Chapter 2 – A Brand New Reality
My head is throbbing. It sort of feels like my heart is beating against the inside my skull, right behind my forehead. As I try to shift, the pounding gets worse and I groan.
"Easy there, kid." I feel a hand on my shoulder and the unfamiliar voice is close to my face, hot breath brushing over my face and smelling distinctly like Puck does the morning after a party. I wrinkle my nose. Alcohol. "Sorry 'bout that, the switch di'n't happen s'fast as I thought. Thought you might least have the brains to guard your head instead o' lettin' it crack on the sidewalk like an egg."
"What?" I grumble out in confusion. I manage to force my eyes open and there's a big brown thing hovering right over me. I can't help the startled yelp that escapes me as I try to draw back, but the only result this gets is my head starts throbbing worse again.
The figure above me moves back and I get a glimpse of cloudy gray sky. I put my hand onto my face to adjust my glasses, but they aren't there. Then how on earth can I see things so distinctly? Groaning, I push myself up with my elbows until I'm sitting up.
I'm sitting on the bottom step of the library and when I look sideways Patches the homeless guy is perched next to me, idly tracing his finger around the neck of his bottle while he watches me. He grins and suddenly everything comes rushing back to me, so quickly that it feels like all of the memories are being thrown at my head. I gasp and curl in on myself at the pain.
Being late; the bloody nose and broken glasses; the slushies; lunch; teachers; glee practice; the winter ball; the wrestling jocks; the anger; the flag pole; Tina's rescue; yelling at her; the library; wishing for a different life; Patches pushing me; hitting the concrete.
When the attack of the memories fades, I'm left shuddering from the intensity. I can feel my heart hammering painfully hard in my chest and I'm panting. It takes me a minute before I can look up and over at Patches, and I glare at him. "What'd you shove me for?"
Patches takes a swallow of his drink before he answers me. "Had to," he says simply. "On'y way to get you here."
"Here?" I ask, glancing around again. "What'd you mean? We're still at the library. I haven't gone anywhere. Unless you mean moving me from my chair to this step, in which case I could have done that on my own without you trying to crush my skull."
"Relax, yer skull ain't cracked," Patches says, rolling his eyes. "And you is in a differ'nt place. I sent yeh where yeh wanted to go."
I still have no idea what he's talking about, so I look around again to see if maybe there's some clue as to what he means. As I'm looking, I notice that my legs, stretched out awkwardly in front of me, are clad in white. Okay, I definitely was not wearing that before. Looking closer over myself, I take in my outfit; jeans, sneakers, buttondown shirt, sweater vest, fingerless gloves. And all of it is pure white.
"What the –?"
"Don' ask me, kid, you picked it," Patches says with a laugh. "Yeh dress like my gramps did."
"I did not pick these clothes," I say defensively. "I was wearing blue jeans. And Tina's hoodie."
"Tina?" Patches asks and snorts into his bottle so it makes a low whistling noise. "You was wearing a girl sweater? Oh boy, you gots more problems than I thought."
"I was definitely not wearing this though," I say, pointing at myself. I'm starting to get more than just a little freaked out now. Some creepy homeless guy shoves me out of my chair and then I wake up in different clothes. You can't tell me that doesn't sound wrong seven ways to Sunday. "I don't even own a pair of white jeans."
Patches just laughs again. "In this world, yeh don' own nothin'."
"What?" I'm once again caught off guard by his random statement. "This world? What is that supposed to mean?"
"The world yeh wanted to go to," Patches says in exasperation. "Jiminy Christmas, kid, how many times I gotta tell you that? Yer denser 'an a fence post."
Okay, the crazy person is trying to tell me I'm stupid. I'm really not so happy with that. I can feel myself sliding on the step and I reach down to grab my leg and pull it back up, but the moment my hand touches my knee I flinch back like I've been shocked.
"What the 'ell's wrong now?" Patches asks.
I don't answer, staring at my leg in awe. Tentatively, I reach out my hand and push my palm against my knee again. A thrill of surprise shoots through me because I can feel it. Not just in my hand, I mean my knee can feel the curve of my palm over my kneecap and there's a warmth at every place my hand is making contact.
Curious, I flex the muscles and watch as my leg moves as easily as if it had always been doing it. I curl my toes, bend and straighten first my right leg and then the left, all the while just staring at my suddenly animate limbs.
"Yeh gonna spend all day doin' that?" Patches' question manages to pull me back to reality a little bit.
"I'm not – I can feel – " I trail off, still too stunned to form a coherent sentence. Unable to contain myself any longer, I arrange my legs underneath me, take a deep breath, and push. It's almost too easy how my body rises until my legs are fully extended. I'm standing.
Turning back to face Patches, an incredulous smile breaks across my face. "I'm not paralyzed."
"Well o' course yeh ain't," Patches says like it's the most obvious thing ever. "Yeh don' exist."
If you ever want to know a good way to take a pin to someone's happy bubble, that'll do it. I feel my mouth fall open as I stare at him.
"How – I don't – what?"
Patches rolls his eyes and lets out a heavy sigh. "You ain't so smart, are yeh?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at me. He takes a swallow of his drink and then mutters, "I'm gonna need me 'nother bottle for this 'un." I just keep watching him and finally he looks back up at me. "I said, yeh don' exist. Jus' like yeh wished fer."
"I did not," I say instinctively. Then the memory comes to the surface again; yelling at Tina and telling her I wished I'd never been born; telling the stupid hobo that everyone's lives would be easier without me in them. Dear God, I really had wished that.
