Faces in Time by Lewis E. Aleman Read Free Book Online

besides his own guttural spasms.
    The heaving convulsed him mercilessly.
    “Honey, just shove your finger down your throat and get it over with.”
    His hernia and esophagus tensed up tightly, making vomiting nearly impossible, and he grasped his right arm around her left thigh, pulling it against his shoulder. The spasms grew worse, but none of the toxic liquid in him was allowed to escape.
    She called loudly for someone to get an ambulance, deciding it would have been a bad career move to have an Emmy-award-winning writer die in a women’s bathroom with his arm wrapped around her thigh.
    Paramedics arrived quickly, already stationed in the neighborhood to handle any after-party mishaps as quickly and discreetly as possible. All he could see were smears of color and traces of movement.
    He asked to a moving object whose colors were familiar to him, “Sandy, Sandy, where are my glasses?”
    Her face crumpled up at hearing the wrong name, “They fell in the toilet; they’re probably swimming in pee right now.”
    His eyelids began to shut.
    One of the paramedics pushing the cart on the end closest to his head said, “Try to keep your eyes open and stay awake, sir. We’re getting you to a hospital.”
    A faint voice called after, “Remember me; I’m Su…” and faded away as the cart rolled on.
    He had no naiveté or illusions about her intentions, but he did try to locate her the next day, unsuccessfully. He didn’t have his heart to offer her, but he did have a thank you and an appointment with the show’s casting director.
    “Susan…,” he says out loud, leaning out his car door over the curb of a street whose name he doesn’t remember, “Her name was Susan…actress…but she was no Rhonda…No one else is.”
    He’s broken the laws of the universe, shattered the glass of time, only to have its jagged pieces slice into the tender earth and remain standing around him, imprisoning him like the bars of a cage. Each sharp object that steals his freedom holds his own reflection, forcing him to watch that which drove him mad the first time around. He can see her face, and he knows he can’t help her. A squeal wheezes out of his mouth, echoing from the canyon of growing darkness that tears through his chest.
     

 

     
Sunlight burns orangey-red through the last frame of a nightmare. Although it fades, he knows its shape well; he’s seen it all night, even before he had fallen asleep. Emerald green burning in pain beneath a flowing, red breeze that carries a soft voice calling his name, pleading for him to help her, to not give up, and his hands, weak and straining, never being able to reach her.
    His eyes open, filled with the unwanted brightness.
    Sometime during the night, he had pulled himself into the backseat, although all he can remember is hanging out the driver’s door and the nonstop clenching and churning of his discontented stomach.
    Now the street comes into focus. He knows where he is and why no one bothered to see if he was okay or why he was passed out in the backseat of his car with its front driver’s side tire invading up and onto the sidewalk like a tiger with its paw hanging out its cage.
    He sees an antique shop that is framed between a clothing store and a retailer specializing entirely in quality writing utensils. It’s Cellar Street, and although he didn’t know where he was last night, he couldn’t have chosen a better place to sleep off his insurmountable anxiety.
    The circular thoughts return to him, and his brow crumbles under their weight. He sits upright on the seat and looks through the windows at his surroundings.
    Women in expensive, upscale clothing and younger girls in gothic, funky garb both stroll down the street and in and out of the stores, designer purses alongside flashy colored pantyhose marred with runs, and ornate diamond jewelry reflects the same light as a nose ring.
    It is odd that both ends of the social spectrum enjoy shopping in the same quirky,