Big Luke

Now I was starting to understand why I was shown all those happy moments from my past, I was dying.

Though I was still in a coma, my brain had started to show me all these crazy visions. At one point, I was back at my old house in Louisiana. The house was surrounded with police cars, an ambulance, and a coroner's van. To my left and back a step was a uniformed police officer, he was escorting me somewhere.

We approached one of the police cars where a young man, probably about seventeen years old, was sitting on the push bar mounted to the front bumper. He was wearing a light plaid button-up shirt with both sleeves torn off. His oil-stained jeans went well with the muddy boots on his feet. Turned backwards on his head was a camouflage baseball cap. He was tall, right around six-four for sure. Fit but not too overly buff. The young man was talking to the officer that probably drove the car that he was sitting on. He stood up from the push bar with a look of denial on his face. That look of denial turned to a brief look of shame as the officer placed a fist on the young man's chest to sit him back down.

The kid slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. I couldn't take my eyes off him. This whole vision was so abnormal that it didn't make sense.

The young man appeared to have been answering the officer's questions. It wasn't long before we finally got the chance to walk by him, which didn't turn out to be all that great.

Once the kid saw me, he lunged. The teary look of sadness turned to that of a murderous rage. . . towards me. It wasn't like me to flinch but I did ever so slightly. Luckily, the officer caught the boy around the chest.

"You son of a bitch!" the boy yelled at me, struggling to escape the cop's hold. "Why the fuck did you do it?"

Do what?, I found myself asking my brain.

The obviously distressed young man push the officer's arm off him and turned his attention toward the cop. "You want to know who could've killed my mom? That fucking scum right there!"

His finger was jabbed right at me. Hey, someone killed his mom like me!. . . Oh, wait. . . that is me. I wasn't myself in this vision; I was placed in my step-dad's shoes. Now, if I was supposed to feel his emotions, it wasn't working. I didn't feel anything, I didn't really have control over the body I was in.

All of a sudden, something grabbed at my step-dad's feet and pulled us both through the Earth's crust to another place. I landed on a couch. I quickly looked over my hands. I had changed out of the T-shirt and jeans that I was wearing a second ago into a black button-up work shirt that I had never seen before and a pair of khaki cargo pants. Above the left pocket on the shirt was the logo for Bulldog Kinetics and Rifleworks. I was all into everything guns and I had never heard of that company before. Above the right pocket was a name tag with my first and last names on it: Jon Luke Richards.

To my left sat Brittany. She was hanging onto my arm but she was looking at someone in front of us. I tilted my head to look at two dudes with sleeves of tattoos running down their arms. They were both wearing black T-shirts and black fedoras. Looking around, I noticed we were in a tattoo shop. Sketches covered the walls and there were a couple chairs flanked by tattoo machines in the room directly behind the two dudes.

It wasn't just the four of us in the shop. To my right were two guys, one wielding a giant boom mic that hung above our heads. The other was staring through the eyepiece to a giant video camera, like the ones you would see on movie sets and stuff. At least six or eight other people were in the room. I think I was on TV.

"So, tell me why you don't like his tattoo," requested one of the tatted men across from Brittany and I.

"To be honest," started Brittany. "It gives me nightmares and it messes with our sex life."

Did she just say 'sex life'? Her and I fucked? Plus, she said 'sex life', that means that we must have fucked a lot!

"It just makes me think about all the stuff he might have had to do. All the things he's been through," Brittany added. "Plus, he won't talk to me about any of it."

"We just got in a tight spot. We- I got the tat for the guys who didn't make it back," I found myself saying. I had no control over my actions. "Nor is it really worth discussing."

"OK, well, we are definitely going to have to see the tattoo," said the tatted guy that didn't talk before.

