"Somewhere there's Heaven
It's where you are." -- How High The Moon
Arthur grasped the door's metal handle and turned it. Opening the door, he sighed. More of the same.
Just like the corridor he had just walked down the walls and ceiling were all white, with the slightly rough appearance of having been plastered. The room was illuminated by several long fluorescent lights in the ceiling, again just like the corridor. And, like the corridor, the floor was simple off-white tile.
Whoever designed this place not only had bad taste, they also had very little imagination.
Then an odd looking clock on the wall caught his eye. It was a rather ordinary analog clock, except that it seemed to have no hands. Arthur raised an eyebrow at this and walked into the room for further investigation, letting the door swing shut behind him with a click.
As soon as it had, a sign appeared below the clock. What? he thought. It just appeared? Curious, he walked over to investigate it.
ARTHUR LYONS -- PLEASE WAIT.
He hummed to himself. No, he decided. This is too weird.
And with that he walked back to the door, grabbed the handle and pulled it open.
Hummm he said to himself again. That had been the plan, but the door was locked. He couldn't move the handle. He looked back at the sign.
ARTHUR LYONS -- PLEASE WAIT.
He sighed to himself and began to walk dejectedly over to a chair in the corner. As he walked past the clock, he noticed something else strange.
A soft breeze emanated from the the clock. He leaned forward to it, nose almost touching the small black button that marked the spot hands should be attached. It seemed... blurry. The light didn't glint off it as sharply as it should. He brought his finger up to tap on the white plastic of the clock.
"Ow!" he cried out sharply. The tip of his finger was badly bruised. And he hadn't even touched the plastic of the clock, much less done anything that could harm his finger. Something made him look back down at the sign.
ARTHUR LYONS -- PLEASE WAIT.
He sighed. Fine, fine! he called out mentally to his invisible captors. Whoever they were the picked the most uninteresting of cells for him.
He sat down on the chair with a "humph" and out of sheer boredom began to study his hand.
And study.
Gah, he said with disgust noticing his hangnails. With indignation at this affront to the beauty of his hand he proceeded to gnaw off the hangnails.
Ah. There we go. No more hangnails marred his wondrous hand. A small sense of accomplishment washed over him and lifted his spirits somewhat.
And... he... studied... his... hand....
*Sigh*
Study. Study. Study.
He began to wonder if he could teach himself to read palms by cross-referencing his life against the lines on his hands when an odd sound began to emanate from the clock. It was like the noise made by a stick cutting throw the air at high speed, except much higher and kind of whiny.
He looked up in dejected and resigned boredom. His brow furrowed at the clock. Accompanying the new sound was a new look. A gray fog seemed to hang in front of the white plastic of the clock.
As he watched, the shrill noise started to drop in pitch and he realized that there was no gray fog but what he saw where the hands of the clock moving at incredible speeds. And if they were moving fast now, they must have been moving so fast earlier that he couldn't even see them!
He got up and walked up to the clock. The sound slowly died away and was replaced a sound like... hum, it reminded him of the sound produced when you set up a card against the spokes of your bike. It got lower and finally he could make out the individual ticks of the clock. Finally it slowed to normal speed and the room was once again quiet except for the "tick, tick, tick" of the clock.
After a while of waiting in anticipation, his spirits began to drop because it seemed nothing was going to happen. Then a sound on the edge of his hearing elbowed its way into his consciousness.
"Click, click, click"
He looked at the clock again. No, this sound came from somewhere else. Suddenly he realized that it was faint because it was muffled, and with that he sprang out of his chair and sprinted for the door, putting his ear to it. He listened eagerly to the corridor beyond. He was too bored to be afraid of the approaching sound. Sure enough, they were footsteps, approaching slowly and uncertainly. It reminded him somewhere in the back of his mind of the approach he had made to this room... how long ago was it now?
When he realized that whoever was coming was almost to the door he ran quickly back to the chair and tried to look nonchalant by beginning to study his hand again.
Slowly and uncertainly the handle was turned by some unseen force outside and the door opened. Arthur's head snapped up -- he was too anxious to keep up his facade of un-interest.
A woman's head peaked through the partially open door and a look of shock and embarrassment appeared on her face when she saw another face staring eagerly back at her.
"Oh! Err... I'm sorry, sir..." she said in a flustered voice and began to close the door before Arthur could react.
"Wait!" he shouted out desperately. The door stopped just an inch ajar.
"Um... yes?" she inquired from behind the door. It was obvious she was confused. Arthur realized with that that he was quite confused as well.
"Oh, um..." now he was as flustered as she. "Uh, I'm Arthur. What's your name?"
"Arthur?" her voice was full of shock and question. "Arthur... Lyons?" Now her voice was pleading.
"Uh, yeah," he wasn't sure what to say. "How did you know? Who are you?"
The door flew open. "It's me, Tricia!" the woman cried out, and now Arthur recognized her. He was filled with joy at seeing her familiar face in this psychological nightmare of a bland office compound.
"Tricia! Tricia Chinook!" He leapt out of the chair as she ran to him and they embraced, Arthur swinging her off the ground and then setting her back down. He was amazingly happy to see her.
