Checkmate

      Katie King glared at the orange and black notice nailed to the splintered, wooden pole, No Trespassing. She rolled her eyes while patting the pyramid fence post cap like she was appeasing a child; a sign wasn’t going to stop her from having a quick thrill. The ice-covered pond on the far corner of the property was beckoning her. She reached over the gate and lifted the latch hook from the metal loop, the uneven wooden slats scraping across the frozen earth as she tugged it open.

         She trudged across the private property, crystallized tufts of grass crunching beneath her fur-lined boots. Her pace quickened and soon she accelerated into a sprint. Her arms flew up above her head and she lunged onto the ice like a baseball player diving toward home plate, soaring across the slippery plane on her belly, stopping when her mittens hit the solid, mud bank on the opposite side.

         “One more time,” she giggled. 

         Wrestling onto her feet, she turned around to face the ice and shuffled backward until her heels bumped into the woodshed. She licked her chapped lips and bolted forward. After gliding to the center of the pond, she arched her back and spun on her torso, whirling to a stop before rolling over and gazing upward at the brilliant, azure sky.

         When she struggled to sit upright, a snap pierced the silence, and an unwelcome shiver crept up her spine. She braced herself, stiffening her arms, palms resting on the cold, hard surface beneath her. She was afraid to move. Her vision shifted downward at the crack snaking outward from beneath her mitten.

         Someone is surely in that yellow house over there, she thought, I just need to holler. She took a shaky breath, “HELP, PLEASE, THE ICE …” She plummeted into the frigid water before she could finish her appeal.

         A swell of coppery tasting, cold liquid flooded her mouth, accumulating in her constricted throat as she instinctively held her breath. Only after sinking until her entire body was engulfed, was she able to paddle upward. The cavity she had crashed through moments earlier was just beyond her reach and her legs were too numb to propel herself toward it. She could only swipe at the merciless barrier that prevented her escape.

~~~

         In the yellow house, Todd Bates heard someone calling from outside. He marched over to his bedroom window and parted the full-length sheers. There was a hole in the ice covering the pond out back. He whirled around and grabbed the mobile phone from the charger, punching in the three-digit emergency number as he galloped down the staircase. He rounded the corner into the kitchen.

         “Hello, what's your emergency?” 

          “Someone fell through the ice on the pond in my backyard,” Todd managed to say right before his grip on the phone slackened sending it crashing to the floor. 

         His limbs deadened, and he collapsed onto the linoleum. He lay on his side, saliva trickling from the corner of his mouth, he was finding it difficult to swallow. He rolled onto his back, spittle pooling in his tightening throat. Peering upward through the window in the ceiling, he watched a single stratus cloud undulating across the sky like a ripple on water. Illogical thoughts scrambled through his brain: he wondered if he had fallen through that hole in the ice and was now lying at the bottom of the frozen pond. He was so cold. 

~~~      

[beep — beep — beep — beep]  

         A nurse entered room 355 and gasped, she had been startled by the patient’s unexpected awakening. She rushed back into the hallway only to return seconds later with a doctor in tow. The doctor addressed his famous patient by name.

         “Hello,” he hesitated to glance at the hospital chart in his hands, “Mr. Bates”

         Did he just call me mister? – “Wrong patient Doc,” and the man in the hospital bed cleared his throat; his voice came out lower pitched than expected.

          Dr. Juan apologized and studied the chart again. He furrowed his brow but kept his eyes on the clipboard while speaking to his patient. “You’re not Todd Bates.”  

         “Katie King,” the patient scowled, taking a sip of water, and clearing her throat again.

          The doctor looked sympathetically at the man in the bed. “Your name is Todd Bates. You had a stroke. When you arrived at the hospital last evening, you were unconscious. Your awakening is a pleasant surprise, Nurse Pamela almost peed her pants.”

         The man in the bed attempted to heighten his voice an octave, “You’ve got the wrong room, Doc, but more importantly, I’m a chick — a girl — a young lady.”

         “Katie King’s lifeless body was found beneath the ice when emergency personnel arrived at your property on Cypress Road,” the doctor corrected.

         “I’m dead?” the patient asked, “then why am I here?”

         “Your name is Todd Bates,” affirmed the doctor. You had a stroke. You were in a coma for a while, but I assure you, you did not die.”

         The man in the hospital bed turned his back to the doctor.

         Dr. Juan continued, “Katie King drowned; you would not have been able to prevent the tragedy from happening. The police would like to ask you a few questions about the incident, but I see you are a bit confused right now. They will have to wait. You should rest. If all goes well, you may be allowed to go home in a couple days.” And the patient was left alone to sort out the bizarre situation. [Doctor and nurse walk away and door closes.]

        I am Katie King, the patient affirmed to himself. I remember the frozen pond behind the yellow house shattered beneath me. Everything was so heavy, the water sucking me down. I was so cold that my skin burned. I couldn’t breathe. — And I was trapped. — I — I died.  Is this reincarnation? — The doctor said that Todd Bates is the man that owned the yellow house and that he had a stroke. — Maybe my soul is in his body. “Mind blown,” Katie said out loud, and she startled at the sound of her baritone voice.

