Note: Last week, most of 47-year-old Thomas Volantes’ estate was auctioned off due to the fact that he lacked any relatives or loved ones to receive his valuable belongings. I’d purchased his old laptop, and found this document to be his most recently altered file:
My hands feel funny. There was once a time in my life where everything came together seamlessly, and I was almost certain that I had it all figured out. The truth was much harsher than I would have liked to know.
You know how old people are always so eager to try and impart wisdom onto others? Always, “You should do this, don’t do that,” etc., etc. Well, this isn’t like that. I’m getting on up in years, but I’ll tell you one thing; I never learned anything useful from anybody else’s practical life experiences. It all comes down to what happens to you, what happens to me, and how it gets handled. These choices are everything and I just can’t bring myself to tell other people what to do, as though my word were gospel. Not that it would even matter anyways.
I’m getting ahead of myself. This story I’m about to tell took place when I was twenty.
The summer was a particularly hot one, even by southern standards. My dad had just bought this crazy road bike, and was adamant that I trail behind him on my old beach cruiser. It was a pain, for every painstaking standing push of the pedals I did, he would glide effortlessly in front of me, with at minimum a half-mile distance between us. By the time we hit a break and I’d caught up to him, he would look back at me and my winded body, and he would make some comment about how he was an old man and he wasn’t even breaking a sweat! These bike outings became a tradition in the early mornings of every weekday for us. It was a pain to bust my ass like that in the morning, but at least I would be wide awake for when I had to leave for work.
Thursday morning was when it happened. It was bleak, cloudy, and humid as hell. Heat lightning was commonplace on days like this. There wouldn’t be a drop of rain anywhere, despite the sea of gray blotting out the sun. The air would change, my skin would tingle and I’d feel every hair rise, and then a bolt of electricity would shoot up from the ground and into the sky. This kind of shit was scary because it was always so close, especially when we were pedaling near open fields. Nevertheless, the morning progressed as usual. My dad was sailing down the road at at-least thirty mph like an asshole, and I was stuck pedaling my legs off, maybe reaching twenty-two. He rounds a bend, I start pedaling faster, and then as I round the corner, I see him waiting for me; one leg propped down onto the ground. My skin started tingling the closer I got to him.
He looked over, a sly smile on his weathered face. “Well, so nice of you to join-” and then this ringing invaded my ears and my vision went gray. I could feel the fine hairs on my arms and neck singing with the energy, and before I realized it, we were both on the ground holding each other, convulsing. The things that crossed before my eyes as the gray crept away astounded me. I saw lands of glossy gemstone, I saw endless oceans of liquid metal, and skies that radiated like the aurora borealis with colors unknown. My legs bent back, then straightened out, then crooked, I was on my knees with my arm around my dads’ back. I remember him shouting about how he thought he was having a stroke, but I think he was just seeing what I was seeing, smelling what I was smelling, we were locked together.
The most painful part of this memory is how I looked over at him, and saw him looking up at me. I saw all of his regrets, all of his sadness, but most of all; I saw all of the love he had for me. He thought this was his last, and quite honestly, so did I. I remember bringing him in fully, embracing him, and then he was gone.
I fell forwards, busting my chin against the ground. My hands scrambled along the embankment, searching frantically for him, but he wasn’t there. I must have sat there for at least fifteen minutes, just hyperventilating and trying to get my shaky limbs to cooperate. Standing was difficult, but when I got to my feet, I felt like I could run a marathon. I tore the area apart looking for any trace of him. This dazzling glimmer in the tall grass downhill caught my eye and I rushed, nearly tumbling as I ran. There was this little shard of green crystal in the neon grass. It was cloudy, but densely packed with this sparkly-looking stuff. I picked it up and I felt him.
The gem was alive, pulsing in my hand like I was holding a beating heart. I knew that this was where my dad was. I put him in my back pocket and ran, ditching my beach cruiser and pedaling back on his road bike. It’s crazy how much faster I traveled on that thing. The land around me had changed though. A look in the sky brought me glimpses of unknown stars and constellations in the day, and a smaller red star parallel to the sun. The sky was orange-green, and the land around me looked lush, but unnatural. I didn’t see anyone else my whole way home.
Nobody was there when I got back, it didn’t even look like there was anyone else in the neighborhood. The air was cool, and wind chimes outside were noisily sounding off discordant melodies as every strung pan was sent in all directions. I didn’t really do much, just made a cup of coffee and had a cigarette. I remember crying. From this point onwards, time slowed to a crawl. Days, weeks, I don’t know- months maybe. I spent it all just trying to pretend like there were still aspects of my life that mattered. I’d get up every day, ride in the strange green-blue morning with the gem in my pocket, come back, and then spend time just looking out into the distance for him, for anything. I’d see only the subtle movements of twisted gray trees atop of tall green hills. I couldn’t sleep at night. The sky was dark purple, the wind was so loud.
