First page of sunken relief
New York, Manhattan 2009
I knew what he was doing but I could not move. He dumped the gasoline out over the child in the baby stroller, as he would an old beer. He reaches up for a Marlboro and sticks it in his mouth then lifts a lighter to light it. With a smile like the devils on his face he slowly puts flame to his cigarette. It feels like an eternity before the flame catches the tobacco. Then he just casually tosses it into the stroller. The mother just talks on her cell phone like none of it was happening and then looks at me with a smile and winks ; like I was part of this scene but I wasn't, I'm a miles away and getting father every second. Then like a dream, I wake and see not two feet away from me the child. The gas fumes were clogging my nose and throat; I cannot breathe my brain screams, or maybe its hysteria choking me until I see red lights dancing around my eyes. Then I see the little flame of the lighter barely touch the stroller, like the flame was a whisper. It started slowly climbing up the side of the sun cover that protects the baby. It had bears and trees on it, with dancing suns. The thought of the innocence that brings to mind has me laughing insanely. The flame licks around the front and grasps onto the stuffed animal sitting beside the child. I knew nothing was going to stop this flame it had a purpose. And the whole time the kid just sat there holding that bear smiling as if she was in on some great mystery. She was wearing a pink fluffy dress with shoes that were shiny black leather with tiny silver buckles holding the straps on. As I look up flames just spread and touched everything in that stroller. The woman is screaming now pulling out chunks of hair and reaching for the child. She finally notices She looks at me again with horror and accusation. All I could think was its not ME it is him… I knew she hated me I could see it in her eyes. The smell of burned flesh starts to make me sick but I knew if I bent to vomit, I would have to look. Time started to move faster then a scream and a push from behind sends me to the ground. I have to look now; and I see her hair curl and singed. The pink shirt she wears looks like its evaporating off her body. Her skin starts to melt and curdle. She so little it does not take long for her to catch fire all over. I up look and see the plastic on the handle and bar across the front of the seat start to melt and drip on to the sidewalk some drops on my hand and burns; but it's like a far away feeling and I can't take my eyes off of her. Before I pass out, I look one more time at her once perfect baby face. She cannot be more than two or three and her life is about over. She gets to feel pain so intense that most of us could live a lifetime and never be able to compare that pain. I look so I will not forget her and she is still smiling as if she does not feel the pain of her skin being melted from her body by flame. Her eyes shine with a glow of wisdom I will not ever know. She smiles because she knows what we do not and I have to smile back. I see the darkness coming for me; its calming rush fills me with a nothingness that puts me at peace. Her smile chases me into the darkness I know it will always haunt me.
Five Years Earlier
New York City 2004
Chapter 1
"Where's my Car?"
"Two years, six months, and thirteen day I have spent in this ratty ass
Apartment." Keres say aloud to the pack the boxes on her old life. She shouts up the stairs to the apartment a floor up. "Hey Joe did Brian bring my car back yet?"" No Keres he's not back yet I'll call ya when I see him drive up." Joe walks down and stops in my doorway with a smile on his face he says, "Hey you are sure in a hurry to
Get out of this lovely place aren't ya." he laughs and wiggles his eyebrows up and down. I smile and say "Yeah" with a little laugh. I think to myself can I push him down the stairs before I leave. NO. That's not right I'm the new me now no more rage. I think with a laugh and shake my head. Ever since I moved in this building I had to put up with crazy ass neighbors, loud music, and drunk homeless people sleeping in the front of the lobby door. I'm out of here by tonight. I think with glee and go about boxing the rest of my meager items into piles. When I left art school for the big bad New York City, I looked at these run down dumps and said I'd never live there but after one night
walking around trying to find a place I was mugged, got lost on the subway, and got chased by fifteen year old punks in the park I settled for the first thing that was not filled full of junkies and hookers. The apartment used to be a nice co-op but when I moved in it was a cozy rat hole. It was just one large room. Kitchen, toilet everything all together I had to hang sheets to make a divider just so I could have a bedroom. The kitchen has a sink, mini fridge and a stove. However, other than that it was nothing. Well at least it had a sound floor. The bathtub looked like roaches had been chopped
