by Alan Osmundson

“Ah, there he goes! Hello! Can you hear me all right?”

I struggled to open my eyes, but despite the effort the light only blinded me, and the lids shut again.

“Heavy sleeper, huh? Understandable… that’s understandable.”

I heard footsteps moving away and slowly began to regain my senses. I became conscious that I was lying on my side on what felt like sand, though it seemed excruciatingly rough on my skin. I began to hear a dull consistent roar that was at once calming and deafening. I tried to open my eyes once more, this time only to find that I was hampered by a pervasive pain that seemed to course from my bones to my skin and back again.

Clenching my teeth through the pain of the effort, I tried to throw my eyes open once more and this time succeeded. I found myself lying on a beach. The man I had heard earlier was nowhere to be found; I saw only the shining sand, the glimmering water, and a dense inland jungle.

“Coconuts, coconuts… not a care in the world because I got coconuts! Ah…”

I heard the man sit down behind me and struggled to turn myself about so that I could see him.

“Oh look who’s awake! Now let me help you with that.”

He put a hand on my back and used the other to help me into a sitting position, whereupon I could finally get a decent look at him. What I saw frightened me; the man himself was all smiles, but that was the unsettling bit. In contrast to his seemingly bright mood he was covered in sweat, his face was dirty, and he wore a collared shirt that would have been white and fashionable were it not for the stains of some blood and still more dirt. He looked into my eyes as if I were a patient and he was the doctor.

Seeing this man created only a momentary distraction; the encompassing pain soon returned to the front of my consciousness, and I let out an involuntary groan as I sat upright.

“All right there?” The man’s voice coated itself with seemingly genuine concern. Strangely enough I was deprived of the right words to say, so I just stared. The man let out a brief chuckle. “Course not,” he continued, “Probably broke a few bones actually. Man, that was a pretty big fall you took. I gotta say, it hurt to see you hit the ground.” He laughed again.

After more wordless staring I finally found the right word. “What?” I asked.

The man laughed once more, as if I had told some phenomenal joke. He picked up a coconut and a palm-sized rock from a pile next to him and hit the fruit with the rock, splitting it in half. Some of the water spilled out, but he handed half of the fruit to me, regardless. Though it hurt me to do so, I reached out my left arm and took the cup, not entirely sure of what he expected me to do with it.

“Drink up,” he said, “It’s hot out. You need some refreshment.” He then proceeded to drink from the other half of the fruit.

“Where are we?” I asked, without drinking from the coconut.

“Take a guess!” He said. His cheery demeanor continued to unsettle me.

I tried to recall anything that might point to a location. I remembered a business trip that I had been looking forward to for quite some time. “Taiwan?” I suggested, “Is this Taiwan? No, it can’t–”

“Is this Taiwan?” The man echoed, “Well you’re quite the joker, aren’t you? Ha! No, this isn’t Taiwan. Good guess, though. I see where you’re coming from. Take a drink, buddy!” I reluctantly complied, and he mirrored me, quaffing from the hemisphere of the coconut with great relish. He spoke again.

“You know, I’ll be completely honest with you; I actually don’t have any more of an idea of where we are than you do.”

Another silence followed. I looked into his disquieting eyes and couldn’t help but feel that they were familiar in some way, like a false memory from a dream. For a moment the pervasive cheer left those eyes, but it returned as I began to speak.

“I was on a flight,” I explained, trying to recollect the shreds of my most recent memories, “A flight to Taiwan. For a business trip. I can’t help but think that I jumped out of that plane, but… that’s just ridiculous, right?”

His face brightened even more. “Well you did, that’s the thing! Remember that fall I was talking about earlier? That was you. Jumping out of that plane. After me actually. Yeah, that’s it. You jumped out after me.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” I demanded.

His smile did not break. “Oh, well I wouldn’t say I know exactly what was going on in your head. But… how do I say this? You know how some people have an extreme impulse for justice? Well I think, in that moment, you were one of those people.”

“You’re making no sense, James. Justice for what?”

His unsettling smile beamed at me. “How did you know my name was James?” he inquired. I was taken aback. I was sure I had never met this man in my life, yet his name came out of my mouth like an instinct.

Another silence. For a longer moment those familiar eyes lost their cheer again; it was replaced by what seemed like a deep-rooted perturbation, perhaps even guilt. Unlike before, the cheer did not return to those eyes, which he cast down.

“Justice for what I had done,” He paused and looked back up. “I’m a murderer.”

For some reason this revelation did not move me in the slightest. After another dreadfully long pause he gestured a hand toward the late afternoon horizon, and I saw distant smoke that I had not previously noticed. I looked back at his complicated eyes questioningly.

He smiled cheerlessly. “Our flight,” he said unceremoniously.

A rush of abstract memories rushed through my head. Anger. Fire. Remorse.

He seemed to read my formless thoughts. “You remember, don’t you? Yes. It’s my fault,” For a moment the cheer returned to his face, but it seemed oddly deliberate this time. “James the mad pyrotechnic; that’s what they call me. Ha!” And the gloom set in again.

Then they all came back to me, the horrible memories. He had discreetly planted an explosive near the cockpit. He had jumped out of an emergency exit as the charge detonated, leaving the flight for ruin. For some inexplicable reason I couldn’t remember what I had been doing at that time. From what the man said, I had known of his plans and had tackled him in retribution as he jumped out. But however sincere his words seemed, I felt I couldn’t trust him.

I looked back at the man in a new light. As he mirrored my gaze I realized that I felt nothing short of hatred for him. “You’re a monster, you know,” I accused, “You… the people on that plane were innocent! You had no reason to do what you did!”

He frowned, unmoved. “Do you believe in God?” he asked.

“Well, yeah, but what are you trying–”

“Well I don’t. I don’t believe in a god who takes everything away from good men and gives everything to those who don’t deserve it. Do you know what it’s like to have everyone you love taken from you in some freak accident that comes out of nowhere? Well I do. And I know you do too.”

His words shook me inside. How could he know this much about me? How could he know how my family was killed? How could he know anything about me?

He smiled maliciously and continued relentlessly, “Haven’t you ever wanted to give into your anger? Haven’t you ever wanted to take an eye for an eye from this ridiculous world?”

I stared at his fiery eyes.

“Yes.”

I saw my furious reflection in his eyes.

“You have.”

I glowered at his eyes and came upon a horrifying revelation.

“I have.”

I could no longer contain myself. I roared as I lunged at him with murderous intent. But as I fell to the ground I found that I was lunging at air. The man was gone. He had not escaped; he simply was gone.

The pain was back. But this time not only my body hurt, but my soul ached with it. I sat myself up and straightened my shirt. It was a collared shirt; it would have been white and fashionable if not for stains of blood and dirt covering it. At my feet was a whole coconut; a crack ran through its equator but it was in once piece nonetheless.

I looked at the fruit’s three eyes and found that for a change I was not looking into eyes that were my own.