She came to my house one day while I was lost in thought. I’d been so taken aback by the knocking on my door that I instantly grew excited, then scared. Still, four more knocks came. I hesitated as I ever so slowly made my way to the door, trying to be as quiet as possible. The gem in my pocket was pulsing violently, my dad was scared too. My eye met the peephole, and I really am not sure what to say about her other than how strange she looked to me at the time. Average height, but more animalistic than I’d ever seen someone look before, very rabbit-like. “Hello?” A voice rang out. I fumbled my hand on the door with a thud. I couldn’t even pretend I wasn’t there. “Just a minute” I replied, gripping the doorknob with cold, clammy hands.
The door opened slowly, and I saw her smile upwards. I think I smiled back, so calm, so afraid. “You’re new” she said, turning on one heel and walking past me through the doorway. Bright colors. My head gave out, vision turning gray again. When I came to, I was leaning back on the couch. There was a cup on the table in front of me. “What happened?” I asked out loud, not knowing if there was even anybody around to hear. “You fainted” came a reply from within the kitchen. She came back into view, smiling worriedly. “I made you some tea” she said. My head felt hollow, like I had just taken a Valium. Grabbing the cup, a warm scent met my nostrils. I looked down at the cloudy drink in my hands. It was ice cold. “I don’t have any tea here” I said. A giggle, “Don’t worry about that” she said, disappearing back into the kitchen. “Drink”
The hollowness went away, replaced by an almost euphoric feel as the liquid went down. Everything was almost forgotten, until I thought about it hard enough. “I don’t like it here” I remember saying in a moment of clarity, “I want to leave” She frowned, turning back towards me. “I just got here though,” she said. “I think you should rest up a bit more, I’ll look after you” The pulsing of the gemstone came back to my attention, and I realized that it was now on the table in front of me, lightly rattling on the surface. “My dad is in that stone” I said, “I need to get back to him” Her eyes met mine with a look that’s hard to describe. It was like empathy, but with just the slightest bit of mal-intent.
“That’s just not possible” she said. That was all I needed to hear for my concentration to break. Tears started streaming down my face. Despite a plethora of consolations emanating from her, I grabbed the stone off of the table, and rushed towards the door. Bright colors. I found myself reclining back on the couch with a full cup of tea sitting next to the stone on the table in front of me. I remember feeling like my head was spacy, like I had just taken a Valium. “What happened?” I asked out loud, not knowing if there was even anybody around to hear. “You fainted” came a reply from within the kitchen. She came back into view, smiling worriedly. “I made you some tea” she said. Grabbing the cup, a warm scent met my nostrils. I looked down at the cloudy drink in my hands. Ice cold. “I don’t have any tea here” I said.
It’s so hard for me to put into words how I felt when I was around her. I was consistently numb to my surroundings, like an opioid high. She was so unusually beautiful; unlike anything I’d seen before, so elegant. Every morning I was met with the inexplicably pleasant aroma of cold tea, and every night she would stroke my hair as I drifted off, feeling saddened for some reason that I couldn’t remember. She had such pretty jewelry. A necklace with a moderately sized green gemstone set into a silver mount with a thin chain. It pulsed. The wind outside would keep me up sometimes, but then bright colors would flash, and I mostly drifted off without a problem.
“I’ll be back soon, okay?” she said one day, kissing me on the cheek as I lay back, content. She glided towards the door, and I watched as it opened inwards and closed behind her without her so much as lifting a finger. I was disturbed, and it took me a moment to question why. With great effort, I’d made my way to the window and saw her vanish off into the distance, the spectrum of colors dancing behind her until all that was left was a rainbow. It hadn’t even been raining. I’d felt more violated than I ever have in my entire life. A dull pain coursed through my mind until traces of my dad came rushing through to the surface. All this time forgotten, and I was then plagued with mental images of him trapped somewhere, under the impression that I’d forgotten about him. I had to do something.
Night was falling as I pedaled his old, rusty road bike towards the spot where it all happened. The lush grass around me overgrown, nature writhing outwards, threatening to come forwards and tangle me. I stopped as I was about to round the corner, and got off of the bike. She was standing there, back facing me. Kneeling in the grass beside my long-discarded beach cruiser, I saw her hold the gemstone up by the chain. Color from within radiated outwards, then faded away, until the gemstone was no longer brilliant emerald, but a pale sickly color. A pained wail reverberated outwards. Dad.
That night, I forgot everything. I remember waking up and finding myself laying down in bed with her arms laid out over me. The stone was on the table in the living room, I could sense it. Slowly I moved, she fitfully stirred several times, but I made it to the living room, and got myself to the door. The stone no longer sparkled from within, and did not pulse anywhere near as strong as before. My dad was weak, and so was I. My hand was inches from the doorknob. “Where are you going?” It was more of a demand. I turned my head back in the direction of her silhouette in the hallway. “I can’t live this way” I said. She looked at me, eyes filled with cold despair. “You shouldn’t even be thinking like that” she spat, “don’t you love it here?”
