"Serena" by Garon E. Whited

There was only a haze of pain, punctuated by a thick throbbing in what might have been her skull.  She moaned, tried to move, and found that her body refused to obey.  Perhaps there was a twitch, but nothing more—aside from a sharp increase in the agony.

She waited, and tried not to cry out.  Eventually, the pain receded, like a marsh being drained, and left behind a sickly feeling akin to a falling-elevator sensation.

She opened her eyes.  Blackness.  An utter darkness, deeper than any cavern of the world.

“If you move, you’ll hurt more,” said a voice.  “Lie still.”

She started, and found the voice quite correct; lancets of pure pain slipped delicately through her temples, sectioned her brain neatly, and sent flowers of agony to bloom along the coiled vines of her nervous system.  She cried out, a cross between a gagging scream and a whimper.

“I told you to hold still,” the voice chided, sadly.  “Give me a moment.”  The voice was sourceless, soft, whispered.  It sounded very near, but was impossible to place.  For that matter, the place was not a place.   There was an emptiness all around, as though she existed in a vast sea of nothingness.

The pain vanished.

“Wh-what . . . ?”

“There,” the voice said, sounding satisfied.  “That should be better.”

“Yes . . . where are you?  Where am I?”

“Ah, the important questions.  Of course.  Technically, you are nowhere.  Or, perhaps I should say, between wheres.  And so am I.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“I would be highly surprised if you did,” the voice said, sounding amused.  “This place is not really a place; it is the place you are when you aren’t anywhere.”

“Nowhere?”

“No where, perhaps.  It is the space between wheres.”

“How did I get here?” she asked, then realized that she could not hear herself.  “Why can’t I hear my voice?  Why can I hear yours?  What is going on??” she shrieked, or tried to, and the first seedlings of real panic took root in her belly.

“Oh, dear, dear me.  This just won’t do.  Let me just . . .”

And it was merely dark.  She lay upon a bed of some sort, very soft, but definitely a bed.  And the room—for she could hear her breathing and the sounds reflected from the walls of a room—was merely black, not an inky nothingness.  A comforting lack of light, instead of a lack of being.

“Is that somewhat better?”

She deliberately tried to get a grip on herself.  “Yes,” she replied, voice still shaky.  “Now, where am I?”

“You are . . . well, you could say you’re in a hospital.”

“Who are you?”

“Oh . . . I suppose you could call me your guardian angel.  I suppose.  It has been a long time since last we spoke.”

“I don’t believe in angels.”

“Don’t blame you, really.  I’m no angel.  But it gives you a point of reference to work with, which is important around here.”

“So who are you?”

“That’s up to you.”

She frowned and tried to sit up.  Her hands were bound fast, strapped to the sides of the bed.

“What the hell is going on, here?  Let me go!”

“Now, now; this place isn’t as stable as it could be.  I’m still relatively new at this.  I can’t have you wandering around, bumping into walls and generally forcing me to concentrate on keeping your reality organized.  You’re not being hurt, you’re not being harmed—quite the opposite, really—and I’m being very polite.  Am I not?”

She paused and took stock.  “Yes.  Yes, you are.  But I don’t like being tied down—like this.”

“I’m sorry for that, but it is necessary, for the moment.”

“Why?”

The voice sighed and seemed to take a deep breath.

“All right, do you recall that . . . other place?”

She shivered.  “Yes.”

“You’re actually still there.  You just think you feel what you feel, hear what you hear.  I’m providing that, for your sanity’s sake.  You coped quite well with it for someone who has never spent any time in it, but, if you’d kept on there, it could have been damaging.”

Deep breaths.  She concentrated on deep breaths.

“I don’t know,” she said, slowly, as she forced herself to keep an icy calm, “what, exactly, you mean by that.  Please explain to me why I am here and what is going on.  Otherwise, I intend to start screaming my head off and struggling as hard as I can to get free of this place—and of you!”

“You don’t give a man many options, do you?”

