Resurrecting Phoenix
By
Ryan Mitchel Collins
I
I don’t know about heaven or hell. All those things I’ve heard about heaven or hell may be what it’s like, but I don’t really know if there’s a heaven or hell. I do know people fade away when it’s their day. Where they go is a mystery to me.
I’ve been through the ups and the downs, and I know we create realities, but something’s out of control. If there’s a heaven or hell it’s right here, we control that.
My mother would talk to my brother and I about these things when we were young. And we’d sit there, letting our minds paint pictures of the future, where we had never ending smiles as bright as the sun, and everything was good. She would tell us how we were warriors and how life was a battle. She would say, “nothing worth while ever came easy to me.”
And now, outside my older brother’s house, I remember her saying this to us so long ago. She’s been dead for a long time now; I can barely see her face in dreams. She was the strand that held us three together. My father supposedly ran off when I was born, but I’ve heard he went down to Mexico and drank himself to death. She told us he was in the marines and died in Grenada.
After mom died, Sawyer and I grew apart. He got serious with some woman that didn’t like me. When they got married I didn’t go, and time wove canyons of distance between us. Life went on, and I became somewhat of a successful writer and moved out to California where it never snows. It’s been ten years since I talked to my only brother in the world.
My brother’s wife, Cheri, sent us a Christmas card when they bought their house about five years ago. It said, “happy for you and, Sophie! Maybe we can mend the bridge someday?” It made me mad at the time, but I found it the other day going through some of her old stuff. At first I wanted to call them. I’d pick up the phone and call information to get his number, then dial the number and hang up before it rang.
There really wasn’t anyone to talk to. In the past ten years he’d got married, bought a house, and had my niece and nephew. It made me break down to think how that would never be possible for me now. So I’d sit there at night, getting as high as possible, going over every curve and line within that Christmas card, examining every possible detail, to find some of the past within it, trying to find something to hold onto again.
I had the address and packed my things. I’m sure he’d heard what happened, but he never bothered to call, and I understood. We were never good at dealing with emotions in the first place, or at least he wasn’t. He could slam the door in my face for all I know is what I thought as I made the drive out to Colorado. And there outside of his house, I didn’t know how to react. I could see in the dining room from the street, as my niece and nephew ran around playing with the dogs. Cheri came in and shooed the children somewhere.
My brother was a family man now. In the morning he’d get up and go to work to provide for his family. I’m sure he probably hated his job and loathed going to it, but he did it for them. He and his family had a routine, and they didn’t need an unexpected visitor, raining sorrow on their happiness like some plague. The sight of his happiness brought a certain relief, and I knew he’d found something worthwhile. My plans were shattered like the memory of a dream upon waking, but at least Sawyer was happy with his family. When we were young he would say that I had a black cloud following me everywhere I went, that it destroyed everything I came around. He said it was my fault our father left when I was born, and for once I knew he was right.
Snowflakes slowly cascaded on the windshield as I started the car, and drove away.
II
Driving to Denver, I could see the sun set over the mountains, as the wind cascaded fresh October powder over their peaks, like some stalwart marker of the change in seasons. The sun hid completely behind the mountains, as the lights of Denver came into view. Driving, I came across an accident that piled traffic up for ten miles. When I came to the scene of the accident, I could tell somebody’d been hurt by the crowd amassed.
They held grimaces of sorrow and pain so deep, it pierced my heart as I could feel that gruesome essence of loss again. The snow continued falling, picking up intensity as some of them lamented cries into the creeping evening dark. I wanted to get out and help them, or comfort them, but like everybody else I kept driving into the narrowness of the future.
The snow started to play with the rush hour traffic and I stopped at the first hotel I saw. Walking in, I noticed a couple standing outside arguing.
“Why do you always think you’re right? Can’t you just understand I love you and don’t want to fight about this anymore?”
“You don’t love me, you just need someone to love.”
“How could you say that?”
I stood there observing their argument, wishing, and praying I could even argue with her one more time. They noticed I was listening and watching them; they stopped as I casually strolled by them; they would never know I envied their fight. When I opened the door they started in on each other again, “you know I love you baby, I shouldn’t have said that.”
I walked into the hotel lobby and noticed how it looked like an old brothel. The way the balcony stood observing the lobby, made you feel any minute the clerk was going to ask, “which one you choosin,” but I was worn out and didn’t have the wherewithal to find another hotel, so I rang the little bell at the desk, and before long a man with a heavy polish accent appeared.
He has on a striped sweater, with purple and green hideously contrasting his belly, which stood out quite impressively. He smiled with the unbalance of fetal alcohol syndrome.
“Hello and welcomes to the Gold Nugget hotel. Is quite the storm we’ve coming in now? You traveling?”
“Something like that. How much is it suppose to snow, do you know?”
