You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of the imagination. Next stop: THE TWILIGHT ZONE." - Rod Serling
***
The Miracle - A TWILIGHT ZONE story
By Anon Allsop
Nash was a foster child who cared deeply for everyone around him...so deeply that in grief, he was transported beyond that of his own life! Just how do you investigate a death that happens inside...THE TWILIGHT ZONE?
***
It was a large house, not unlike many of the others that were built in the older addition. In the front, great oaks and maples grew along the lane, creating shade for those hot summer afternoons. The time of day was morning, with the sun rising above the trees that were on the opposite street. Their ever-swaying shade dappled the sidewalk of the quiet, early morning setting.
From off in the distance wailed a siren, growing steadily louder as it made its presence known. Closer and closer it came toward the quiet neighborhood. Where there had been only one wailing siren, if one listened, another and yet another added to the din. As the first city police car raced into view, it was followed closely by another, this one driven by a state trooper who had been in the area.
Flashing lights began reflecting off of the houses and windows, while still another siren loomed in the distance. By the time it arrived upon the scene, two officers were at the large house's front door. Neighbors came outside of their homes, or peeked from their windows, to see what was happening. Before their astonished eyes, an ambulance climbed up and over the curb, into the yard. The big rear doors were thrown open and a gurney was removed by a man and a woman, followed by another person who quickly raced from the front and began to unload several items from inside. Quickly, the paramedics threw on their equipment and directed the cart toward the front door.
Breaking into the scene, radio communication from a speaker blared out instructions for yet another officer who had just arrived. Then a blue four-door sedan pulled up to the front of the home. The driver and his female passenger stepped from the vehicle and hurriedly made their way toward the house.
At the door they met an officer coming out. "We're too late, the paramedics on the scene said the subject was already expired," he said softly, his voice almost carrying a foreboding of what they would find inside.
The Detective stepped back to allow the officer to exit the porch; while he waited he picked up his cell and punched in several numbers. "Marge...Detective Kirk here. The paramedics are here, but the subject is already dead...better send over the coroner."
Sadly he closed the cell phone and returned it to his belt. Turning to the other detective who had been in his car, he sighed. "Come on Delaney, we've got some questions to ask." The detective gave him a knowing nod and as he held the door, she stepped inside.
Detectives Kirk and Delaney slowly made their way toward the back room, following the other voices. The hall they were in opened into a large room, perhaps at one time it had been a parlor. Kirk surmised that with an older home, the bedrooms would be smaller than most new homes, yet this room was considerably larger. There seated around the room were several children, frightened and wide eyed.
"Do any of them know what happened?" Kirk asked one of the officers, while indicating the children with a nod of his head.
The uniformed man shook his head, "Until the commotion, I was informed that they had all been asleep."
Kirk looked at the children, "Did any of you touch the body after you woke up?" In unison, they all shook their heads. Kirk guessed that each child was somewhere between eight and sixteen. He turned toward his partner and softly said, "Get them outside...they don't need to see this."
The officer who had first spoken tilted his head slightly, he was listening to another officer talking into his earpiece. "Child Services is in the front yard, Detective Delaney. They just arrived."
She nodded and slowly turned toward the children, "How about all of us going outside?" The youngest were more than willing, but the older ones needed a slight bit of coaxing. "Come on, let the investigators do their work."
Reluctantly, the older children began to head out the front door and into the yard, where Child Services was waiting. As soon as she was able, Detective Delaney made her way back to Kirk's side.
The detective was in a crouch, beside him was a sprawled youth still in his pajamas. "Damn, it's a kid." Kirk sighed.
Delaney watched the Crime scene photographer take a picture, making sure to get the boy's position from every angle. "This is always the toughest part of this job," she said with a frown as she watched the man lower his camera. "What do you suppose - sixteen? Seventeen?"
Kirk sighed deeply as he took in the entire room, his training had already kicked in. He wasn't intentionally trying to ignore Detective Delaney; he was just consumed in thought about the youth lying before them.
She pointed out the boy's foot, it was hooked inside one leg of his chair. "Looks as though he just fell over."
Kirk stood, with his arms folded against his chest. "Why would a seemingly healthy kid, just keel over like this?" He frowned and watched another Crime Scene Investigative officer dusting the desk for prints. "You getting anything?"
