The eye of the lion

Darkness. Total darkness. A dull, constant pain mounts up like a wave and then retreats. Muffled, confused noises... and heat. The pain returns and shakes me. Then, intermittent, a chink of light appears and plays with my eyes. And more pain.

A voice in the back of my head tells me I have to open my eyes and get up, but you can’t do that in a damned world that’s spinning like a carousel and in which your eyelids weigh half a ton... and the damn paaaiin!

I open one eye and see that everything’s on its side. The world is a damned hell. Or, am I in hell and I don’t even realize it?

I raise my head a little and open my eye a little wider. I can’t open the other one because something thick and wet is stopping it. In front of me I see an enormous heap of ruins and fire. Fire that reaches the sky, roaring and creating a column of thick black smoke. I hear distant shouts and cries.

I notice a metallic taste in my mouth as I reason, with good logic, that there are no demons in sight and that no-one has come to stick a pitch-fork in my stomach, so I can’t be in hell yet. But with all this pain, I’m not so sure.

Finally I sit up and wipe my other eye with difficulty, realizing that it’s my half-congealed blood that’s stopping me from seeing properly.

I have no idea where I am or how I got here. My head is spinning and when I touch my rib-cage I realize that my difficulty breathing is due to a couple of broken ribs.

I touch my leg and realize that some of the most intense pain is coming from a large branch stuck in my right thigh. I yank it out and it sounds like someone near me is being tortured by the demons and is howling with agony, but it’s my mouth that’s doing the shouting as I make a huge effort not to pass out.

I start to see where I am, and begin to understand. There is a tree next to me. Randall is there too, sprawled on the ground. Dead?

I drag myself up to him, feeling new pains to add to my list. I check Randall over and feel the pulse in his neck. He looks badly injured and opens his eyes a little, groaning. I examine him and see that one of his legs is sticking out at a strange angle. His face is covered with blood and he’s gasping for

breath.

“Easy, Randall. We’re ok...” I lie. “Everything’s going to be ok.”

It helps to say his name, because then I start to remember something. I glance towards the tree and then I look up. To a window in a wall of the ruins which didn’t collapse. I see Kratz’ face.

I get up as fast as the pain will allow me and I open my eyes, shocked. It causes me a huge amount of pain to breathe. I see the window, and my memory starts to come back in bits and pieces. I take a few wobbly steps and see the ruins. The window. And I see myself falling from it, jumping with Randall. To my death. No.

My head is spinning. I breathe deeply. I remember. Now I remember. I see myself in that room, in flames, I see it all.

Edward Kelly is there in front of us, back from the dead.

Or, maybe not.

Waiss is looking at him with deathly terror. He shakes his head, trembling.

“You’re not real... You’re dead!” he moans.

“If it were up to you, I would be...” replies Kelly, his voice hoarse but calm. “And perhaps I was. Dead. For many years. Dead in life, blinded before the truth. Drunk on the

poison of science.”

“You’re dead...dead...” Waiss keeps murmuring.

“I was dead in the darkness. Until God allowed them to show me the light,” affirms Kelly, gesturing towards Kratz. Then he approaches Waiss while the building shakes again and more chunks of ceiling and fire fall down around us.

“I was dead in that flaming cave, just like this, when God showed me the tunnel behind the tomb wall.”

I look at the floor in the middle of the corridor and see how a crack is starting to open up from the flaming elevator. Kelly comes nearer and looks at us.

“I was dead in that tunnel, without food or water for five days, when God sent my brothers to save me, in every sense,” Kelly explains.

The fire is closing in around us and the ceiling is groaning. I think we’re going to die, but maybe at least we’ll know the truth behind this whole damn business. Kelly gives Waiss a pitying look.

“Now God is using me to punish you for your sins and end your perverse work, Waiss. Do you understand?”

“Don’t kill me... please” murmurs Waiss.

The crack in the floor opens wider. Tongues of fire spring up from it, dancing playfully.

Kelly returns to Kratz’ side, who is still pointing his weapon at Waiss, and continues.

“Tell me where the woman is, tell me her name, and you will die quickly,” proposes Kelly.

Randall and I exchange a glance. Kelly continues,

“Or we can do things the hard way, Waiss.”

The floor creaks and trembles. It can’t last any longer.

Waiss whimpers,

“She died... On the floor above... In the fire.”

I look at Waiss. I start to understand and I shudder.

Kelly takes a threatening step.

“You’re lying!” he shouts.

“She’s dead...!” Waiss maintains, crying. “I swear.”

Kelly looks at him, measuring him up.

“What was her name?”

Waiss falters. He looks at Kratz who aims the pistol at him decisively. Then at Kelly, whose face is reflecting the fire.

“Marina...” stammers Waiss.

“Marina what?!” presses Kelly.

And now it happens. The floor opens up like the mouth of a bellowing monster. The whole world shudders. The ceiling is coming down. A steel girder crashes to the floor and as though

in slow motion, Kelly jumps out of the way of the mass of steel that falls right on top of Waiss, killing him instantly.

My hand grabs Randall’s arm instinctively.

The ceiling is falling down and the rubble lands on Kratz, who drops the pistol and is buried.

Kelly’s clothes are on fire, but he doesn’t seem to notice and he drags himself towards the pistol, looking at us with wide eyes.

“I’m not going to die like this,” I think as the world shakes as though it’s being punched by a giant. And at that moment I make up my mind. I turn to see what’s left of the window.

Kelly is holding the pistol and he’s raising it, yelling like a demon while everything’s disintegrating around him, drowning out his shouts.

But I don’t see it any more. I go towards the window, running with Randall who is shouting with terror. I go towards the sky, red with the fires of the end of the world, and towards the dark green British countryside farther off.

I jump as the overwhelming uproar of the final collapse engulfs my brain and a bullet tears through my arm with fury, like the farewell kiss of a mad prophet on his way to meet his maker.

The fresh air of the countryside surrounds us like a shroud

while falling through the air, like in a movie, I am struck by images of Martha, my wife who died years ago.

God! My whole life I thought that whole business of seeing your life flash before your eyes like in a movie when you’re dying was a huge lie!

“It was all true,” I say to myself.

There’s our trip to Mexico. Here comes our wedding. My brother and his old racing-car. My Mom’s coming now, with my birthday-cake. Here’s my father in his boat...

The earth is calling us. It’s coming up to meet us. It’s getting ready to embrace us lovingly in the form of a huge tree like a gigantic hand which is going to intercept us.

“I’m going to die,” I think, and the last thing that crosses my mind before the darkness envelops me is:

“I would like to have seen the child.”