Red Leaves and the Living Token (5 page)

Raj leaned forward rubbing his head. This was not real. This was not possible.

"I'm sorry Mr. Handers. This is an extremely rare condition. Because of that we’ve had little chance to understand it. There are only a few prescribed treatments, and none of them have been able to stabilize his bond."

He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head. He tried to see the situation clearly through the fog of emotion. If the Doctor was right, he had to figure out what to do next. He had to fix this. "What happens when his binding fails completely?" He asked.

"His body will begin to revert. He'll lose his higher functions. You have to be aware; It's not a condition he's likely to survive."

"So what do we do now? What the next step?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Handers. We’re already doing everything we can."

"So that's it? You're saying he's going to die because you can't think of anything else to try right now? But maybe you’ll think of something later?" The anger began to swell up in his face, pushing out through heavy, labored, breaths. He struggled to rein it in, to keep himself from completely breaking down.

"We can't simply throw random treatments at him and hope that something works. The wrong treatment could kill him." The Doctor explained.

"But if you take your time debating about what might and might not work, he’ll die anyway. I think its time to take some risks here." He was shouting now. The rage had ripped itself free of his meager attempt to restrain it.

"Mr. Handers..." The Doctor tried to interject.

"I refuse to accept that there isn’t a better way to do this. There's always a better way!" Raj was on his feet now.

"Mr. Handers, please. You have to understand. Any loving parent would exhaust all effort looking for something to heal their child. I understand that. You'd go to go to the ends of the earth if needs be." The Doctor stood up to try to calm him down.

"What I want you to understand is that is not necessarily what he needs right now. That's not what you need right now. A natural part of the grieving process is coming to terms with an outcome beyond your control. The unending quest for new and exotic methods is contrary to that grieving process."

"It's a desperate attempt to control something that has proven itself to be uncontrollable. Believe or not, the powers of modern medicine are, in fact, finite. We can't cure everything... yet."

"But...

"Endless searching will only prolong the pain and rob you of the time you do have left to say good bye. Let us worry about finding the solution. You worry about the time you spend with your son. If your son's last day comes soon, that will not be something you can control. What you can control is how you prepare yourself and your son for it."

Raj grabbed his coat and slammed the door as he left.

-

He found himself wandering out the back of the hospital and down the dark street that led to the sea cliffs. It was the first place that came to his mind when he thought of somewhere he could be alone.

A steep stair case, cut into the black rock, lead down from the coastal street to the sandy beach below. He stumbled down the steps, holding an arm in front of his eyes to shield against the sand blown off the rocks.

He'd come here before for the same purpose; he remembered. The same thought had come to him. To come here. To be alone. To think.

He wandered out onto the wet sand and felt the spray on his face as the dark waves crashed against the beach. Night had come while he'd been in the hospital. Yet the night, with the moon glowing through a thin layer of clouds, seemed to add to the environment he was seeking. He tried to avoid the thoughts that were stirring in his mind, the thoughts of her, of the last time he'd come here from the hospital. It'd taken him so long to forget, to push the memories back far enough that they stopped hurting. He had to. He had his son.

The moon went dark behind a cloud. A flash of lighting flickered from the horizon, giving a momentary glimpse of the approaching storm. He felt the crushing weight growing from inside, pushing down on him. He couldn't afford this, not now. He had to fight it back.

He dropped to his knees, digging into the soft sand. The dried top layer caught in the gusts of wind and swirled around him. He looked up into the darkness above him. He didn't know what he was looking for. Sometimes just seeing something above him staring back down was reassuring. He got no such comfort from the black, star-less void above him. The crushing weight increased, almost as though the void above had reached a slender finger down to him and was working its way inside him. His desperation grew to panic.

"Please," he voiced into the wind. "Help me."

Another flicker of light flashed across the sky, showing for a brief instant the beauty of the clouds as the lighting etched its zigzag through them. The illusion of emptiness broke. The slender finger withdrew.

"Please," he begged. "Don't take my son away too!" He called out.

He turned away from the sky. What right did he have to ask such things? Why should he expect such favors? The proposition was ludicrous.

He looked up once more. Ludicrous or not, he had nothing left.

"Please."

He shifted his weight to move his knee off a sharp rock that had been poking him from under the sand.

Another flicker lit up the sky. As he looked down into the depression that his knee had left, he noticed a faint trace of light had remained after the lighting's bright flash.

As the wind blew the trace of light grew into a glow. The sharp stone that he'd felt under his knee was emitting light. As the wind continued to clear away the sand, the object grew in size and complexity. It was some sort of carving, the figure of a small plant or a miniaturized tree! There was something else, something on the tree. He wanted to reach down and feel it, to pick it up, but he hesitated. It wasn't natural. The wind cleared away the sand down to the base of the figure. It had a long bird curved around its thin trunk and a solid round base of roots.

His curiosity overcame his apprehension, and he reached down to pick it up. As his fingers made contact a Flash of blinding white light filled his vision. His ears rang with a high pitched whine. After a moment, his sight and hearing returned, but he was no longer on the beach. He was standing in the street a few block from the hospital. Directly in front of him, an ancient stone archway rose up out of the ground, completely blocking the road. A stone pathway extended beyond it but not in front of it.

He couldn't imagine that it had been there long. It would've been blocking traffic, had there been any. He stepped towards it.

