I Am the Messenger

My fingers turn and burn on my healing skin.

"That's me," I say again. It's a whisper this time, and next to me, Audrey's eyes collapse and cry in the dark, dark theater.

The next scene shows me walking out of the library, carrying all those books. After that it's the lights on Glory Road. It's just a shot of them alone at night--the power and the glory. There's darkness, until they flick on and glow through the theater. Next is the scene of the front-porch cyclone, silent. I see my mother delivering her painful words, almost gouging my face with them, until slowly I walk away, nearly right into the camera. We watch me walking toward the Bell Street Cinema.

The last thing we see are some words written directly on the reel. They say: Trying times for Ed Kennedy. Well done, Ed. Time to move on.

And it's black again.

All black.

I still can't move my feet. Audrey attempts to pull me along, but there's almost no point. I stand motionless, staring at the screen.

"Let's get to our seats," she says, and I can hear the worry in her voice. "I think you'd better sit down, Ed."

Slowly, I lift one foot.

Then the other.

"Can I play the movie again?" Bernie calls down.

Audrey looks at me with asking eyes.

I lift my head slightly and bring it down to agree.

"Yes, Bernie!" To me, she says, "Good idea. It'll take your mind off it."

For a few seconds, I consider running back out and searching the whole place for whoever's been here. I want to ask Bernie if it was Daryl and Keith again. I want to know why Bernie's been told what he has and why they keep me in the dark.

Yet I know it's futile.

They do it because they can.

Those words lap me a few times, and I know that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. For spades, this is the final trial I need to dig myself out of. We have to stay.

When the screen blinks on, I'm awaiting the famous scene in Cool Hand Luke when Luke finally breaks and everyone deserts him. "Where are you now?" I wait for him to scream very soon from his bunk.

As we walk back to our seats, Luke begins dragging himself across the screen with complete, desolate desperation. He turns and falls near his bunk. "Where are you now?" he says quietly.

Where are you now? I ask, and I turn, expecting to see a figure standing somewhere in the theater. I anticipate some footsteps scattering across the floor behind us. I jerk my head around to look. There are people everywhere, but nowhere. In each black space I find, I think I locate someone, but each time, the darkness thickens and that's all there is. Darkness.

"What is it, Ed?" Audrey asks.

"They're here," I answer, although I can't be sure of anything. This whole experience has taught me that. "They have to be," but as my eyes scour the whole theater I see nothing. If they're here, I can't see them.

Soon, I realize.

I realize when we get back to our seats that they're not here at all now--but they've been.

They've been here all right because sitting on my seat, in my place, is the Ace of Hearts.

"Where are you now?" screams Luke on the screen, and it's my heartbeat that answers. It shakes the inside of me like the giant clanging of a bell. It swells and ignites as I swallow.

I pick the card up and hold it in my hand.

"Hearts," I whisper.

That's where I am.