“No.”

Another sigh.  “All right.  Do you think you can keep an open mind about this?  The explanation is rather incredible.”

“I’ll listen.”

“All right,” the voice said, dubiously.  “Where should I begin?”

“Start with who you are.”

“Do you recall, oh, about six hundred years ago, when—“

“Stop!” she interrupted.  “I’m no history teacher!”

“I know.  I meant in your lifetime as Madeline du Bochage, between fourteen-seventy-two and fifteen-ought-nine.”

Her head whirled for a moment as the implications knocked around inside.

“You mean I’m dead?”

“By no means!  At least, this lifetime as Serena Madison has not yet ended.  And won’t for a while, if I have anything to say about it.  That’s part of why I’m here.”

Serena/Madeline shuddered in her restraints.

“Let me up.  Please.  I can’t . . . I can’t stand this.  I don’t know what’s happening to me . . .”

“I’m so sorry.  All right, but bear with me if my color and solidity are a bit skiddy; I haven’t done this much.”

And she was lying in a field.  The sky was an azure blue like a canvas covered in paint, while the sun was a ball of molten gold at midheaven.  She turned her head, looking at a field of grass that stretched to the horizon like a carpet of living swords.  The green screamed at her, the blue shouted from the sky, and the sun hammered her with color and light.

She lifted her arms to shield her eyes.

“Stop it!  Stop it!  Stop it!”

The light diminished sharply.  She ventured to look out and saw grasses edged in silver, with moonlight pouring down like milk.  Stars shone like diamonds on velvet beneath a jeweler’s lamp.

“Is that better?” asked the voice.

“Some,” Serena replied, shaking.  “Everything looks so . . . so . . . overwhelming.  And so sudden.  Am I really here?  Or am I going mad?”

“Madness is only a state of mind.  But I assure you that what you see is, for you, quite real.  But let me tone this down a bit.”

The moonlight softened its blaze to a mere silver glow, and the starlight diminished, swallowed up in the soft light.

“Good?”

“Good.  But where are you?”

“Whup.  I forgot.  My apologies.”

And he was there.  A dim figure in the soft light, hard to make out, but he was there.  Taller than Serena, but not greatly so.  Broad-shouldered, slim.  Dark hair tousled as though just in from a windy shore.

“Is there anything else that you would like?  I will, of course, see to your comfort as best I can,” the figure said.

“That’s much better, thanks.  Now, quickly, before I give in to the gibbering terror that’s sitting at the back of my mind—what’s going on?  Please, please, explain this to me,” she said, tears starting in her eyes, racing down her cheeks.

The figure moved close and held out his arms.  She hesitated only an instant, then moved into them and wept unashamedly into his shirt.  He held her and stroked her hair, kissed her head.  When she was done crying—or almost—she pulled back a little, and he loosened his hold enough that she could look up at him.  She tried to see his face, but the moon rode just past his ear, and his face was lost in shadow.

“I don’t understand, and I am afraid,” she said.

“Don’t be afraid,” he replied, “because I will not harm you.”

Serena cocked her head to one side, and looked perplexed.  “You know, I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now can you help me to understand?”

“It is a long explanation.  Will you settle for an overview?”

“Okay.”

“You have been in an auto accident,” he began, and she felt a sudden chill sweep her from head to foot.  He held her again, tightly.  “Yes, you know the truth of my words, and you are remembering.  I know!  But bear with me.  You have been in an accident, and you were hurt.  Badly hurt, yes, but there are doctors working to save you right this instant.  Your body is in a hospital, but you aren’t in the body.  You’re tied to it, still, but it’s under anaesthesia and it’s being put back together.  Meanwhile, the part of you that thinks and feels is out here, with me.  You are not dead, you’re just hurt, and you’re having an out-of-body experience.  Okay?”

Serena shuddred and clung to him.

