A Timeless Place Ch. 19

Tony watched as Bruce almost knocked the man down, threw his arms around him and hugged him long and tight. It took him a minute to realize who the man was that Bruce had suddenly ran out of the room to hug. His eyes became saucer-like as his heart leapt into this throat. He rushed from the waiting room to join them then realized Bruce had finally broken down in the man's arms.

While he held Bruce tight, Peter reached an arm to Tony, pulling him into his side. "Tell me, my friend. Tell me everything," he spoke softly.

Not long after Jonathan's response, he slipped back into his comatose state. His regression was more a retreat this time, than a medical problem. Head pain had always been something Jonathan had never been able to withstand. Even a mild headache at times would cause him to become weepy and edgy. And with the amount of pain he was feeling when he finally did begin to rouse from this state, he knew he couldn't bare it. And while he lay in his renewed absence of reality, he began to dream.

Jonathan saw himself lying in eternal rest surrounded by cream silk lining, handsomely polished wood and brass. His expression was serene as he rested in quiet repose, dressed in a dark three piece suit of pinstripes, a rose stem stuffed in his breast pocket. His natural color had paled somewhat – however, he looked divinely handsome to all that walked by to view him. A garden of flowers was packed tightly around his vessel into the unknown, each wreath and arrangement absolutely stunning in its own right.

It seemed he had become an unwilling participant as mourners walked by, some two and three at a time, shedding tears of remorse for his sudden passage, onto the other side. He felt such a deep hurt for each of them, a separation from them that could never be repaired, or breached. The distance between him and the world they lived in was a single step away, yet a vastness that many couldn't fathom, not even Jonathan.

The service seemed long and oppressive as Bruce, Greg and Tony gave their eulogy. Jonathan's favorite song was played as the people wandered out of the large sanctuary and he was rolled and placed into the back of the hearse. Tears filled his eyes as he watched them close the lid, sealing his seeming lifeless and embalmed body in eternal darkness. Fear gripped his heart that he would forever be separated from his loved ones for all time.

The funeral procession was long, cars following the hearse for miles and miles stretching from the sanctuary to the cemetery across town. Other passers by pulled over paying their respects to the dead and those left to survive. Many walking in town leaned to others inquiring as to who it was that had such a following that it took so long for the procession to be done.

"It must be some city official, or someone very important," one commented.

"Well, I heard it was some prostitute that everyone in town had been with at least once," the other whispered.

"I didn't know about her," the first claimed then.

"It wasn't a her, dope. It was a him."

"Oh, you seem to know a lot about this guy. Did you sleep with him?"

"How dare you!" the second replied with self-indignation and piety.

Jonathan's heart was torn by the rumors that hissed around him in whispers. The sadness was maddening, the pain he felt crushing, and his fear was overwhelming. He tried to scream and let everyone know that he was still alive and well. But no one seemed to want to hear his cries and rescue him from the eternal grave. His lips were sealed shut; as were his eyes and he could scarcely breathe but for the pinhole left in his nose. He felt utterly helpless and alone, terror crashing around him as he continued to see these visions play out as if they were as real as the noonday sun.

Everyone gathered around the coffin, the priest read from Psalms 32, mourners wailed – Greg wept in sobs, leaning on Bruce, as he did. Tony wiped his eyes trying desperately to be strong for the other two, though Jonathan could see right through him.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…"

Jonathan could see that Tony's pain was intense. He was made aware that the man wanted so much to change the outcome of what had happened, but it was well out of Tony's hands and control, and for that the man was deeply self-destructive. His thoughts beat him over and again for not remaining awake to keep Jonathan from wandering off alone. The anger he felt toward David for what he had done to his little pal was fathomless, as deep as an endless chasm.

"…He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul…"

Bruce stared numbly off into the distance seemingly unaffected by it all, though everything that appeared to be was only the quiet before the storm. In the days that would follow, the man would break down, having to be hospitalized and sedated by heavy drugs to keep him calm. And though he would be able to see Greg and Tony through the worse of their pain, his would be far greater than the rest. For his love, though it was no deeper than that of Tony or Greg's had become the very foundation upon what his family had been based upon. And Jonathan had been the pivotal point of that sanctuary Bruce held so close, and had been such an important part of the man's life.