up in it. The sink and toilet did not work and, I of course had to replace that to. All in all I pretty much fixed this place up all myself. I cannot wait to get the hell out of here. I remember six months ago today how my life suddenly changed. I was going to an interview with a big design company. There I was running late, I am always late, when I bump into the most obnoxious man I had ever met. He was standing in the damn doorway to the building just standing there reading a newspaper. I smile just remembering the furry I felt. I said, "Hey buddy move it" and he looks up and smiles and says, 'Sorry mam I can't do that." Dumfounded I look at him to see if he
was for real and he smile and goes back to his paper. I ask, "And just why the hell not?" He turns and looks at the door and back at me and says, "There's a toll fee you see, so I can't be letting you through without the fee paid." I think this guy is nuts and then I start looking around to see if someone was playing a joke on me. I turn back to him and ask," So what do I owe you?" He puts his paper down and takes a piece of paper and pen from his pocket and says, "You phone number and address so I can
pick you up around eight tonight." I stare at him for like a second and then I yell at him, "You just made me late for a job interview and I'm going to kill you!" I walk towards him and raise my hand. The smile disappears and he grabs my hand and says, "You're not late for you interview Miss Cutler your just on time but I warn you to never raise a hand at me again." He lets go of my hand and shoves the paper and pen at me. Stupidly I write my number and address down and hand it back to him. Hey, I thought I'm going
to give him one night of hell. I know I will get the junkies across the street so money to jump him or something. I look up handing him back the paper and smile sweetly. He smile and says, "See you at eight by the way my names Brian." He then turned and stepped up to a man walking out of the door. "Sir" he says, "you're under arrest for embezzling fund from your company put your hands behind your back and come quietly with me to the station." I just stood there with my mouth open. He turns back to me at his car, smiles, and waves. I wave back, walk in, and go on to my interview. That day I got a
job and a lover. Six months later, I am head advertising director and moving in with my fiancé. I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. I turn with a smile on my Face to greet my lover Brian. Then it starts, the shaking of the room like someone tossed my world into a blender. That is how it always starts the seizures. Ever since I was a child, it had been this way the shaking, the blacking out, the taste and smell of metal. But this time it was different; the shaking and the turning of my vision upside down was the same,
but no blackness to catch me and draw me into nothingness. I saw through the haze and movement of my body and clear of the pain and taste of blood. I saw Brian in the driver's seat of a bus, saw him look right at me and smile beautifully then turn the wheel fast and sharp into on coming traffic. The car in front of the bus rips apart into pieces and goes flying into the truck beside it. I saw that the drive torn from the car and flung onto the twisted metal bumped of the bus, she stuck to it and I could see her life leave her body. I got such a rush from this that I bucked off the floor and went ridged. I feel nothing but pain and heat as if I was in the flames that burst in the engine of the bus. All the while Brian still smiles and gestured towards the wreckage of
Vehicles as if to say 'See what I've done for you." The metal bodies of the cars keep driving into one another to form one big ball of twisted metal and human flesh. Blood was pouring out onto the road in small streams that converged together to form a river. Its' flow was only stopped by the gasoline that ran in to it. I hear moans and screams and smell the gas and blood. I watch as Brian opened the bus door and stepped out into the carnage. He looked back at me and waved then stepped into a puddle of gas and blood. He looked happy and at peace and I was happy for him. Then he was gone as a near by car engine exploded. Flame raced long the streams of
