Karma Killer

On reflection though, in the cold light of... well... death, I think it's more likely that I didn't want to think about these things because I wasn't really sure of where I stood. I needed Ruby so much that I might possibly have forgiven her. Or maybe I wouldn't have. I would never really know because I wasn't going to be put in that situation. But deep down, I think I knew I was ambivalent. Pride - such as you can have in my case - battled pragmatism and deep-seated need. Who would win? How much time do you have to debate it? In the words of Fagin from OIiver Twist, 'I think I'd better think it out again.'

The reason I bring this up is just... she was looking at me, imploring me to... what? What was I supposed to say? I thought I'd said it all. She was contrite, desperate, unbearably shocked and sad for me, and there was an aching for me and empathy for my deep-seated pain. But... so what? None of that made any difference in the grand scheme of things? We were both dead, and soon we'd... well I don't know what we'd do, but I don't believe sitting on fluffy clouds and playing harps were going to be involved. I had vertigo and my fingers wouldn't play any instrument, so that was out anyway.

I just didn't have a reaction for her that would... do anything, I guess. And she clearly wanted one. I never thought I'd ever tell her what the inner me really was, so I never really considered what the next steps would be. And here I was and while I'd told her, nothing had really changed. I was still the same person and so was she. For the next few... whatever period of time this delusion took up, anyway.

So... no real response available, so to speak. I just looked at her, and she looked at me with every possible expression imaginable going across her face very, very quickly.

I did murmur, "Well... now you know, you know why I never let any hint of this out. I couldn't subject you to that. This was my cross to bear, not yours. You don't deserve that. Not even after..."

And her face morphed into extreme sympathy and just... well for want of a better word, love, I guess. It just shone out of her, for a few moments.

Then something occurred to me. A chance to change the subject that I'd definitely want to take.

"Errm... You said something about a decision?" I prompted, quizzical look on my face. "Something I have to decide?"

She looked at me blankly for a second, and then her face popped. "Oh yes, right. Sorry, got really caught up with..." she trailed off.

"Well... it's like this..." she started again, groping for the right words. "You can decide how this ends."

I was taken aback. Decide what? My face clear had a puzzled frown on it.

"You are here because you did something unthinkable. I understand now why. I didn't before, but I do now. But... that doesn't have to be the end. You are being given a choice. Go back or go forward."

Well, that was a stumper. I mean, it's quite the choice if I understood what she was saying correctly. But... if it was bullshit, I'd never know, would I? I mean, I was dead anyway, right? So, not entirely sure how you avoid that, and if this was just my imagination, what difference did it make? Which, given my subconscious would know that, lent towards... Wait, what?

The expression on my face must have given away my thinking yet again, because Ruby responded with, "Yes, it doesn't make that much sense, does it? But... from what I am led to believe, you get to decide what happens next."

I considered it.

"How?" was the simple question I had.

She shrugged. "I think it's just making a decision. Stay or go. Live on or... Fairly simple binary choice. You just... do it, I think? Decide what you want and it'll happen. I dunno, Olly, it's not like I am plugged into the Afterlife Wikipedia here..."

She gave me a weak smile.

"Well, in that case, I think the answer is obvious, because for me, while this has been nice, nothing has really changed? I made my decision out there..." I waved vaguely in the direction of the door. "No reason to really think that needs to be any different?"

And then... then her face took on another expression. And this was stoic. Hard. An internal resolution had been reached, clearly.

"Well, that attitude stops now. I can't let that horrible way you look at yourself carry on, Olly. I just can't. I have to..." and she determinedly reached out again, to grab my hands.

I tried to shy away, scared of what my inner demons might do to her, but she grabbed my wrists, with surprising strength.

And then something else happened. Something to this day I am unable to explain. Well, I can't explain any of it, but this... this in particular.

When she grabbed my hands, with a determined expression on her face, instead of my internal issues draining into her, it was the other way around. She was spilling into me.

And oh my god (which is an expression that now I have a totally different take on), it was astonishing. Like nothing on earth, in every sense of the phrase.

She literally started glowing, and I started filling up with her light. It was pouring into me. A depth of feeling, a pure out pouring of emotion and... I don't know what the right word is. Love? Soul? Passion? Belief? All of the above?

I could feel the expression of her love and need for me. It was intoxicating. A positiveness I'd just never experienced in my whole life. My fractured ego was being filled in by the light filling me, coming direct from her... soul? Eternal id? Whatever it was, she was throwing it all at me, and I could feel it in every possible way.

Love. WaNt. Need. Requirement. Desire. Attraction. I-need-this-PERSON-in-my-life. LUST. Appreciation. IMPORTANCE. Respect. Equal. AUThorItY. Stability. Cuteness. HuMOR. Sarcasm. IrrEVErencCE. Sexuality. Hunger. SAFETY. Protection. Power. I-want-to-grow-old-with-him. Sacrifice. SOULmate. SaTiSFacTIon. Going-To-be-A-GREat_Father. Mate. Virile. Other-hALF. Counterpoint. Balance. Happiness. Cheeky. Lopsided_Smile. Passion. ThOUghtFULNess. BlueEyes. Potent. Provider. PARTNER. Intelligence. Great-COMpany. Want-to-be-WITH-him. Pride. Show-HIM-OFF. JeALouSy. Horny.

