Serendipity

Serendipity

Michael McAllister ran in trying to catch a breath, announcing triumphantly, “I did it, Sully! Check your screen. My Garmin 530 reads, 4.59.09. That’s under five minutes,” greedily grabbing another breath. “I said I’d do it! You owe me fifty bucks.

The man behind the counter scowled at his screen, saying. “I don’t believe it! Close to five minutes in ‘cross-town-traffic is the record for a nut-case who’s dead now. But you imibicile, doing it is less than five is not only impossible, but insane!’

“Well, I did it! Your computer backs up my Garmin! So, pay up!”

“You’re gonna get your stupid ass killed!”

“So, I get killed. I’ve been tossed out of NYU because I couldn’t put up with their political ideology. No point thinking about higher-ed for guys like me, anyway. Might as well make a few bucks before the Grimm-Biker catches me on Madison or Park Ave.”

“Here, take yer’ fifty!” Sully growled, handing him a crumpled bill. “You said you could do it,” grabbing a large manila folder off the desk, “And while you’re in the mood to kill yourself, get this to City Bank, 42^nd and 9^th. And damnit, boy, that’s less than two miles so ya ’don’t have to kill yourself.”

“I’ll have it there in less than four minutes– no sweat.” Grabbing the envelope and without even bothering to snap his helmet strap, he was out the door.

“Damn fool!” Sully muttered. “Hope the idiot makes it through the day.”

As they passed 42^nd and 5^th, the man in the rear of the limo, shouted, “Loren! Can’t you get us out of this damned morning mess? Speed it up!”

The driver said, “Will do, sir.”

“Daddy, you just don’t get it!” harped the pretty nineteen year old in the door-side seat across from him.

“You’re the one who doesn’t get it, Marcy. You’ve had everything that money can buy, and you think education ‘sucks’, as you put it. The tab I paid for your week-end binge with Patty Salvington was nearly a thousand dollars.”

“That’s your problem, daddy, it’s all money to you. I don’t want to be a poor little rich-kid from uptown who does all the right things n’ goes to all the right schools. I want to have some fun. God, daddy, you married mom before you were both out of high-school only cause’ you knocked her up.”

“Good lord, child,” her dad growled in disapproval. “I only hope the people we are on our way to meet this morning will be able to introduce you to some degree of civility… especially when speaking to your father.”

She stared out the window wishing she could just jump out into traffic. Since her mother died, her father treated her like his little, stay-at-home princess.

Damn! she anguished. I just want to have some fun before I have to marry some spoiled-rotten rich brat who’ll screw me for a few weeks, then spend his weekends chasing with the ‘boys’ n’ banging every secretary in the firm. And I’ll grow old and disappointed like my mother. It’s like living in an 15^th century feudal monarchy where all the young damsels who refused to bow to parental tyranny were sent off to ‘monastic’ cloisters… like what my dad’s doing to me now. I know it’ll be worse than a damned nunnery.

Racing wildly down 42^nd, Michael was still raging mentally over the liberal fanatic political ideology that had put the country on the verge of communism, but he suddenly woke to the fact that he had just steamed across 8^th Avenue. He quickly started inching left in preparation for getting out of the bike-lane at the corner of 42^nd and 9^th.

Glancing tensely over his left shoulder, he saw a taxi coming fast– perhaps too fast– but he was confident if he pressed harder he could get over in time to get into the center lane and make his turn.

Disoriented, the NYC Sargent felt himself yanked mercilessly out of the car door. In seconds, he was aware of the warm pavement, and felt someone unbuttoning his shirt. Something was being forced over his nose.

“Try to calm down, Sarg, you’ll be okay! Just giving you some oxygen,” a familiar voice said,

“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“A biker slammed into your windshield– don’t think he’ll make it. He was turning left, and a taxi hit him hard, throwing him clear across the square. Then the taxi slammed into a limo that ran a red at the corner, smashing him into a cross-town bus. It’s a god awful mess. Both vehicles were movin’ way too fast.

“Any hurt in the limo?”

“Airbags saved the driver, but a young girl was in the rear n’ the EMT’s don’t think she’ll make it– didn’t have her belt secure. Other passenger– an elderly man’s in fair shape.”

The EMT on his right said, “Sir, City West Med. Urgent Care is only a block away, n’ we’ve set it up so the injured will be attended to fast!”

“Thank God for serendipity. Best place for this kinda’ mess.”

The pain in Michael’s head was like one of his frequent bad headaches, but worse. As he staggered up the paved path, he suddenly realized he was barefoot. Where the devil are my shoes? he thought. I never go out without my… “Hey… this is weird,” he mumbled. As far as he could see were trees. Like being uptown in the Park, he thought. “What the hell am I doing in the Park … n’ without shoes?”

Hearing something, he looked up seeing something that had not been there seconds before. A few yards ahead, he saw a blond girl seated on a green park bench, bent over, head in her hands, obviously crying.