“I remember,” she whispered.  “I remember the pickup truck . . . I remember the grill breaking my side window and glass going everywh—my baby!”  She jerked in his arms, a look of terror like a mask across her finely-formed features.  “What about my daughter?” she half-screamed, half-pleaded.

“She’s fine, or mostly so.  Car seats and airbags are to blame for that,” he replied.  “She has a couple of scrapes, a bruise or two, and is really upset about Mommy bleeding on the seats—‘Mommy made a mess!’—but her grandmother is comforting her.”

“I want to see her!”

“I can’t.  I can make an illusion of her, but it won’t be her.  You’ll just have to wait until your body will take you back—then she’ll come to you.  Take my word for it, she’s fine and in good hands; she’s got her own guardian angel to keep an eye on her.”

“Guardian angel,” she sniffed, blinking back tears.  “Where were you when the truck hit us?”

“You should never drive faster than I can fly.”

Serena sniffed again, then smiled, just a little.  “I’m sorry.”

“I bet.  But please be more careful in the future?”

“If there is one.”

“There is one.  Always.”

“So why am I here?  Or, rather, why are you here?  And why is it that I feel so safe with you?  Like I can believe anything you tell me?”

“To take those in reverse order,” he replied, as he smiled down at her through the shadows thrown by the moonlight, “you can believe me because I’ll only tell you the truth.  You feel safe with me because I’ve spent a lot of time as a—well, let’s use the word ‘angel’—looking out for you.  As well as a few mortal lifetimes as your defender.  I’m here because you need me; that’s the way it works.  And you’re here because you went a-wandering about the same time they hauled you into the ambulance.”

Serena worried her lower lip, looking nervous.  “How badly . . . ?”

“You’ve got a couple of good cuts about the neck and head, but the main damage is internal; broken ribs, a punctured lung, some bruised organs, internal bleeding.  But—trust me!—they’re going to work miracles on the operating table.  Well, there will be miracles, whether they’re responible or not.  You’ll have a couple of scars on your scalp, a few more on your left arm and ribs, but that’s about it.”

Serena nodded and pressed her head into the hollow of his neck and shoulder.

“I don’t understand why I feel good about that, much less why I feel so relieved just to hear you say it . . . but I do.”

“I’ve spent a long time looking out for you.  You trust me.”

“I don’t . . . remember . . .”

“Not consciously, no.  But deep down, you do remember.”

Serena looked thoughtful.  “That name you mentioned . . . Du Bochage . . . I think I remember something . . . she—I, rather—was a frenchwoman?”

“Yes.”

“In the . . . the city of Rouen . . .” she said, voice full of wonder.

“Yes.”

“She married . . . her husband was . . . was . . .”

“Jacques du Bochage, a moderately-successful businessman—”

“—who won her in a card game from her pimp!” she declared, remembering, shocked.  “I was a whore!”

“For a while,” he agreed.  “I couldn’t stand it.”

“You rigged the game—” she broke off and gasped, “I’m speaking French!”

“As am I.  You do remember.”

“You rigged the game so that my Jacques could win me?”

“Nope.”

Serena looked startled.  “Then how did you manage it?”

“I played cards and hoped like hell.”

“You were my Jacques?” she asked, as she felt her head begin to spin.

“And you were my Madeline—My Maddy, because I was mad for you.”

“Maddy!  Yes, I remember!  You called me that when . . . I asked you for something to drink, that first night, and you got up, still naked from our loving, and went and woke the landlord, demanding wine and water.  You came back with it, and I laughed and called you mad—”

“—and I called you my Maddy, for you made me so.  And I told you that morning that you could stay or go, as you pleased; if you stayed I would marry you, if you chose to go I would see you wherever you would choose to be.”

“And I chose to stay.”

“Glad you did.  Oh, and here.”

He lifted his hand and opened it so that moonlight spilled across it.  Gold gleamed beneath the silver light, and tiny diamonds winked like eyes of fire from all around the band.