The officer checking for prints looked up, "Nothing more than the normal pattern of use. The room is remarkably clean."
"Do you think someone got here before we did?" Detective Delaney wondered aloud.
"I don't think so..." Kirk said as he glanced around the room. "Are this boy's parents around?"
Delaney tapped his arm and pointed into an adjacent room where another detective was speaking with an older woman. Her eyes were red with tears, as she kept looking toward the deceased boy.
Both detectives walked into the room, Delaney purposefully stepped into the line of sight of the woman. Once she could no longer gaze upon the dead youth, she looked up at them. "Ma'am, are you the boy's mother?"
The older woman shook her head, "I'm his fo...foster mother." Her voice broke, as it was evident to the detectives that she had been crying.
Her reddened eyes slowly returned to their morbid gaze, so Detective Kirk cleared his throat, and the woman again looked up. "Are you the one who found him?"
"When I woke the others up for breakfast, I knocked on his door..." Again her eyes drifted toward the youth, but she could only see his arm and hand among the confusion of the investigators within the room. "...it wasn't too unusual, since he's one of the older boys...I do allow him to sleep in."
Delaney spoke up, "How old is the boy?"
"Nash. That's his name...Nash would be...eighteen in December."
"Would there be any reason for us to suspect foul play in his death?" Detective Kirk asked.
"No...no, Nash was a good boy, real sympathetic to everyone," she replied softly.
"Ma'am, we need to know for our investigation...were you the one who found him?" Detective Delaney questioned the woman.
"No. His foster brother Marc found him." She pointed outside where the children were standing. One older boy sat in shock, leaning against a tree.
"The boy by the tree, is that Marc?" Delaney asked moving closer toward the window, to which the woman nodded.
"He's a good boy, the two of them were friends," she added. Slowly the two detectives made their way outside, and quietly approached the anguished youth.
"Marc?" Kirk asked as they approached the boy. Hearing his name he looked up, then just as quickly his eyes lowered toward the ground.
"This boy inside, Nash...he was your friend?" The youth nodded without really looking at either detective. "Your foster mother said you were the one who found him?"
Again the boy nodded, "Nash was like a brother to me..." the boy said softly, using his collar to wipe the corners of his eyes.
"Marc, do you know of anyone who would've wanted to hurt him?" Delaney asked, trying to soften her question.
"He was a good guy, real decent...everyone loved him." He finally looked up, square into Kirks eyes. "Nobody who had a brain would want to hurt Nash!"
Delaney was crouched down next to the youth; she glanced toward Kirk and then began to carefully word her question. "Marc, your friend Nash...do you know if he took any drugs?"
"We smoked weed now and then, but other than that...Nash was clean." With that answer, Detective Delaney stood, Kirk nodded. "Marc, would it be okay to speak to you again...we may have more questions later."
The boy sat quietly wiping his tears, "Okay...I got nothing to hide." The officers started walking away and the boy called out to them. When they stopped he added, "I'm not sure if it's important. Nash had been sort of upset, he would be turning eighteen...once you hit eighteen, Child Services pushes you out of the system. Being eighteen means you're an adult...makes you too old to adopt, they just expect you to go..."
"He was upset about that?" Kirk asked, then glanced quickly toward Delaney.
Kirk and Delaney turned and walked away a few feet. "I believe him," Kirk said as he folded his arms across his broad chest.
"Do you think, maybe...suicide?" she whispered.
"I'm not sure what they'll find, but I really do believe that the kid, Marc, had nothing to do with Nash's death." He glanced back toward the distraught youth, still with his back to the tree.
Delaney followed his gaze. "I do too...maybe we're chasing ghosts here and he just died from natural causes...or took his own life?" Delaney replied to the senior officer.
"We'll know more when CSI is done processing the room." He gave her a nod with his head, indicating that he wanted to return to the room. She followed his lead and was just steps behind him as he returned inside.
A commotion in the living room caused the detectives to alter their path, as two officers were trying to hold back a very distraught man. When they approached, the man was crying out, "Please...he's my son!"
Kirk directed the officers to release the man. "You are the boy's father?"
He looked past Kirk and down the hallway toward the boy's bedroom, "Well...actually, I'm his foster father." He blinked away his tears and dropped into a seat on the couch. "I was at work...came as soon as they called me...what...what the hell happened?" he pleaded.
