By Tyler MacDonald

You tremble. The tin can from your favorite beer brand rumbles along with your sweaty right hand. Your clammy palm, helped by your swampy fingers, clasp that cylinder like a climber grasps a cliff. Your cell phone says that the time is 10:13 in the morning. Your wife that you don’t kiss will return from work in 6 hours. 

You are Rich Davis Field, and you are doing nearly nothing. You are watching the TV, however. They are the Raptors and the Hornets. You want the Hornets to win. Your favorite player is the Charlotte shooting guard. One time you wondered, “Why do people sit on sofas, stare at screens, and then cheer for other people that are more successful than themselves?”

You hardly think at all now. There is only the sound of the TV as you slouch upon your sofa, shaking. You are only like this for now. Soon the beer will kick in. Then you are fated to drown in a sea of forgetfulness. Afterwards you will feel like a happy, healthy Rich Davis Field. 

This process is how you survive your life. 

You sink deep into your black hole, your sofa. The eyes of yours that evolved to track down buffalo are now dilated and gazing into nothing. Your favorite player gets a huge 3 but you are unaware. In your mind you have traveled to a hallway, in which there are stairs going down. You take some steps down and look around at the dark corridor. After descending one flight of the squeaky wooden stairs, a door appears. 

The air was musty back behind, but when you open the door you are treated to a plethora of warm scents from nature. It’s a meadow. Flowers of pink and yellow dot the landscape like spots on a delicate green sundress. You glance down at your shoes, then to your hands. You are still Rich Davis Field. Your arms are a little skinnier than you remember. 

Were you wearing formal clothes beforehand? You forget lots of things, Rich, so you are hardly shocked that you would forget what you were wearing. Plus, it is not like you check your arms all the time, that would be strange. You turn your head up slowly. Why do you not scream in terror? Or shout, “Where am I?” Why are you standing silently and upright? 

You blink and then blink again because you notice something strange. You think, “Wait. Was I not alone?”

You cannot make a scene because a formally dressed man is talking to your left, reading what sounds like a marriage service. You stay silent because it is your wife parallel to yourself in front of the preacher man, in a white dress. She radiates with the smile you have seen for many years in a row by now. You remember her smile and how it enchanted you so much when you were young. You recall when you grew used to her smile and took it for granted. 

“I do,” she replies to all the inquiries.

“I do… I do…”

“Oh shit, now I’ve gotta speak,” you think. Why aren’t you terrified? Weren’t you just alone in the dark a few minutes ago? You think those things as well, but only with a curious air. You have a wife to wed at the moment.

You smile and reply to the questions, “I do.”

“I do.”

“I do.”

You kiss the bride. 

The party after passes by like a summer day of fun at the beach, with all of your friends around.

Then you tell her, “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. I love you.”

You go into a building that waits nearby. Pushing in the door, the air changes. 

Bags. They are bunched up in a group of 3 atop your twin-sized bed. It’s artificial, for sure, but that air freshener must be the linen scent which you think to be divine. You must be moving away. 

“Wow. My mind is so spacey! I’ve already forgotten why I’m here. Feels like deja vu,” you mutter to yourself.

The entire room is empty except for that bag trio. You come up closer towards the bags. One is labeled with a sticker: “Dorm stuff”. Another is named “school supplies” and the third is “etc”. It is as if the cases have tumours. And obesity. 

You exude a slow sigh. You sit down on your bed, adrift in thought. Not much deep thought runs through your mind, rather it is mostly the sort of contented thinking that one does when they don’t have lots of sunny leisure time. It’s the way a working-class adult thinks after another 60-hour week, while birds chirp at each other in the background. And you,  just lucky to be at peace. You imagine palm trees thinking like this while they sway with the breeze. You imagine being a tree.

 Meanwhile, some rays of light enter your room from the window that you have always woken up to.  You woke up in many different fashions. You’ve awoken from nightmares to face that window with the moon. You’ve reluctantly awoken from dreams to see the stars dreaming out in the sky. Or, when school was out, you woke up well rested, yawning only a little, perky as the playful light. And also the alarm clock days. Those are easy to forget. 

You breathe in the daytime air only for a brief moment. Why are you not having a panic attack? 

Why do you feel an urge to part with that window which has been such a friend to you all your life? You get up and turn towards the door. All you know is that you leave. The linen scent shifts into staler air. Mass-produced air of civilization’s creation. 

Where have you been to get here? Were you not just in…

“Rich, are you okay?”

Not okay. Convalescent. That is what you are.

You are not just sleepy. Your eyes weigh one thousand pounds apiece. You are beyond tired. 

 Bland white lights shine from above. Mass produced like everything in that room. Except for the one that asks you in a whisper, “Rich. Are you okay?”

She is not mass produced. Robots can speak quietly but only a human is artful enough to invent the whisper. Only the woman you married can put a spell on you with mere eye contact. But even her soul-windows have become commonplace to you. Your eyes scan the room for other non-androids. You look up at her from your hospital bed. 

“Yes. I’m okay, but what happened?”

“You fell apart. When I arrived from work, you were there on the floor of the living room. Passed out. Beer cans littered the floor. I tried to wake you up then, but now is the first time you’ve come awake.”

“Heart attack or seizure?” you ask.

“Heart attack. Alcohol induced according to the expert.”

You are not Rich Davis Field. You are only a vessel of aching coupled with the groaning of body and soul. 

“It’ll be alright. You’ll get better soon.”

You groan. “What day is it?”

She answers calmly, “Wednesday, honey. It’s the early morning after when I found you.”

Ah yes. Early mornings which you always sleep through. Outside the window the stars are shining, dreaming of celestial things. You reach out your hand to your wife. She takes it. Both of you stare into each other. Everything slows down. You feel like a still ocean.

“Look at the stars, my love,” you whisper, “We can watch them together. We’ve never done that before.” 

She glances at the stars. Then back to you. You forget the hospital air. 

You’re both silent as you look out the window. It will get better soon, she says. 

The future hides in the mist. What shall come of it is not known. All you know now is that your wife’s hand is a little cold but that it makes you feel warm inside.