PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 1 – Surf and Sand

Richard rolled back and forth in his Cal king; asleep adrift in a tide of endless dreams. 

Jason lay next to him, staring blankly at the ceiling. 

The clock to his left burned 3:30am in neon red. 

Richard’s endless restlessness had become the “norm” for four years now.  Since their marriage in the summer of 2013, Jason had grown to live with most of his demons.  After the incident in Cambria, if you could really call it that, both Richard and Jason were just happy to be alive.  Alive and in love.  For both of them it was a new feeling, uncharted and a bit alien. But it felt safe. And safe was a good thing.

 “NO! That’s not part of…,” Richard yelled out and quickly faded. “NO! Leave him… NOOOO!” Richard screamed in his sleep, talking to no one.

Jason gently shook him until the flames of whatever Richard dreaded faded and were for another night, no more.

“You were talking in your sleep again,” said Jase.  “Sounded like it was a good one?” he added with a question.

Rubbing his eyes, Richard sat up and tried to gather his surroundings.  His near naked body left a wet outline in the sheets where he had been.  The room reeked of damp salt and sea, or so he thought.

“Do you smell that?” Richard asked taking in the dank scent of fear.

“Smell what?” responded Jason. “You were having another nightmare. Go back to sleep,” and turned away.  Jason breathed in through his nose and then let out an exaggerated sigh that reminded Richard of their chocolate lab Betsy… when she was alive. 

Richard rolled on his side and stared off in the opposite direction into the dark corner of the room.  He cupped his face and held it tight with both hands blocking out what little light shared the room with him and his husband.  There were many unanswered terrors that could wait until the light of morning.

A couple hours later, Richard rolled out of bed.  The sun barely broke through the pulled drapes casting a thin white line between where he was laying and Jason softly sleeping. He crossed the room and closed the door to the adjoining bathroom.   Richard flipped on the light switch and jumped back from the image in the mirror.  Where had the last four years gone?

At age 40 Richard thought he would be in his prime.  Instead, he looked over 60, hiding several chins he had grown with what was a poor excuse for a beard.  He carried enough baggage under his eyes that he would be charged extra on any flight.  He reached one hand forward and touched the frail aging man in the mirror and for a second thought he saw the reflection of his own father instead of his own.

Since Richard’s near-death experience in Cambria, all those around him were not as fortunate.  Richard insisted that it is a prophecy, an act of revenge.  One year after the witch was washed back to sea, Richard lost his yellow Lab Cindy.  A year later almost to the date, Betsy passed after suffering a stroke.  And most disturbing, just a year ago his father was diagnosed with colon cancer and died all too suddenly within a month.  Three deaths, all timed near the anniversary of his own salvation.

“I give in, take me,” Richard spoke back to the old man in the mirror.  “Please stop, stop, please…”  He trailed off and found himself whimpering quietly.

“Are you OK?” Jason questioned standing just inside the bathroom door. 

“Yes, fine. How long have you been there?” asked Richard.

“Long enough.  So, what was it last night?” Jason quizzed.

“Nothing, I’m sorry to wake you up again,” said Richard.

“Who’s HIM?  You kept screaming NO, not him. So, who’s HIM?” Jason insisted.

“I don’t remember,” Richard lied knowing full and well HIM was Jason.  He began to construct an even bigger lie.  

“I have a client meeting in Santa Monica today, that non-profit that is close to signing.  So, I’ll be home a little late, hopefully in time for dinner.  I’ll call you when I leave,” Richard planted an even faker kiss on Jason’s forehead.

June gloom clutched the shoreline, sunsets lost in skies of hazy gray. Driving north on PCH, Richard turned up the heat on the Land Rover. Outside 52’ read on the car thermometer.  Inside was a comfortable 72’… still he shook uncontrollably.

Four hours later and Richard exited the 101 freeway for highway 46 and soon the sign for the quaint seaside village of Cambria, population 6032. Rows and rows of Monterey pines bowed in the opposite direction Richard was driving as if they were trying to escape. 

Soon he reached Old Moonstone Cottage.  Sitting slightly raised on a hill overlooking the dark Pacific, the house looked charming in its cliché’ sailor blue siding.  Richard found the largest rock he could lift and threw it straight through the living room window exploding fragments of glass and leaving a huge dent in the antique wood floor.   If someone was Airbnb renting the house was the farthest thing from his mind.

“Let’s get this over with bitch!” Richard screamed into the empty house as he entered with much reservation. 

For a moment, everything fell silent. Even the waves hitting the shore took a momentary break from their lunar cycle.  And then…

The floors began to weep sea water.  Windows slammed shut sealing the water filled room.  Lamps and chairs swirled in the current.  A piece of firewood hit Richard in his back, buckling him to his knees.  He breathed in one long last breathe and the water raised above his head and to the ceiling.  And there, once again, she stood before him, Amphitrite, goddess of the sea. The woman he once knew as Mira. The demon he thought was dead to him was very alive.

“Richard Elliot, we meet again,” said Mira, her voice echoing all around and through Richard.

“You’re dead.  I killed you myself four years ago,” Richard yelled.  Bubbles floated upward with each word, releasing more of the little oxygen he held in his lungs.

“You tire me Richard Elliot,” smirked Mira.  “Did you really think you could kill that which is undead?  I am a God!”

“You are a witch!” screamed Richard into the abyss.  His heart beat loudly in both ears with a tempo that slowed with each second.

“You know what I’m here for.  Give it to me and I’ll be gone from your pitiful existence forever,” demanded Amphitrite.

“Jason is not your prize.  Take me. I am truly the one who loves you most,” Richard told his last lie praying Jason would somehow understand his prevarication.   Richard reached into his button-down shirt and grabbed hold of the moonstone amulet Mira left him years back on their first encounter.  He closed his eyes and breathed his last breath.

Mira accepted Richard’s offer, “Very well.”  The room fell into total darkness and she drank the life out of everything in her view including Richard Elliot, Jr. 

When Richard opened his eyes, he expected the soul sucking darkness of his last possession, but instead, white light glowed around him where he lay.  He rolled over and sat up trying to adjust his eyes to the endless white and his ears to the utter silence.  A child’s prayer repeated in his head – “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

One word escaped his mouth, “Jason.”   Had his sacrifice saved Jason from Richard’s penalty of sins.  Separated from the world he once knew, he longed for nothing but love for the man who once made him complete. And soon, he longed for nothing. 

In the distance a familiar ringing caught his attention.  The clinking of a dog’s name tag hitting her collar as she ran.  Cindy ran to Richard, licking his face and wagging her tail, reunited after so long.  Soon Betsy came running, circling her master as if today wasn’t two years in the past.  Richard grabbed both his Labs and held them to his chest.  He could smell their sweet breath as if someone had been giving them treats.

