Quantum - Black Sheep

Belief divides people; doubt unites them.

It was a night defined by nothing other than quiet and space. Alone, and unable to escape the biting Montreal cold, Frank could think of little other than his wife. She was in London, he thought. Or was she in Scotland now? A part of him was motivated to write her a letter.

“Come home.”

But when he put pen to paper, he knew he couldn’t start there.

“So. Are you in love with her?”

He couldn’t start there either.

He preferred to not think of his wife, halfway across the world, wearing a backpack, spending all her time with a short-haired woman.

Sometimes, he heard her voice whispering in his ear.

“The people we were together don’t belong to us anymore.”

But it wasn’t really her voice, it was his, and in vain, he put it there, to connect them once again. He watched the birds outside dive through the air. There was just enough dark to see.

He called Marguerite.

“Hi, baby.”

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Nothing. Led Zeppelin are playing tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Wish I was there.”

“Over rated.”

“Come over. Come over and we can listen to their record.”

And then, he started crying. He hadn’t cried in fifteen years.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” she asked. Her voice squeaked.

“Nothing. Goodbye.”

The phone slammed down. It rang again, and again, and again but he ignored it each time.

Patty was in Belfast, he decided. She had seen Sean. Lead by nothing other than a powerful feeling, they recognized each other in a sea of strangers, as friends. They were drinking together now. Sean had never really died. Patty wasn’t leaving him. Together, in a dimly lit pub, they were toasting to Frank.

They missed him.

Moved by visions of the only two people he’d loved in recent memory, he fell into a sleep where he spoke to his father.

“Another one bites the dust?”

“Aw, Dad. Why’s it gotta be like this?”

“Someone’s going to need you tonight.”

“What?”

“Just pay attention.”

As soon as his father condensed, floating in some sphere of darkness that Frank could feel but not touch, he woke to his phone ringing. Thinking it was Marguerite and wishing his bed was warm with a woman, he answered.

“Frank, it’s Dave.”

Dave was the copy-editor at the Gazette. He had a measly amount of hair on his head and he and Frank spent their nights taking shots of tequila, talking about Hemingway.

“Look, I’ve heard about you. My brother’s in a real bad way. You need to come here now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you come here now? Please.”

…

Twenty minutes later he walked into a small apartment in Montreal’s N.D.G. He was greeted by Dave who was wearing three sweaters, sweating profusely, combing his few hairs off his forehead with a shaking hand.

“Thank you for coming.”

Frank took off his shoes. He saw grey everywhere, followed by a painful flash of white that hit him like lightening to a tree.

There was sickness in this house, he could taste it.

Frank looked around and saw shadows whispering things to each other. Dave didn’t speak.

“Is it cancer?” Frank asked.

Dave nodded.

“He’s in a real bad way. He’s got two kids. I thought everything people said about you was bullshit, but… who’s laughing now, right?”

Frank nodded.

“I love those kids.”

Frank's breath slowed. He felt his skin swimming around him. Dave lead him to a back bedroom.

“His name’s Tony.”

The brother lay in a bed, shivering. Frank saw spikes of blinding light escaping him, replaced by a black snaking into his eyes. His breathing was labored. The light was painful to look at.

He moved closer to him, and with each step, Frank felt no separation between himself and the sick man. He could not see anything anymore, held by the darkness of the man’s body. He jumped into his stomach and swam around his lungs. He traveled deeper, hugging the man’s liver, and then disappearing into some place of just black.

Then he saw the blinding light, only upon this closer inspection, it looked like ocean pearls, knitted together. Frank had suddenly become tiny, so tiny he couldn’t see him legs beneath him. He ran through hell and towards the pearls of light, like a child in the sea. He grabbed them and smashed them and battled with them until he was sure he was drowning.

The last thing he saw was a little girl with brown hair eating the pearls. She noticed him and spit the pearls out of her mouth.

“Don’t be scared of me,” Frank pleaded. “Please, don’t be scared of me.”

“I’m not.”

She smiled and gave him her hand.

Together, they danced through the forest of illness, and he swore the rain in Tony’s stomach sounded like Robert Plant.

Ten minutes later, Frank regained consciousness. He jumped out of the Tony’s body, and found himself standing at his bedside, hands raised. His hands hurt something powerful but he couldn’t stop moving them along his withered chest.

“You didn’t do anything,” said Dave.

“Tell me how he’s doing tomorrow.”

On the way out, he saw the little girl with brown hair in a picture.

“Who’s that?” he asked Dave.

“Tony’s youngest.”

As Frank walked home in the cold, he heard Led Zeppelin bouncing off of every closed window, spilling into the icy streets. He heard people laughing, singing along, the songs butchered by tired Quebecois accents.

He lived ten more years, and at his funeral, Tony’s daughter found Frank. Now a beautiful young woman, she took his hand.

“Thank you.”

Her touch was so warm that Frank left, dressed in black, sure he had a second-degree burn.