Shadows of the Past

Her grip, cold but strong, positions El onto his bed as if he were a toy doll being displayed into a sitting position. Their touch, like the currents of electricity, one positive the other negative, sends each of them into opposite directions through a wave of time fueled by the emotions of their unique experiences.

There's a glow of hope in El's eyes, a light sparked by the inspiration of '80s ballads, particularly, Belinda Carlisle and WHAM!, which empowers El with a passion for resiliency, courage and an awkward sense of morals.* This, she knows, is something she is unable to understand even if she were alive. She sees the glow and follows it like a light guiding her through a dark and endless tunnel.

She reciprocates with a memory, one with a disturbing background from a time when El was not a thought in the world. Her eyes paint a portrait of suppression colored by many tears. Her stare, imprisoned with fear, conceal a tormenting, silent scream of regret to which the Universe never forgave.

El acknowledges the shadow of a ceiling fan that reappears onto the wall across his room. Yet, like before, where the fan should create a shadow, there is nothing but the flat, white surface of a ceiling.

In between the blink of his eyes, El discovers another shadow; one he has never seen before. It rushes across the field with the frantic vigor of a person seeking help. In between another blink, he sees the eerie outline of a rope with the twitching body of a girl swaying beneath the fan blades.

El, desperately wanting to wake from the absurdities surrounding him, is unable to break from the grip that feels stronger than the force of gravity.

El's stereo unexpectedly plays a song that conveys more confusion, but is appropriate in describing the event he is witnessing.

This melody is new and lacks the bright, youthful rhythm of his favorite WHAM! songs. Instead, the melody and lyrics beautifully contradict one another like life and death, an imperfect match meant to co-exist but never touch one another.

The message speak the words she can no longer explain from a world where life cannot exist.

("I'm so tired of being here

Suppressed by all my childish fears.")

Closing his eyes, El absorbs the slow, sweet voice. As El's song, "Runaway Horses," carried her back to 1989,* her song shifts him to a future he has yet to understand.

There's a reflection of his older self sitting inside a car he does not recognize. He cannot associate the car's design to any familiar Transformers character shapes in vehicle mode. Yet, the contour, in his mind, is as equally appealing as his approval of the Batmobile. He is parked in front of a Safeway grocery store somewhere in San Francisco the night after Thanksgiving.

The same song plays on the car's radio.

("Your presence still lingers here,

And it won't leave me alone.")

Heavy rain is pouring and no one is outside as, blocks away, power lines and small branches are dragged down by the wind.

The reflection of himself is wearing a black Superman baseball cap with a white, cotton logo that illuminates in the dark.

On the top of the empty passenger seat is a large open bag of Ruffle's potato chips, the only food he is thankful to celebrate Thanksgiving with.

Aglow, is a handheld electronic device that has yet to be invented. In El's mind, the device appears to look like something from an episode of 'Star Trek.' A small, still picture projects from its eight megapixel screen. The dull light of the picture exposes the outline of exhaustion and sadness along El's face that is surrounded by the night, but he is not defeated; his eyes hold that familiar glow of resiliency.

His reflection is staring at the picture in the device, which is a face...

of the girl wearing the white robe.

The song continues,

("There's just too much

that time cannot erase.")

Like a flash of lightning, El is transported back to the familiarity of his dorm.

Along the wall, where the shadows of the fan, the rope and the girl's body continue to project, are the drops of tears falling onto the carpet.

The thought of carpet stains remind El to check on his prized possession, "Web of Spider-Man," issue #31, hanging on the wall above him to his right.

From the corner of his vision, he notices a deviation of a quarter centimeter. The misalignment irks El to adjust his comic. He conjures enough strength to break the girl's hold, enabling him, just barely, to move his right hand.

Naively, El corrects the misalignment with slight struggle; seemingly ignoring every unsettling motion of the girl's desperation to be acknowledged by him.

El seems to find more solace in aligning his favorite comic book to match his perception of a perfect Universe than to acknowledge death's cold, angry grip that squats a breath away from his lips.

Angered, the girl's expression is quickly engulfed with rage. The stereo abruptly turns off as she continues her message with a scream that vibrates the threads that intertwine life and death.

"GET OUT OF MY BED!"

Un-phased, El politely replies, "I'd get out, but...you gotta help me wake up."

El's voice conveys an uncanny level of calmness.

As if his request was granted, El opens his eyes to the morning that soon gives way to the sound of a knock coming from his door.

He is surprised to find himself sitting upright on his bed, but never recalling if he had voluntarily sat up in the first place.

El discovers deep, purple bruises on each side of his arms. Each perforation, in the shape of a hand, begin to question the validity of the past few minutes, or hours. El checks the alignment of his issue of "Web of Spider-Man," #31, before opening his door.

It hangs perfectly.

Hastily, he combs his hair to try and regain that Andrew Ridgeley style, the one with highlighted bangs youthfully streaking across his forehead.

He finds Tai, his neighbor from across his room, standing with a worried smile. El recalls the time he refused Tai's invitation to watch the adult videos which Tai purchased from Chinatown.**

"Is everything cool?" he asks El, "Who's shouting? Sounded like a girl in here."

Tai attempts to glance around El. He scans the room for the kind of gossip that would award him approval among his friends.

From down the hall, El hears a radio loudly playing a former Madonna hit from 1987, "Who's That Girl."

The lyrics seemingly tease him.

("When you see her, say a prayer and kiss your heart goodbye.

She's trouble, in a word get closer to the fire.

Run faster, her laughter burns you up inside.

You're spinning round and round,

you can't get up,
you try but you can't.")

"Yeah. I'm cool," El, exhausted, answers. "It was just a dream... a bad one."