Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

**Vincent Lane** · **03-02-2015, 05:49 PM** "Loverboy" - Past Lives, Part 3 -->

Drowning.

He’s drowning, he was sure of it. He fought and screamed and clawed at the nailed-down hatch as the cabin slowly filled with water, pressing his chapped and split mouth into the cracks of wood, desperately sucking every bit of air he could from the deck above.

He can hear them laughing as they walk around up there, uncaring. Some of them even mocking his cries.

Eventually, he succumbs. The dark ocean water becomes his only world.

Before blacking out and giving in to his body’s insistence that he take a breath, he looks around him at the hundreds of others floating at the ends of their chains.

An underwater forest of dying men.

He wakes up in a start, his eyes shooting open at the feeling of moist, plump pressure on his lips.

“It’s okay, baby, you’re okay…”

And then the pressure again. His eyes open to a field of vision obscured by long strands of platinum blonde hair as his mouth is blown into, filling his lungs with hot breath.

“Baby!”

She pulls away as he coughs. He expects mouthfuls of water to come up, but nothing does besides deep, frenzied breaths.

Roxy is looking at him with wet eyes, and she throws herself onto him, her unyielding, manmade breasts squeezing into his torso as she throws her arms around his neck.

“Oh my god, baby, you were acting like you were drowning! Your face turned blue, I didn’t know what to do!”

“I… I was… I was under water…”

“No, no, baby you were right here the whole time! I was looking right at you, Doctor Redmayne, too. You were talking and mumbling, and then you just started screaming.”

“All the people, Roxy! So many of them… they were all dying right in front of me… dude, doctor, what the fuck did you do?!”

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane’s words squeak out of his tightened throat in between sobs as tears drench the skin of his face.

The therapist, clearly taken aback by what he has witnessed, stands and walks across the room, fidgeting with some books on a shelf. Eventually, he settles on one and pulls it from the case, bringing it back with him near his chair.

The therapist remains standing as Loverboy catches his breath and Roxy Cotton holds him for dear life.

“This is unheard of, Mister Lane. This is uncharted territory we are dealing with. You shouted a name towards the end, before your body began behaving as though it was dying.”

“I was dying… I was sinking to the floor of the ocean, man!”

“No… you were here. But you may have been in that boat, just not now. Another time.”

The therapist flips through the pages of his book quicker, skimming them over the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Yes! Here! You said something about nails?”

“The Doc… it was the Doc… he nailed the door shut, dude. He trapped everyone down there. In the bottom, when the water was coming up through the wooden floor!”

“New year’s day, 1738... the slave ship Leusden ran aground in an estuary off the coast of Suriname, South America. The captain… oh my god… the captain ordered his crew to send the slaves below deck and for the hatches to be nailed shut to keep them there. While he and his crew sailed off in two smaller boats, the vessel foundered, taking with her 664 African men, women and children.”

“Children… yeah… there were children. Holy fuck, man, holy fucking fuck…”

“This is apocryphal at best. I barely even remembered the details. There’s no way you knew of this.”

“Never heard of it, man. History was my worst subject. I feel like shit now too, since it’s Black History Month.”

“Well, no, actually it’s March now. Black History Month is over.”

“Oh, sweet!”

“Vinnie… you understand what I’m explaining to you? You know of things you couldn’t possibly have known without being there yourself. You felt a bullet enter your skull in Veitnam, and now drowned in the waters of South America in the 18th century! Your mind has transcended time and space!”

“Yeah, well, it was awful. And freakish. But if I was back in time as someone else… how was HE there?”

“Who, Vinnie? You were screaming for me while you were under…”

“No, dude, not you… the OTHER Doc! It was him…and he recognized me. He spoke right to me and he knew who I was! He knew I’d seen him last time, too!”

“Vinnie… that… I don’t think that’s possible. That has to be the work of your imagination, your mind trying to make sense of what it was experiencing.”

“No! Bullshit! You can’t sit here and tell me that going back in time and dying twice today is real but me seeing that old buzzard there was a dream. You don’t get it both ways, dude, there’s another explanation.”

