I was sitting in english 351 and I came up with the idea for a pretty cool idea for a story imo, it's still a LITTLE rough cause i haven't edited it a ton, but I think it's pretty cool nonetheless. anyway, please read it I would love some feedback!
Sundown
The sudden silence was almost oppressive, after all the running and shouting that had been all around him a moment before. He squinted uncomfortably, his old brow wrinkling in the slowly setting sun, a few spare droplets of sweat slowly edging across the creases in his forehead, down into his eyes. But they didn’t sting. He couldn’t even feel them. Slowly, he turned to his right, to who, or what, he knew was standing there.
“Hello, Brian Smith. I’ve been expecting you.” The voice said to him. It struck him immediately as a very distinctive voice, yet the moment that it stopped speaking he couldn’t recall what it sounded like, only the words themselves, echoing inside his withered skull.
He stared out ahead, unblinking, into the blazing sun. It didn’t seem to hurt at all, even though the sun was so bright that he could hardly see anything else. They were standing on the edge of a cliff, high above a small city, which lay motionless in the valley miles below. He took in a deep breath, the first deep breath he’d taken in years. It filled his body, then flew out again, leaving him hollow and cold.
“Do you know why you’re here, Brian Smith?”
He didn’t. All he could remember was a sudden, sharp pain in his side, his wife rushing around to him as he fell to the floor, then the noises growing fainter. And now he was here. A gust of wind lifted up the edges of his clothes, although it felt far from refreshing. He looked back to the sun. It was just starting to fall behind the distant mountains, melting their snow covered peaks with its brilliant glow. It lit up the sky in a blaze of pure red fire, turning the clouds to blood and the mountains to daggers, stabbing into their flesh. Far below, the town gazed up at the massacre.
“Am I dead?”
“No, not yet,” the voice answered, “Not yet. There is still a little time.”
Brian stared forward, unseeing. There were many things he wished he’d done now, but now he only felt weary, the idea of living seemed tiresome. He hadn’t done everything, but he had done enough. He thought of his wife for a moment. She was probably terrified right now. He had become her life, probably more so than was healthy. He had never told her how he had cheated on her. But that wouldn’t have helped. It would only have hurt her. And it all seemed so distant now.
Marie rushed alongside the stretcher, tears spilling down her face as she looked down at her husband’s blank face. He looked calm, unaware of the sea of activity that his lack thereof was causing. She grabbed hopelessly at his hand, which was already starting to turn cold. What would she do without him? She would be all alone at sixty, too old to get remarried but too young to die herself. She had to run to keep pace with the orderlies, who were rushing more out of routine than genuine concern. A hundred people died in their hospital every day. One more old man wouldn’t make any difference.
“What is this place?” Brian asked, letting his voice fade off into the hills. It sounded flat and meaningless against the rushing wind and the calm, steady voice of his companion. It was as though the place was real, but he was slowly fading. The thought frightened him for a moment, until he realized that he didn’t care. His hands, covered in thick blue veins and knotted knuckles that had once poured over volumes of books, felt at the woven twill shirt he was wearing. It felt strangely smooth and anesthetic, his fingers somehow unable to feel it properly.
“This is the bridge,” the voice replied.
Brian nodded, as though that somehow made sense. He recalled that he had been very hungry a few minutes ago, but now he didn’t at all. Was it his senses that were fading, or the place itself? Was he slowly being brought back to reality? Surely his wife had to be doing something. She wouldn’t have let him die without a fight. But he didn’t want to fight. He just wanted to feel the wind on his withered cheeks and let things be.
“Did you bring me here?” he asked.
“Yes, and no,” the voice replied, “you brought yourself here.”
Another cryptic answer, and another nod from Brian. If he could understand DSFSFWFASDF then he ought to be able to understand these strange riddles, he thought, but his mind felt muddled and slow. The sun felt as though it was burning his skin with its heat, but his bones still felt frozen. But that didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was what the figure next to him was saying, and that he understood it.
“Are you here to answer my questions?” Brian asked, hoping for a simpler answer.
“Yes, and no,” came the reply, “I am here to help you answer your own questions.”
Brian nodded, unsure of whether he should ask a question. He decided to try.
“Why did I exist?”
The figure looked at him, although it had no eyes and no face.
“Indeed.”
Marie’s face was wet and red with tears as the stretcher pulled into a room. Why hadn’t they used those electric pads yet? They always used those in the movies, was her husband less important than those people? And why were there people wasting their time with pretend hospitals when there were real people dying? Her breaths were coming out in little gasping jerks, her whole body shuddering as Brian’s face turned paler and paler.
One of the interns jogged over to her side with the defibrillator and placed it on the man’s chest. “Clear!” he yelled, and Brian’s body jumped violently into the air. A fresh wave of tears poured down Marie’s face.