Flash, his vision turned to white. After a moment the color returned, and he was standing somewhere else - outside an old school. He was sure he'd seen it before but wasn't sure where it was. He remembered he'd been impressed by the high stone wall that surrounded the school. In the street beside the wall of the school, he saw another archway. This one, unlike the first, was made of white stone and seemed rather modern. At least the stones seemed almost perfectly cut. Yet, it too seemed completely out of place as it blocked the road.

His vision flashed to white again. When it receded he found him self again in another place. This time he was on a mountain top in the middle of the day. A meadow stretched out in front of him. At the end of that meadow, a beautiful white structure made of white stone sat, its spires leading his eyes up to the bright sky. The blue burned into white.

Then he saw his son crumpled on the wet forest floor. A wave of red light washed over him. He opened his eyes, then stood up. The forest blanked to white again.

His sight cleared, and he found himself back on the beach. A stabbing pain registered in his finger tips. He jerked his hand back from the glowing figure. His fingers were bleeding where he had touched it. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around the figure and tucked it into his jacket.

-

Rinacht stepped up onto a rock overlooking the beach. He could see Mr. Handers kneeling down in the sand below.

"Mr. Handers!" He called.

Suddenly his employer got to his feet, with out seeming to acknowledge him, lifted something in his hands, then wrapped it up and put into his jacket. Rinacht may not have seen it clearly, but it had appeared as though the object he held was glowing. He watched Raj turn and walk away down the beach. He must not have heard his call; he thought. So he hopped down off the rock and rushed over to the stair way leading down to see if he could catch up.

-

Raj hurried through the thinly populated city streets. He knew the one he wanted wasn't far. He just wasn't sure exactly which way. He turned the corner and looked up. It looked familiar. He walked around the side of the building to get a view of the open street. There taking up more than half the road was the archaic stone archway. Just as he'd seen.

He pulled himself back behind the building and hid himself up against the wall, shaking his head. This was not good. To dream about it, to see it in your mind, sure, fine. But to see it there in front of you, awake. That was a problem. He leaned out again, peering around the building. It was still there.

"How...?" He took a deep breath to calm himself. There had to be some way of making sense of it. He'd have to get a closer look. Perhaps it was a trick of his mind, a latent image of some sort. He hurried up to it. The stones, worn with age, stacked tightly without mortar, gave no impression of illusion. Proximity had only further solidified the reality of its presence. Perhaps to touch it would help, he thought.

He pushed hard against one of the stones, catching himself in case he fell through it. The stones were cold to his touch and held firmly against his weight. Either this truly was here blocking the entire road or he was simply, insane. To confound further his dilemma with reality, as he stared through the stone arches, a pathway, made of a large, irregularly shaped rocks stones, was cut into the small and well worn cobble stone road. The pathway extended out the back and continued down the street. He was positive these rocks were not there a moment ago.

He backed away and circled around to the front of the arches to look at the path from another angle. But now the path was gone! Without a sign of it ever having been there. He took a calming breath. Perhaps this was still part of his previous episode, part of some kind of odd dream.

He doubled back behind the arch and sure enough the pathway had returned. This would induce a migraine; he was sure of it. He stepped sideways enough to see around the stone pillar. Now he could see through and around it at the same time. The path was clearly both there and not there! Viewed through the archway it extended down the street and into the city. Viewed from outside, it did not exist.

The illusion was fantastic! His mind began to wander. What would happen if he stepped through it? Would it remain when he tried to step on it, or was it like a mirage, always just out of reach? How good was the illusion, really?

He took a quick step through to see what would happen. His foot landed firmly on the first stone of the pathway. He stepped back, surprised. Apparently he had become comfortable with the idea that this was just a trick of the eye, and a trick of the eye was not something you were supposed to feel under your feet.

So this was not an illusion. He laughed to himself. Nether was the enormous stone archway blocking the road. Nether made sense to a rational mind. It looked like he'd have to make a decision, as trying to prove or disprove the reality of this thing was pointless. He could walk a way or walk through. He stared at it, imagining the out comes of both scenarios. What was the worst that could happen? Well, he could die. There was always that possibility. He could be tortured. Several rather unpleasant scenarios played out in his head. And what was the best possible outcome?

He remembered what had led him to this point, the larger context of the experience, his overwhelming need to find a solution for his son. A moment later he found himself hurrying down the strange and unexplainable path.

-

Rinacht 
 
turned 
 
the 
 
corner 
 
and 
 
stopped 
 
behind the 
 
building 
 
that Raj 
 
had 
 
stopped 
 
at 
 
only 
 
moments 
 
earlier. His employer 
 
was 
 
in the 
 
middle 
 
of the street in 
 
front 
 
of him. He 
 
felt 
 
the 
 
automatic 
 
urge 
 
to 
 
call 
 
out to him but 
 
suppressed 
 
it. Raj 
 
had 
 
his 
 
hands 
 
up in the 
 
air 
 
as though he 
 
were 
 
leaning 
 
on something. 
 
Only 
 
there 
 
wasn't 
 
anything 
 
there. He 
 
then 
 
paced 
 
back 
 
and 
 
forth, 
 
circling 
 
around as though there 
 
were 
 
an 
 
object 
 
in the 
 
way. After what 
 
appeared 
 
to be a 
 
moment 
 
of 
 
deliberation 
 
he 
 
turned 
 
and 
 
marched 
 
straight 
 
down the 
 
road.