“My ring!” she exclaimed, taking his hand in hers to look at it closely.  “Where . . . How . . .?”

“We both remember it—I more clearly, I fear, because I have spent more time in this state—and so we both support its reality.  It exists more strongly than anything I created here alone.  Here.”  He took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger.  She stared at it for long minutes.

“I remember coughing and choking . . . weeping . . . feverish and sick . . . holding your hand . . . don’t I?” she asked, uncertain.

He nodded.

“You were dying,” she continued, “and I prayed to God—which I had never done before—that if He would just save you . . .”

“I know.  But I was already dead,” he replied, softly.  “You were ill with the plague as well, and only a few hours behind me.”

“And our children?”

“Alas, we had none.  I learned, later, that you and I both had been rendered sterile; me from the mumps as a child in that body, you from a nasty infection from one of your, ah, clients.”

Serena seemed to relax.  “So we died?  And we came here?”

“Not exactly, but yes, we died together and moved on.”

“So what happened after that?”

“Genevive?”

“Genevive . . . Italian?”

“Yes.  And then . . . Kwan Yin?”

“Kwan Yin,” she mused.  “And Chou Tzu!  You were Chou Tzu!”

“This humble servant of the Celestial Emperor has the honor to have once been known by that esteemed name, noble lady of the House of Kwan.”

“I understood you!”

“You were far the better speaker than I,” he replied, and grinned.  “And you could write ever so much more clearly.”

“How many lives have we led?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Hundreds.”

“Together?”

“In one form or another.  As your champion and defender, there have been stints where we’ve been apart in flesh—but never long in spirit.”

She drew back a little, and stared at him.  “You’re saying that you’ve died for me?”

He nodded, soberly.  “I have.  It was my honor and my privilege.  What is wrong?” he asked, as she began to cry.  She shook her head and held herself against him for long moments to sob against him.   He held her, confused, and waited.

At last, she said, “It’s been so long since anyone . . . anyone could . . . since I believed anyone would . . .”

“Love you enough to fight for you?  To risk dying on your behalf?  Stand with you against the world—and lose—and go down without any regrets except that he hadn’t been able to smite one more foe on your behalf?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Don’t worry.  There is someone.  I may not be around where you can see me, but I’m around.”

“So you’re hanging around, watching over me?”

“Well, no . . . I’m only in this place because I’m mad.”

She looked at him with a glint in her eye.  “That’s not funny.”

“Oh, but it is!  See, you’re here because you’re neither fully dead nor alive.  I’m here . . . well, I’m a mortal man, same as many others, right now.  Except I’ve been through some nasty moments in this life, and I’m in an asylum right now.  Thorazine, haldol, prozac, and a little lithium.  A little while ago, they gave me my first shock treatment—it’s a sort of last resort for extreme depression.  Which sort of got me to remembering, too—other places, other times.  And that really made them sure I was crazy. 

“So,” he went on, “I’ve had my shock for the week, and here I am, out in the infinite realms between spaces, remembering perfectly everything that went before, knowing that I’ll forget a lot of it when I get back into that drug warehouse of a body, and I decide that it’s time to look in on you.  I haven’t seen you in close to fifty years—world war two, to be precise.  And my apologies for not coming back when I said I would; the Pacific is a long, long swim when your ship sinks.  But I have come back . . .

“Anyway,” he finished, “I’m checking in on you whenever I have the chance, and, sure enough, you needed me; that’s the way it always is.  I find you just as you’re in trouble.  So you’ll be fine, Tina will be fine, and the world will go merrily along.”

“But . . . but you’re not fine!” she protested.  “You’re stuck in a lunatic bin!”

“We prefer to call them ‘Mental Healthcare Facilities.’”

“It’s not funny!”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“But you’re not crazy!”

He laughed aloud and hard.  “Look around you, my dear.  No, here we aren’t crazy.  Tell anyone about this when you get back and they’ll call it a near-death experience, a vivid hallucination, any number of things.  But when I go back, it’s back to the drugs and the speaking in tongues and the slow twitch of the electro-fried neurons.  I certainly must look crazy.”

