By Jon Moray
This story was first published in May 2024 for Open Door Magazine and appeared in an online and print edition. The piece centers around a young woman who is challenged by her will to live.
Gladys, a lost, free-falling soul, had relinquished her will to survive. The last month of her life had been an agonizing one that included failing grades as a senior in high school and a break-up with her so called ‘world’; her boyfriend she had been dating for six months. He occupied her thoughts in her waking hours and wished her mental fantasies of him would spill over into her dreams. The emotional guillotine dropped when she caught him with her best friend outside the local Cineplex, arm-in-arm, and quite affectionate with one another. Her downward spiral was about to make a grave impact, courtesy of a bottle of her mom’s sleeping pills and a glass of vodka. Just turned eighteen, the suicide curtain was about to drop on her short-lived life. She was depressed and alone in her room, in an empty three-bedroom home, in a quiet rural subdivision. Her mom, single and head of household, was always working to keep the house she won from the divorce settlement.
The room was silent, except for her heart pounding like a bass drum. Her stringy, shoulder length, dark brown hair spilled sloppily over her face as she bore down on the battle she waged with the drugs and alcohol. She was worn, emotionally beaten and spiritually bankrupt. She mulled life and death like a pendulum swaying back and forth in her head.
The pills were smeared in her left hand, the full eight-ounce glass in the other. She drew a few last deep breaths as if she were about to submerge herself in a swimming pool. She mouthed a few sorrowful words for her mom and her older brother stationed overseas, and then drew one final gasp.
She began a countdown from ten, emphasizing each number with a head bob to keep her focus. At five she choked back a surge of tears. Two…last deep breath. One…her eyes tightened as if fighting an eclipse. Hand cupped, she shoveled the pills into her mouth and then took a swig of vodka. She threw her head back wildly and grunted at the difficulty of accomplishing the feat.
Her imagination began to run amuck with the anticipation of the afterlife or lack thereof. Visions of her brother’s tough love filled her head as she slumped in her desk chair struggling with the affects of her action. She longed for his company to chat, play cards or listen to his war stories that he apprehensively spoke of. He was her rock whenever she needed a good kick in the butt. She got her toughness from her older sibling. Unfortunately, her figure of strength was fighting a battle in the Air Force thousands of miles away.
As the sand in her hourglass of life dwindled, she succumbed to blackness. The half bottle of vodka remained upright, uncapped on the desk, liquid still from the last pour. It would be hours before her mother would return home from work.
Gladys’ eyes opened while her brain tried to unravel the affects of the overdose. Loud chopping sounds echoed in her head like a windbreaker in a hurricane.
“Helicopter,” she mumbled, disoriented. An emergency chopper airlifting her to the hospital, she reasoned. As her vision cleared, she realized she was in a chopper, a military chopper. Her surprise was compounded by the fact she was in full military gear; boots, fatigues, and a pith helmet. She noticed she was wearing a backpack as her fingers slowly examined the harness. She surveyed a cast of other uniformed men and women looking as perplexed as she was.
“Private! On your feet! Your next!” came an order from the officer in charge. Startled, Gladys lethargically struggled to get to her feet, sloppily compensating for the extra weight she was carrying. He pushed her to the side opening of the chopper and relayed specific instructions.
“If you want to live, pull the cord. Ten seconds after jumping, pull the cord,” he shouted. Before she could answer or question, he shoved her out into an abyss of dense misty dirt fog. There were no static lines to ensure deployment of the parachute. That responsibility was left to the jumper. She pulled the cord as instructed, without thought of ending her life again. She held onto the loops as she gradually spun like a puppet on a string. She ignorantly navigated through the smoky clouds toward a muddy and blood soaked battleground. Gladys was completely lost in the environment and with a lot action going on around her, there wasn’t any time for an explanation.
She landed on her back in a crimson splash and her momentum flipped her over onto her knees, shaken but unhurt. Several troops who did not engage the cord plunged to the earth, rendering a ground-shaking thud she felt throughout her whole body. The skies were a palate of fire, smoke and ashes, fitting to the grim landscape of carnage that lay motionless. Several other soldiers, who had pulled the cord, landed safely and awaited instructions from the officer now referred to as the commander.
The commander directed the troops to crouch low as he made his way over to Gladys. He pulled her up with one hand and removed the chute and harness. He peered into her eyes and realized she was only a teenage girl. His demeanor barely softened. “It looks like I am going to have to baby-sit you. Stay by me.” Her face, resembling an artist’s palette of mixed reds from lipstick, blacks from eyeliner and mud brown, rendered a displeased pout.
“Is this hell?“ Gladys stammered.
“This is your next step. You chose life over death. You pulled the cord, young lady. Your will to live is stronger than you thought. Those who didn’t pull the cord carried out their suicidal mission.” He pointed off in the distant through a fiery fog that revealed several corpses swaying from trees with branched nooses around their necks. The vision, along with the strong, thick odor of death nauseated her, as her frame slumped in utter horror.
“Follow me. This mission is a search and rescue to find survivors. Check for pulses and revive as needed. We have a ways to go if we are to make it ourselves. Watch out for the attacks,” he said, stomping around with his head on a swivel.
Gladys followed reluctantly, as she tried to grasp the new morbid world she had unceremoniously entered. They trudged along laboriously as their boots suctioned in the mud with each step.