“It said on the radio, that we’s suppose to get around a foot. In some parts of the mountains, they’re expecting up to three feet. If they close the pass it’s going to be busy here, non-stop business is good. What kind of room would you like? We only queen rooms available right now.”
“Well then I don’t have much choice in the matter do I? I’ll take one. How much is it?”
“Seventy dollars, sir.”
I paid the man and asked for some extra pillows, which he gladly produced after some miss communication about exactly what I wanted. He seemed quite interested in my purpose for being there, and I’m sure that curiosity was intensified by my inability to produce a sufficient answer. At this point I wasn’t sure what I was doing here myself. All I needed was some rest, and I’d figure out something once I had a clear head, but for now she was all I could think about.
In my room, I pulled out the Christmas card and looked it over it again. Thinking about what could have been what will never be. I started thinking about all the things we said to each other, all the plans we had with each other. There would never be any of those children we wanted to raise, and there would never be another Christmas. The only thing there would ever be was emptiness, and there, someplace in the rotation of our world around its axis, darkness crept over me.
III
“Phoenix, you really should slow down. These roads are terrible baby.” Sophie bit her lip gently.
“My nickname in college was the limo driver. This isn’t my first rodeo love. But, I think you’re right. These roads are terrible and I can feel I don’t have any control.”
“Maybe we should pull over and stay somewhere.” I tensed up after she said this. “Ok, if you think we’re ok, then I trust you.” She relaxed and put her head on my shoulder and fell asleep before long. I navigated the terrible roads going as slow as I could, fighting off the fear in my body language. When I lost control, she flung from the safety of my shoulder and our eyes locked in those terrible seconds.
The silence of the night screamed out like thousands of cupid’s arrows. All leaving me wounded but able to live on, and I snapped out of the hotel bed. Jumped up, and grabbed my things, not looking at myself in the mirror, as I left the room.
“Wait, Mr. Phoenix! Where’s are you going? The storms here.”
I walked past the clerk in the old whorehouse without responding, and made way to my car buried in snow.
The path up the mountain was a mad dash of recklessness—as I slammed on the gas peddle to meet my destiny—the truth became as clear as the white wall before my eyes. The storm vainly strived to deter me from my proper end. Smoking cigarettes fiendishly, I cursed heaven or hell, or wherever the hell I was going. It didn’t matter anymore after she died, everything left me in a few seconds. A few seconds to take away a wife from a husband. A few seconds to relieve me of my muse and only love in the world. It would only take a few seconds to end it all. The most famous authors always committed suicide anyway, so it’s fitting.
I lit my last cigarette in this world as the road coalesced, overlooking a hilly cliff by a little river. Letting go of the wheel and all my earthly desires, I went off the road and plunged into eternal darkness.
Nothing.
And there I stayed trapped seemingly for an eternity. And when I thought all hope was lost, that I had found what I wanted, a light came through to me.
Sophie’s golden hair gleamed with radiant waves of light in the somber void. She smiled, but it was tainted with a sadness I’d never see in her. She said to me-“Phoenix, how do you think killing yourself will solve anything?”
“Nothing matters anymore. Once you left there was no purpose for me here.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. I came to you.”
“It hurts me more than you’ll ever know, Phoenix. There are other people that need you here. You haven’t done everything you need to do. When it’s your time, there’s nothing you can do. Celebrate the life we lived and the life we loved, but don’t think that’s all there is. Our love came from the greater good, and you will understand that’s what’s saving you.”
“But without you, Sophie there is no purpose. I built my life and future around you, and now there’s nothing. I want death.”
“There’s always something, Phoenix. I love you so much, I don’t know where you begin and I end. My purpose was to have the love you gave me. You’re a beautiful soul Phoenix, and you deserve happiness. The life we lived was wonderful, but nothing can last forever.” She came to me, embraced me with a kiss, and I opened my eyes; the breath of life came back into me.
The frozen breath came out of me like nails, as I realized where I was. My seatbelt suspended me before a wall of snow. I released it with a click, falling on nothing but snow and broken glass in front of me. I started to feel the dings my body had absorbed. The snow seemed ten feet deep, as the car was submerged all the way to the back door. I struggled to climb out. Emerging, I could see the sun beginning to rise in crimson and burgundy swirls, and the sky was clear.
I sat there, watching the sun rise, thinking about what happened. All the things that happen. Before long a state trooper yelled down at me, “are you ok?”
“I’ve never been better, I think.”
And that very same day my brother got a knock on the door.
especially when you say it again in the next paragraph... xD I do this aaaall the time, so just have a rethink and see if you can replace one or two with more generic references, maybe like this: "I don't know about heaven or hell. All the things I've heard about them may well be what they're like, but I honestly don't know if they're there." See?