The Dividing Line (2016 rewrite)

Ed and Sara had come to that special place lovers share, where words lack the capacity to convey the specificity of meaning within a sigh -- but the soul understands perfectly. They had found the place where you go when you lean against your lover and feel their heart beating through your chest, feel the pulse of life beating through the airs of time, and suddenly you know that beating heart is yours, too.

Oh, just in silence, silent waves curled through time, so precious was this thing called love.

Ed pulled a blanket over her dreamlike form, felt her breathing slow as soft darkness made it's way into this heaven sent air. He felt her relax, then fall, fall deeply into sleep's waiting arms.

He felt her tears building in his heart, felt his prayer reaching from the depths of his soul to the heavens. 'Thank you, God. Thank you for bringing her to me.'

A little before midnight she stirred, woke up. She looked up into the night and gasped out loud, waking Ed from his light cop's sleep.

"What is it, honey?" he said, his voice full of sleepy concern.

"What are...are those stars?"

Ed sat up and looked at the dome of the heavens: the sky was totally clear; the distant thunderstorms had evaporated with the setting sun. High in the October sky, the Orion constellation blazed in distant fury, Betelgeuse and Rigel like fiery beacons reflecting off the still waters of their little secluded bay.

"Yeah, darlin', those are stars. And a couple of planets, too."

"Really!?"

He started pointing out the night sky, took her to Jupiter and Mars, showed her the big dipper and Polaris. Finally he guided her back to Orion, to his belt, and he described the sword that hung from it. He pointed out the huge fuzzy patch in the middle of the sword, and described the violent birth of hundreds of stars that was happening right before their eyes, deep within the Orion Nebula.

"How far away is it, Eddie?"

"Real far, darlin'. It would take billions of years to get there if we walked! If we could move as fast as light moves, it would take 1,500 years, maybe more."

"It must be cold out there," she said.

"Uh-huh. Until you get close to a star."

"But I feel warm right here with you, so I guess you're my star." She turned around on the narrow cockpit seat and kissed him. They sat huddled together cheek to cheek, occasionally kissing, for several minutes. "Eddie?"

"What is it, sweetie?"

"Could we listen to the song now, then would you make love to me?"

They moved below, within the cloudy nebula of Awaken's belly, her wooden interior barely glowing from a single oil lamp that burned in gentle refrain. He did things then returned to her side and Sara Wood sat inside Ed McCarley's warm arms, the side of her face resting on his shoulder.

She jumped as a burst of music shattered the darkness, then felt her body relax into the gentle voice that sang of the sun, of being, and just as suddenly the music dissolved into chaos, music from a different time, a different place. The music was jarring, unsettling, like a storm tossed dream -- full of anger and confusion. Like how she felt when she ran and ran and ran...

The music rolled through valleys of touch, crashed in sudden shifts within the dream the music created, then all seemed to be at an end, only to be reborn, and to build again in another distant dream. Soft interludes lapped at the shores of the song-dream, then folding in on themselves, they gave way to more violent spasms of, what, a nightmare?

But the music kept moving toward light, building towards an awakening all it's own, and exploded like an orgasm as light and fury poured over embers of imagination, only to once again fall into the soft gentle voice...

Sara could feel Ed's tears on the side of her face, could feel him, lost within the words, swaying in the currents of his music. As if time had given way to the music, she felt her body join with his -- as in the afterglow of a dream.

"You were standing close to me, weren't you, Eddie? When you found me, I mean."

"Yes, I was, darlin'. Because we were always meant to be together."

+++++

October 28^th

It has always been a simple fact of life that the better you know who you are, the more you know what you want.

For Ed MacCarley, he knew after spending two weeks on Awaken with Sara, he was a wanderer, that he felt destined to wander the byways of his heart and soul with her, but further, that he could no longer face life on the street. He knew the realities of convention too well, knew the scorn a man his age would reap with a 20 year old girl as his wife. He knew what would happen if he tried to blend into to the social world of his fellow officers.

And a funny thing happened.

He wasn't ashamed of his decision to love Sara, that he could never be ashamed of her. He felt sorrow, for people who would condemn her, and him, without understanding either his capacity to see through walls of shame, or Sara's infinite capacity to forgive. He felt shame when he thought of those same self-righteous people driving past all the other 'Sara Woods' hiding in the shadows -- without even once noticing or trying to understand all the pain and suffering around them. Where was human compassion? What had happened to the ability to simply care for fellow human beings? Tax cuts were all that seemed to matter these days, and perhaps a bigger house, a newer car, and ever bigger black holes where human hearts had once lived, and loved. He had been in churches recently where preachers castigated their flocks for not earning enough money, equating one's earning power with one's godliness. Ed had watched with utter astonishment as people wrote out checks for hundreds of dollars to this con-man, and then the con-man preacher had driven away after the service in a Mercedes Benz.

That's Love? That's Christianity?