“I don’t know what it could be, Vinnie, I’m sorry… there are no people who can overcome the boundaries of spacetime in a corporeal form like you describe. The science just isn’t there yet. It may never be. My god man, as far as I know you are the first to ever do it with your subconscious!”

Loverboy scowls and looks at Roxy, working his way back into a sitting position and putting his arm around her.

“Baby… don’t get mad.”

“Mad? I’m not mad, baby, I’m just glad you’re okay! We can get the fuck out of here and pretend this crazy shit never happened. I’m so sorry I made you come here…”

“No.”

“What? Vinnie?”

“No. I need to go back.”

“Mister Lane, I don’t think…”

“Vinnie! You almost died!”

“I need to fucking go back! He’s there, and he’s doing something. Send me fucking back! NOW!”

The therapist shoots Roxy a frightened look, and she tries to move and pull Loverboy to his feet, but he is having none of it. He pulls her back down beside her, holding her close.

“I know what I’m talking about, dude. I’m not crazy. I saw what I saw. I love you, Roxy… but I need to do this, and I need to do it now. This might be my only shot. Doctor, you need to do it.”

“This is… a terrible, but fascinating, idea. Are you absolutely certain, Vinnie?”

“One. Hundred. Percent. I’m ready.”

“Very well then,”

The therapist moves closer, for a third time bringing his pocket watch to a pendulous swing before the eyes of Loverboy.

“Just close your eyes… and fall away into yourself…”

Agonizing pain.

He screams through blistered cheeks with his eyes screwed shut against the hot sun beating against his face. Every breath, every movement, every heartbeat is anguish.

As he turns his head from one shoulder to another, he tries to bring his hand over his forehead to shade himself, but he finds he cannot.

His hand is immobilized.

He tries the other, but finds the same result.

His feet, also, are stuck in place, crossed one over the other, lightning bolts of pain running down his arms and legs.

Loverboy opens his eyes to a squint, and he sees a desert below him. His shadow is miniscule, immediately beneath him, as the afternoon sun beats down from directly overhead.

He pulls at his arms and legs to no avail other than increasing the tremendous pain he feels, and he screams again with a sandy, dry throat.

His hands. His feet.

They are nailed to the wood.

“No…”

Loverboy throws his head down, looking below him further. He sees the long plank of wood as it extends from under his two bloodied feet and then into the ground below.

As he moves his head and tries to see further, something falls from his brow. It tumbles through his line of sight end over end, landing in the dry sand.

A circle of brambles. A crown of thorns.

“This can’t be real…”

The pain, though, is exceptionally real.

“No, Mister Loverboy, I’m afraid to say I was just having some fun at your expense.”

The voice comes from beneath and behind him.

Twisting up on the cross, Loverboy bears the deep pain of his restraints in an effort to find the source of the perfectly enunciated words.

He hears sand under leather as a robed man walks into view from underneath. The man waits, then turns and looks up at Loverboy in his extreme agony.

When the man drops his hood, the sun gleams like fire in his glass eye.

“You…”

“Hello, my friend. Don’t mind the melodrama. I wanted to let you know I understood what you were trying to make yourself seem to be… I thought this to be apropos.”

“I’m not… I wasn’t…”

“Jesus Christ? Heavens no, Mister Loverboy. You were never King of the Jews. Yeshua has not yet been reborn in your time.”

“What is this then? Why am I here? Why are YOU here?”

“I am always here.”

“That’s… that’s…”

“Impossible? Yes, how very predictable of you. I’ve shown you what is impossible to you is very possible to me so many times already, and yet you never accept it to be so. I am everywhere, Mister Loverboy. I am everyone and everything.”

“Louis…”

“Yes, even him. I am, when I choose to be, the man you know as Louis. But as you have quite impressively discovered, my friend, this is not the first time we have run across each other. I find that to be quite interesting, don’t you?”

“I want to go back. This isn’t for me. This isn’t my body, this isn’t my life.”

“But you can feel the life leave your savior! Most people would DIE to understand that feeling, don’t you think?”

“I want to go back. I want to go BACK!”