I stood up and the three other people did as well. I pulled the bottom of my shirt out of the cargo pants and started to un-button it. When I got it open, Brittany reached over and lifted my white undershirt to show the tattoo I had on my chest: the one of the skeletal Marine. Keep in mind that I didn't show my chest on national television willingly. I was not operating on my own will. The two guys got close enough to look at it. The look on their faces told me that they expected something ugly or gross, but was pleasantly surprised.

"It doesn't look all that bad," one of them said.

"No, the tattoo itself is very well done. It's just really creepy," said Brittany, letting the undershirt fall back over my stomach. "I don't like the way it looks at me."

The tatted guy with the long goatee talked next. "You know we could cover that up for you? Make your wife happy?"

Wife? I didn't even know we were dating! "You can cover this up and make it all look good. . . and still pay tribute to my time as a Marine?"

I still wasn't in control of what I was saying, which kinda sucked. I had a lot of questions that really needed answered. I never got the chance. Some invisible force kept pulling me through the floor from scene to scene. No fucks were given to the questions I had.

The next scene that I was shown was my own funeral. I was standing on the beach at camp looking out at the ocean. A lot of people were there including Chiron. Of course, Brittany, Mathew, Brandon and David were there too. Whoever they used as an undertaker did a good job. I was clean shaven and my hair cut, dressed in my dress blues. My body was laying down on a small wooden boat with a small sail. Probably made to look well built, but in actuality was pretty cheaply made. The wood was probably soaked with gasoline or even greek fire.

"Jon Luke Wayland Richards was a soldier, a teacher, a leader, and a loyal friend," Chiron started. "He lived a tragic life. From losing his mother at age seventeen, losing several fellow-Marines over seas, and being wounded in combat himself at age twenty, loss was something that he had came across a lot but never had gotten used to. After about a week from being home after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, his grandparents house had been overrun by monsters. Since he couldn't run south very far, he went north instead. Eventually, one of our many Satyrs found him and guided him towards Camp Half-Blood. I can still see that borrowed, brand-new Audi sedan jumping over Half-blood Hill and landing right next to the big house. The car was beyond repair with a bent frame and a crunched front grill. Jon Luke stepped out of the car with his rifle in hand and pointed it right at me."

"Two weeks later, Jon Luke had been claimed by the Lord of the Forge and came to me requesting to a different class schedule," Chiron continued. "Long story short, Jon Luke started our hand-to-hand combat class here at camp. Jon Luke Wayland Richards gave his life to save a friend's life. If I had to guess, I would guess that he is going to Elysium. However, he would probably argue that he's going to the Christian Hell to rendezvous with his Marine brethren."

I was chuckling to myself because of how true that was. Nobody else thought it was funny. Maybe they didn't get it.

"Wherever you're going, I know that you will keep a watchful eye over the rest of us still here with the living. You're always going to be in our hearts and our prayers. Forever rest in peace. The gods know you deserve it."

When Chiron finished his speech, Brittany took the opportunity to walk out to the boat on the sand and slip something into the palm of my hand with was placed at my side. All of a sudden, I was standing right next to her but she didn't see me standing there. She was wearing normal camp clothes but she had braided her hair over one shoulder. Then she kissed my cheek one last time and started walking back to the crowd with tears in her eyes. A few other campers kicked my floating casket out to sea and I watched it float away. Both David and Brandon walked down to the waters edge and stood next to me. David had his bow in his hand with an arrow nocked. Around the head was some cloths that looked to be soaked with gas; I could smell the fumes.

David drew back his string and aimed up high in the sky. My boat was probably a good fifty yards out now. "OK, go ahead and lite it."

"This ones for you, Big Luke. Thanks for everything you've done for us and helped us to become better men." Brandon didn't really say it very loud. Pretty much just above a mumble so that they could both hear him. He did this as he struck a match and lit the cloth around the arrowhead.

"Amen," David responded before letting the arrow fly.

The arrow arched through the air and came down somewhere near my left foot. Then the whole boat lit up like a Christmas tree as the flames danced around in the sunset.