Now really confused, his inner-reality suddenly demanded clarity: What the hell is this? I wasn’t here. I was… on my bike. N’ I was… The pain in his head now grew so intense that he brought both hands to his head pressing as hard as possible. As quickly as it had come, it was gone.

Turning again to the girl on the bench, he felt compelled to move forward, suddenly amazed to find himself standing by the bench staring down at the weeping girl.

He mumbled, “Hey. Anything I can do?”

Her hands fell away and as she turned, looking up in surprise, her face seemed oddly familiar to Michael.

“Are you… okay?” he mumbled again.

“Who are you?” Looking about in momentary alarm, “I… thought I was alone. Where did you come from?”

“That’s a good question. Frankly, I don’t know. Uh’… mind if I sit down? I’m… I’m a little confused right now.”

“I asked, where did you come from?” she demanded, wiping reflexively at the mascara streaking her cheeks.

He tried to sit as far away as the bench would allow, as he said, “Gees, I wish I knew. I might ask you the same thing.”

Looking very confused now, she sighed, “I… don’t know.”

“This is all so weird,” he mumbled.

She stared back, then sniffed, “I wish I had a hanky.”

Without thinking why, he reflexively reached for his right rear pocket, finding to his surprise something that should not have been there. Amazed, he brought out a clean blue and white paisley bandanna. He stared down at it for a second, then reflexively handed it to her.

Taking the kerchief, she began drying her eyes and mopping at the mascara streaking she knew would be there. Then she blew her nose– in a way that for some banal reason caused them both to laugh.

“Don’t know why that seemed so funny, but thanks. I feel better.”

“That’s weird. I don’t carry bandannas in my rear pocket. That’s where I always have my…” instinctively reaching again, “My phone’s gone.”

The word exploded in her mind. “Oh God! My phone!” She jumped to her feet and for a few seconds stared around her, gasping, “My phone… and… my purse.”

Again, staring at the odd surroundings, “What am I doing in the … the Park. I’m not allowed to go anywhere near here.” Turning to Michael, “What are we doing here?”

“I haven’t a freekin idea,” he mumbled.

She laughed, “I guess that’s two of us who don’t have a… ‘freekin’ idea.”

He suddenly felt something akin to the adrenal rush he felt so often during the day when he knew he had just come close to… to… “Oh… my…God.”

“What?” she mumbled, almost as if she had felt the same moment of awareness.

“Dead…?” The word slithered out in a brief second of horror from between his clenched teeth.

The shock in her eyes and the breath she had been holding slipped from her mouth in an almost painful sigh. “Dead?” The word was articulated so matter-of-factly, it was barely audible. Then… “Oh, God… do you really think…”

“Hey! That can’t be,” staring down at his bare feet. “I feel the hot asphalt on my feet. If I can feel that… well… we can’t be…”

Not understanding why, his hand reached for hers as if it had a mind of its own. As their fingers wrapped in a moment of greedily shared need, she slowly sat again, her hand still in his.

She said, “I’ve read about NDE people saying that in their experiences they could actually feel stuff.”

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

She had to think. Then something sounded from some place in a far off nebulous somewhere… “Marcy… I think. Yeah, Marcy. It’s like I’ve been away for such a long time– somewhere– I actually forgot my name. Weird, huh?”

“Weird is a good word for… well heck… all of this. N’ I’m Michael.

Suddenly everything started to fade… as if a strange grey-blue fog had begun to engulf them.

“Are you seeing…” before the words were out of his mouth–.

“– Yes,” she whispered. “God… we must be dead.”

Slowly out of the strange mist, something had begun to take form.

They dared not breathe. It was if this was what the strange unexplainable morning had all been about.

Marcy suddenly caught a quick breath, whispering, “Mom?”

The mist was gone. Standing before them now, stood a tall, elegantly-dressed, middle-aged woman with a single streak of brilliant white on the left side of her cascading coal-black hair.

“Oh…my God!” The words sounded like they were coming from a very young girl. “Mama? This isn’t… possible!”

The illusion whispered softly, “All things are possible, darling.”

Michael stared in shocked amazement, afraid to even breathe.

The apparition turned to him. “And dear Michael… welcome to our brief reunion.”

He stared back as a strange feeling engulfed him. It was something very special he had felt at some other time in his twenty-one years.

“Love is what you are feeling, Michael. We find ourselves sharing a moment out of time or space where we are briefly allowed to bask in what is the only true reality. In this moment, the Universe is in perfect alignment with the needs of two souls.”

Michael saw tears coursing down Marcy’s cheeks, as she whispered, “Oh, Mama. I have dreamed I would someday see you again… and I don’t care that I had to die to be with you.”

She took a step forward, yet the image wavered slightly like an image viewed momentarily in water.

“You cannot come to where I am, dear one. I have been gifted a rare instant outside my reality.”