“Hmmm.”

The robed man walks in a circle with his hand on his chin, pondering what Loverboy has said.

After a moment of quiet meditation, in which Loverboy continues to gasp the hundred degree air into his dying lungs, the man snaps his fingers and looks back up at him with a wide grin.

“Yes, Mister Loverboy… let’s go back.”

And then there is quiet.

Blackness.

Emptiness.

Silence.

Absolute zero.

“Wake up, Mister Loverboy.”

He opens his eyes, or so he thinks anyway. Nothing changes. There is only silent blackness around him.

“Where am I now?”

He says without a voice. The words seem to be nothing more than a thought.

“We went back.”

“It’s freezing…”

“Much, much, below freezing, I’m afraid. Don’t worry. You cannot freeze without a body.”

“Whoa… what? What the fuck is this then?”

“I have brought your mind back, Mister Loverboy. I wanted to show you the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?”

“THE beginning. I wanted to show you my birthday.”

“I don’t see anything at all.”

“I don’t either, and I’ve been waiting a lot longer than you.”

The second voice, also familiar, comes from the polar opposite side as the first. Again, there is no sound, only voice.

“Harrison?”

“Yeah. This is weird, right?”

“Very, dude. Why are you here?”

“He’s here because I wanted him to be, just as I wanted you to be. Now be quiet, and observe.”

“Okay, but… I still don’t see… WHOA.”

In the middle of the blackness, a pinpoint of brilliant light swells until it grows almost as large as the darkness itself.

A cataclysmic radiance then pours forth from the blinding orb, permeating the inky space with lines of pure white shooting off in all directions.

An explosion so massive it eliminates everything. Suddenly, just as before there was nothing but black, there is nothing but stark white.

Still though, it is soundless. Feelingless.

To Loverboy, it is like being INSIDE light itself.

“Do you see, Mister Loverboy? This is what you might call a singularity. Myself, though… I call it mother.”

“Dude, is this the big bang? Are you serious right now?”

“I am always very serious, my friend. You should know this by now, it is not the first time we have spoken. I want to know who you are, “Loverboy” Vinnie Lane. Who you really are. Why you keep showing up when I decide to have fun with the people. How do you always find me?”

“I have no idea!”

“Oh, please, do not lie to me, Mister Loverboy. Do you not see what I am? Do you think you can fool me with your empty rhetoric and your silly little routine? I am the only one of my kind on your world. There may be a million names for me, but it is only me. No one can compare. So how do you find me? What brings you to me?”

“I… I… don’t… know…”

“What a shame.”

The brightness somehow intensifies, burning the fabric of reality itself. The edges of the universe rend from their foundations, tearing and warping until everything blurs together into a bottomless sea of white.

“Jesus, Vinnie… just tell him!”

“Tell him what, man? I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on here! I don’t know anything about anything anymore, dude! You’re a crazy masked kidnapper and you’ve been working for D’Ville… I was in the Viet Cong? I drowned in an 18th century slave ship? Now I’m at the beginning of TIME? What the fuck, man?!?!”

“You have such a myopic view of the universe, Mister Loverboy. Maybe this was a mistake, to bring you here. You seem to think it is all about you.”

“He always does.”

“Yes. He does it quite often, doesn’t he?”

“Please… I’m sorry… I don’t know what you want from me. I’m not special, I’m not some celestial being or a prophet or a time traveler… I’m just a MAN! I’m just a wrestler in a match, just like you!”

“No. Not at all like me. You have taken a bit of a step though, haven’t you my friend? Say it again. Tell me how special you are.”

“I’m not. I’m not special.”

“What are you? Who are you?”

“I’m just a man.”

“No. Less. Try again.”

“I… I’m…”

“I’m running out of patience, Mister Loverboy.”

“I’m nothing.”

Just like that, the blinding singularity vanishes, leaving Loverboy’s mind in darkness. Once more, he is floating through cold emptiness, a speck of dust in an abyss.

“Ah. There you go. Thank you, my friend. Now you may go home.”

Blink.

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode "Loverboy" - Past Lives, Part 3
Author	Message