a choice in the matter. A mist formed up around him and he walked faster, feeling the dewy clouds moisten his trousers.
“Where are you going, Tom,” the man called.
“I’m off in search of a man with a better offer,” Tom laughed.
The man stood in silence, watching the mist enfold Tom as he faded from sight. “I suppose you think you’ve won,” he scoffed, tipping his felted hat into the empty air. He sharply turned and walked down the path, humming a minor tune under his breath.
