I.
A delicate dawn crept with its grayness into the darkness of the receding night, like a dagger treacherously slipping between the ribs of an innocent and overly trusting victim. The full moon's pale disc faded and paled with each impatient movement of the second hand, marking the time of all good and evil deeds. Tick, tock, tick, tock, second by second, like a domino racing furiously toward the inevitable end of final respite. After a moment, the silver oval became just a memory, its reality quickly blurred by the first rays of its older brother—the sun. The wind buffeted the shutters of a large, solitary house, resembling an enormous bird of prey, perched on a high escarpment, shaped like a rough tongue, resting before continuing its journey. The sound of a wave crashing against the rocky shore several dozen meters below merged with the whistling of the wind, creating a bone-chilling unity of the scream of nature's forces. Another day of human affairs was waking up to its journey; a day of joys and sorrows, loves and betrayals, friendly encounters and misunderstandings; making himself a witness to the passage of time.
Henry sat alone in his study in a comfortable leather armchair, his gaze fixed on the sun's rounded curve, slowly emerging from behind the horizon. The large window pane glistened with tiny drops of driving rain. Henry squinted slightly and focused on the drops sliding across the glass, trailing their short journey behind them. He didn't know why, but they reminded him of convicts who, trying to escape their inevitable sentence, perish in the act of their final free will. What could have motivated their behavior? Hope, a brief moment of incomplete freedom...
Thoughts swirled through his head, racing in every possible direction; he felt as if every now and then one of them would rush into his skull and, bouncing back with a strangely hollow sound, disappear somewhere in the folds of his brain. He sighed and reached for a cup of hot tea. He took a sip, and a heavy tear of suppressed pain unexpectedly rolled down his cheek. His lips grew dry, and his throat felt like a waterskin abandoned somewhere in the desert by a forgotten traveler. His lips, barely moving, whispered the almost inaudible words: "Why, why did this happen? God!" The answer still lingered behind the curtain of a silent fate ruled by a cruel and heartless destiny. Instead, there was only a black void, impenetrable to the senses. He couldn't grasp it, comprehend it, or even grasp a glimpse of the ever-eluding truth. The wind struck the windows again, making them tremble slightly as if startled by its violence. Henry closed his eyes, briefly feeling a sharp stinging sensation behind them, which subsided immediately. He remained like that for a long time, breathing slowly and evenly, trying to calm himself, but thoughts and images of memories continued to fly like malicious moths, constantly circling the illusory light of reality, burning their greedy wings to the grief burning in their hearts.
The sun's arduous journey continued; its lower edge had just broken free, revealing its full size in a sky marked by stretched cirrus clouds. Its rays brushed the surface of the stormy ocean, playing with orange hues like a perfect dancer executing another pirouette, another evolution: light, simple, and pleasant. The white ridges advanced persistently, one after another, toward the inevitable death awaiting them at the rocky shore. Immediately after the impact, another and another, an endless host of warriors, arrived.
The mechanism of the large wall clock rattled softly, and the chime of seven was heard. When it faded, the quivering sound faded into the room, fading into another minute of time. Henry rubbed his tired face with his hands, finished his tea, and stood up. His gaze fell on a copy of the Bible bound in dark red cloth. He reached for it, opened it at random, and quickly ran his eyes over the small black letters:
"Blessed is he whom God rebukes; so do not reject the reproofs of the Almighty. He will wound, and He will also heal; He will cut, and with His own hand He will make whole." [The Bible, Book of Job 5:17–18]
He smiled sadly to himself:
"Then heal me," he whispered. "Heal me, for you cannot rebuke me any more."
He closed the book and left.
The weather was getting worse. A cold, strong wind blowing off the ocean made it quite chilly outside. The nearly leafless branches of the trees swayed and bent, silently calling for help, and the slowly lightening steel-gray sky was filled with huge, dark gray, billowy clouds, drifting in from nowhere, like mysterious megalithic warriors from ancient legends. A light drizzle began to fall, and Henry pulled his thick, unbuttoned jacket tighter around him and walked to the driver's side of the car, approaching the dark bulk of the car. He saw his own face, dimly visible against the wet windshield. The man looking back at him was a stranger; the tired, empty gaze, the gray, rumpled features, etched into his skin, the mark of the past. He was only forty-five, but over the past few days, he'd felt as if time had played a grim trick on him, silently tiptoeing forward at least ten years behind him. His short, salt-and-pepper hair was already starting to thin atop his head, and his pale, slightly curved lips looked like they'd been glued on by a budding artist. He opened the door and climbed in.
The wheels ground to a halt on the softened earth, and the car lurched forward. He passed a short grove where the white headlights lingered on the tree trunks, merging with the gray of the morning, and emerged onto asphalt gleaming with the increasing rain. He turned on the wipers and headed north, toward Fatelose, less than ten kilometers away. The dark shape of the house remained with him. Silent and sad; a house where the constant, desperate cry of memories struck the humble walls of regret, echoing unceasingly from days spent alone.
He remembered that day perfectly. The day, the hour, even the minute the clock hand had turned when the phone rang. He didn't know why, but then he had a strange feeling that the sound held something urgent, some previously unheard note impatiently resonating throughout.