"…He leadeth me through the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…"

Greg sobbed more, in response, allowing his pain to surface, flow and be purged from his being. His tears were the very evidence of his love and care for the one that was about to be lowered into the ground, covered and never seen again, until such time as Greg was called home to be with Jonathan and those that had passed on before him. His face tucked deep in Bruce's neck and shoulder, he wailed horribly, it muffled by the jacket Bruce had on.

Jonathan began to weep for the pain his family felt. He couldn't bare it any longer and wanted so much to get up from where he lay, and console them all. What he had seen pass before his eyes in those last few seconds disturbed him terribly. A forlorn feeling of additional death fringing upon his loss plagued him so that he thought of every way he could to prevent it. But, nothing appeared to help him and no matter how he tried he couldn't move.

The dream shifted, and all was silent. The mourners and his family had all left the cemetery, leaving him alone with his terror, and the overwhelming sense that all had been lost. He felt the casket lowering. Fear gripped his heart horribly choking even the faintest sound he made in an attempt to get somebody's attention. And for all the time he had lain in the box, he could see nothing but darkness, or the images that passed before his mind's eye in a surreal form. But as he rested, attempting to move, or scream, or make some sort of sound, he could see the cemetery workers beginning to throw dirt atop the box. It was as if someone had erased a part of the lid of the coffin that he was staring up through, watching the workers throw shovel after shovel of dirt over him.

Again and again, he tried to scream, but his vocal cords would not even work. With everything he had in him, he attempted to bang against the lid of the box, but his body never even flinched. He began to realize that he was faced with the horror of being buried alive, that he would literally die in that box, a pre-made funeral that he was a witness to. It was over and he would never see his family again. He became angry that he had been such a fool to allow so many emotions to rule him, instead of being strong and dealing with them, or letting the ones that loved him so deeply help him muddle through them.

Every moment he had shrugged off his family just to cut his arms, or try to kill himself, or even just to be alone with his pain, came resounding back into his mind, riveted with worse feelings than he had ever had before. Tormenting feelings that coursed so deeply he again wanted to scream but couldn't.

The maddening noise of dirt being thrown onto the lid of the box finally stopped leaving Jonathan with the even more discomforting quiet that surrounded him. He was finally able to open his eyes and see the pitch-blackness that engulfed him completely. His mouth came open and he sucked in air that was fast growing stale and unbreathable. Moving his arms, he stretched feeling cramped and tried desperately to get out of the box he was in, hoping that he could dig his way up through the earth before he suffocated.

Without warning, the earth around him began to rumble, vibrating every part of his being. He scrambled to get onto his knees and push with his shoulders against the lid as hard as he could. To no avail, he still continued to frantically push against the lid, looking down through the bottom of his coffin, seeing through layers of crested earth, rock, and shale to an endless chasm below him. Molten lava flowed beneath him as far as his eyes could see. And above it was layer upon layer of what, he didn't know, nor could he conceive.

The ground beneath his coffin gave way and he began to fall. As he did, the polished wood around him disintegrated into an oblong ball of fire, descending around him faster than he was falling. He screamed with terror, reaching for anything to grab hold of and stop his descent, as he saw the coffin engulfed in flames and disappear into tiny floating embers. His ears became filled with the sounds of rumbling fire, from the lava below, as well as weeping, wailing, and curses being screamed at God, or whomever they blamed for their plight that was tormenting to him.

He began to pass through the layers, seeing tormented disembodied spirits, some hunched on their hands and knees in the fetal position confined in small cubby-like rooms with no room for them to move in any direction. Further down, were more of these, hundreds of thousands of millions that were crammed into these tiny areas, all manner of insects, snakes and crawling things scurrying or slithering over and around the tormented spirits. Each one had passed on with whatever craving they had had when they died, some smokers, alcoholics, drug users, sexually addicted, gluttons, thieves, murders, liars, cutters, and so on. They were all impoverished, naked forms that none of them had taken anything of material with them – no food, clothes, money, boats, cars, houses, trains, planes, yachts, or anything they had possessed and loved in life.

Jonathan began to suddenly realize he was falling into hell itself and wondered what level of hell he would finally end up in. His screams mingled with that of those long passed on before him. He could literally see the vaporous clouds rising from the lake of lava toward him – the stifling, suffocating, sultry heat of the pyre below him. Agonizing heat, searing pain, maddening torture, coursed through him and around him. The offensive odor of sulfur swirled around him causing him to coil; yet he couldn't be free of it. The smell and taste of it, along with the searing heat that surrounded him accompanied every breath he took.

