I Am the Messenger

He's right. I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm still guessing as I stand here hoping that the answers will simply come.

Daryl and Keith stand up next to me under the oak.

It's Keith who deals the last questions from my left side.

He feeds the words into my ears with a coarse, gentle, knowing voice.

Close, so close to me, he says, "What are you even doing here, Ed?" The words loom nearer still and crawl into my ear. "Why are you standing here waiting? You should know what to do...." He rests a moment before delivering the final deluge of words. They enter me like a flood. "Ritchie's one of your best friends, Ed. You don't need to think about anything, or wait, or decide what to do. You know already, without any question or doubt. Don't you?" He repeats it now. "Don't you, Ed?"

I stagger back and slide down the tree to where I was sitting.

The two figures still stand, looking at the house.

My voice trips forward, landing on the ground at their feet.

You know what to do, I think.

"Yes," I answer. "I know."

Visions tear me up.

There are pieces of me on the ground.

Keith and Daryl walk off.

"Hooray," says one of them, but I don't know which.

I want to stand up and chase them and ask them and beg them to tell me who's behind this and why, but.

I can't.

All I'm able to do is sit there and collect the shredded pieces of everything I just saw.

I saw Ritchie.

I saw myself.

Now, with the tree above me, I attempt to deny it and stand up, but my stomach drops and I sit down again.

"I'm sorry, Ritchie," I whisper, "but I have to."

If my stomach was a color, I think, it would be black, like tonight, and I steady myself and begin what feels like an endless walk home.

When I get there, I do the dishes.

They're piled up on the sink, and the last thing I wash is a clear, flat knife. It reflects the kitchen light and I catch my own face, lukewarm, inside the metal.

I'm oval and distorted.

I'm cut off at the edges.

The last things I see are the words I need to speak with Ritchie. At that, I place the knife on the rack, on top of the mountain of clean dishes. It slips and clangs to the floor, then spins like a clock hand.

My face appears in it three times as it circles the room.

The first time, I see Ritchie in my eyes.

Then I see Marv.