Would You Bargain With Hell?

It was the first time in a while that I felt completely helpless, like there was nothing enywhere to live for. A feeling in my gut that there was nothing out there for me. I’d equated that the meaning of life was to suffer. There was absolutely no reason for me to be here. I wanted to go.

But I knew I wouldn’t, for the fear. The fear of life after death. The fear of that undiscovered country. The fear that maybe the afterlife is just as bad as our lives here.

I found myself in tears. My head was being propped up by my arms as tears dripped down my chin. “Help.” I whispered to myself as I closed my eyes.

I sat up, opening my eyes. I’d slept. There was a blanket around my shoulders, that hadn’t been there earlier. I breathed deeply. I heard the pounding of someone at the door. I stood, gritting my teeth and fogd chewed on my ribs. I pulled on the handle. A police officer stood tall, his navy uniform dressed with silver plagues.

“How can I help you?” I asked.

“Are you Rayder Tamerlane?”

“Yes.”

“We have news about your father.”

“Oh, I think he’s just upstairs.”

“Your real father. He’s requested to see you.”

“My real father?” My heart pounded against my chest.

“Yes. Mr. Jasper Gregory Abbot.”
“Greg Abbot?” I swallowed, my head growing light.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Greg is my father? No, my father is ill, Greg is fine.”

“Greg is ill, he would like to see you.”

“W-why are you telling me this?”

“Gregory is a friend of mine, he warned me that your parents wouldn’t have told you. He deserves to see you. Just as you deserve to see him.”

I nodded, my legs wobbling below me. “Can you take me?”

He nodded.

I closed the door behind me and followed slowly, in shock. My mouth was wide as I stared out the window of the car.

“I’m sorry.” The cop said.

“What for?”

“You having to find out this way.”

“At least I found out.”

The remaining ride was silent, as I remembered moments with Greg. Remembered playing with him when I was little, he always favored me at the orphanage, but I never thought anything of it. I never thought he could have been my…real father. Then I was mad, mad in my heart that Greg had. . . sold me. He had sold his own daughter. Then I was sad, I figured that that while Greg was sad was because of my mother, who I’d learned had passed away.

Rayder Daisy Abbot. That’s a pretty name, I thought. I was mad again, that he didn’t try to rescue me. That he had known what it was like here and he didn’t do anything about it. Even when I went to his apartment, he could have told me it was him. My mind was flooding with these contradicting feelings. Then I thought of Patrick, he must have known. He said that he knew.

“We’re here.”

I shook out of it. The hospital was bustling, with injured kids and maternity runs. We were already parked. I pushed out of the car and followed silently behind the officer. He was tall and kind. We walked stoicly through the revolving door, and marched up a set of polished marble stairs. A large sign hung from the paneled ceiling, “ICU”. I was shaking. Wether from inticipation or from fear. I wasn’t sure.

“He’s just back there, want to go in by yourself?”

The officer placed his hand along my arm and pointed me to a room just a few yards infron of me, where on a write board was scrawled “Abbot, Jasper.”

I nodded. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. My steps moved in time with the ticking of the clock at each second. The nurses turned their heads to see me and I wrapped my small hand around the door knob. I pushed it open. I took a deep breath and peeked my head in.

Then everything was normal, even though it couldn’t be farther from it. Greg, the man who I was the closest to for the longest time, sat in a pastel blue clad room, hooked up to an abundance of machines, each with a different purpose but all working together to keep him alive.

There was a grey armchair beside him, I sat in it. I reached my hand out to touh him, and scan his face. His skin was pale and his eyes were shadows in his skull. He was thin and his hair was gone.

I closed my eyes, so I wouldn’t cry. “Rayder.” I heard in the most stomach churning voice I’d ever heard before.

“Greg.” I responded, tears welling in my eyes.

“I’m sorry.” And in that moment I forgave him. What choice had he had anyway. We were both broken, we were both dying in one form or the other and we were both lost.

I shushed him and stood to lean over him and hug him. It was much like hugging a skeleton.

“I needed you to know before I go.”

“Go where?”

“Hopefully my dear, heaven.”

“Please,” I wept “Please don’t go.”

He smiled and kept his hurt eyes closed. “It’s my time love, one day we can all be together, okay? One day you and me and your mom, we’ll be a happy family then.”

I heart his heart rate monitor skip a beat and I fell to my knees pleading with him. “Don’t give up, Greg…dad, please!”

“I love you.” He whispered. And just like that, his heart stopped beating, as if the last thing he said, was all he had left to say. I was sobbing and weeping, the only man I’d ever known like that. My last family. Two nurses gripped my arms, and dragged me out. I was screaming. Everything was too much.

Soon, the same officer that brought me here, carried me back outside. By the time I was silent, I noticed there was a lone tear in his eye too. I was dark out, I wasn’t sure when that had happened.

“I don’t want to go home.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Can you take me to The bridge up the street from my house?”

“Why?” I knew why he was skeptical, I would have been skeptical too.

“I like to relax tghere, It’s the only place I can think. I can walk home from there.”

“Yeah, okay.” He nodded.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them we were there. The bridge I’d had far too many encounter with.

“I’ll call you in a couple days to check on you, okay?”

I nodded and headed out towards the middle of the bridge, where a while before I had saved that boys life,I’d trained myself to forget him but I knew I couldn’t. I leaned againt the cold metal, feeling it through my dress. I pushed myself up ontop of the rail. First I sat and held onto a column.

I looked out into the endless night and closed my eyes. It’s hard to get pushed this far. It’s hard to decide to end your life. It’s harder, I decided to keep living.

I stood, swaying slightly in the wind. I closed my eyes, and I jumped.