          One thing she remembered from religious instructions was that a body could not live without a soul. Katie assumed her soul replaced Todd’s soul, but if Todd didn't actually die, his soul must have gone — gone where? Would it be back to claim his body? Katie had to find him before — well — before he returned to his body. And with that thought she fell asleep. While she dreamt, her eyes darted back and forth beneath Todd Bates’s lids.

         The next day, she asked the nurse for a laptop. She typed, ‘find soul,’ into the search and a movie entitled, ‘Soul,’ popped onto the screen. It was a movie she watched recently, a character in the film was able to contact souls through meditation. She searched, ‘meditation,’ which led her to, out of body meditation.’ She read:

         You should first envision yourself walking along a winding garden path. The path transforms into a beautiful moss-covered set of rock steps that take you to a lush pond surrounded by green trees and a forest bed of ferns.

         “Seriously,” she uttered. And she again startled at the sound of her voice. “Oh jeez, gotta get used to my new intonation.” She continued reading ….and this is very important, keep in mind that your silver cord keeps you tethered to your body.

         Katie’s first out of body experience was short-lived. Once she discovered that she was outside her body, she became afraid and immediately followed her silver cord back to it. Upon her second attempt, however, the path she followed led her to a meadow of feather plumes.

~~~

         Todd spun on his heels and ran when he saw the figure racing in his direction.

         “Stop,” Katie shouted, and she cackled when she heard her own feminine voice.

         Todd reluctantly looked back and gasped when he saw the young girl leap toward him, pouncing like a cheetah.

         She grazed his ankles with her fingertips and did a belly flop into the field of waist high feathers. Todd stumbled to a halt, instinctively concerned about the girl’s possible injuries; surely her awkward landing was going to leave some marks. The girl twisted around and sprung onto Todd’s torso like a monkey, her hands clamping onto his shoulders, her bent knees like a vice on his hips.

         Todd timbered onto his back and Katie’s claws fumbled for his wrists. He headbutted Katie and she released her grip. She straddled Todd, dazed and confused. He slithered from underneath the girl and scooted backward.

         “Who are you – and what is this place,” Todd demanded.

          Breathing heavily, Katie disclosed the facts about Todd’s medical condition that were revealed to her.

         “So,” said Todd, “Have you come to show me the way back to my body?”

         Katie stared at Todd trying to conjure up an answer. She had planned to convince Todd to stay away from his body. “Umm, come with me,” Katie said, and she held out her hand.

         Todd reached out to help the girl to her feet, but she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and yanked him down. Todd tumbled forward and crashed into Katie’s chest. His forehead collided with Katie’s lower jaw giving her a bloody lip. He collapsed onto his chest. Katie plucked a feather as easily as pulling a pin from a pin cushion, and stabbed Todd in the neck with the pointed quill. Blood shot out in quick, short bursts like a succession of squirts from a water gun. The spattered feathers became brushes dripping with red paint.

         The rules stated that the body could not live without a soul, but Katie was the replacement soul for Todd’s body—right?  Katie watched as Todd’s wound healed before her eyes.

         “You can’t kill a soul,” Todd snorted. “I’ll find my way back to my body with or without you. And there isn’t room for two.”

         Katie felt intimidated, “Finders’ keepers?” she said timidly.

         “This isn’t a game you little twit.”

         Katie’s essence jerked as the silver cord attached to her retracted reeling her in like a helpless fish. When she reentered Todd’s body, she felt defeated; Todd's soul would be back.

         After she finished her dinner that evening, she ogled the stainless-steel silverware on her meal tray. Sinister thoughts crawled through her mind. She picked up the fork and twirled it between finger and thumb, a smarmy grin spreading across her face, then she tucked it under the mattress.

         The following morning, Katie’s essence hovered above Todd, once again in a comatose state until his soul returned. “Checkmate,” she whispered. And she severed the cord attaching her to the man's body using the sharp tines of the fork. Her essence drifted across the hospital room and penetrated the windowpane in search of the light she heard so much about in life.

~~~

         The day Todd's soul returned to his body; he woke up from his coma. When he opened his eyes, he struggled to sit up and realized that his wrists were shackled to the bed. He shouted for help and a nurse hurried into his room.

         “Calm down Mr. Bates,” said the nurse.

          “Utz gung on? I an I E ink teeted ike a izoner? His jaw ached and his tongue was swollen. His vision was blurry, and his scalp prickled.

        The nurse picked up the phone and dialed two numbers before paging the doctor. “Dr. Juan to room 355 — Dr. Juan to room 355.” She replaced the receiver and put her hands on Todd's shoulders, trying to get him to lie down and relax.

         When the doctor rushed in, Todd surrendered and waited for an explanation.

         “Mr. Bates, good to see you awake,” the doctor began. “You did quite a bit of damage to yourself with that fork you confiscated. You had torn out several clumps of your own hair, impaled your own tongue, and we're trying to pluck out your own eyes before two orderlies and a nurse were able to hold you down so that I could sedate you. We decided the best thing to do was to restrain you until you could assure us that you wouldn’t hurt yourself any further. When you lapsed into a coma, we thought we lost you. THE END