No, what concerned McCarley most was Sara would be unjustly branded with shame by these same self-serving jackals, that she would feel pain -- simply because she didn't understand the world better. There was, McCarley knew, no better victim for this society to attack than a truly innocent victim. Especially if the victim was helpless.

So until she could make these distinctions on her own, Ed felt comfortable with the paternalism of his choice to protect her. She was a primitive in her way, certainly not by choice, but a blank slate, nonetheless. And while he felt confident in his ability to lead her to a place where she could stand on her own, he was not at all sure of her ability to stand up to people who would only too gladly shove her back down into darkness with their apathy.

And so, on the way back to the city, MacCarley was facing the music of choice, choices that were the consequence of his actions -- but shaped by his understanding of society's aboriginal hypocrisy. When you stripped away the veneer of civilization, what grew visible within the grizzled flesh of humanity was a truly vast and horrible capacity to inflict pain. Defy conventions and suffer. Suffer, and you will be crushed. The further you fall, the harder they try to end you.

In this juxtaposed, and angry, frame of mind, he sat lost in thought as clouds gathered and rain started to fall, yet he was very much aware of the gentle-fragile being next to him. Every protective instinct he had was focused on her survival, and the role he would play in her rebirth. Her awakening. All his years on the street had left that vision sharp and clear.

He guided the little Triumph through heavy traffic on rain-slick streets until he reached the apartment, but as he turned into the parking lot he felt something wasn't quite right; instinct alive now, warning flags started popping left and right.

Ed unzipped his gym bag as he parked the car, picked up the little stainless Walther PPK/s he carried as a backup, leaving his holstered revolver inside the bag. He looked around, noticed a car out of place, a man walking in the bushes. "Stay in the car, Sara," he said as he opened the door.

He stepped out into the drizzle.

Almost immediately she heard an angry man's voice yelling, yelling at Ed McCarley, and she saw another man step out of the shadows. She saw the gun rising in this other man's hand, saw the drunk hatred oozing from his eyes...heard him yelling "They fired me, you mother fucker" as he pulled the trigger. Sara Wood saw flame barking from the man's pistol.

Ed McCarley had seen his old friend Alan Simpson emerge from the bushes, and had momentarily relaxed. In that infinite moment of uncertainty -- the moment when uncertainty averts it's eyes to betrayal -- Ed MacCarley had lost his edge. He hesitated.

He heard Simpson's anger, but could not understand the words -- time had slowed so dramatically in the milliseconds of dawning awareness, and suddenly only instinct had time to command reaction.

His little Walther rose to meet the challenge.

Ed MacCarley could see Simpson's pistol recoiling, see the flame as it boiled out of the barrel in slow motion. He could see the bullet spiraling towards his chest. Days later, it seemed, he could feel the burn spreading out across his left shoulder as the bullet tore through flesh, could feel his body spinning under and away from the devastating impact. He felt his head bouncing off the pavement, could see the vibrations of this life fading as his head came to rest on rain spattered pavement.

Ed McCarley watched as his friend Alan Simpson walked to him, watched him as he lifted the gun up, up towards his head. He tried to say hello, but he felt light-headed, sick to his stomach. He watched, fascinated, as his friend continued to yell at him. 'I wonder what he's saying?' McCarley thought as brightness settled in all around him.

Alan Simpson knew his friend was dead when the first bullet struck, but he wanted to finish the job properly. As he walked over to Ed MacCarley, he was focused on the revenge he had been planning for days. He did not see the young girl in the car, did not see her digging around on the floor in front of her seat. He did not see her as she flew out of her door, or as she leveled the huge Smith & Wesson 44 magnum at his head. He never heard the hammer as it arced back under the pull of Sara Wood's finger, or as it slammed home, igniting the cartridge in the cylinder. It is doubtful he heard the roar of the gun in her hand, or felt the silver-tipped hollow-point bullet as it tore through the left side of his neck.

Maybe he heard a fragmented voice off in the distance, heard the fury of the girl's words. Heard her calling him a mother fucker again and again. By the time the girl fired the remaining five bullets into pulpy mess of the man's head, there was no Alan Simpson left to hear or see or feel or hate -- or love.

There was no sun.

There was only darkness.

Sara Wood dropped the gun and flew to Ed's side, cradled his motionless head in her lap. She looked up at the sky and screamed. She was screaming as the ambulance arrived. Screaming as paramedics ran to Ed's side.

She screamed as they pushed her out of the way, back into the shadows.

She screamed as hundreds, thousands, millions of police cars and ambulances arrived.

She was frantic. She tried to remember the words.

'High vibration go on...'

'And you were standing next to me'

She watched as strange men kneeling over Eddie tore away his shirt. One of the men stuck a huge needle in his arm.

'And you were standing next to me'

She stared in mute horror as another man took a knife and stabbed Eddie in the chest, then stuck a pair of funny looking scissors in the hole he had made, leaving a long rubber tube dangling from his chest. Another man was putting a mask on Eddies face as blood oozed from the tube...onto the pavement...

'And you were standing next to me'

"And you were standing next to me," Sara Wood yelled. "Eddie! I'm here! I will never leave you."