Ahead a figure dissolved from the white and became whole.  A man. Richard froze in his pet’s ecstasy for a moment to drink in what was happening. The figure came even closer effortlessly walking as if on a cloud.  

Richard reached out his hand to the stranger and touched the man from the other side. Just like the mirror this morning was a fleeting memory that came in and out of reach and before they knew it, they were touching hands. 

“Let me help you up son,” said the man with a graying perfect beard. 

Richard held out his hand and rose up to meet his deceased father eye to eye.  The words failed him and never came…

“NOT him!”, screamed a voice from the world beyond.  “That’s not part of…”

Jason woke to find Richard holding his arm and telling him, “It’s OK, it’s just another dream.”   Jase’s outline drenched the bed in sweat from another fearful night of dreams turned nightmares.

“You OK?” asked Richard before turning over and trying to find sleep.

Jason rolled over on his left side and stared open eyed into the dark corner of the master bedroom wishing for daylight.  Sand, sea sand, chafed his feet and thighs and he softly wept.

PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 2 – Saved by the Bell

The alarm rang all too early at 5:30 AM. Darkness still surrounded him in the curtain-drawn master bedroom.  Jason wiped his tear-stained eyes and pulled himself up to get ready for school.  He was teaching high-school marine science now at Belvedere College Prep. Not quite the hyperbaric medicine he graduated with a degree in. The nights of quick money and fast tips slinging cocktails at The Abbey were far behind him and it was about time that he put his teaching degree to use.

As Jase crossed the hall to the bathroom Cindy came charging down the hall and right between his legs.  Betsy rounded the other corner with a big green ball in her mouth ready to play. 

“Is that you up an at ‘em Jase? I was going to come shake you,” Richard shouted from the kitchen. 

“Who’s Adam?” Jason replied.

Richard was reading the thin excuse for a Monday paper. The smell of fresh coffee filled the room where he sat still dressed in his bathrobe.  Jason popped into the kitchen and planted a kiss on his forehead.  This was a morning ritual that both of them loved.

Jason kissed Richard once again.

“And what was that for?” Richard asked with a suspicious smile.

“Just because,” Jason replied. He turned and walked away losing the grin he was faking.

An hour later Jason was setting up the ‘magic board’ for the morning’s first period honors science project, Comparing the effect of antibiotics on gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. A topic he knew would send half the class into a coma, but he didn’t care.

To his left, a blowfish nicknamed “Barbra” blew bubbles against the salt water aquarium tank begging for attention.

“Hey Barb,” Jason said back to the fish.  “Yes, she was in my dreams again last night. And this time Richard died.” 

Jason sounded like a lunatic talking to the aquarium fish, but this too he didn’t care.

Jase went on talking, “Richard, both dogs and even his dad passed. Then they were all reunited in Heaven or something like that. And I wake up in the same salty shit for the last three months.  No offense, I know you like salt water. But, come on…”

“Mr. Crawford. Good morning,” said Brian Colley from the front row.

It was only then that Jason realized he had a class full of students eager (or not) to dig deeper on antibiotics. 

Just how long had he been talking to the blowfish?

Jason welcomed the class with his standard “Good morning friends.”

And in return the class shouted back, “Good morning Crawfish.”  An inside marine science joke that never got old.

“Bacteria…”. Jason paused for effect while turning to the white board.

He suddenly lost thought and repeated himself. “Bacteria.  Some bacterial strains have acquired resistance to nearly all antibiotics.”

Jenny Gillespie thrusted her un-asked for hand upward and shouted, “Mr. Crawford, antibiotics have no effect on viral infections,”

This wasn’t the question. For a minute Jason forgot what the question was. Was there even a question? Why is Barb apparently clued into his psychosis?

Jenny’s hand remained at full mass when Jase collapsed on the science room floor disappearing behind the work lab counter.

PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 3 – The Spell

Jase sat up and reached for the science lab marble desk top. In the three seconds it took to upright himself he began postulating the lie he was going to tell his students for the sudden collapse, but there was no one in the room.

No one, but a woman sitting in the last row with her back to him.

Jason looked to the left and the right, behind him to the magic board, and over to Barb the blowfish. Barb too was missing. The bubbles in her tank froze suspended mid-water.

“What,” Jase gasped for air feeling as if there were none. His heart pounded hard and fast through his white Lauren polo shirt and for a minute he thought he could see it beating.

And just then, the silence was cut with the sound of a piano striking a repetitive D minor key.

The music echoed everywhere in the empty classroom and somehow appeared on the magic white board behind him. Over and over the same dissident key and then a quick gravitate to the key of C major and back.

Jason thought for sure he had died. He closed his eyes, but couldn’t close his ears. The music swelled like a demonic wave, and in the back of the room, the woman rose.

She spun around in slow motion and without missing a beat, touched her chest and then extended a long black and bony hand directly at Jason.

Pieces of kelp floated around her designing a dark green and black dress that flowed and moved in an invisible tide as she floated ever nearer.

“I put a spell on you, because you’re mine,” came a female’s voice from somewhere in the room but the woman’s lips didn’t move. It sounded to Jase to be something old and something new, like Nina Simone mashed up with Annie Lennox.

Outside the sun turned blood red and Jase precipitously remembered a quote from J.R Tolkien, The Twin Towers, “The red sun rises. Blood has spilled this night.” 

Then, his English grammar teachings were cut short and the volume turned up.

“You better stop the things you do. I tell you I ain’t’ lying. I put a spell on you.”

Jase was face-to-face with Mira, the demon of Old Moonstone Cottage in Cambria and his nightmare dreams.

Behind him the magic board finished its song and the black music notes ran smeared down the white screen like tears and slowly disappeared.

Mira reached out touched Jason’s forehead.  A wave of nauseousness immediately overcame him, then she softly spoke three words, “Back to school.”

“Mr. Crawford. Mr. Crawford. Are you OK? Mr. Crawford,” shouted at him from fifteen or more students, the principal and the head of science, Shelley.

“Are you OK Jase,” Shelley whispered into his ear, leaning closer to her best friend and cutting the mob out from smothering him for real.

Jason leaned over on his side and threw up water.  Sea water.

PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 4 – Another Lie

“One word Jase, sabbatical,” Shelley insisted. Jase sat curled in a fetal position on a cot in the prep school clinic.

“Really, please Jason. You and Richard need to get out of town and fast. Just a long weekend.”

“Yeh.” Jason drifted off.

“Are you listening to me?” Shelley repeated with a tone that woke Jason out of his coma.

“Three days. Call in sick tomorrow. Go to Catalina. You’re always talking about it,” Shelley insisted.

“It’s where we vacationed for our honeymoon four years ago, “ Jason replied. “Seems like ages.”

“Perfect, “said Shelley. “Go home to Richard, skip the details of today. Just tell him it’s an anniversary celebration. Pack a bag and don’t look back for a long weekend.”

“Thanks Shelley, I love you sista.”  Shelley leaned in and the two hugged for a long moment. Jason trembled in her arms.