"Trillion!" he cried. "Why are you here? What is this place? What's going on?"
She laughed at the barrage of questions and then sighed. "I don't know..." she trailed off. "I'm having as hard a time as you are, it would seem." Then she frowned and her brow furrowed in confusion. "I... I thought I had died... I think I died...."
"What?" Arthur asked in surprise. "Why, you can't be de--" he stopped mid-sentence and stared past Tricia, a look of shock on his face.
"What is it, Arthur?" Trillion asked in alarm.
"I..." he fumbled for the arm of the chair and sunk down into it, hanging his head and resting it in his hand. He closed his eyes. "My wife... died." he said. He was obviously close to tears as memories surged into his mind. "I... started to drink," he continued and the pain in his voice cut into Tricia's heart. "I lost my job!" he wailed.
Tricia sank to her knees beside him and tried to comfort him. Suddenly his head snapped up and he started at his wrist.
"I committed suicide..." he said in awe, eyes fixated on his wrist. There wasn't a scare on it, but he knew what he had done. He remembered it with perfect clarity. He looked up lian, his face a mask of sorrow and fear.
She hugged him, comforting him. "We both died." she said in a dry, matter-of-fact voice. "I died alone in my apartment of old-age. I never had a family."
He disengaged from their embrace and looked at her. "Old age!" he said incredulously. But then added, "...I haven't seen you since our 5-year high school reunion, but you look exactly like you did then! That couldn't have been less than... 30 years ago!"
She smiled at him. "60, for me. You look the same as then, too." she added. Arthur looked at himself closely for the first time since he had come to this place.
"I do!" he cried out in astonishment.
"How long have you been in this room, Arthur?" she asked, head cocked to one side in curiosity.
"It felt like a long time," he said remembering his time spent studying his hands, "but it couldn't've really been more than 50 minutes."
Then he remembered the clock. "The clock..." he said, pointing. "When I got here it was moving so fast I couldn't even see the hands!"
"Maybe you passed those 63 years years in 50 minutes," she said with a smile at his shocked expression. "Does it really seem too unlikely?" she asked. "We're both dead and we both look the same as we did at 25!"
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the logic she had put forth. He looked around the room again and suddenly he saw another chair in the corner opposite them and a small table in between. He motioned to the chair and Tricia started as she turned around.
Arthur laughed at her reaction. "Now don't you make me explain why you shouldn't be startled by the mere appearance out of thin air of a chair and small table!" he said in a good natured, mocking tone.
She looked at him with a look of surprise still on her face, but it quickly melted into a smile and she laughed at his joke.
"Well, pull up a chair!" she said with the smile still on her face as she walked over to the chair on the opposite side of the room and drug it up to the table as Arthur picked up his and placed it next to the table, sitting down.
They sat and talked for almost an hour, mostly of high school and all the stuff they had done together. They had never really been close friends, but Arthur had always liked Tricia and they had been in several after-school activities together.
Suddenly Tricia laughed out of the blue. "You never knew, did you?" she said, a bemused look playing across her features.
"Knew what?" Arthur asked, surprised at the abrupt shift in conversation.
"You think it was just coincidence that I happened to be in almost every after-school activity or club that you were in?"
"Well, I dunno... I guess I just figured we had similar personalities..." Arthur ventured, still curious about Tricia's little secret.
She laughed again. "I had," she began, punctuating her sentence for effect, "such a huge crush on you...." she said, looking at the ceiling as if asking for power from some mysterious force, but probably just to avoid his gaze.
"I had no idea..." he said kindly, reaching out and taking her hands in his own. "I liked you too, a little, you just seemed, so... distant."
"She hung her head as though she might cry, closing her eyes tightly. "I was afraid," she said in a wavering voice. "You were so popular, and...."
Something in her voice made Arthur remember what she said earlier. "You never had a family...?" he ventured, trying to say it in kind enough a tone as to not upset her. It didn't work; she began to cry.
"I... had a few boyfriends...." she said, every few words punctuated with a sob. "But I always thought... always hoped...."
Tricia's raw emotion stabbed into Arthur's heart. He could sense her anguish, feel her love and her squashed dream that somehow, someday they would meet again.
Disengaging from her handgrip for just a moment he walked over to her side and embraced her, letting her head fall to his shoulder as she cried. When her tears began to ease he drew her back just far enough to kiss her forehead.
"Tricia," he said, "I love you too. I didn't realize it until now, but I do and I always have. Do you know where we are?" he asked.
She opened her eyes in surprise. "What? You know? Where are we?" she was very confused.
"Heaven." he said. "I had to wait 30 years for you to get here, but now you are. We were meant to be together, Tricia, and now we will be. For all of eternity." Author was smiling broadly. As he spoke his explanation, Tricia looked up. Her eyes and cheeks were red and light glinted off the paths tears had taken down her face. The expression on her face had become so happy though that all else dissolved.
"I love you, Arthur." she said.
"I love you." he replied.
And they embraced, there, in the room at the end of the hall, for all eternity.
By David Newberry