The-Best-Thing-To-Ever-Happen-To-Me.

It all just flowed into me. But what was more, it was displacing my own inner void. Like it was being filled up, from outside. I still don't understand what happened, but one thing I did know; this was costing her. She wasn't just showing me her innermost self. She was transferring it to me. I knew without knowing how I knew that this was dissolving whatever it was that made her her. Whatever might come next would now not happen, because there wasn't going to be any Ruby left, because she was intent on pushing it all into me, to heal my own internal blackness.

She was willingly sacrificing whatever came next, to pull me out of my glorified depression. Her guilt at what I'd done as a reaction to her act, the understanding of what I carried inside me, that she had no clue of till now, it all contributed to a desire to heal me at any cost. Her love was so encompassing that she was willing to remove herself from the universe in a completely final way, just to help me out. I had no idea how I knew this but I did, and I didn't want it one bit. I tried to pull my hands away but she had a death grip on them, quite literally and in every sense of the word.

The light from her body and face was getting quite intense and I had to close my eyes to protect them. I could still feel her amazing vitality and pure life force pouring into me, the light chasing away every dark shadow inside me. All the depth of self-loathing and reasoned depression was being blasted away in the glow of her love for me. Her desire for me to not be in the state I had ended up was so strong, it just blew away the strands of darkness holding me down.

It was the purest expression of love possible. You've heard the phrase "she was love, in human shape"? Well, this was it, literally.

And in that second, like the apocryphal suicide who jumps off the bridge, and then regrets it in the instant they step off and start falling, I decided I needed to live. I needed to be able to savor this gift. Ruby was removing herself from the universe to give me a reason to live, at the very least I had to make it worthwhile. I couldn't honor her gift if I was gone. It didn't matter if this was real or not, I had to at least try.

Plus... the way I was feeling for right now, well... it was an entirely different way of feeling, at least so far. So far from how I normally felt. I really was considering how life would be, feeling like this? Is this how everyone else felt all the time?

The light got brighter and brighter, and I just couldn't cope with sheer euphoria of what was filling me. Finally, I felt even slightly worthy. I saw myself as she saw me, through her eyes, so to speak. And it was just wonderful.

The last thing I heard was, "I love you, Oliver. Never doubt it... Goodbye, my love," in her voice, quietly, like a whisper in a wind, and then I was back...

I was sitting in the car. The gun in my hand, pointed at my head. It hadn't gone off. Apparently my decision had been made.

I pulled the gun away and looked at it, facing it away from myself. I most assuredly did not want to kill myself any more. I couldn't even imagine thinking that was a good idea any more. I had so much to live for.

As I examined the weapon, I could see that I had pulled the trigger. The hammer had closed, just... the bullet was a dud. It had to be, since it never went off. So... what did that mean? Was what I'd experienced real? A massive coincidence? Could I ever really know?

I stared at it for a moment, gently slipped the magazine out, and then pulled the rack back so the bullet in the chamber popped out. I sat there, glaring at the gun, as though it had done something wrong, then lowered the window and threw it out, followed by the magazine. I kept the bullet, thinking it would be a good memory. The almost end. Something to remember the day by, as if I needed it.

The demons inside were gone. In its place was a desire and hunger for life. To do something meaningful for the rest of humanity. A desire for connection. Even knowing how I was before, the feelings I had had, it was all far away now. Like it had applied to someone else and I had just read about it. It was all completely abstract.

In the here and now, I wanted to just get out, experience life, go do all the things you should do. Have emotions. Connect with people. Find love.

And all because of the gift that Ruby had given me. She may have cheated on me, and caused me the biggest heart break of all, but she had given her all to make it up to me. Quite literally.

I started the car engine, and considered the future. While I had given up pretty much everything for my plan, I was also free. No commitments, nothing required of me. I had a little money, enough to put more gas in the car and go somewhere. Where didn't even matter. I'd find something good to do wherever I ended up.

Whistling and turning on the radio, I pulled out, wondering if perhaps I should actually go to Chicago, as I had intimated to several people? I was damn sure not going back to that dead end job, recognizing now what a coffin it had been for me. It was great for a person completely disconnected from the world, but that was changed, so something new for me. Something that made me meet lots of different people, for sure. The world was quite literally my oyster.

I would definitely be reconnecting with my siblings, trying to create an actual relationship with them. They had children I was barely an uncle to, might be time to start actually being one?

As I drove down the road, I smiled and gave thanks to Ruby for rescuing me, at her expense. Clearly she was the most loving wife a woman could be, even if she had to go the hard route for us both to find out. She was gone, but she wasn't, - her essence was inside me, filling out the emptiness I had previously experienced. I was living for two now, so I had to make the most of it.

Turning on the radio, it was playing "Sacrifice", but Elton John. I couldn't help but grin at the appropriateness.

"Thank you, Ruby. I'll never forget you", I murmured into the sky as I drove with the windows down, wondering what would come next.

This is not autobiographical in any way. Just wanted to make that clear.