Back home Richard was still milling around in his bathrobe. “Richard, it’s 9:30,” Jason quizzed. “What’s with the bathrobe?”

“Why are you home? Who’s teaching?” Richard asked with the same concern.

“I wasn’t feeling quite well and Shelley said she would take my class,” Jason lied. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“It’s a Thursday, I’m off Thursdays and Fridays remember?”  Richard looked even more concerned.

“Oh, yeah. Anyway, I was thinking. What if we got away for a three-day mini-vaca?  I was thinking Catalina Island. Kind of an anniversary celebration.” Jason sold the trip the best he could.

Richard corrected Jason. “It’s May Jason, our anniversary is in September.”

“Yeah, and… I just thought a little time together away could do us both some good.” Jason looked at Richard with a ‘please don’t ask any more questions‘ look.

“OK. Ok. I’m in. Let’s book it.  We can take the Long Beach Catalina Express tomorrow am and be in Cat for lunch.” Richard’s demeanor improved.

“Thanks Babe. It means a lot to me.” Jason crossed the room and hugged Richard for what seemed like a lifetime and lifted him up with the emotion he so direly needed.

PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 5 – Catalina

Jason stood on the side of the Catalina Express as the sea crashed under the ferry’s weight sending spray directly into his face. It felt fantastic. He closed his eyes as the ship slapped the surface again and again, rhythmically lulling him into a calm he hadn’t felt in months.

Richard put a hand on Jase’s shoulder, shaking him out of his trance. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take you away from wherever you were.”

“Can you feel it?” Jason asked.

“Feel what? Sea sickness, a little,” quipped Richard.

“No, the energy in the ocean. Coming from the depths. Wonderful, life affirming, rejuvenating. And at the same time, scary, dark, crushing, oxygen depleting,” Jason spoke to himself. 

“Yes, more the present than the later,” said Richard.

“No, the past, the present, the future like they are all rivals in the sea,” Jason spoke across the sea slurry.

“What? Richard cut this Magic 8-Ball predication and asked Jase to take a break inside. 

The rest of the ferry ride they sat silent in row seats next to unknown day-trip tourists all escaping from somewhere to nowhere.

Or here, the familiar sign of Catalina Casino rose on the horizon over Avalon Bay.

Jase exited the Catalina Express and beelined it to the front row golf cart rentals waiting shore side just ahead. Meanwhile, other passengers fought to find their sea legs and waddled to and fro on the long jetty leading to secure land. Seizing a prime Catalina golf cart was always the top priority on an island that is more mountainous than most expected.

Shortly, Richard and Jase were up Chimes Tower Road to the Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel, the site of their honeymoon and original 1926 “Hopi Pueblo” of the famed author.

Jason read from the in-room suite Catalina magazine, “Zane Grey, who was originally from Ohio, first visited the island in 1905, honeymooning with wife Dolly. Zane was an avid fisherman, who enjoyed fishing the waters off Catalina Island and briefly became president of the Tuna Club after hooking a record setting tuna. His novels and short stories have been adapted into 112 films.”

“112 films, Richard that’s crazy,” Jason exclaimed.

“Not really, he was big for his time,” Richard defended with a bit of seniority.

Jason continued reading while lounging back into the overstuffed white sofa. “Zane Grey died of a heart attack October of 1939 after his beloved wife Dolly was found strangled in the kelp beds off Catalina Island.”

“Strangled?  What the deuce?  How does one strangle themselves in a kelp bed for God’s sake? “ Flashes of nightmares past rushed through his memory and the classroom incident just two days before; all hidden from his husband and not quite ready to reawaken.

“Let’s get a drink at the rooftop bar,” said Richard.

“Now you’re talking,” Jason dived in fully clothed at the idea.

With a sweeping view of all Catalina bay, the upper pool deck of the pueblo couldn’t be beat.  Richard and Jason relaxed back into a wicker couch as a waiter brought them both a signature Pueblo Margarita.

“Cheers!” they both said at the same time.

“Jinx,” replied Richard as he tried to take that back. The two of them sat motionless staring out to the bay where they had just arrived for nearly an hour.

Jason sat up. “I’m going for a swim before the sun goes down.”

“We just got here Jase,” Richard pleaded with a tint of “I’m sorry” thrown in for good measure.

“I’ll be right back babe,” Jason planted a kiss on Richard’s forehead and headed for the front desk to get some snorkeling equipment and a towel.

Unbeknownst to most, Catalina Island has ten plus beaches, some so remote that they require a short boat ride to reach them. Middle Beach is appropriately right in the heart of town and the most touristy of all offerings. Jason didn’t particularly care for the company of fat tourists and their fat kids, but he just wanted a minute in the cool of the ocean.

He donned the rental mask and snorkel and swam out to the buoy line circling the beach indicating the farthest a lifeguard is going to bother saving your ass.

Jason swam under the rope line and went out just a little further. Bright green kelp beds rose from the ocean floor and rubbed against his bare chest. With one deep breath he dived below the surface and into an underwater forest, silent and beautiful. The last sunlight cast beams and shadows between the kelp blades waving gently in the current. Jason questioned why something so beautiful would be called seaweed.

Just then a large black object circled him to the right. Jason spun around only to be faced with another of the same, too fast to recognize. He expelled all his air and swam swiftly to the surface, breathing heavy. The sun set over Catalina’s mountain range turning the water the shade of a bad bruise, dark purple and black, the kelp a terrifying dark green.

Below him dark objects stirred back and forth. He took a deep breath and plunged again into the now abyss. Floating fifteen feet below the surface two dark giants came into focus, a pair of sea lions. Jase didn’t remember them being so large and scary. Perhaps the water magnified their girth.

As he weightlessly floated in the deep a marine science fact came to mind. A male California sea lion weighs on average about 660 lb. and is about 8 ft long. And then, just as quick as they appeared, both sea lions were gone as was Jason’s classroom quiz.

In the distance, a third dark body approached. The seaweed ripped from its ocean floor anchor and circled the figure in an ever-growing ball. Jason gasped but didn’t panic. In fact, a calm peace came over him almost as if he could breathe underwater. His lungs stopped pulling in air. No bubbles escaped his mouth. His body floating frozen in time. His eyes wide open.

The kelp bed pulled back and revealed Mira, Amphitrite, goddess-queen of the dark sea, the loud-moaning mother of sharks, octopi, and morays. Her hair enclosed with a net and her brow adorned with a pair of crab-claw “horns”.

“Out for a swim are we Jason?” Mira challenged Jason. “You can’t change islands, shores or dreams, I’m done playing.”

Mira leaned forward in Jason’s direction as the sea parted.

“Richard is mine. Always and forever.” 

