Walking Through Purgatory

         Charlie sat on his bed, looking at the gun on the table. Life was hell; what was the point? The drugs didn’t make the world go away. He returned from his job at the local supermarket with a pink slip in his one hand and a couple cans of soup in the other. This was his life and there was nothing good about it. The gun called to Charlie. The buzz from his last hit was replaced with a headache. He had no money to get more and no energy to steal anything.

         He dropped the cans on the table and tore up the rejection slip. Charlie didn’t care. He hated working there. He hated everything that didn’t make him feel better. Cranking up his radio, Charlie laid back. Through the bass of the music, he tried to escape.

         He hadn’t always been like this. When he attended High School, he had friends, a cool job at a garage and a steady girlfriend. He was once handsome, with dark brown hair cut short, and light hazel eyes. His chin was a bit pointed but his beard took care of that and he considered himself lucky to have unblemished skin. Running for the cross-country team had left him with a very lean and muscular body. It went down hill after the coke. Charlie couldn’t get enough of the drug, and soon it was the master of his world. The habit drove him out of his parent’s house and school and got him fired from the garage. His friends didn’t understand; they left him alone. Now Charlie was drifting from job to job, trying to make enough to get another hit. Unfortunately, those were scarce. Charlie’s body had eaten his muscle, and his hair was a long matted mess. His mind couldn’t comprehend where things went wrong. His thoughts drifted back to the gun.

          “Don’t do it, Charlie.” A voice drifted into his mind, over the music, over the pounding headache. “You’ll regret it, Charlie.”

          “Regret what?” His eyes snapped open when he felt a touch. A woman in gray stood by the side of his bed. The window behind her was pitch black. Her eyes and hair were deep brown with hints of red and gold in them. Long strands flowed over the woman’s shoulders to end at the small of her back. She wore a flowing robe, something like a thick nightgown, and no jewelry. There wasn’t a single mark or blemish along her creamy skin.

         She didn’t respond, but brushed her long fingers across Charlie’s knee again. Her eyes radiated worry and sadness. He sat up straighter. She looked familiar, almost as if they had once been old friends, but he knew he had never met her before. “Who are you?”

         She stepped back, her arms lifted. She beckoned him silently to stand. Her small mouth a frown as if she didn’t want to do this.

         Charlie stood up. Irritation ran through the veins that screamed to be pumped with coke. Who the hell was this weirdo? “Look. I don’t know what you want, but you better leave now.” He picked up his gun, pointing it at the intruder. His hands shook.

          “Charlie?” Another voice called from behind. Behind? But that was only a wall… He suddenly realized that he wasn’t in his room anymore. There were no walls, floor or ceiling around Charlie, only a relentless gray stretching as fall as he could see. Charlie staggered a step closer towards the gray woman, but she seemed to slowly flowing back into the background, becoming a gray blur.

          “Charlie, is it you?” The female voice said again and Charlie turned around. Another woman sat on the floor. Her green eyes were puffy from crying, but a large smile came bursting through. Her freckled skin glistened despite the gloomy surroundings and her short red hair looked disheveled.

          “Ann?” Ann Greenden. The pretty Irish girl he had been infatuated with in High School. He had even considered asking her out, except that she had committed suicide a few weeks before Christmas--four years ago.

         Suicide? Charlie shivered. “Ah, man. This is some trip.” He wondered if he had just crashed from stress and drug withdrawal. That could explain this, couldn’t it? He looked down at his hands, but the gun had disappeared.

         Ann’s smile grew sad as her eyes roamed over Charlie’s body. She was slumped over wearily as if her shoulders and back couldn’t handle the weight of her head. Ann’s hands were hidden inside her denim jacket. Sometimes, she rocked back and forth. “I wish I was tripping. I want to wake up so bad.” She looked into his eyes, but more tears came pouring out. “Don’t do it, Charlie.”

         Her voice was what he heard at the beginning of the dream. “Man. What am I doing? This nightmare bites! I got to wake up.” He started to walk away, but the floor around him became exposed, showing a dark pit below. A gray square not more than 8 feet long or wide was all there was to the floor. Alone with a girl who has been dead for four years. “This definitely bites.”