"Mr. Henry Gemitus?" The man's warm voice held an unspoken secret.
"Yes," he replied, all his muscles tensing as if in defense against what he was about to hear.
The doctor's next words sent Henry's entire world spinning, transforming into the inexpressible pain of an indescribable loss, tearing at his soul and body. "
Your wife and daughters are dead; they were in an accident on 248th Street. They skidded while... overtaking," he finished.
Henry said nothing, absolutely nothing, because what can one say at a moment like this, when one is incapable of anything but the powerful grief gripping one's heart with an iron grip, the emptiness that deeply pierces the very depths of one's soul, and the astonishment and incomprehension creeping somewhere on the edge of perception that this was happening to him. At one point, he felt like shouting, "Mistake," into the phone and hanging up. But no! What had happened affected him, precisely him. How many people in the world learn at this very moment about the tragedy of their loved ones?
The doctor, as gently as he could, asked him to come to the hospital to complete all the necessary formalities. He expressed his deep regret for what had happened and hung up.
Three years had passed since that event. Already, or maybe only? Three years, months, days, minutes... Time heals wounds, but much slower when they are clawed at by the greedy claws of memories. Before, he had been like Daedalus and Icarus, soaring on carefree clouds of happiness, floating on the friendly currents of his family's joy and filling his soul with the full experience of a shared life. He soared above mountain peaks, swaying past all their problems, only occasionally catching a small storm cloud, which, however, never created a heavy downpour or flash of lightning. He was simply happy. How banal, he smiled to himself involuntarily; happiness, so simple and so fleeting.
Now, after the deaths of three people closest to him, he felt like... A moving blur of some indistinct shape loomed at the edge of his vision. Instinctively, he took his foot off the gas and pressed the brake. The car swayed slightly on the wet road; a flash of the gray sky of a gloomy day and the tips of tree branches stretched upward toward the sun, now hidden behind clouds. He slipped right past the short figure, narrowly avoiding a collision. Everything stopped: the car, the wind, and time. Henry buried his face in his hands and pressed his eyelids so hard he began to see colorful, jumping spots. He straightened and glanced in the rearview mirror, which reflected a small, slight figure standing motionless in the middle of the road, arms hanging at his sides. Instinctively, he turned on his hazard lights, got out of the car, and ran to the back.
It was a girl of about eleven, with wet auburn hair falling to her shoulders. She was soaked and shivering with cold, her soaked sweater hanging heavy on her frail shoulders, and drops of water were constantly dripping from its sleeves, falling onto her damp, dark blue jeans.
"What are you doing here, honey?" he asked softly, leaning over her. "Where are your parents? What happened?"
All these questions were snatched away by the wind and carried somewhere high into the vault of the hostile sky. The girl raised her head and looked at him. Her gaze held absence, confusion, and... a boundless expanse of undefined fear, lurking behind the fragments of a soul shattered by suffering. Her pale face, with its thin lips, was small and seemed almost transparent.
Henry looked around somewhat helplessly, as if waiting for some help, or even a sign of what to do. But nothing of the sort happened; the wind continued to carelessly blow, driving menacing clouds, the rain scattered its little warriors to the ground, and the sun tried to show the world that day had finally come. Without wasting any time, Henry took the girl in his arms and, wrapping her in a warm blanket he had in the trunk, sat her down beside him in the passenger seat. It was only a few minutes' drive to Fatelose. Somewhere in the undefined expanse of sky, a heavy rumble rolled, heralding a storm, and the distant horizon flickered for a moment with a broken line of lightning.
The sign announcing the entrance to town was slightly askew, as if wondering if there was still any point in informing people about this place. Henry immediately headed for the local hospital, housed in an old building partially unused due to lack of demand. He parked his car right in front of the entrance and, without even locking it, walked, carrying his small body in his arms, toward the glass entrance door.
"I need help!" he said loudly as he stepped inside. "I have a baby here..."
A doctor with sharp, almost Native American features and several nurses appeared from nowhere. He was asked a few questions, to which he answered truthfully: "No, I don't know her name; I found her on the road; No, I have no idea how she got there." They quickly took the baby from him and took him to the ward. He gave his name to the nurse on duty; a pretty girl with big eyes and a face perhaps a little too round.
“Wait for me, will you?” instructed the man with the small ID badge attached to the pocket of his doctor’s coat. It bore his picture along with the neat, legible inscription: Dr. Steve Firmus.
Henry simply nodded and sat down on one of the black plastic chairs. He glanced at his watch; it was a few minutes after eight. Time crept slowly, unhurried in its relentless march. He should have been at work by now, sitting at his desk in front of his computer, reviewing papers for publication. As co-owner of a small publishing company, he had a lot to do, and now he was in the middle of reading Cleave Laudo's novel "The Stubborn Prophets." In his opinion, a less-than-stellar book that blended layers of horror with a romance that was artificial and, in his personal opinion, shallow. He thought of everyone and nothing, floating like a lost ship with a dead helmsman on board, on the sea of his own world.
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