And with that, the water filled Jason’s lungs. The perpetual ease of floating suspended in a tranquil ocean disappeared as long strands of kelp reached out to hold him down. Jason fought and too quickly then gave into the rapture of the dark goddess.  Two sea lions circled his suspended descent, once, twice, and on the third time faded into the kelp bed itself and then black.

From the surface came a dispirit cry for help. “Jason!  Jason! Come on, Jason,”

Richard pounded on his husband’s chest to no effect.

PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 6 – St. Mary

The helivac lifted Jason and Richard away from Catalina and off to St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. Jase was barely breathing and in a sort of coma. His skin a shade of gray like the color of the clouds on the horizon.

“St. Mary’s has a hyperbaric chamber,” shouted the helivac RN over the noise of the rotary blades.  “If he’s got any chance at all, that’s the place.”

Richard bit his tongue and under his breath muddled. “IF? WTF.”

The helivac landed on the X marking the spot for St. Mary’s helicopter ER. Two nurses and a doctor were already waiting on the pad with a stretcher. The team moved Jason’s lifeless body to the rolling bed and quickly through a door leading to an elevator. Richard held firm to Jase’s side, not considering the option of letting go.

“Was he scuba diving and came up too quick,” shouted the doctor across Jason’s comatose body.

“No, he just went snorkeling. How can this happen?” Richard began to show more signs of panic. “He was in fifteen feet of water max just off the shore of Catalina. We were just enjoying a drink and the view…”

“How many drinks did he have?” quizzed the nurse.

“One, and not all of it. What are you implying?” Richard’s nerves had him now on edge.

Three doors down they reached the chamber and rushed Jason inside. The RN held a stiff arm back “Only the patient,” she insisted.

Richard watched the medical staff through a round window in the door lift Jason from his stretcher and into the hyperbaric chamber, arranging his head and tucking his arms inside, then closing the lid. The rest was a flurry of people moving and pushing buttons, electronic read outs, gauges with red and green lights. Richard bowed his head and started to pray for his lover.

He crossed his chest in the sign of the cross and began to weep as he said to himself and Saint Mary. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” He lifted his shirt to wipe his tears, but the faucet kept running.

“Sir, sorry to interrupt but can I have a moment of your time?” Richard didn’t notice the two police officers now on either side of him. “Do you mind stepping outside, just a couple questions and we’ll be on our way.”

Richard was too confused to give the officers any trouble and just went along with their requests. St. Mary’s was directly on the ocean in south Long Beach. A heavy retainer wall made of boulders the size of small cars protected it from the pounding surf.

“So, you found the young man on the shore?” asked one of the cops.

“No, he was floating in the water face down. Several people were pulling him to the shoreline when I jumped in the water. At first, I didn’t believe it could be Jason. Then his body rolled over in the surf and he looked me dead in the face.”

“Dead in the face,” repeated the female cop while writing the same in a small black book.

“Had you two been having, shall I say, marital difficulties?” asked the interrogating policeman.

“No. Well, a few personal challenges. Something happened at his school.” Richard blabbered on and on hoping he could put a period on his sentence.  “He has been having nightmares and wakes up sometimes confused.”

“If you don’t mind why don’t we take a trip downtown and record this conversation. It won’t take any time and you can be right back to your husband.”

The male cop circled Richard and pulled his hands behind his back. The other pulled out a set of handcuffs as Richard began to resist.

Just then the sea exploded like a depth charge from beneath. Salt water soaked the police officers temporarily blinding them from what came next. Mira rose from the depths, sea weed slashing out and cutting the officers with her sharp blades.

The female cop went for her gun but a second too late. A kelp stalk wrapped around her arm, pulled and separated it clear off of her shoulder and out to sea. A Great White Shark circled Mira and leaped into the air catching it like a baby seal.  The other officer tried to get the blood out of his face, when a kelp blade slit his throat and his head nearly off from his body. He folded like a house of cards to the rocks below and Mira served him as well to her hungry friend.

“Richard, you’re looking good as always,” Mira teased.

“Are you the reason Jason nearly died?” Richard shouted.

“Nearly? I must be out of practice,” Mira laughed tossing her kelp hair back into the ocean and back, then focusing her gaze just on Richard.

An RN burst through the exit door. “Mr. Elliott, your husband just woke up.”

Mira slunk back with the tide and a burst of salt water washing the blood-soaked concrete with a huge ocean spray.

PIECES OF GLASS – The Final Chapter

By Phillip Large

Part 7 – The Chamber

Richard went to Jason’s chamber side as he raised the lid on his own and sat upright.

“I know how to kill her,” were the first words that escaped Jase’s mouth.

“Jason.” Richard lost the ability to put together a simple sentence and left it at that as he reached forward and hugged his husband as tight as he could. “I love you.”

“I know how to kill Mira,” Jason repeated.

“What? Jason you’re alive. Thank God, and Mary.” Richard gave props.

Jason spelled out his death trap as Richard listened on in a bit of shock. 

“You’re going to have to die again,” Jason said to his husband not realizing he never told him the death nightmare from what seemed like weeks ago.

“I have to what? When? What? Death follows us, time to move to a different zip code.”

“Seriously, to lure Mira I, we, need you to be the bait.”

“Well, when you say it like that,” Richard half joked.

Jason went into even more detail with his murderous plan as Richard just nodded his head again and again.

“We don’t have much time, they’ll release me soon,” said Jason.

Richard shook his head yes and no and yes and no until his brain felt like mush.

Jason turned the lights in the hyperbaric ER off leaving just the glow of the chamber and asked the hardest question in his life, “Time to die?”

Jason took position in the classroom viewing area above the chamber where all the remote controls monitored his hyperbaric slumber.  Richard, with much trepidation, took Jase’s place in the chamber laying back and assuming the position of a corpse in a casket ready to be buried.

In the far distance a D minor cord struck and echoed everywhere in the small ER. And again, and again and again. Richard knew immediately the song that was awaiting.

“I put a spell on you,” rang out echoing off the white walls. “Because you’re mine.”

“Mira, take me, ‘Richard spoke with honesty. “Grant me eternal life. Your dead will live. Our bodies rise in the tides forever.”

Her death march song continued, “I love you anyhow, and I don’t care if you don’t want me. I’m yours right now. I put a spell on you.”

The ER lights lit up with sparks like the Fourth of July as water began to pour from the ceiling. Sparks shot across the crypt where Richard lay.

“Always and forever Richard. Always,” Mira appeared in a tangled cloud of sea water and kelp inching closer and closer to his chamber bed.

“Come to me Mira. My messiah,” Richard held his hands out to his killer.

Amphitrite sucked in her borrowed oxygen and leaned forward to give Richard his final kiss.

Now!” screamed Jason as Richard rolled to the left and the chamber opened from the opposite side and Mira inched inside. “Stand back!”

Jason hit the red button in the remote viewing area and locked the hyperbaric chamber with Mira inside.

“Jason!” Richard screamed back as Mira pounded against the glass.