I felt sorry for a moment. “You lied to me, didn’t you?” I asked, “You can send me back to him, can’t you?” She leaned against the wall, burying her face. Silence. “He’s almost moved on” she said, “he thinks you’re dead” Before I could ask about what she meant, she continued. “I’m offering you a life without pain, without worry” Her back slid down the wall until she was sat on the floor, her knees level with her face. “I’m so lonely here” I could feel my head growing numb again, I was getting impatient. “I never wanted any of this” I said. “I don’t care about why you did this, I just can’t live this way, not now” Silence. A sob cut through the air. She briefly looked up at me, enraged, almost as if considering putting me back into place, then put her head back down. “Please reconsider” she whimpered. “I want to go home” I said. Some time passed, just the sounds of her sobbing. At some point, she stopped. “Go back to where it happened” she said, face still hidden. “I’ll send you back”
The ride back was quite possibly the strangest experience in all of my time there. My tired body worked hard against the wind and the rusty pedals. The night scenery was warping like hot blacktop. The corner where it all happened was so overgrown that the twisted grass practically came up to my waist. “Hold the gem above your head” her dull, disembodied voice rang. I did so, seeing all colors of the spectra radiate outwards from my outstretched palm. The air shifted, my skin started to tingle, and every hair rose. Seas of liquid metal enveloped me, colors unknown shifted in and out of view, and my vision went gray. Burning hair.
I woke up in a hospital bed at some point. I’d been out for a long time. Although there was nobody in the room with me when I woke, it didn’t take long for my dad to catch wind of the situation. Soon enough, I saw him rush into the room crying, holding me tighter than I’ve ever been held. “I thought you’d never wake up,” he said, “I never got to tell you how much I love you” We sat for a while. Upon waking, I vowed to change my life for the better, and thankfully, my recovery was miraculously short. I lived life on my own terms, built myself up, and most times, I genuinely feel like I make a difference in the world. But I never married, much to my dads’ chagrin.
He died last month from a massive stroke. It was instant, they said. In his sleep. To say that I was distraught would be an absolute understatement, but I try my best to convince myself that it was painless for him, and that he didn’t even realize what was happening. It’s easy to imagine living an entire life with a loved one, but nothing can ever prepare you for the inevitable eventuality of death. I think back to all of the times where I’d been given life advice from older people, and now that I’m getting old myself, I realize that it’s all bullshit. People who are just as afraid of the world as they were when they were kids, living vicariously through general advice given to the youth.
My quality of work and life has suffered considerably, it’s understandable. Things aren’t looking too good for me; I don’t think it will get any better. Who could really blame me though? As soon as I wake up, I think of him. Every waking moment of the day I think of him. I’ve had dreams about him every night for the past month. He looks at me and I look at him, and in his eyes, I can see all of his regrets, and all of the love he had for me. Then, he vanishes. But not instantly like he did years ago, he more so fades away like sand falling through an hourglass. I’ve thought a lot about what this means for me. It’s that subtle difference that really fucks me up the most.
I’m back at my childhood home this week, getting my dads’ affairs in order. A heavy storm rolled in yesterday; the summer kind that comes down viciously for about a half hour and then dissipates. I was looking out the window as a bolt of lightning radiated upwards from the ground, splitting the air around it. Thunder rang out seconds later, and my vision shifted momentarily. I swear that just for the briefest moment, the words “Please come back” were etched into the darkness beyond my sight. The most beautifully vibrant rainbow that I’d ever seen was visible across the sky as the clouds moved on. It stayed in place until well after the sun had started to set, never losing its vibrancy until the daylight had gone down past the horizon.
His old road bike is out in the garage, collecting rust. It’s a bleak day today. You know the kind; cloudy, humid, but not rainy. The kind of day where heat lightning tends to form. I think I’m going to take a ride down our old route, and I think I’m going to stop at that corner where it happened. I’m going to catch my breath, and pretend like he’s still ahead of me, taunting me about our differing levels of age and stamina. I think it’s time that I say goodbye to everything that I used to know for good, because I just want to be somewhere where I can forget about what came before.
Don’t ever let anybody try to give you advice about life, because nobody really knows what they’re talking about. Sometimes, you just need to do what you think is best for you. My skin is tingling.
“Please come back”
Goodbye.
I think it should be noted that the obituary for Thomas Volante stated that he was sent into cardiac arrest after being struck by lightning while riding his bike. He was found dead on the side of the road. If what I’ve seen is correct, this document was typed maybe an hour before he died.
I really hope that this story isn’t true.