For an instant the scene around him dissolved, and Brian had a sudden, brilliant glimpse of his wife’s face, stained with tears, against a sterile, white ceiling. They were trying to bring him back. But in an instant he returned to the cliff, the sunset, and the figure, left only with the imprint of his wife’s face on his retinas. For a moment everything seemed clearer, his mind less muddled, but then it faded again, deeper than before.
“What if they bring me back to life?” he asked the figure, somehow uninterested with the answer but asking all the same.
“They won’t. It’s too late.”
Brian stared out at the sunset again. The sun was now half-way hidden behind the mountain, waves of heat bubbling up from the earth and turning the light into gelatin. He pointed out toward the sun and looked questioningly at his companion.
“Yes, when it sets,” the voice said, answering his unasked question. The ball of light was slowly moving downward, almost imperceptibly. He sighed. It wasn’t much time, and he had so many questions. But would it matter, if he only knew the answer for so little time? But there was nothing else to do now.
“Please, I have to know. Why did I exist?”
The faceless body stared at him. “That is a question you have to answer for yourself.”
Brian thought for a moment.
“If I get the right answer, will you tell me?”
It nodded.
Brian thought hard. “Is it love? Did I exist to love and be loved?”
Although the figure had no mouth, he could tell that it was smiling. He wasn’t sure if it was a happy smile or a cruel smile.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Was it my work? Did I exist to further science with my work?”
It shook its head. “No, you’re still thinking inside the box, with petty human concerns. Think harder.”
“Is it to further the species?” he asked, his science background coming through, although he was really a mathematician, “Is it just to have children and carry on evolution?”
“That is how you existed, but not why. Your species will continue onward with or without you, but there is no beginning or end to that. There is no reason behind it, only patterns being carried out. You’re still thinking too concretely.”
Brian felt his brain slowing down, even as he needed it most. It felt as though the answer was right in front of him, closer than it had been his entire life, yet his mind was a blunt object, unable to grasp it. The sun continued to sink, slowly but inevitably.
“We’re losing him!” one of the doctors yelled, who hadn’t bothered to show up until recently, when it was completely necessary. They tried to restrain Marie, but she fought to be at her husband’s side, even though he hadn’t moved for almost an hour. One of the doctors came over and talked to her, gently.
“Even if we save him, he’s going to lose his hearing,” he said. Marie didn’t cry. There weren’t any more tears left.
The rushing of the wind stopped, although he could still feel it against his skin. He turned to the figure, surprised.
“You’ve just lost your auditory system,” he explained.
“Then how can I hear you?” Brian asked.
“I am you, Brian. I’m inside your head.”
Brian didn’t like the thought of that, but he supposed it made sense. He shook his head quickly back and forth, trying to keep his mind sharp. What else might be his reason for existence?
“Is it to go to heaven? Or Nirvanna? Or something like that?”
Brian had attended church occasionally, but he never really took it seriously enough to think too hard about it. He hoped that wouldn’t have cosmic importance now.
“No, you’re starting to get closer though. Or farther away, if you prefer.”
“Am I here to make myself a good person? To improve my soul?” Brian was starting to get frantic now, as the sun was almost completely covered by the mountains.
“No, you’re getting farther away again. You aren’t thinking in the right wavelength. Not yet.”
Brian racked his rapidly dwindling mind, and came up with a deliciously clever answer. “Is it…is it to find the answer that I’m here for?”
The figure let out a breath. “Oh, so close. You nearly have it. You’d better hurry, though. Time is running out.”
The sun was barely visible, just a pinprick of light and a mellow glow on the underside of the clouds.
Marie found a fresh wave of tears as the heart rate monitor became a steady, unmoving line. The doctors hit him with the defibrillator again, jerking him upwards, but that line didn’t change. She jumped at his body, clinging to his arm, hoping against hope.
“Please, please Brian. Come back. Come back…” her voice was drowned in her own sobs.
Brian could feel his sight starting to dim, his senses so thick it was like running through syrup. He couldn’t feel the wind anymore, or his clothes, or the ground underneath him. All he could see was the last light of his life, all he could hear was the voice.
“You only have time for one more guess, Brian. There’s very little time left.”
Brian wanted to cry out in agony, but he couldn’t wade his way through the sticky mess of his motor skills to do it. He couldn’t even think a satisfying scream. The light started to fade, below the horizon, out of his vision.
“Please,” he gasped, “please…I don’t know…”
He could sense the spirit moving away from him though the fog of his mind. Even though the rest of his world had become a single orb of consciousness, located somewhere in his cerebral cortex, the rest of his body dead and lifeless, he could hear the ghost’s voice as plainly as day.
“Yes,” it said, and though Brian didn’t even remember what a smile looked like anymore he was certain the spirit was doing so, “yes, you finally understand the meaning of life.”
Brian thought for a moment, expending the last tiny speck of energy that had become his life, and then he smiled too, finally at peace.