Page 43 of Phoenix Fire

She needed him more now than at any time in his life. Yet, he felt an irrational fear so gripping that he could not face her. It was a fear emanating from somewhere in his past. Perhaps it was the sudden shock of his parents deaths that he had never put away, had never resolved or settled. Perhaps it was the total and abiding love that his grandparents had given at that awful time of death which he had accepted and had so thoroughly engulfed himself, without sufficiently dealing with his loss of parents. Perhaps it went beyond all of that, back to some atavistic space and time, where the conclusions to life's riddles had already been ordained.

His promise of love had come: Jenny, his promise of 'then,' that magical place in time and space where love was all absorbing and enough. Jenny, sweet Jenny, had somehow been lost in all the stark and foreboding events of 'now.' Her face came to him through the blur of his tears and it lingered there so poignantly, so sad and beautiful, that he felt weak with the weight of his hopelessness. Perhaps it was the thought of Jenny which sealed together the totality of his twisted despair.

He wept for his brother, for his Grandma Myrena, and for the only woman he had found in life to truly love. He cried, too, for his weakness and his inability to think beyond this depression in his soul.

His thoughts then dwelt on other times when this mental and emotional darkness had overtaken him. In high school, he had thought of suicide because he simply could not cope with the depression, could not dispel the thick and overpowering bog of anxiety, could not see any hope. While in some faint recess of his brain he could fleetingly acknowledge that the darkness would pass, he was nonetheless held captive by it. He was unable to change the focus of his thoughts, unable to control his mind, and this awareness added to his anxiety. He had in life been master of his fate. He was envied in the business community for his acumen, aggressiveness, and rectitude. Yet, he sat here in this desert desolation in this mental and emotional wasteland, incapable of salvation.

A constrictive band pressed tighter around his mind and soul. His breathing was impeded and he felt an overwhelming urge to run from this claustrophobic place, to snap the wretched band, to feel a fresh clean spatial clarity.

He rose from the rock mound. He fought within himself, hyperventilating in his panic. He looked off to his right, to his left, to his front and rear. His eyes were unfocused, deep in their sockets, pulsing in harmony with the growing hysteria.

It was an awful place.

He stumbled like a newborn foal in his first steps and increased to an unsteady gait, running wildly off into the shimmering heat, nearly falling on the scrub brush and the jumping Cholla cacti, scattering pebbles, sand and the critters of the barren land. His fevered brain carried him on through a delirious and weaving transit, his mouth opened wide in a fight for air, his throat parched and burning.

Finally, he stopped running. He could not say how long he ran, how far his blistered feet had taken him.

His pants were covered with foxtails and bits of cactus. He bent and put his hands on his knees, gasping for sultry air, the sound of his wheezing reverberating eerily in the hot stillness. He stayed bent over for several minutes, until the heavy breathing subsided. Then, he raised himself and began to walk.

He walked for a long time, unmindful of direction or purpose, led on by his demons that promised no relief. The sweat poured from every pore and his clothes stuck to his rapidly dehydrating body. He could smell the booze of the past days coming out in his perspiration.

Soon he became aware that he was wearing the same clothes for two days, a strange intrusion into his black thoughts. He felt ludicrous when he saw that he still wore the dark blazer. The temperature was near one hundred. Must be. Yet, he only now considered that fact. He managed a manic and sardonic smile as he shed the blazer and threw it over his right shoulder, his right thumb booked into the loop on the inner collar.

He walked on.

The anxiety attack had passed. The black thoughts lay quietly coalesced just on the edge of consciousness. The physical exertion had brought an uneasy peace.

He was now confronted with a new physical reality. Mentally, he must truly be in ‘la la land’. He was walking in the desert, in a very hot inhospitable desert. He still wore his watch, though it had stopped working back in that dingy hotel room. From the position of the sun he guessed it must be mid-afternoon, between 2:00 and 4:00 PM.

His face felt flushed and his throat was scratchy. It hurt when he swallowed. He was thirsty, another odd and underwhelming discovery. He must truly be insane. When he ran his tongue over his lips he discovered a hard, cracked surface and sharp pain. His lips were sunburned, cracked, and bleeding.

He stopped walking.

Suddenly he was very tired. He looked around his immediate environment. To his left was a slight rise in the desert floor. To his right, rear, and front, there were more rises. The land undulated in all directions and he appeared to be in one of the low areas. He was surrounded by desert as far as his eyes could see. He saw no cars, no buildings, no stirring thing that resembled human activity.

His thirst was growing.

He saw another pile of rocks off to his left. 'Left' was to the north, he reckoned, since the sun was low and behind him. He walked to the rocks and sat. He dropped his blazer onto another nearby rock. Bent over, his arms resting on his knees, he closed his eyes and took a few deep intakes of hot air.

Eventually, he opened his eyes and looked around. There was some modest shade between two of the larger rocks.

He was so tired, so terribly thirsty. It was difficult to swallow. He felt weak and wasted, like somewhere between a drug addict's incredible high and abysmal low. He would rest for just a few moments. His black thoughts must let him rest.

He got up and went to the small shady spot between the rocks. He rolled his blazer into a pillow for his head and lay down. He closed his eyes.

He would only sleep for a few minutes. Then he would get back to his car. He licked his cracked and bleeding lips.

He was so thirsty.

He was so tired.

Nearby in the shade of a small boulder a Mojave rattlesnake checked the air with its flicking tongue. Other small desert denizens lurked nearby in their holes dug in the sand and under the rocks.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Dr. Nelson Paige left the hospital room.

Myrena was resting comfortably at the moment. The only sounds in the room were her shallow breathing and the hum of the air conditioning. It was a large private room, quite different, Jenny thought, from the stark ICU from which Myrena had just been transferred.

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