Cycle 126

“Let’s go Becca! You’ve got this honey!” Jacob Malson pumped his fist in excitement as his seventeen-year-old daughter sprinted down the soccer field. Her lanky frame moved gracefully toward the goalkeeper, each stride with a singular purpose of advancing toward her mark. Watching, Jacob couldn’t help but marvel at how she had changed through the years. He could still see his little pig-tailed girl running along with the other children like a flock of starlings after the ball and laughing heartily with every adorable trip and stumble. PING. He was brought out of his reverie by the sound of Becca’s shot reverberating off the goal post. His daughter fell to her knees in disappointment as the whistle blew signalling the end of the game.        

        “What a game hun, you were great!” Jacob said as he put his arm around Becca, walking her to their car. “That last one was close, eh?”

        “Yeah. I guess.” Becca said, her shoulders slumped.

        “You guess? Come on, what d’ya mean? You scorched down the field like Beckham and were only off by an inch.” He gave her an encouraging smile and squeezed her shoulder.

        “I dunno, dad. I just think if Kim had gotten the shot we may have won. I always miss when it matters.” She shrugged her father’s hand off as they approached the car and climbed into the passenger’s seat. Jacob’s heart sunk as he watched. He had always thought that if he filled his child’s heart with enough love and self-compassion that she would never have to suffer the human affliction of self-doubt. Unfortunately, the last seventeen years had shown this to be untrue.

        “Ice cream," he said as he carefully backed out of the parking lot.   

        Sitting on the patio of Slicker’s Café, Jacob and Becca both closed their eyes and focused on the warmth of the sun, imbibing its heat in preparation for their desserts. Jacob had told Becca as a child that their family had a superpower; that they could take in the sun’s rays and with its energy prevent ice cream headaches.

        “You ready?” He asked.

        “Born ready, dad” She replied, smiling with her eyes still closed. They both held their eyes gently shut until they heard the gentle clink of glass on the table. Two large sundaes had been placed in front of them and they smiled at one another, tapped spoons and dug in.

        “Dad, can I ask you something?” Becca asked after a delicious spoonful of strawberry ice cream.

         “Anything, always.” He said, setting his spoon down.

        “Do you ever think of going to jail?” She poked her sundae absentmindedly with her spoon. Jacob involuntarily laughed, having expected a question about boys or college.

        “Umm… not really… is there something you need to tell me?” He laughed again and took a bite of his sundae.

        “No, it’s not like that. I dunno. I just, wonder sometimes you know. What if people make mistakes that they never thought they’d make. Or what if you get caught up with the wrong people and are in the wrong place at the wrong time? Like, I was listening to this podcast, and there are so many innocent people in prison just because of bad luck or crooked cops. Or even just because they had a bad childhood, ya know?” She tried to take a bite of the ice cream but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Jacob took a slow breath, taking a moment to appreciate the complexity of youth and its insecurity with the unknown.

“There is more in this world that we can’t control, than there is that we can, Becca. Unfortunately, some people start with even less than others, it’s true. But for what we can control; our reactions, our efforts… our choices. For those, we just try to do our best.” He reached out and grabbed his daughter’s hand, giving it a squeeze before she playfully ripped it away.

        “Eww, dad. You’re so embarrassing.” She moaned and then began to eat her ice cream in large bites before slapping her forehead with a brain freeze.

        The evening sun was setting as they drove west and Becca’s playlist was blaring loudly while she sang along in an even louder, and deaf tone, voice.

        “Ya know, hun. If you just turn down the volume, you wouldn’t have to sing quite so loudly” Jacob yelled overtop of her and was met with a waving finger as the lyrics no no no came through the speakers. He smiled and squinted into the sun as they crested a hill and came to rest at a four-way stop. Becca continued to sing and wave her hands wildly through the air as Jacob accelerated forward into an explosion of glass. The music stopped. All noise and light and breath ceased to exist in a moment.

        Light returned accompanied by pain. Jacob gasped, and for an uncertain amount of time he was looking without seeing. Slowly, the objects surrounding him gained focus and relevance. A hospital. His leg in a splint and a tube coming out of his chest, attached to a small plastic container with water swaying up and down with every restricted breath. And people. There were people.

        “Mr. Malson? Can you hear me?” A tall man in green scrubs with a stethoscope leaned over him, looking at his eyes rather than into them.

        “Yeah… yeah I can hear you.” He mumbled. The raspiness of his voice surprised him.

        “Good, good. Your throat’s going to be a bit sore. You were intubated for two days Mr. Malson. You were in a car accident. I’m sorry to say that a drunk driver struck your car. Don’t worry, you weren’t at fault Mr. Malson. And luckily the other driver survived and will be held responsible.”

        Jacob looked around the room again for a moment. There were monitors tethered to him which were flashing numbers in red, green and yellow. A large ventilator sat to the right of his bed with its tubing slung sadly over it. His bed was the only furniture in the room and even in his semi-oriented state he knew not to expect his wife at his bedside. It had just been him and Becca for so long…Becca.

“Becca… Becca?” He forced through his raw vocal cords.

        “Why don’t you just rest for now Mr. Malson, you’ve been through—”

        “Where’s Becca? Where’s my Rebecca?!” He managed to yell with considerable pain, now starting to panic. The doctor stood up and shifted uncomfortably. “I want to see her. Just bring her in, or wheel my bed—" Jacob began.

        “Mr. Malson… your car was struck on the passenger side… unfortunately your daughter’s side sustained the brunt of the impact… she was brought to hospital with you but we couldn’t…” He trailed off, his voice breaking slightly.

A weight fell into Jacob Malson’s chest. There was no room for breath, no room for fear, no room for anything but pain. She was gone. His daughter was gone. He had protected her from her first breath but had sat beside her unconscious and unaware as she took her last. The room began to move...or was it him? He needed out, he needed it to stop, this pain. This indescribable, irrevocable pain had to stop.

        “Let me out…” he said

        “Excuse me?” the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows.

        “LET ME OUT!” Malson screamed.

        The men turned around at the sound of the prisoner struggling in his chair. He was still appropriately restrained in his pod with leather straps securely positioned on his arms and legs. An IV was firmly secured in his left arm which he intermittently jerked against his restraints but the serum was still infusing well. Like all other prisoners in the facility he had monitors in place to assess his brain waves, heart rate and oxygenation to ensure that he was optimally sedated for appropriate Thought Infiltration.

        “Is that Malson again?” A short man in a lab coat muttered to his partner as he absentmindedly entered code into a large computer. He had a balding head with overgrown sideburns covering his jawline and a pair of pants pulled high up over his considerable girth.

        “Yeah. Sounds like he’s reaching the end of his cycle. Bless him, he always lets us know.” His partner said from another prisoner’s station a few rows away where he was taking a blood sample.

        “What was he in for again?” The shorter of the two asked. His partner stood up with his collection of vials and walked over to his computer, opening the prisoner’s file and reading aloud.

        “Drunk driving… the bastard killed someone’s kid. Apparently, a dad was driving his daughter home from a soccer game and Malson slammed into them after running a stop sign at a four-way. Drunk as a skunk. He’s been sentenced to 500 grief cycles. I’ll be surprised if he ever smiles again after experiencing that 500 times.”

        “Well, here goes cycle 127.” Said the short man as he stepped up to Malson and hung a new bag of clear liquid on the IV pole. Malson’s arm stopped jerking after a moment and he began to smile gently as he watched her run down the field once more.