She began to weep again.  “Isn’t there something you can do?”

He held her and pressed his lips to her hair.  “No, I’m afraid not.  I’m not really . . . all there . . . if you understand.”

“I—I think so.  You’re in a body and you’re . . . “

“Loopy on the chemistry.  Yes.  But, right now, you and I must part again.”

“No!” she protested, clutching him fiercely.  “I just found you again, or you found me, or whatever!  Do you have to go so soon?”

“Not I.  You.  You have to go back, now; you’ll be waking up in post-op.  If you don’t go, you won’t be able to go.”

“Can’t I stay with you?  Just a little longer, anyway?” she asked, wistfully.

“A minute or two more, then you really do have to go.  I mean it.”

“I believe you,” she said, as she smiled and hugged him more tightly.  “But I’d rather stay.”

“You’re forgetting Tina.”

“Oh!  I was so—“

“—swamped in old lives, you forgot all about your present one.  You have unfinished business.”

“You’re so right.  Ooooo!  Just when I find the man of my dreams . . . .”

“You wake up.  I know.  I feel the same way.  I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you longer.”

“But you will!” she declared.  “I’m going to find you!”

He shook his head.  “It will all seem like a vivid dream,” he replied.  “It will fade.  But don’t you worry; there’s the next time.  It never ends, my love.  Maybe next life . . .”

She replied with something unladylike and continued with,  “This life.  I could use a man in my life that isn’t a complete cad and bounder.  Besides that, I love you!  Or have you forgotten?”

He was silent for a long moment.

“No,” he whispered.  “No, I haven’t forgotten.  But I was . . . was afraid . . .”

“That I might have?” she whispered in reply.  “Never.  Even when I was married, I think something inside me remembered you.”

He nodded.  “I am sorry if that ruined your marriage.”

She shook her head.  “No, there is only one man I really need in my life.  And I will find him again.”

“I’m glad.  Really glad.  But now you have to go.  Now!”

The world began a slow fade around them, and Serena could feel herself begin to sink, to fall.

“Wait!  What is your name, now?” she cried.  He shouted his reply, but it was too faint to hear over the thunder of blood in her ears.

Bright lights and tubes.  A dizzy, floating feeling.  A nurse.

“Good to have you back, Ms. Madison.  Your daughter is fine, your mother is here, waiting.  You’re going to be fine.  No visitors, yet, I’m afraid, but is there anything else I can do for you?”

She shook her head, slowly, and closed her eyes.  Hot tears leaked from beneath her eyelids.  What a wonderful, bittersweet dream . . .

* * *

I wake in my jacket and laugh.  I don’t know why I laugh, but it’s something I usually do after my EST session.  As usual, the straitjacket seems to be almost a live thing, crawling over me, while every muscle in me is sore and trembling.  I have a headache.  But I laugh.

I had dreamed.  I remembered.  Sort of.  But the drugs make it all far away . . . far, far away, like Wonderland when standing in the heart of Times Square—and yes, I know that’s in New York.

“I like New York in June . . . how about yoooooou?” I sing.  I’m a great singer when I’m in form, which isn’t often.

Nice to have a padded floor, though.  I giggle and roll around for a while.  It’s not easy being crazy.  Hey, that almost rhymes.  I should write this stuff down.  Like Gershwin.

Poor Gershwin, just up the hall.  I sometimes see him on Tuesdays.  We get color on Tuesdays, which is a lot more fun than black and white.  But he was bad and ate a crayon.  Well, part of it.  He chews every bite twenty-three times, so Hutchinson, the orderly on duty, took it away from him before he got past the first bite.  I keep telling him the blue is the tastiest, but he keeps going for the pink.  Weirdo.

Oooo!  Visitors!

“Hello, Basil.  How are you today?”

