Whispers of A Life Less Known

“This can’t be,” Tyler whispered to himself. He was bathed in a cold sweat. The rough fabric scratched his dry and wrinkled skin. He looked to his feet without getting up from bed. He touched the walls to make sure they were real.

“So cold,” he thought. Still, he did not get up out of bed. He lay there in the darkness and closed his eyes one more time. Never before had a man so much enjoyed the time he spent within the confines of a nightmare. He closed his eyes and felt his skull sink into the iciness of the pillow, his neck warm and moist with perspiration cooled by the stiff cloth of the pillow.

Tyler was awoken by the warmth of the yellow sun bathing his cool room through the window just above his head. As he opened his eyes he saw the shadows of curtains dancing on the white plaster of the ceiling. “Curtains?” he asked himself, “I don’t remember any curtains at that window.” Slowly, Tyler lifted his feet and swung his feet to the side of the bed expecting his feet to hit the cold hard ground but instead felt the soft shag carpet tickling the spaces between his toes. His eyes furrowed in utter astonishment as he looked down at the carpet.

“How can this be?” he said as he looked back to the curtains dangling at the window. There was a welcoming smell of bacon, its sizzling reaching his hungry ears. His stomach growled in response as the robust smell of coffee swam into his nostrils and widened his eyes. But his mind was still on the curtain and on the carpet. “Where am I? This isn’t where I fell asleep.” Light footsteps treaded onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen towards him.

“You certainly did a good job on those curtains, baby,” a soft sweet voice floated on the warm morning air. Tyler’s breath shortened, his heart beat quickened as he saw its source.

“Molly?” he whispered.

“Don’t get too cocky, honey,” she giggled, “I have yet to see something you do that you haven’t screwed up. Now let’s say we get that nice breeze through that window.” She held two cups of coffee in her hands, the wisps of smoke whirling into the air. “Tyler, that’s your cue to open that window.”

“What? Oh yes.” He slowly emerged from the covers, confused but smiling to himself. To himself, he remarked, “How is Molly here? This can’t be.” Tyler turned and looked at his adoring wife who smirked lovingly at her husband as she walked towards him to hand him the mug full of hot coffee.

Just then, a stiff breeze blew in through the window flapping the curtains violently taking the rod that Tyler had apparently installed down with it. It created such a rattle that Tyler turned only to see the end of the rod headed squarely between his eyes. The world was instantly dark when it made contact. Rather than an intense pain on his brow, he felt himself bathed in a cold sweat, panting in a cold room, his eyes dilated as they opened to focus through the cold blue moonlight beaming in through the naked window.

“Just a dream?” he asked, “Just a dream,” he confirmed as he felt the rough fabric over his shivering body. “Just a dream!” he exclaimed in horror and anguish. He didn’t even lift his head from the rigid excuse of a pillow supporting it. Tyler just closed his eyes once more in the hopes of returning to the dream, returning to the house that he never knew and the wife that died some years before.

When he awoke, it was not to the warmth of the sunlight, but to the dampness of a cloth that Molly was applying to his head. He smelled the dark aroma of the coffee emerging from his mug, which sat on the dresser next to him. The straw haired blur that loomed over him began to take the shape of his beloved Molly giving way to his strained smile.

“Are you okay?” she asked, “You took quite a bump on the head there.”

“I’m so happy to see you.”

“You must’ve been hit harder than I thought.”

Tyler sat up and wrapped his arms tightly around his wife and firmly planted his lips upon hers. She smiled back at him returning his swooning eyes with a look of confusion.

“Are you sure you’re okay, honey?” Molly asked.

“I’m sure. I love you, Molly.”

Tyler reached over for the coffee but accidentally dips his finger into the mouth of the cup burning his hand. He pulled the appendage away as quickly as he could and his wife responded in kind by tending to the new injury.

“You’re all thumbs today, honey.”

“It’s just one of those days, I guess.”

There was a clicking sound of tiny paws running towards them followed by the sharp yelping of a small Scottish terrier. The charcoal colored dog attempted to jump into bed with Tyler but seemed content to repeatedly jump in place until he was seen. Its antics earned the smiles of Molly and Tyler.

“It looks like Kirby wants you to take him for a walk right now,” Molly remarked.

“It’s a good time as any, I suppose,” Tyler winced as he got up out of bed looking at the pink blister that formed on his finger. He walked briskly to the kitchen and took two pieces of bacon, one for Kirby and the other for himself. Attaching the leash to Kirby’s collar, Tyler smiled. He was content as he whistled a happy tune to himself.

Kirby scurried his four little legs towards the front door and started barking at a shadow of a person emerging from the space beneath it. Rather than acting hostile towards the mysterious stranger, Kirby decides to look back at Tyler longingly.

“Who is it, boy?” Tyler asked the young pup.

Tyler opened the door and was greeted by a man with deep tan skin, which was creased at the corners of his eyes and mouth. The salt and pepper hair upon his humble head was perfectly combed. There was a book in his hand and he wore a white dress shirt with a royal purple tie hanging neatly around his neck. The old man extended a hand to Tyler with a warm smile.

“Hello, Tyler,” the man said.

Tyler awoke once more in the cold room his cheeks cold and sticky with tears that streamed from the corners of his eyes. The sunlight peeked through the clouds and poured stiffly into the concrete cell through the wrought iron bars that guarded Tyler’s cell. The old man with the salt and pepper hair kissed his vestment before wrapping it around his neck and allowed it to lie gently upon his shoulders over his delicate white robe. The bible was cradled in his left hand as he made the sign of the cross over Tyler with his right.

Tyler made his final confession as two guards stood watch just outside his cell. When the confession concluded, the tearful inmate stood up and was escorted down the long unfeeling hallway by the younger of the two guards.

“Dead man walking!” the young guard shouted. Tyler had no reaction.

“It’s a shame: what that man went through to get to this point,” the older guard commented to the priest. “He was out walking his dog one day and all of a sudden his dog leads him to a neighbor’s house where he discovers his wife having an affair. It’s strange what things can drive a man to murder.”

“I suspect it must’ve been a hellacious past couple of days for Tyler,” the priest replied.

“Why would you say that, Father?” the guard asked as the two walked down the hallway. “It’s a tragic story, yes, but he was a simple man. Even his last meal of bacon and eggs was nothing out of the ordinary.”

“As I was reading him his last rites, I noticed the fresh blister on his finger. I know it’s no use showing concern for someone on death row, but I had to ask where it came from. I wonder why he would ask for coffee on the last night he would be alive.”

“Father, he never asked for coffee. In fact, I remember that he mentioned how he would not drink coffee that his wife didn’t make. He just had a glass of ice water with his final meal.”

“Then I suppose he got that blister from his dream.”

“His dream, Father?”

“Yes, it turns out that he had been having the most vivid dream last night. He kept waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, unsure when he was dreaming or awake. And even more torturous was that his wife was in his dream. Almost as they lived happily ever after in that dream.”

“Maybe it was a memory of a happier time for Tyler.”

“Perhaps, but I feel that this was his soul, preparing him for the afterlife. He knew of the wrongdoings that he committed and only he knew how much guilt weighed upon that soul. These dreams were his purgatory, his own hell, and his own heaven. Tyler found himself in a world where he could be with his wife again, which he felt that he did not deserve especially after the crime that he committed. These dreams were all the events that he wished happened, that he felt he deserved, every single microsecond of it. They were simultaneously his dream, nightmare, and conscience rolled into a single vision. They were whispers of a life less known.”