Page 55 of Prometheus Burning

As yesteryear Jamie neared the car, I crouched down behind the back of the vehicle, though Spirit-Jamie caught my arm.

“Just wait where you are,” he said, eyes as bright as orbs. Then, in a second, his attention went right back to his former self. Spirit Jamie’s expression tightened. He drew inward. And, as if he had accepted some of the negative energy of his former self, the glow over his body dimmed.

Jamie of yesteryear grew closer to us. He didn’t look at us. Didn’t seem to notice the souls focused on him with every fiber of their being. Though his eyes aimed toward where we stood behind his car, he didn’t see us. I found myself wondering if maybe he wouldn’t have noticed us even if we had actually been there with him.

The tears consuming “yesteryear” Jamie’s red face told me his frosty look wasn’t just from the cold. I peered more closely as this Jamie dug into his pants pockets for the keys, nearly fumbling as he produced them. He clicked the button, opened the door, and sunk into the seat of his car. He then buried his face into the steering wheel, feet sticking out in the space where he’d left the car door ajar.

My heart yearned to be in there with him. To be on the inside. To know what it was he was thinking and feeling. Instantly, as if my wish were my command, I popped into the passenger’s seat. The floor littered with wrappers. An empty bottle of Jack. The smell of cigarettes seeping into the upholstery.

Jamie of the past sobbed into the wheel. From this proximity, I smelled the alcohol all over his body. The scent so strong I could nearly taste it on my tongue. Whimpering escaped his lips as he cried, his hands gripping around the wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone white. My hand fell over his, though he couldn’t sense me here.

Suddenly, I remembered the other night. In the car. When Spirit Jamie had come to visit me, and I’d pushed him away. But, no, not just the other night. Even before Jamie’s passing. I spent many other nights in my life sitting alone, crying to myself. Feeling like the rest of the world had turned its back on me, and I was the only man on an island in the middle of nowhere.

“You were just like me,” I said to myself, the epiphany dangling in the air. Swirling between me and this other Jamie who I barely knew. Yesteryear Jamie kept his face against the wheel, swung back his left arm and slammed his fist into his leg. As the whack sounded, a deeper cry—a moan—escaped his lips.

It was then that I tasted my own tears as they slid into my opened mouth.

“What the hell happened to you…” I choked out.

Then, I glanced around, hoping to find the Jamie I’d been getting to know—the spirit who’d come to visit me—but he was gone.

I focused back on yesteryear Jamie. He’d lifted his head, revealing bloodshot eyes. He’d thrown off his gloves, and I noticed cracks around the inside of his palms. Obviously, years of wear and tear…

“Talk to me,” I said. No, demanded. “Talk. To. Me. Goddammit.”

But he pressed his head back to that damn fucking steering wheel. Sobs morphing into fits. Compulsions. Tears I feared would never end.

Jamie of the past lifted his head and stared straight ahead. Out into the snow which continued to fall.

“I hate you,” he murmured. “I hate everything about you.”

For a moment, I wondered if he could see me. Wondered if he was speaking to me directly. Wondered if we had somehow ended on bad terms one of our last moments together. I saw the Ouija Board again. Saw us sitting in the park, summoning spirits which we definitely had no business summoning.

“I hate you so much,” Jamie of the past said, voice tight. “You make me sick to my stomach.”

I let out the air I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding in. That’s when Iknew.

Jamie wasn’t talking to me.

Jamie wasn’t talking to anyone else.

Jamie was talking to… himself.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Stay

“I hate myself, too,” I whispered. Half conscious, half in some sort of in between world, drifting in. Drifting out…

My abs pulsed, rendering me wide awake, fingers fanned out against my stomach. My sight adjusted in the darkness. From the cool wooden floor, tilted on my side in the kitchen, my eyes focused on the nearly full Styrofoam cup sitting in front of my face.

A grey murkiness floated through the room. Drips of water leaked down from the ceiling, undoubtedly coming from a bad pipe in my bathroom on the second floor. Every so often, for the last six months, I’d seen this happen.

The water from above dripped against my kitchen floor.

Drip, drip, drip, drip…

I was back. From where… I didn’t know.

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