Page 39 of Absolution

Eleven

Middlebro

Christian

My lungs fill with ice cold water as I hit my head on a sharp rock. I twirl and tumble, not even knowing what’s up and down. Sky flickers by, then dark water, sky again, but through a mass of water.

Cold. It’s so cold. Numbing, shattering cold penetrates my every cell and I’m losing control of my limbs.

I got her. I know I got her, just as she stuck on a ledge. I managed to hold on for one tiny moment and threw her back up. That move is what will kill me, because that was when I lost the grip myself.

Did Kerry get her? Did they fall? Are they alive? Please live. Please don’t let my life and my inevitable death have been for nothing.

I have no air left.

Who the fuck said drowning is peaceful? I’ll find the fucker and pull him under water. He’ll die slowly and painfully. It’s a panic-inducing-aching-I’m losing contact with my body and mind-nightmare.

Suddenly I’m tossed against an unyielding object and throw my arms around it, clinging to something. The whirling force around me tears at my clothes, but my head is above the surface and the riverbank is an arm’s length away. I cough up water, inhale and literally feel how I pull water deeper into my lungs to get some fucking leverage to draw the next breath. My head spins as I fight my cramped arms, forcing them to let go of the rock and push my body toward the side, where the water is calmer, and I can get hold of solid ground.

I don’t feel my fingers. I have no idea if they grip for something to hold on to, or if they’re just lying on the ground like dead matter protruding out of my hands. I’m too weak, too numb, and I slip and slide. Something pulls me back and panic surges through my body, but then it’s as if I’m lifted, thrown halfway up on the river-bank. Not even the fucking water wants me, but I’ll take it.

Coughing weakly, my legs still move back and forth in the stream, I’m too tired to move any further. I fight to stay awake. If I let darkness claim me, I’m dead. I won’t wake again.

Cecilia. I want to live for Cecilia. And for Kerry. I never knew love, but I know this is it, that the swell in my heart, knowing these two exist in the world, is love. Will I ever get the chance to prove to them that I’m worthy?

Christian Russo, you fucker, get up!

I pull for all I’m worth, my fingers getting bloody, my hands covered in lacerations and bone deep wounds. When I feel solid ground under my thighs, I begin to crawl, inch by painful inch, forcing my knees up, right, left, right again. I cough up water, empty my stomach of foul-tasting liquids, inhaling it when I can’t spit it out fast enough. Panic seizes me over and over as air just won’t seem to fill my lungs. Finally, no water swirls around my feet, and I’m up. I’m out of the river, alive, which is unbelievable. I have no energy to even lift my head. With my cheek resting on the cold mud, I look around me. I don’t recognize the terrain at all, and the pale sun comes from another direction. It took me far, the lethal water. A little further downstream the river flattens into a lake that I only see the beginning of, most of the view covered by a thick nest of trees and bushes, looking wild and untouched.

Deep tremors run through me. I’m definitely hypothermic. My teeth chatter uncontrollably and I barely feel my body.

I have to get up, I have to do everything in my power to find a warm, dry place, or I’ll die out here.

Mobilizing my experiences from a life of pain, of surviving street fights, being shot- once in my early twenties, once by Kerry, stabbed, fighting darkness, and blood loss, I scream at my legs to obey me. My roar echoes through the silent forest, bouncing off the distant mountains, or so it seems in my over sensitized mind.

I force one single image into my mind, Kerry sitting cross legged on the floor, next to Cecilia trying to assemble big Lego blocks, a ray of light playing across our daughter’s hair, showing a little red in her dark brown locks.

One step. My legs tremble. One more step. I look around me. I have no idea where to go. Wrapping my arms around me, I stop, indecisive. If I walk in the wrong direction, I’m fucked. If there even is a right direction.

Where is Middlebro? Which direction were we heading? Where was the sun? It was a little to our right. How much time has passed? I haven’t been unconscious. I don’t think it’s been more than thirty or forty minutes since I slammed against the rock and started fighting my way out of the water. That puts the sun just slightly more to the right, probably at my two. I have washed up on the right side of the river. At least that’s some kind of luck.

I take the first step, then I fall on hands and knees and cough up more water. I wipe my ice-cold face with a hand I barely feel, get up again and take the next step. To where, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just die out here anyway, but I’m no man if I don’t try.

I don’t know how long I’ve walked. I’ve never felt so ill in my life. I tremble from bone-deep exhaustion, shivering uncontrollably. I can’t stop my teeth from chattering. It’s as if someone has ripped the skin off my body. I’m raw, as if my flesh is falling off my bones.

Through a haze in the increasing dusk, my vision blurry, I see a squared shape that doesn’t look like everything else. It’s not a tree, or a rock, or a hill. My heart speeds up as my brain tries to connect the dots.

Is it a house? Is it a fucking house?

I stagger closer, every breath burning and wheezing. Finally I fall to my knees on the ungiving cold stone steps before an ill-maintained door, the dark blue paint flaking, leaving the wood unprotected.

“Hello,” I rasp and slam my fist on the door. I slam against it again and try to speak, but no more sounds escape me.

It’s as if I’m shutting down. Right here and now. I curl up into a little ball and gasp for air, then I reach out once more and grasp for the handle, getting a temporary burst of hope when it obediently swings open.

I roar in agony as I force my body to move, getting up on my knees, crawling the last few feet into a dark hallway. Pushing the door shut with my foot, I gasp and curl up again, hugging my chest, trying to find an ounce of body warmth.

It takes me a long while, getting a feel for my surroundings. It’s inhabited. There’s no movement, no sounds, but there’s a faint smell of greasy food coming from somewhere, and it’s not cold. I’m unable to tell if it’s warm, but I know it’s not cold.

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