Below him he began to see forms bobbing in the lake of lava-like substance, bright oranges, blacks and reds merging and dividing as it constantly moved. Their spirit bodies shuddered from the intense heat, consumed yet not destroyed by the flames that rose from every part of their beings. And Jonathan began to feel a dread and terror that that was where he would end his seeming fathomless fall.

"Oh, God, no – please," he implored with a shout.

"Jonathan!" he faintly heard above the cries, screams and shouts that surrounded him, including his very own.

Looking up, he saw an arm stretched down toward him, the fingers of the hand outstretched to him. It was all he interpreted before he finally lifted his eyes to see whose arm it was that was extended to him

"Take my hand, Jonathan!" the familiar voice resounded then, reverberating through him, riveting his body with even more pain. And when he construed who it was, his first thought was that it was some form of trickery that he couldn't trust at all.

"Jonathan, the choice is yours. You can remain here for the rest of eternity, or you can trust me, take my hand and let me save you from this," the voice boomed around him rumbling the very walls of hell itself, causing boulders and rocks to become dislodged and fall to the lake below them.

Tears filled Jonathan's eyes stinging him as they streamed down his face, evaporating before they could even reach the jawline.

"Jonathan, all my life I've done wrong and deserve this fate. But, you –." The sound of his choked words caught in his throat assailed Jonathan making the boy sob. "Just take my hand, Jonathan, please," he pleaded.

Jonathan finally reached up, stretching with all his might, the hand he grabbed having become slippery with perspiration from the sweltering heat. Their fingers curled within the others, the two of them hung onto each other for dear life. Jonathan looked up into the face of his Uncle, who then began to pull him up and out of the hell that he was in. As he moved upward, the face slowly disappeared, fading into that of another.

Shocked, Jonathan almost let go, but the familiarly strong hand grasped his wrist. "No, child," his voice coursed through him like so many stings of prickling needles. "You must return. Your time has not yet come."

Darkness surrounded him again. The taste and odor of sulfur still fresh in his mouth and nostrils; he flinched as Peter's gentle voice caught his ear, reverberating painfully through his head, as he surfaced from the unconscious state he had been in. He winced from it, the pounding of his head was unrelenting and heavy to him, as if someone had placed it in a vise and was constantly tightening it. And he was sure that he could feel the pulsing of his blood through the tiny capillaries in his brain. The pressure behind his eyes was so much so that he feared they would explode.

It was so agonizing to him that tears formed, leaking from his eyes – but he had never really been able to tolerate any type of head pain at all. And though he knew the moment he opened his eyes that pain would be multiplied, but he had to see and know for certain that Peter had returned.

"Come back to us, Jonathan," the man whispered faintly. "You must return to us."

His eyelids fluttered, finding them so very heavy and difficult to open, but, finally, he managed to force them open if only a slit to look through and see the man's face. It took a moment for them to focus only seeing a silhouette standing over him. And the lights in the room were painfully bright to him.

"Lights please," he muttered to the man that hovered close to his face. He felt the warmth of someone's hand holding his. And just mere speaking caused him to close his eyes tight and wince.

"He wants the lights off," he heard Bruce's normal voice that bounced around between his ears as if his head was a basketball court.

The pain was so great to him that he kept his eyes closed tightly and began to weep openly.

"What's wrong, Jonathan?" Greg must have been standing nearby, because his voice was louder than the rest.

"It hurts, Greg," the boy muttered to him softly forcing the person that hovered close to lean further into him and listen carefully.

"I believe he is in much pain, Greg," Peter whispered. "And I also believe our voices are effecting that pain more."

"Then we'll do something about it," Bruce whispered.

Jonathan didn't see him leave the room, but he felt the absence of his presence suddenly. It almost made him feel bereft because of it.

"Peter?" Jonathan mumbled.

"Yes, child, I am here," the man spoke on his breath.

The youth sighed in relief of the fact that Peter was truly back.

"I had a terrible dream, Peter," he confessed but wasn't sure he could talk about it yet.

"Then save it for when you are feeling better, then you can tell us all about it, Jonathan," Greg advised softly.