Jase found the button marked manual overpressure relief valve and turned it off. Then hit the one just above sending 100% oxygen flooding the chamber at ten times that of sea level. The chamber cracked in the pressure but held.

Mira whipped back and forth in her own waste water like a serpent, frothing more and more until her tempest turned her impression to nothing more than a silhouette. And then in an explosion, nothing but bile and blood and glass. Lots of small refracting pieces of glass.

Richard held his breath and for a minute he had that feeling like when you’re swimming and you want to put your feet down on something solid, but the water’s deeper than you think and there’s nothing there. A few minutes passed and he found his footing.

He climbed the back stairwell to Jason sitting over the remote controls of Mira’s death.

“She’s gone Richard, at last, I am the one that loves you most.” Jason said pulling Richard into his grasp and not letting go.

Outside the sky turned red again, the sun lowered on the horizon burning the ocean foaming with jealous rage for the last time.

— the end —  

© 2021 Phillip Large

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 1 – Nothing

The wave hit the shore like a jealous lover’s slap in the face, startling Richard, leaving him dazed and confused.  Opening his tear-clenched eyes, the stars dazzled so brightly that their oh-so-near Hollywood counterparts paled in comparison. Richard squinted to get his bearings. 

For one short moment the celestial blanket above allowed Richard Elliott Jr. to see the curvature of the Earth, just as he had as a kid, as he had as a teen, as he had as a married man and just as suddenly all its weight came tumbling down upon him, buckling him to his knees.

How long had he been standing there, bare feet in the sand?  The tide inched closer touching too close to his crotch, sending a cold shiver up his spine.  Midnight walks on the Cambria shore used to be such a magical escape, the path lit only by the moonstones stealing light from the gentle orb above.  Where did time go? He stood, soaked from the knees down.

Richard rolled his jeans up to a slightly embarrassing level to strain the seawater out. Looking down he stared at the foaming ocean swell as it inhaled again back to the sea leaving bits and pieces of shells, discarded and crushed.

Suddenly, an old Peter Bradley Adams song, something about ‘moonlight’ filled Richard’s head.

There’s a moon shining bright upon my feet

And tonight the dogs are coming to capture me

It was September 2011 and the Acoustic Musical Festival in Norfolk, Virginia.  They sang along, lighters held high and then… crack, flash forward to 2014, the ocean exhaled and another wave tumbled down.

Seaweed entrapped his feet and the Queen of the Sea, Amphitrite, lust for him to join her for eternity, but Richard freed himself from her grip and continued walking.

This sleepy beach town halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco was as good a place as any to clear his head.  Cambria used to be their vacation from the world.  Now, six weeks after his divorce, it left a hole in his heart deeper than the ink black ocean. 

That’s why Richard was here in the first place, to start healing… to move on.  Boxed up, zip code changed and new cell phone number still on his “to-do” list, he walked and walked until the distant lights of his oceanfront rental faded in the mist. 

Richard’s life choices came late in the arch of God’s master plan.  Why did he suppress his feelings for so long? Questions he asked himself aloud, left alone in the dark and the fog. 

He tried again to focus, noticing his own now moonless reflection, the thirsty darkness drinking in even his shadow, until there was nothing.

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 2 – Blood and Lust

Walking through the fog-drenched beach of Cambria, Richard began to feel his own body separating into bits of sea spray, drops of blood and lust.  

“So, I’m gay,” he heard himself whisper over the mist as if to another person, though no one applauded his coming out but a distant group of mockingbirds.  How fitting. 

He wondered aloud if his indiscretions were the separating point with his wife or had he fallen out and then in love with another.  Unfortunately the reality was a one-night-stand that lasted four weeks and proved the final nail in his troubled marriage. 

It wasn’t the sex. Richard had enjoyed making love to Barbara, “Barbie,” but sex with Jason, “Jase” was, well… out-of-body experiential. Richard had wondered what greener pasture lay beyond his failing marriage for some time.  In the last three years Barbie lost all interest as well and their bed felt more like a coffin than a California King. 

The thundering crash of a giant wave swept away Richard’s reminiscing leaving him only with a bruised reality. The sky parted and the iridescent full moon burned through the fog in his head and on the beach.

And there, just four feet in front of him lying on the shore was a woman with skin as white as the reflecting moonstones that surrounded her.  Richard let out a high-pitched gasp that even the sea faring animals this time left unanswered.  He froze in his tracks leaving size 12 footprints as far back as the tide would allow.

She moved… one slender finger reaching up and out of the seaweed bed that would have entombed her if Richard had not crossed her path.  Jungle Red nail polish caught the full moon’s glow glistening and unscratched from the pummeling waves. In fact, everything about the lady of the mist looked untouched and styled as if she were posing for a magazine ad.

Dropping to his knees Richard began to dig, the ocean clearly demonstrating it had another plan for her when suddenly a five-foot wave took them both under and slightly down the tide embankment. Crawling through kelp and driftwood, together they found a semi-dry spot and immediately gagged and choked on the salt, sand, and lack of air.

Now laying beside her, heads parallel, the woman looked directly into Richard’s eyes and for a moment, they joined for a breath or two, and then another crash this time dragging them both up and closer to the high tide mark.  

Richard found ground where they could find clean air and gripped it for both their lives. 

A hermit crab raised his home and crossed Richard’s extended hand like a bridge to the mysterious female lying on her chest.  She took three very deep breaths of clean air, raising her whole body from the beach. 

She turned directly into Richard’s gaze and gagged up what seemed like an ocean of water, warm and salty. Her eyes again caught Richard’s gaze as her tongue licked a grain of sand from her crimson full lips.

In the frigid cold Richard felt something stir in his soaking wet jeans.

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 3 – Old Moonstone Cottage

Finally reaching his vacation rental, Richard pulled back the unlocked sliding glass door releasing the scent of jasmine candles burning brightly. Some obscure acoustic version of a Top 40 pop song, perhaps Coldplay, played in the background entertaining two sleepy Labrador retrievers.  

He inhaled a deep and much needed welcome home with a touch of guilt. How careless to exit a house with such dangerous abandon; burning candles, CD choices left to his pets, but considering the night’s realities Richard chose to leave judgment to someone else.  

His long-sleeved jean shirt kept ‘her’ semi-clothed as he shut the slider and the ocean that had tried to claim his now house guest. Richard’s female dogs Sade and Bella circled around their new visitor inquisitive as to her origin. Both found their noses planted firmly in her fertile region only women and bitches know well.

“Stop that, get outside,” shouted Richard, grabbing both their collars and escorting his girls to the dog run alongside the rental. 

It’s only then that he noticed the estranged woman had not muttered a single word. Had she washed ashore from a boat wreck at sea?   Was she assaulted and left for dead by someone still dangerously trolling the shore?  Was she in shock from the extremely cold water and on the verge of hypothermia?  The last question awoke his sense of duty.