She ran after him as they lifted him into a helicopter that had just settled on the street, and she watched in horror as the machine lifted into the sky, leaving her there, cold and mute as the world raged around her.

+++++

November 7^th

The department Chaplain stood outside Ed McCarley's hospital room with Thomas Hardy, Ed's friend and watch commander. They talked quietly about the old days, about honor and duty and the things that had been most important to their world. About life and death, about all the funerals for officers and friends they had been to. And funerals yet to come.

Ed was propped up in a hospital bed, a tangled mass of tubes and leads sprouting from every arm and leg, from his penis, and all over his chest. His eyes were half open, and he breathed on his own today, after seven days on a respirator.

Sara Wood sat in a chair next to his bed, asleep, her head almost always face down on the bed, next to Ed's hand. The last words she had heard from him were to 'stay in the car'. That felt like a lifetime ago, an echo from another world -- a world she didn't understand.

She had been sitting in the chair next to him since he'd come out of surgery, which had lasted almost fourteen hours. At some point in time over the last few days she had stopped crying. She'd held his unresponsive hand in hers for so long her fingers had started to cramp, yet a nurse had come and rubbed the cramps away for her. Hardy brought her a little machine that played music, and he had shown her how to play songs on it. She had learned quickly, and learned how to use the uncomfortable things over her ears, as well.

She only listened to one song. Day in and day out.

"Oh, Eddie. Come back to me," she whispered over and over again. "I'm here, Eddie."

She felt his fingers lift off the bed, find her hair.

She froze, wanting to believe what she had felt, afraid to find that she had imagined it.

Distant fingers rose like the sun to her hair, drawn close by the infinity of chance.

He felt...what? Her hair? He felt her hair, knew the texture of it in his heart.

What is that smell?!

God, my mouth is dry.

It's too bright, can't see.

He felt the world move, and then she was there. She was looking at him.

"It's O.K. Eddie, I'm right here. You've been fighting real hard, but you're gonna make it."

"Hey, partner!"

Is that Tommy? What are you doing here?

"Man, buddy, you've given us one hell of a scare. But you're doing better, ya know, its gonna get better every day."

It's okay, Tommy, just relax, willya?

"I'm going to leave you two together now, partner. But I hope you know she saved you, Ed. She's just been an angel. Now, get some rest, I'll bring some of the guys down tomorrow, okay? And, hey, Meathead sends his love."

He looked up at Tommy as he left.

He drifted in and out of currents of time, afloat as a leaf down a gentle stream.

He felt something slip over his ears, something warm.

He felt his soul come alive as the piano burst into his ears, heard the voice.

As involuntarily as he breathed, he felt tears of remembrance dance across his eyes.

Sara Wood watched as the music played across his face, watched as he drifted into that place he went. She watched the music of his life play across the love in her eyes, and she understood now that with love comes pain.

But maybe it's through both love and pain we grow?

Ed McCarley drifted through the music of that other world, soared between peaks of human experience, gliding through sun-swept airs of sweet sleep on the gentlest of wings. He held himself to the warmth of her love, to the light in her eyes. He could hear the music of her smile, feel the touch of her skin on his soul. He felt the dream yield to the rush of music, felt the moment of his birth among the stars.

He felt the moment of his awakening.

It was when I saw you there, curled up on your side, in that alley.

He looked up into her eyes.

They glowed in amber light.

How did you know I needed to be saved?

And, I would never have guessed you were an angel.

Oh, my love.

+++++

December 21^st

A little airliner touched down in Las Vegas on this sunny morning, and two souls, once upon a time two lost souls, walked through the terminal and out to the street. They walked to a huge, flaming pink Cadillac and crawled through the parted front seat into the back. The two souls talked to the man and the woman in the front seat as they headed off into the city.

They came to a little chapel. The two souls and the man and the woman walked into the chapel, down the aisle as music payed. They came to the end of this road as two, and stood before the Man of God, waiting to be united.

The Man of God was wearing a huge-collared white leather suit, his big, black hair slicked back, standing there in outrageous sunglasses and platform shoes.

The Elvis-God read the words of passage, and the two souls repeated the words, looking into each others eyes, looking to the eternal innocence of pure love as their salvation. They kissed, they looked at the man and woman, their friends in this life.

"Thanks for doing this, Tommy," Ed McCarley said to his friend.

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world, Ed."

The two men shook hands, hugged one another. The women hugged for what seemed a long time, and the older woman kissed the younger woman on the cheek, told her to "take care of that man."

Two souls - now one. Lost in time's embrace, setting out on the next journey, together.

Hand in hand, they walked away from what had been. They walked together now, to what might be.

"Wait, Eddie, I wanted to thank that preacher," Sara McCarley said.

Ed looked over his shoulder. "Well, that ain't gonna be happening, darlin."

"Why not, Eddie?"

"Well, because, darlin'," Ed McCarley said through his smile, "Elvis has left the building."

©2005-2016 Adrian Leverkühn | abw