A figure lied contorted off in the distance. The commander rushed over and performed a successful CPR on the injured soldier. For that brief moment, Gladys formed a quick thought. What if this is hell? What if every time a person commits suicide they just gravitate to another universe to test their true will to live? What if these universes only get worse which each attempt?
“We have to find others along this route. There will be a rescue chopper along at the end of this mission to carry us back.” Suddenly, several blue missiles began to fall from fighter planes through the abstract autumn colored sky.
“What’s are those?” Gladys shouted, with widened bloodshot eyes.
“Missiles. We have to dodge them or we’re toast,” said the commander.
“They look like the….”
“The sleeping pills that you overdosed on?” the commander asked.
Gladys confirmed, with a slow nod.
“How many did you take?”
“About as many as there is falling,” she said, ashamed. The commander huffed a sigh, but quickly returned focus on the task at hand.
“Dive in the trench, we can hide there until this round of missiles pass.” She dove in and the commander followed, covering her as he dropped down. “When there is a pause, we will head toward the next trench about quarter-mile north. Hopefully there will be other survivors along the way.”
The bombs’ impact disturbed the sloshed terrain as the drugs’ residue pelted the ditch like a sandstorm. The commander protected her from the debris like a blanket swaddling a baby as they waited out the capsule invasion. The aerial assault subsided and the troops continued their rescue.
They were only a hundred yards away from the refuge of the next ditch when the fighter jets reemerged. They detoured their direct route to the trench as one of the pills exploded near Gladys. The missile’s impact tossed her several feet as she landed awkwardly on her backbone.
“Are you alright?” the commander yelled.
“I’m alright,” she struggled to answer. The commander shuffled over, swooped her up over his shoulder and carried her into the ditch without further harm.
“Just over that hill about a half-mile is our ticket back. Once we get to the chopper we will be safe.”
She gasped and slumped into his soiled uniform. The concrete façade of his appearance softened as his compassion comforted her in sibling-like fashion. Gladys let her imagination flow as visions of her brother in battle dominated her thoughts. The commander’s hold on her was warm akin to her brother’s when he held her the night her boyfriend broke her heart.
“If I make it back, I’ll never try this again,” she whispered to herself repeatedly. “If we make it to the safety of the chopper, what will happen?” she raised her head as her eyes met his.
“It is probably better you experience it for yourself,” the commander said, with eyes locked on hers. The next round of missiles broke his grasp on her.
“C’mon, we have to move. If we can dodge this last round we’re home free.” They rushed frantically toward the hill and were almost at the crest when a missile exploded a few feet behind them, thrusting them forward and airborne about ten feet up. They both landed over the hill simultaneously and rolled down until they reached the bottom.
“Private!” the commander yelled, crawling over to her. Gladys lay motionless in muddy slush that melded the back of her weary body. The commander hastily approached and gently slapped her face until she came to.
“We made it. The chopper is ready for takeoff,” he said, as the surviving troops appeared, hobbling down the hill. He hoisted her up and carried her into the chopper. Inside, Gladys scanned over at the rest of the soldiers. Some were shot, others nursed bodily ailments, but all were alive.
“Rest up, troops. It is a long way back,” said the commander, as he squatted beside Gladys amidst the rhythm of a dual propeller soundtrack.
“Was that hell?” Gladys pleaded for an answer.
“No, but it might’ve well been, for all that was lost back there,” the commander lamented. Gladys began another query, but the commander waved it away without care for more explanation. She gradually succumbed to her weariness and fell asleep.
“Gladys’ mom, your daughter’s limb movements are encouraging. I think she is going to make it,” said the doctor, in an encouraging tone. Moments later, Gladys began breathing erratically and a productive cough opened her eyes. She squinted, blinked and adjusted to the fluorescent lighting. She looked over and instantly recognized her mom, who was now rising to her feet.
“My baby. Oh my baby made it,” she sobbed, clasping Gladys’ hand.
“Mom…I am so sorry,” she cried, in sync with her mom’s tears. Gladys held out her arms and the two shared an airtight embrace, damping each other’s shoulders.
Just then, a knock on the door interrupted their conversation.
“How is she doing, doc?” asked an EMT, as he entered the room.
“She is going to make it. She was in a coma for several hours. She regained consciousness only moments ago,” the doctor said. The EMT was part of the team that airlifted Gladys to the hospital. Gladys’ eyes bulged at the sight of him and noticed his features were a carbon copy of the commander who helped her along on her survival-testing mission. Mouth agape, she laid speechless, staring at him as he took her hand in his.
“Gladys, I am happy to see you pulled through. By doing the math on the number of pills you consumed…well, there wasn’t much hope up there in the helicopter. But I sensed a genuine toughness about you while taking your vitals. I just had a feeling you would make it.”
“Not nearly as tough as my brother,” she said, and went on to explain her brother’s heroic service to his country.
“Perhaps you are. You made it through your own war of survival,” he said.
Gladys shivered with the oddness of the EMT’s choice of words. “Perhaps it was a war. It sure felt like one. I never want to go back again.”
“Let’s hope you never do,” the EMT expressed warmly. “You see the handle hanging from the wall beside you? If you need anything, pull the cord,” he said, as he released her hand, gave a thumbs up, and exited the room.
Moray Writes 