“Would you like a hot shower?”  Just saying it out loud sounded deviant but his intentions were pure.  Richard was truly concerned for the beautiful copper-haired woman with skin so alabaster it looked almost translucent with heat radiating from within. Wasn’t she freezing as he was?

He pulled back the shower door to his master shower and cranked the hot water all the way to the right.  Richard shook nervously on the tile floor the seawater puddled under him and ran over to the stranger.

The posh sized rental home came highly recommended from his now ex-wife’s attorney. The bathroom as big as most people’s living rooms, with a changing area and duel vanities on parallel sides of the room. An antique claw-foot tub sat opposite the 4-head steam shower.  

Sitting on a small table was a journal Richard had been reading earlier with testimonials from past guests. Glancing over his shoulder he thought it odd to be left open to a family’s final words on their stay at Old Moonstone Cottage.

“We have enjoyed our stay here in lovely Cambria and especially the quaint cottage. Our last night was a bit chilling, but I’m giving too much away.  May you both find peace here.” – the Reynolds, Bob, Maryanne, Benjamin and Kelsey.

Both?

The shower finally reached its full potential and there lying on the floor next to his feet was his own jean shirt.  It’s not like Richard to toss his clothes like a careless bachelor. He returned the journal to the small table.

And then her hand grabbed Richard’s jeans by the belt, abruptly pulling him off his feet and yanking him into the steam-filled shower.

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 4 – Morning

Richard stretched out in the canopied bed letting his toes touch the far edge, just off the end of his king-sized mattress.  He flipped over anticipating the mysterious woman that he had rescued from the shore the night before, the same woman he had made passionate love to until the morning sun started to illuminate the tops of the pines on the Cambria hillside. So many questions raced through his head.

Instead Richard woke to an empty bed.  Resting on the pillow where the copper-haired woman’s head should be was a moonstone set in a simple chained amulet.

The Romans thought moonstone to be formed out of moonlight and to be the stone of sensitivity and love. Richard thought how insensitive to leave him with not so much as a thank you for saving her life. In India today, moonstone is considered to be a “Dream Stone”, bringing about sweet and beautiful dreams.  Richard’s dreams were indeed sweet, but his waking reality was starting to look a bit unnerving. 

He lifted the sheets as if perhaps she was hiding to find only fine beach sand outlining where she should have been.

Just then the iPhone resting on his side of the bed’s nightstand rang so unexpectedly that Richard didn’t recognize his own ringtone, Maroon V’s “I’ve Got the Moves Like Jagger.”  Stumbling to take the call he thought finally some answers.  Looking at the caller I.D. left him with even more questions. 

Jason Crawford.  “Jase.”

Richard read the caller I.D. again and again, then grabbed the cell phone and hit ‘slide to unlock’ taking Jason’s call.

“Jason?”

“Hi Richard.”

“Why are you calling me?  Is everything OK?”   Richard couldn’t help his caring self even though Jason had taken him from CLOSETED to OUT and then dumped him.

“Maybe?.”  Jason wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

“Then what’s up? Why the fuck are you calling me?” Richard finally got in some of the hate he felt for Jason ditching him.  The trash talking sounded a little sophomoric and ridiculous coming from Richard’s mouth and he inhaled through his clenched teeth trying desperately to take it back.

Jason continued, “Like I was saying, last night I got a phone call from a woman. She didn’t give me her name, but she has a message for you. She asked for you by name. Sounded like she was about your age.”

Richard would have hung up already if Jase wasn’t one to give such innocent jabbing without understanding the hurt.

“Jase, what time last night was this?” Richard’s heart beat so hard and fast that he thought for a moment he could see it pulsating through his chest.

“Around 3:30 a.m., I was just getting home from the club.”  Jase worked at a local gay hangout in West Hollywood called “The Abbey.”  That’s where he and Richard had first hooked up.  Ranked as MTV’s “Best Gay Bar in the World” two years in a row, Richard thought how could he lose if he’s going to throw caution and his sexual orientation to the wind.

“What did she say?” Richard demanded.

“Do you know this woman? Why is she calling my phone looking for you?” Jason asked in return.

“It doesn’t matter,” Richard was too quick to respond.  “What did she say for Christ sake?”

Jason read from the cocktail napkin he scribbled the night before, “The sky is red and lowering and only those who are found to be righteous can escape the destruction that will come.  Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Richard felt his hand go numb and the phone fell to the floor.

He gained a small bit of composure and grabbed his cell phone off the carpeted runner praying that Jason hadn’t hung up on him. “Hello, sorry, Jase are you still there?”

“Yes. Are you OK?  Where are you?” Jason replied.

“In Cambria.”

“Is sheeee with you?” Jason asked with an obvious hint of distaste.

“She? No.” Richard’s wife (ex-wife) was 341 miles out of the picture but the stranger was still fogging his immediate memory.

“I’m coming up there. What’s that two, three hours from West Hollywood?” Jason quizzed.

“Four with no traffic. Why are you coming here? What?  Hold on a minute. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with me!  Tell that to the psycho calling me with stupid biblical prophecies. WTF Richard!  What the hell is going on?”  Jason finally cracked.

Richard paused before answering Jase trying to collect his thoughts.  Every bone in his body ached for Jason to come back to him.  Or did it?  What was last night about?  Did last night even happen?

“Richard, are you there? Talk to me.” Jason wanted answers.

“It’s nothing Jase.  Probably a prank call.”  Richard didn’t believe his own lies.

“A prank caller dialing your gay ex-lover asking for you by name?”

“Perhaps Barbie is up to this.  I’ll call her as soon as we hang up.”  Richard had no intention of ringing his ex-wife.  Barbie could be a real bitch, but a prank prophetic phone call at 3:30am wasn’t her style.

“Let me dial you back.  I need to sort this out.”  Richard clicked the red ‘end call’ button.

Jason started to tell Richard to please be careful but found himself talking to a dead cell.  He paused, then touched the Maps app on his phone and typed in Cambria, California.

Richard stood in an empty house frightened out of his skin for what was happening.  He went into the master bath and dowsed his face in cold water.  Looking up into the mirror he half expected the strange moonstone woman to be staring back at him.  Instead he found a scared man in his late 30’s dripping with fear.

On the small table to his right sat the house journal still turned to Bob Reynolds’s last entry. Richard read it back again to himself.  “May you both find peace.”

He suddenly had a plan. A long shot, but a plan nonetheless.

Richard went into his bedroom and found his briefcase and dug through paperwork looking for his house rental contract until he located the folder titled Cambria Vacation Homes.  He picked up the house phone and dialed the number.

“Cambria Vacation Homes,” a woman politely answered.

“Um, this is Bob, Bob Reynolds.  My family stayed in Old Moonstone Cottage not long ago.”

“Yes, Bob I remember you. How can I help?”