gas and blood to wear he was standing. Then it circled him slowly toying with me; waiting to see if I would look away. The flames caught on to Brian's shoes and climb his legs to engulf his body in an agony of pain. He closes his eyes in pleasure and throws his arms up in surrender. Darkness is around him or maybe it's around me. I finally close my eyes to my own screams. "Keres wake up!" someone shakes me and yells in a far off voice. "Keres please wake up!" they sound freaked out so I try to open my eyes. They feel like someone sealed them shut with glue. When I finally get them open, I am looking at a familiar face. Its Joe of course he is always bugging me. I say," Joe go away I don't want you here." He is still looking at me so I try to push him off me so I can get up and show him the door. As soon as I move it all comes back; the horrid accident and Brian so beautiful and then on fire, the sudden rush of realization and horror makes me sick and I vomit
On the floor. I stand up just to fall right back onto the floor .1 look up at Joe's face and here this screaming from somewhere far off. Joe moves to grab hold of me its then I realize that it was me screaming. "Keres calm
down!" He yells. He garbs hold of me and shake my shoulders till my teeth rattle in my head. I wish for the blackness and feel fury when it doesn't claim me. I jerk free and run to the table by my bed and start to flinging stuff off it, sending a glass vase crashing to the floor. I fling all my pictures of my family and Brian into the kitchen and all over the floor. I started to beat on the top of the table until it became slippery and wet. I looked down to see blood all over the table and my hands. Joe comes up behind me to see what I was staring at and grabs my hands and jerks me over to the sink in the kitchen." Why the hell did you do that?" he asked me . "What's the matter with you are ya crazy?" He shoves my hands under the water. The sting of the water
jolts me out of the rage and I start to cry. I cry so hard I can't breath. Great sobs tear from my chest and I try to scream out but the force of my grief sends me to the floor trying to catch my breath. " Keres stop it! What's wrong, tell me" Joe says pushing the hair out of my face and looks me in the eyes. "He's gone" I whisper and then I grab onto Joe and shut my eyes . Joe picks me up like a child and carries me to my bed and lays me down . He covers me with a ratty flannel throw and asks, "Who's gone Keres?" "Brian" I say and then slip into a deep sleep. I wake to the sound of pounding on my door. I sit up and see Joe asleep on the only chair in my apartment. I get up groggily and stumble towards the door. Thud, thud, thud I hear on my door and I yell, "Just a minute" and run into a pile of picture frames on the floor. One catches me in between my toes and I curse and jump up and
down. At the sound of my blundering Joe sits up to fast and hits his head on the low hanging lamp above him. "What the hell is going on" Joe says rubbing the sore spot. I reach the door and undo the first two locks keeping the chain lock in place. "What is it" I ask and look up to find a cop staring back at me. "Ms. Keres Cutler?" he asks, "Yeah that's me" I say I was starting to remember what had happen earlier. And I have a sick
feeling about what he's going to say. So I unlock the chain and let him in then I turn so I don't have to look at him while he tells me Brian is dead. I can see Brian on fire in my mind so I stiffen up reading myself for the words to be said." Miss Cutler your car was found abandon on the New Jersey turn pike by a patrol car around 2am this morning. Do you have any idea how your car ended up there miss?" I turn to look at him my brain refusing to work. So I say dumbly, "My car, you found my car?" He looks
at me strangely and asks," Are you alright miss?" He the looks at the metal clipboard in his hands and says, "The license plate is registered to a Keres Cutler and to this address. You are miss Cutler right?" I sit on the edge of the table and say, "Yes that's me .Wait a minute my car was found in Jersey? How?" I shake my head and look over at Joe. He stands and says," Keres boyfriend Detective Carson was driving it back from there new apartment in the Village that's no where near Jersey was there any sign of him. I don't know, I mean what's going on?" The cop turns to Joes and says ,"
A metro bus was jacked at the turn pike and we are investigating a crash the reason I say this is because wittiness say they saw the drive park the vehicle and run up to the bus and jump in. The wittiness also say it was a woman driving. I'm asking you miss Cutler do you know how your car got there?" I start to shake and say low, "He was dropping off some boxes at the house, Brian was in my car." Then I scream at him, "Where is he?" Over and over I scream this till Joe comes over and holds me and shushes me to calm down. The cop looks at me and says," Miss Cutler we believe