          “Listen Charlie, I know what you’re thinking. It’s not what you want to do.”

          “How do you know what I want? You’re gone. You’re dead. Oh, God. Please wake me up!” He looked down into the abyss.

          “Yes.” Her words sounded heavy, as if they were a stone around her neck. “I know. I know exactly what it’s like.” She looked over the edge of the platform. “There’s no relief down there either. You just end up back here.” She started rocking again.

          “What do you mean? Where am I?” He stared down at her.

          “Remember what we learned in CCD, about that place they say souls go before Heaven or Hell? Purgatory? Well, this is what I think Purgatory is like. I don’t know. I…” Ann started sobbing. Her eyes squinted, shut for a moment then she started screaming.

          “Stop it!” roared Ann. “Shut up! I said shut up!”

         She shook with anger and tears, but her voice returned to normal, well to a lower sobbing volume anyway. “They won’t stop picking on me.” Ann looked out at the emptiness around them. “It doesn’t end, Charlie. You can’t just run away. Dying doesn’t stop the pain.”

         He scratched his head for a minute, studying her. It was then that he noticed the black stain on both of her jacket’s pockets. It was shiny and wet. He leaned over and pulled her arm out. Ann tried to jerk it back, yelping in pain.

         There was a large gap across her wrist. Blood poured out in a constant flow of warm thick liquid. Then it hits him. Ann must have slit her wrists to commit suicide.

          “It never ends,” she wailed. “The pain is horrible, stinging. They don’t move.” She thrust her wrists in his face. The hands hung back as the blood dripped down the fingers. “I feel it all the time. And the others.” Ann put her arms back behind her jacket. “I can hear them.”

          “Who?” Now, Charlie was ready to wake up. He wanted to get away so badly.

          “My brothers.” She actually moaned the words. “I feel them, and Mom and Dad. Every time they think of me. When anyone thinks of me.” She sniffed. “I feel their pain, their suffering. I can hear them.” The tears flowed as profusely as the blood. “They talk about me, like I can’t hear!” Ann wailed in anguish. Her head shook violently to stop the voices in her head. “My brothers’ making cracks again.” He remembered them. Always cutting her up in front of people. His friends had speculated that their teasing had pushed Ann to kill herself.

          “And the sadness, Charlie,” she moaned. “Whatever you felt before. It’s still there. You can’t run from it.” Ann sighed. “You’ll regret it, Charlie.”

         Charlie’s mind raced as he pinched himself. It didn’t feel like a dream and he wanted out. Gently, a hand touched his shoulder and behind him was the gray woman. Her eyes embraced both him and Ann with a blanket of concern and sadness. She nodded to him and turned around.

          “No!” screamed Ann. “You can’t take him!” She tried to stand, but her body jerked in a kneeling position. Charlie stepped back. “No. I’ve been here too long!” She directed her rage at the silent woman’s back. Ann’s voice echoed off into the emptiness. “When are you going to take me? When is it my time to go? Huh?” The woman in gray didn’t look back or stop. She kept walking away. Gray tiles flowed from under her feet, giving Charlie a safe path to his old life.

         Charlie turned to leave, but felt Ann’s arms wrapping around his leg. “Pray for me, Charlie. Pray I leave here, please. I’m so lonely. Charlie?” She moaned into his leg. He flinched at the sensation of blood seeping into his jeans. Charlie kicked Ann away and raced after the woman trying to drown out Ann’s screams.

          “Don’t do it, Charlie! You’ll regret it!”

         The voice pounded into his head, too loud for him to think clearly. He suddenly opened his eyes and sat up.

         In his room, the music was too loud for him to sleep through. He was in his bed, with the covers to his waist and a fresh T-shirt on. Charlie turned off the radio and lied back down on his pillow.

          “A friggin' nightmare. Man, I’m tired.” It was just a dream. He took a moment to calm down his pounding heart. Then he sat back up. His stomach growled at him for food.

         Charlie could still see the gun on the table, just as it was before. The soup cans were spilled next to the gun. He snagged the jeans he had worn to work and stopped.

         Around one of his pant legs was smeared with fresh, dark blood.