“My wife seems to have lost a necklace and we think it might have been in the cottage.”  Richard gained a little more confidence with each lie. “Would you be willing to look through the rental and see if anything turns up?”

“Sure, nothing was reported by the cleaning crew but we’re more than happy to walk through the house again.  What does it look like?”

“It’s a moonstone amulet at the end of a silver chain.  You have my cell phone number correct?  Can you repeat it back?”

“310-487-0957.  Is that the best place to find you?”

“Yes, thank you very much.”  Richard hung up the house phone and immediately dialed the number on his own cell phone.

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 5 – Mira

Shaking uncontrollably, Richard misdialed the number three times and hung up his cell phone.  He took a deep breath, and then read through Bob Reynolds’s journal once again.  Below Bob’s entry, clearly in another person’s handwriting was scribbled the following statement – “It’s always wise to obey the One who loves you most.”  Was that there before?

Who comments on another guest’s personal journal entries? “Obey?” That’s a word he hadn’t heard since his marriage to Barbie 13 years back.  “Do you promise to love, honor and obey?”  Richard thought one out of two, OK, well maybe, more like zero out of three, but for every promise there is a price to pay.

Slowly he attempted to type in the phone number that the rental house woman had so easily slipped to him. The cell rang three times and a young woman answered.

“Dr. Reynolds’s office, do you mind holding?”

“Um, …” she put Richard on hold before he could answer.  Doctor Reynolds?

About two minutes expired while Richard hung in limbo listening to on-hold music.  “Wrecking Ball” was the next song when finally the receptionist returned.  Thank God.

“Thanks for holding, do you want to make an appointment?” the Nurse curtly answered, obviously busy and juggling many duties.

“I need to speak to Bob, um, Dr. Reynolds.”

“And whom may I say is calling?”

“This is Cambria Vacation Homes, “ Richard’s lies and deceit were getting better by the minute.  “The Doctor lost a personal item and I am calling to tell him that we have found it.  Bob left a note stating that if anyone came across the piece he lost, to check with him.”

“Just a minute.”  The receptionist put Richard on hold and buzzed Dr. Reynolds in his office to see if he wanted to take the call.

Immediately a male voice took over the conversation.  “Who is this?”

Richard threw aside the charade and got straight to the point.  He didn’t know how long the Doctor would stay with him.   “This is Richard Elliot. I am staying in Old Moonstone Cottage in Cambria.  I was reading your journal post from your recent stay.”

“I thought you said this was the rental company?”

“I’m very sorry, please don’t hang up.  This is very important.  It involves a copper-haired woman here on the beach.”

The phone fell silent for a moment or two.

“Her name is Mira,” the Doctor replied.

“What? Mirror?”

“No, Mira.” Bob spelled it back, “M.I.R.A.”

“How do you know this?”

“She told me.”

Richard was stunned.  She told him her name?  She doesn’t exist. What do you mean, she told him?!  “You met her?” 

“Yes.  I take it you did as well.”  The Doc sounded a bit arrogant and almost boastful. “I’ll assume you’re married… or were.”

Richard didn’t answer.

“I was as well, married that is.”  Bob told his story like a new entry in the Cottage journal. 

‘Was?” Richard responded.

“I was married at the time that Mira paid me a visit in Cambria.”

“Paid a visit?”  The words rolled so easily out of the Doctor’s mouth.  “It was not the most ideal marriage by far, my wife and I were on the edge of a divorce, then the beach, the moonstones, the full moon…”

Richard cut the Doctor’s romantic therapy session off mid-sentence.  “Are you telling me you had sex with a woman named Mira, in Cambria…  a woman that you met on the beach… a woman that you took back to Old Moonstone Cottage???”

“Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure.”  The good Doctor sounded more fucked up than Richard. “Either way, it was the end of my marriage for sure…”

The Doc trailed off, Richard had stopped listening several minutes before. He was still trying desperately to pull together the loose ends. Then, the Doctor tied that knot for him.

“How many days have you been in the beach house?”

It took Richard a minute to calculate even though it was less than 48 hours.  “Two,” he replied.

“Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,” the Doctor responded.

Richard fell backwards, his head hitting the dresser and knocking the mirror that rest on it.  He lay unconscious bleeding on the hardwood floor.  A pool of blood snaked from his cut forehead to the cell phone that lay just out of reach.

“Richard, it’s day two, you won’t live to see a third day.  Get out!”  

Dr. Bob Reynolds’s warning went unanswered.

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 6 – Holy Breath

A pair of velvet lips kissed Richards face, first his forehead, then his own lips.  He slowly opened one eye, then the next and found himself horizontal with the floor. Balls of dog hair circled under the dresser like tumbleweeds. A lost squeaky ball rested against the antique dresser’s rear foot.  “Bella will be happy,” escaped his mouth with much effort.  Richard tried to right himself, only to fall back down under the room’s heavy gravity.

“Take your time,” a woman’s voice spoke in his ear as if from inside his head.

Richard spun to the left and then the right to see a pair of women’s feet, manicured and soft. 

She leaned down to his POV revealing the copper-haired stranger. “There’s no rush.”  She spoke.  “Mira” spoke.  Her red hair moved in a slow motion breeze that Richard didn’t feel.  He raised his right hand to her face to make sure he wasn’t dreaming again.

“Let me help you.”  Mira reached under Richard’s chest and with very little effort raised him to a full upright position, leaning back slightly on the top of the dresser.

Richard turned around and checked his forehead in the dresser mirror. “The dresser mirror?”  Last Richard remembered the mirror lay on the floor shattered just like his forehead.  He rubbed where the gash should be moving in closer to his own head only to see himself, unscarred, the mirror now solid with his terrified reflection.

Mira stood just behind him. She wore a long white cotton dress, her amble breasts stood firm through the gauzed fabric signaling the room was a bit chilly. This did nothing for Richard other than confuse him even further.

“You’re the woman from the beach.” She heard Richard’s statement but didn’t respond.

“Where did you go the other night?  You were laying in the ocean spray for dead, then we, well…” Richard wasn’t comfortable with any of his questions.  Leaping forward in time he tried to put a period on his question. “Then, then you were gone.”

“I’m always here.  I am the one that loves you most Richard,” Mira whispered.  Everything she said came out in a whisper as if spoken on an unfeeling breeze, as if carried on an impossible mist.

Then she kissed him again, full and wet on the lips, tasting like the ocean itself mixed with salt and kelp, sucking the oxygen from his lungs.

Richard felt his senses leaving him in her sweet communion kiss. A Matt Alber song fell in and out of his immediate consciousness.

Love rising from the mist

Promise me this and only this

Holy breathe touching me

Like a wind song

The last words Richard understood were from Mira, “Say goodbye.”

Outside the tide rose to it’s highest mark with a thunderous wave that broke the shoreline and everything in its path.

The wind howled through open doors and windows like a widow mourning her lover.

