It's Sunday, it's getting late, and I've got quiet, sad music on. I've had a little too much to drink, and my demons are whispering to me tonight. This scene came to mind. It's not part of anything larger (for now), nor does it have any grand significance to me. I will say, though, that I feel so bad for this guy. Hope you can connect with him, too, on some level.
The rest of the island was practically empty. Just about everyone had evacuated that morning. Glen understood. To stay was suicide.
Glen had had to commit a little breaking & entering to get into his old suite at the Palm. Twenty-eight hundred square feet of luxury. It had taken roughly two hours to remove all of the boards and other exterior protection over the windows and doors.
Now, the grand French doors were open to the veranda, facing out onto the mighty Pacific Ocean. Glen, however, did not–would not–look in that direction. Not just yet.
He poured himself another glass of Jameson. The suite had such beautiful glassware. He had always had a bizarre urge to throw one of those finely crafted tumblers onto the volcanic rock below the veranda, so he picked one up and did so. It exploded into a thousand sparkling pieces that mixed in with the sparkle of sea spray. He wouldn’t need any more than the one from which he drank, anyway.
Speaking of which, he tossed its contents down his throat and crossed back to the suite’s bar to pour himself another.
It was about time to make the call he’d been planning for a week. Glen pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. Good thing he’d spent so much on the satellite phone. He heard the cells had gone dead around mid-morning.
He took a huge breath and an only slightly smaller sip of the whiskey in his hand. He closed his eyes, unconsciously opened the phone, and hit the auto-dial. Stored phone number 1. Lily had always been number one.
Glen held the phone to his ear. After a moment, he spoke. “Yeah, Honey, it’s me...no, no, I didn’t make the plane...No, it’s going to be fine...Honey, listen, I’m fine...Everything is fine.”
She didn’t believe him any more than he was telling the truth. She told him so in enough many words that he began to feel dizzy.
“Lily, listen. Listen, damnit! There is nothing to be worried about. But, I have to tell you something, just in case...Christ, no that doesn’t mean I’m lying, just let me tell you this! In the office, there’s a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. It’s on the shelf just to the left of the door into the foyer. In there, I’ve tucked a key to a box at First National.”
He listened as she collapsed into nearly wordless grief. He listened as long as he could. He told himself so for the rest of his life.
“Lily, I have to go. I love you.” Silence. Her terrified response. And he hung up.
Glen had managed to drain the glass once more during the call. He refilled it again.
Turning from the bar, Glen walked back out to the veranda. Finally, he looked out on the ocean. The sun had just now finally been blocked out by the clouds, as the winds began to pick up. The water had grown to a green-grey sort of hue. It seemed like something evil. Like something the devil would make you drink.
The thought compelled Glen to have another sip of Jameson.
The churning ocean water held nothing, however, to the monstrosity that was the sky above it. The clouds approaching stretched from the tops of the waves to the pillars of heaven themselves. They seemed to pulse with life, shifting between various colors; purple, grey, green, black. Forks of lightning danced within them, like the tongue of a dragon. A dragon that would annihilate everything in its path.
That beast was swimming through the Pacific, straight at Glen.
He sat on one of the veranda chairs he and Lily had shared many times. He had promised to always share everything with her. He hadn’t kept that promise lately. Directing her to the box at First National was hopefully the beginning of making up for that.
It would certainly share everything he had kept from her until today. She would know what had been going on. She would know how to undo the parts that had gone wrong. Most of all, she would know she would be provided for, no matter the outcome. With a month of preparations, Glen had made sure of that.
The only part that Glen couldn’t have planned, couldn’t guarantee, was whether Lily would forgive him. Whether Lily would still love him. Well, some things had to be left to fate, didn’t they?
So, Glen accepted then and there that Lily would have to make up her own mind about him and what he’d done. No use looking at it any other way. He had left her everything she needed in order to understand, not least of which was his return here. She had always loved this place.
He finished the glass of whiskey, but this time didn’t get up to refill it. Instead, he lobbed the glass over the railing and, though he couldn’t see it, heard it crash on the rocks below, like the one before.
He stared out to sea, into the heart of the largest and deadliest typhoon in recorded history. It had already stripped dozens of islands bare, leaving little more than the soil that peeked out of the waters of the Pacific.
All Glen needed to do was wait. It wouldn’t be long, now.
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