But it doesn't matter that I wished it, because it couldn't possibly happen. There's just no way that some drunk homeless guy could magic us into a world where I never existed. Things like that don't happen in the real world. It's illogical. Am I hallucinating? Maybe Patches slipped me something, and I'm high or stoned or drunk or – something. All I know is that there's no way I'm falling for this story.
Turning away from him, I take a step and freeze. I took a step. I'm walking. Even though I've been paralyzed for eight years, I'm now magically up and walking around as if nothing ever happened to me. As if I'd never been in that accident. As if I'd never been paralyzed. If I can somehow be walking again, then is it that far-fetched that I've also been taken to some world where I haven't been born?
"Finally got there, have yeh?" Patches asks from behind me. When I look back at him he toasts me with his bottle and takes a swallow.
"Who are you?" I ask, staring at him in disbelief. If all of this stuff he's telling me is true, then there is no way he's just some crazy hobo.
Patches grins at me. "Yeh wouldn' believe me if I told yeh," he says and winks. "Jus' call me Patches, it's wha' they all do."
"Right," I say uncertainly. I look around myself again, taking in the sight of downtown Lima. Everything looks exactly like it always has. What did I expect, that just because I wasn't alive that the whole world would look different? I berate myself for even thinking that. It's not like this is some Saturday morning Christmas special or something, where the absence of one person leaves the world in chaos and destruction. It's stupid to even think that.
Am I really non-existent? I'm still not fully sure that I want to believe this story yet, despite the fact that I'm pacing up and down while thinking about it. Pacing, now there's a tension reliever I've never really gotten to experience before. The action of moving, even if it's only five feet in either direction, is sort of calming and mind-clearing.
"Yer the weirdest 'un I've had yet, kid," Patches observes abruptly and I stop to look at him. "Most o' 'em go runnin' for home the moment I tell 'em where they are. Start panicking, see, thinkin' they've made some mistake."
"It wasn't a mistake," I say certainly. "If this whole thing is real, it wasn't a mistake. I – They're better off without me."
"Yeh sure o' that?" Patches is giving me a really strange look, cocking one eyebrow and smirking almost like he's daring me.
"Yes," I say, but I plunge my hands into my pockets and stare at the ground between my feet thoughtfully. What if I'm wrong? No, I can't be wrong. It's too late for being wrong. Besides, my logic is sound. Not having to constantly care for and accommodate and feel guilty about a kid in a wheelchair would definitely be a plus in life.
"Yeh don' think they might miss yeh a bit?"
I furrow my brow thoughtfully. "No, you can't miss what was never there, right?"
Patches looks a bit surprised for a second. "Well yeah, I s'pose not," he admits. "Never had it put to me like that."
I feel a little satisfaction at that, but it's short-lived as my brain instantly moves on to other things. I keep trying to push my glasses up, but they aren't there and I just end up rubbing my nose. After a few minutes of toying with my gloves I realize I don't need them, since I don't have a wheelchair anymore. I tug them off, feeling the liberating freedom of the chill winter air on my bare palms, and stuff them into my pocket.
I don't exist. That seems like such a strange thing to think. It is a strange thing to think. How can a person be thinking about the fact that they don't exist, because they'd have to exist to be capable of thinking, wouldn't they? So if I don't exist, how am I here and thinking about my non-existence?
"What do I do now?" I ask, turning back to Patches curiously.
"What yeh mean?" Patches asks, not bothering to look up from his scotch bottle to answer me.
"I mean, I don't exist. What exactly am I supposed to do with my life now? Do I like, go out and start a new life for myself, or do I just wander around not existing?" I elaborate, and dread starts to curl in my stomach. Neither one of those ideas sounds very comforting, but especially not that second one.
Patches laughs in his throat, his mouth full of amber liquid. I wait impatiently until he swallows and grins at me again. "Nope, neither," he says with a strange little smile. "Those are just stupid. Nah, yeh'll sorta fade out all slow like. Yeh can't just make yerself stop existin' right 'way, it messes with yer spirit and all that. Depends on yer spirit, but yeh usually have 'bout two, sometimes three days 'fore yeh vanish all the way."
"Three days?" I ask incredulously, looking around and wondering what I'm supposed to do with myself for three days.
"Well yeah, gotta give it time to dis'ppear," Patches says, again like it's the most obvious thing in the world. I try not to be annoyed by that; how am I supposed to know what a person goes through when they stop existing? "Gives yeh time to get yer last looks, too. Yeh know, see them people you love one more time 'fore goin' away fer good."
I look down at the ground between my shoes again, which is a sight I'm sure I'll never quite get used to. Of course, it's not like I have all that much more time to see it, if this crazy hobo's right. Final goodbyes? I hadn't even considered that. Did I really want to see them again before I left? Have to deal with the pain of the parting?
"They won't know me, right?" I ask, not looking up.
Patches scoffs. "Since yeh don' exist, I'd reckon not."
If I'm about to fade into non-existence, maybe it would be nice to see them all one more time. To see how happy they are now that I'm gone, and know that I made that decision to make them so happy. Yeah, maybe that would be a good thing. If I'm gonna go along with this crack dream, I might as well do it all the way.
Turning, I set off at a run. I hear Patches chasing after me and he shouts, "Where yeh think yer going, kid?"
I don't even bother to look back over my shoulder at him when I answer. "Home."