I know this visitor.  I’ve seen him before.  He always asks a lot of questions, but never seems to care about the answers.

“I’m fine.  I want to go home.”

“I see.  And where is home?”

“In the spaces between places, in the palaces of thought.  Everybody knows that, if they haven’t forgotten.”

“And why would they forget, Basil?”

“’Cause they’re alive, of course.”  I look at him keenly, although my eyes don’t like to focus on him.  They keep wanting to look at different things, each on its own.  That’s fun, but it’s hard to focus that way.  Teamwork is essential. “You’ve forgotten all this, haven’t you?”

“Maybe so.  Can you refresh my memory?”

“Nope.  You’re alive and you don’t want to remember.  When you want to remember, you’ll remember, but until then your memory isn’t going to come back.”

“My memory of what?”

“What else there is!”

“And what is that?”

I shake my head.  I think I do.  The room wobbles from side to side like the cameraman is drunk, or has drunk a lot, or is being drunk by something.  I don’t like it; it makes me want to throw up.  I’m still not liking the medication they keep giving me, but I’m getting used to it.

“Too much,” I say.  “A lot too much to tell.  Got to go see on your own.”

“I see.”

“Nope!”

He doesn’t look happy.  Then again, he never does.  He doesn’t look anything, really; just sort of interested, sometimes.  He doesn’t even look bored or tired or anything.  Maybe he’s an alien in a human suit.  Then again, maybe that’s what he looks like all the time; it’s a pretty poor human suit.

“All right, Basil.  Maybe I don’t.  How do you feel?”

“Loopy as an Immelman and wrung out like a dishrag.  Can I go home?”

“Not today, Basil.  So are you feeling happy?”

“No.  I want to go home.  I want out of here.  I want to go, to go, to go, to go . . .”  Hmm, I think.  I can’t shut up.  Help, I’m the sane man in a looney bin and nobody will believe me—and now I can’t shut up.  Of course, Napoleon also says he’s sane.  I believe him; he really is Napoleon, but nobody believes him, either.  Then again, he hasn’t kept up with his present life, so letting him loose might really be bad for him.  I had a pretty good life, this trip around the carousel, right up until my wife died.

Hey, I’m crying.  I wonder how that happened?

Oh, look.  Now the doctor-guy has gone.  Not even a goodbye.  Bad manners.  Good riddance.

* * *

Serena accepted her shoes from Tina.  Tina had been an absolute angel “while Mommy is sick,” as she put it.  The nurses never had a call button alarm from her room any time Tina was in; she insisted on going to fetch one.  It probably got them there quicker, truthfully; it isn’t easy to ignore a five-year-old that insists that you come help her Mommy.  Now.

With a little help, Serena stepped into her shoes and turned to look in the mirror; today she would become an outpatient.  The sling for her left arm didn’t exactly go with the Spanish peasant blouse or skirt, but then, it wouldn’t go with anything but hospital gowns.

“Tina, could you get Mommy’s purse from the nightstand?”

“Okay!”  She scampered around the bed to the other side, opened the drawers, and hauled out the purse.  “Here it is!”

“Thank you, dear.”  Serena opened it and sorted through it.  No wristwatch.  No bracelets.  She was certain that she had been wearing the copper-and-turquoise bracelet Edward has given her when he visited from Arizona . . . and the watch had been her favorite . . . maybe they had been destroyed in the accident?  But no, her wrists were fine . . .

“Tina, honey, is there anything else in the drawer?”

Tine peered into the drawer.  “A envelope,” she said.

“Can I have it, please?”

Tine pulled it out; it was a big, brown manila envelope that bulged.

Probably the jewelry I was wearing and whatever was in my pockets, she decided.  “Thank you, baby girl.  You’re the best.”

Serena dumped the envelope on the bed.  Yes, there was the watch, somewhat scratched, as well as earrings—so that’s where they went—and the copper bracelet and the ring.

The ring.

Tiny diamonds winked like eyes of fire all around the band.