Marcy said, softly, “If we’re dead… aren’t we all in the same reality?”

“My beloved, death is something with which you will not need to trifle for a very long time yet. We are sharing a brief moment between realities.”

“I don’t understand, Mama.”

“You are both very special souls. Through many lifetimes, you have wisely followed the dictates of your inner-love realities. And through much suffering you have been gifted with serendipitous circumstances that frequently take precedence over expected… or even feared outcomes.”

“Then… we aren’t dead?” asked Michael.

The apparition smiled, “Child, you two will now share a promising life experience, through which you will attain all that to which you offer your own inner truth. Though life has often seemed unjust, you will soon know a reality in which you will find that for which you have long fought and desired.

“Please forgive me,” he said, quietly. “This all seems ideologically poetic, but… I just got expelled from the one place where I had hoped to get an education. I’ve nothing left.”

“Michael, doors that would seem closed are all meant to be opened. You possess an indomitable inner courage. Just know and trust that the keys to open all doors will be offered in time. You have only just begun to live.”

“And Marcy. Though born into a cloistered life of servitude to the rules of your father’s world, his unconditional love, as well as aristocratic abundance will now allow you to live a life filled with wondrous realities. For an all-too-brief moment, you have felt driven by an inner demon to dance in a world where the gods of hedonism have seemed the only gods. However, that is all behind you now.”

“Oh, mother. Have I been so bad? I know I’ve hurt Daddy. Lord, just this morning I…”

It was suddenly like being hit by a train. She heard her words to her father seconds before she had felt the horrible pain that smashed into her with an unbelievable destructive force. She remembered screaming, “Daddy?”

“That pain, my child,” the apparition whispered, “was but a fleeting figment of the unreality of that moment. The life to which you will now return is the result of many lifetimes of your learning to follow quite a different curriculum. You will both now remember your true reality… and why you have shared this experience.”

As the apparition began to waver in the air, gently morphing into a pillar of swaying, scintillating, violet light, they heard, “In the years you will share, remember to trust your true inner-understanding…  and above all else…

“Have faith in the love you will now share. For it is… eternal.”

The light was gone

The nurse suddenly shouted, “Jamie, get Doctor Carlson. Now!

The young nurse spun and darted from the room.

Not believing what she was seeing on the monitor, she turned to glance down at the bandaged head on the pillow noting one hand was already pulling at the ET tube.

Moving quickly, she grabbed the hand. “Hang on, honey! That has to stay put for a while.

Marcy struggled to sit up, pulling off her O-2 mask as the nurse marveled at the now joyful smile on the pretty young girl’s face.

In that instant, an elderly doctor rushed into the room, shouting “What the devil’s wrong?”

“My lord, Doctor, look at the monitor. Everything is normal. Absolutely normal.”

“Impossible! She was comatose ten minutes ago.”

“Well, glad we didn’t have to do a ‘trach’. She’s sure breathing fine now.”

As she sat up, Marcy smiled at the two shocked faces, saying, “I hope you don’t mind, guys. I would sure like to get out of here, cause’ I’ve got things to do.”

Just then another nurse ran into the room, “Doctor Carlson, you won’t believe it! That other patient– the boy from the accident we thought was gone– well, good God! He just sat up asking how his bike was.”

In an adjoining room, a NY City detective walked in, saying “By damn, Mr. Carrington, I was just in with your daughter, n’ it’s incredible. She and the biker are sitting chatting like old friends.”

“Dear God, that’s a relief. I want to see her.”

“Doc said in about half n’ hour or so.”

Mr. Carrington, “Do you know yet what the hell happened?”

“Well, sir… this was really kind of a weird accident.”

Weird, how?”

“Well, talking to the TDI investigators at the scene, they found that if that biker hadn’t swerved when he did the taxi would have struck the limo that ran the light right where your daughter was sitting. Her seat-belt wasn’t fastened; she would have died for sure. But the taxi veered just enough after hitting the biker that it struck the limo a few feet further back than the through-traffic course would have taken it.

“God, what a blessing! And the biker?”

“That’s what’s really incredible. The taxi hit him so hard he was thrown clear across the square into the windshield of my Sargent’s patrol car that was just making a right turn. The body struck the car so hard it knocked Sarge’s car into a parked sedan. Sarge’s ok, but the trauma team didn’t think the boy would make it. But my God, he and your daughter are in the ICU now chatting like nothing happened.”

He laughed, “And the kid’s really anxious to know about the damage to his damned bike”.

“But, you say he hit a windshield?”

“That’s the weird part. When they brought him in, he was as good as dead. Now he shows no head trauma of any kind. Something really weird has happened in the past twenty minutes. Really weird.”

“Well, damnit, get the Doc. I want out of this bed. “I’ve got to meet and know the kid who’s responsible for saving my little girl.”

Serendipity…

…Is always waiting for an opportunity to introduce Herself. 

There Are No Accidents!