coup d'oeil

The resplendent beam of light swept through the room and drew Christopher from the uneasiness of an early morning dream. Calm settled over him as the broken images faded from memory.  He had been dreaming of his near fatal accident that occurred so many years before. It seemed like many lifetimes ago, he had been a different man then, one he would not recognize now.

The accident was the bottom of a self destructive spiral that had been set in motion when his fiancée had told him “I have quit my job, I am leaving you.” There were many reasons she would later give for why.  Christopher to, quit his job and moved from the city to stay with a friend, who had returned from the Army two weeks earlier. His friend had also recently ended a long relationship with a woman he had met while in the service. A virulent anger was silently shared between the two, an anger that was latent in every moment.

Before that day Christopher had always been confident that he could make his life what he wanted it to be. Years had been carefully spent guiding the people and circumstances around him to his benefit. Those years now reached from the past to steal any moment of stillness he could find. Asking himself: “if the path I made led me here, what good was the path?” Christopher vowed to abandon anything that had even remotely been a part of his life with his former fiancée. Every action in his life was now forced and fashioned from desire to be someone or somewhere else. Whiskey could barely overwhelm the utter contempt he now felt toward women. Although he had easily found new relationship they quickly failed as he lost interest.  The anger he felt found a release in the broken fingers, lacerations, and swollen lips that became ornamental, like mettles worn on a chest. In this war, everyone was the enemy; Christopher would fight to the death.

Although Many people would later tell him the events that transpired the night of the accident, Christopher could only recall rising from the bar stool, finishing the last of his drink and walking to his motorcycle. He had awakened in the hospital to a nurse telling him to “cough”, as she pulled a tube from his throat. Christopher had multiple broken bones, a collapsed and punctured lung, as well as nerve damage from where his body impacted the stop sign tearing it from the ground. His medical records stated that he needed to be revived multiple times in mercy flight to the hospital. His mother would recount receiving a call at 3 in the morning informing her that he had been in an accident. This did not surprise his father who believed that he would arrive to find his son dead and disfigured.

Christopher’s dreams usually centered on his wife or his job, a dream recounting his accident caught him a little of guard.  It quickly dawned upon him that today was the seven year anniversary of the accident. He rose from his bed and tried to shove the memory of that day back down where it had risen from. The accident had almost taken Christopher’s life, but had ultimately renewed it.

Christopher’s feet settled on the frigid hardwood floor, causing him to glance momentarily at the pillow where his wife usually slept.  His wife had taken their two sons to visit their Grandmother and would be gone for the rest of the week. There was stiffness in Christopher leg as he moved toward the kitchen. Stopping to enjoy the ocean view from the kitchen window he could not help but think about how far he had come.

Christopher had recovered from the accident in the relative seclusion of his parent’s house. At first the house had felt totally alien, but familiarity retuned quickly. Clarity of mind would slowly find him and had cried for a monumental change. Soon after recovering he had taken a new job and moved to California. When he first moved to the west coast he lived in a small studio apartment. He now lived in what many back home would call a mansion.  It was a large house, and on the ocean, but not a mansion. Christopher had taken a middle management job at a company that within a year would become a global internet powerhouse. Christopher had quickly advanced within the company.  He would explain this to his wife that he had written a major part of the company’s flagship product.  He was compensated generously and two days later he bought this ocean front house.

         Walking through the living room Christopher swiftly stepped over small pieces of jagged plywood and drywall.  He had begun remodeling much of the house but had not yet completed a single room. The reverberant sound of a helicopter rose from the distance.  Peering out the sliding glass door Christopher could not seem to find it against the horizon. Grabbing the metal door handle, Christopher twitched as a sharp “snap” sent a shock from his finger tips to his chest. Hesitating for a moment,  Christopher mildly rubbed his chest then slid the door open. Stepping to the railing his eyes followed the dark extent of the ocean to the horizon where the two blurred into yesterday. The anxious rhythm of the waves mesmerized Christopher, as if they were racing to escape the onset of some unseen burden.

For a brief moment time seamed to stop, as he motionlessly drifted to the ocean’s edge. Christopher looked over his shoulder, and found no tracks in the sand leading from his house, which this morning appeared to him more like a morgue than a mansion. In one elegant motion Christopher turned his head again to the west and dove violently into a crashing wave. Rising from the wake, he began to float allowing the ocean to pull him out. Fixing his eyes on the distant shore he could see someone walking down the beach. For a moment he thought of a friend who had died that past Christmas. The image on the beach had the same gate. Thru the water washing over his ears, he again heard the distinct echo of a helicopter. A shadow darkened the shore as a cloud overwhelmed the rising sun.