The sky turned red as the sun lowered too quickly to its inevitable escape.

And the clock ticked 5:30pm, forty-nine hours since Richard checked into Old Moonstone Cottage.

Day 3.

PIECES OF GLASS – A Short Story in Seven Parts

by Phillip Large

Part 7 – “Day 3 The Reckoning”

Richard fell backwards, above him the waves crashed, foaming white like a rabid dog’s snarl. The light of day penetrated the ocean in streaming rays extinguished one by one. He frantically grasped at anything and everything to get a grip on this damnation. The ocean faded from bright blue, to azure and then midnight as he tumbled farther into her depths. Then all went black.

The roar of the world above fell silent for what seemed like eternity and Richard felt an eerie peace like never before. His drop continued without the need of oxygen, sand, waves or sunsets. The deeper he fell material desires were drowned out, their voices choked in his interminable descent, and then once again, nothing.

Jason arrived at Cambria Vacation Homes rentals in just under 4 hours. The traffic was considerably light for LA.  He really didn’t have a plan he just knew that something was dreadfully wrong with Richard and somehow he was involved.  The woman’s cryptic call late the night before sounded threatening.  Even though Jason was 17 years younger than Richard, he thought himself to be wise for his age. It was hard to pull something over on him, and that’s just what this felt like.

The plump woman at the rental desk proved most helpful and within minutes Jason was given the address to Richard’s Old Moonstone Cottage.  He had played Richard’s ‘son’ before when the circumstances required and was well versed in the estranged offspring of Richard and Barbie Elliot. 

“Where’s your Mother this trip?” the lady behind the desk pried.

“She’s having her stomach stapled. Gross, I know but she’s pushing 280.  It’s the best thing.”

The receptionist let out an “Oh dear” but Jason was already out the door.

Driving the road North called appropriately Moonstone Beach Road, Jason could see why Richard loved Cambria and came back year after year.  He exited the car and walked across Highway 1 to take in the scenic rocky coast and gather his thoughts before confronting Richard.

Quaint B&B’s dotted the shoreline with larger homes climbing the hillside, each demanding an even greater view than the one below. A pine wood path meandered on and on until it wrapped out of sight and over a lookout point.  Couples walked hand in hand with kids running ahead and dogs pulling leashes.

On the shore, a woman screamed out to the bus tour operator “I found one!  A moonstone!!” sending fellow tourists into a frenzy hunting for jeweled rocks.

The tour guide turned to Jason and confessed, “There are no moonstones on Moonstone Beach, only pieces of glass.  I let them have their fun pocketing shattered river polished coke and beer bottles back to their hometowns with stories of finding treasures here in Cambria.  A bit deceptive, but that’s my job, to make things appear what they are not.” Words that Jason took to heart considering Richard’s circumstances.    

He got back in his Toyota Prius and within two minutes found the gated dirt drive of the Old Moonstone Cottage. Jase shut off the engine and exited the car. A breeze picked up blowing pine needles in mini-twisters biting at his ankles until he reached the front door.  He knocked hard to let any and everyone know there’s someone here. The door swung open and flew back leaving a dent in the wall, knocking over a half glass of wine on the floor leaving a blood red stain. Why was the front door unlocked?  Richard must be home.

“Richard?” Jason shouted into an empty home, the lights were on and the dogs outside in the run, but no Richard.

In the master bedroom sitting on an antique dresser he found the journal Richard had referred to in their phone call earlier, the pages left open. On the left was scribbled the message, “It’s always wise to obey the One who loves you most.” 

On the right was handwriting that Jason recognized immediately, Richard’s.  “The sea once it’s cast her spell, it holds me in her net forever,” signed Richard Elliot Jr.  That was definitely Richard’s penmanship, but not something Jason ever heard him mutter.  It sounded more like a ceremonial burying than “I’m having the time of my life, wish you were here in Cambria.”

Jason stared at the signature for the longest time and then began to slowly weep; pulling deep heaving breathes his tears stung and fell down upon the page.  Picking up the pen that lay beside the journal he began to write a farewell letter to his ex-lover.

“Dearest Richard, I’m sorry that I left you without even a goodbye. I just didn’t know if now was the best time for me to commit to anyone.”

From the darkest depths of the ocean, three rays of light reached out to Richard and slowed his fall. The first hit his face and the sensation of warmth filled his entire body. The second ray hit his heart and it began to beat so loud that it hurt his ears.  And the third hit his left hand giving Richard the strength to reach up.

Jason continued writing, “You might think I’m a bad person for saying this, but meeting someone in a bar isn’t perhaps the best place to start a long-term relationship.  If we had met somewhere like this, here in Cambria we might have had a better chance.  Honestly I’ve never got this close to anyone before and it was a little scary.”

Five rays of light shot through Richard’s murky hell entrapping his entire body and pulling him upward.  In the far distance he could begin to hear waves breaking on a sandy shore.

“I catch myself thinking about you every day. I thank you for the love and joy we had together, no matter how short.”

Richard soared from the ocean’s depth carried up and up.

Jason came to the end of the page and signed it  “In my heart and dreams forever, Jason.” Tears filled his eyes and streamed down and off his cheek hitting the page and blurring Richard’s name.

Just then Old Moonstone’s Journal began to swell with water. Jason stepped back brushing the tears from his eyes trying to focus.  The pages dissolved and water began pouring into the room. Salt water.

Jason ran for the master bedroom door.  A cold wind slammed it shut and it locked from the outside. The water now reached his knees making it harder to walk. Waves crashed against furniture throwing lamps, chairs, plants and clothes everywhere. Jason pulled against the current and tried to reach the distant window.  Suddenly storm shutters from the outside closed and a wood beam locked him in from the outside.

Jason started treading, choking on the salt water and frantically searching for an escape.  The ceiling came down to hit his head, light bulbs exploding as oceans of water sealed his fate. Taking one last breath Jason fell silent and floated in the current that turned him around and around the room.  He wondered what kind of demon possessed this house that she would steal the soul of Richard and now himself?

From across the room a figure came closer through a deep blue sea.  Rays of light illuminated the dark water, light that came from the shape, the silhouette of a man. The light filled Jason’s eyes and his heart with hope. In the cold salt water Richard reached out his hand and pulled Jason closer, holding him to his chest, the rays of light now pulsing through both their bodies, floating in space and time.

And then the crack of a wave shattered everything and the seawater disappeared, leaving Richard and Jason clinging to each other in the ram-shackled master bedroom of Old Moonstone Cottage. Moonstones filled the hardwood floors with glowing beams of light.

Richard held Jase tight and waited for him to open his clenched eyes. He blinked then shook off the water on his face opening his sea blue eyes and smiled directly back at Richard.

Jason found the energy to speak, “Now I am one the that loves you most.”

Outside the sky turned red, the sun lowered on the horizon burning the ocean foaming with jealous rage.

— the end —