"That's what we're trying to find out, sir," Detective Delaney replied. "Any information that you have could help shed some light on all of this."
The man looked down toward the floor, "Nash was a quiet kid...kept to himself most of the time." He suddenly looked up, "How's his mother...my wife? Was she the one who found him?"
"She's handling it as well as possible," Kirk replied. "Your foster son outside was saying that something was bothering Nash...do you know anything about it?"
The man's eyes drifted toward the hall. "I know he was upset that we couldn't adopt him, he was soon to be too old for the system. But he understood and insisted to us that it was alright! We would have...but the money - it's just not there! We couldn't afford to adopt him!"
"You said earlier that you came from work. When was the last time you remember seeing Nash?" Detective Delaney asked the man.
He rubbed his chin and looked up at her. "I left at 5:30 in the morning. Nash was on his computer in the bedroom...I remember asking him if he had been on it all night long."
"What did he say?" Kirk asked.
"I don't remember everything we said, but he told me he had been having trouble sleeping and thought browsing the internet may help him relax." The boy's foster father sighed deeply, realizing that what had been spoken that morning, was the last exchange of words that they would ever share.
His gaze was distant, and tears clung to his eyes. He had a far off stare, as if remembering happier times, a fatherly smile drifted across his face. He began to speak as he focused out in the distance, and his voice trembled with emotion as he added softly. "Nash was something special. Not special in a 'special Olympics' sort of way, but really special, in a heartwarming way. I...I remember him watching sentimental television programs, then looking over at him sitting there with tears in his eyes. He never hid them...it was as though he could channel their emotion somehow through himself. I never met a more sympathetic kid in my life till Nash...and now, probably never will again." He looked up at the Detectives. "9/11 almost killed him...it got so bad that we would have to change the channel when the news reports came on. He couldn't bear hearing of their suffering."
"None of us could," Detective Delaney softly replied.
"No...It's much more than that...I'm not sure if I can explain it...Nash's suffering was more than normal...it seemed to penetrate deeply into his very soul, leaving him weakened from crying."
At that moment, the foster mother entered and fell into her husband's arms. While both were sobbing, Kirk motioned for a uniformed officer to come over. "Stay with them and keep them out of the room. Don't let them leave...we may still have more questions for them." The officer nodded his reply.
The two detectives made their way down the hallway and stooped under the yellow tape. The Medical Examiner was finishing his initial examination. Kirk walked directly toward the familiar face. "Hi Neal, what do you have for us? In your opinion...off the record, are we working a crime scene here?"
The Medical Examiner looked down at the boy, "Off the record...he's only been dead for a few hours. We're placing the 'T.O.D.' to be somewhere between six and seven-thirty this morning."
Kirk looked down at his watch, it was approaching nine. "The information the boy's foster father gave us, would corroborate your estimated time table. He said he actually spoke to the boy just prior to 5:30 this morning." The Medical Examiner nodded in agreement to what Detective Kirk told him.
"In any of your preliminary findings, do we have reason to suspect foul play?" Detective Delaney asked as she looked down at the youth.
The Medical Examiner also looked down, "Nothing. But of course, we won't know for sure until we run an autopsy."
Detective Delaney crouched down next to the sprawled teen. "He looks like he's asleep."
"That's what I thought when I first came into the room to investigate. He has a sort of peaceful look about him...nothing like you would see on someone's face in a traumatic death event," Neil replied, closing a medical box lid and clasping it shut. "Here, let me show you something..."
He bent down beside Detective Delaney and with gloved hands, slowly rolled the boy's head to the side. Kirk moved closer and was standing near the youth's head. "Tears? Are those tears on his cheeks?" she asked.
"They are, they dry rather quickly which gives us a very short window for our time of death." He gently returned the boy's head to its earlier position.
Kirk glanced up at the computer that the boy had been seated before, a blank screen with large letters '404 Error'. "Do we know what he had been looking at?" the detective asked another investigator who was also in the room.
The man shrugged. "It's been sitting on that screen since I got here."
Detective Kirk leaned closer to the screen, "I want to know what he was looking at...box this thing up and find out!" He touched the man on the arm as he started to approach the computer. "Take care with it, for all we know...he may have been electrocuted by the keyboard." The man quickly drew his hands away.
The Medical Examiner laughed, with a nod toward the other CSI examiner. "If it could have electrocuted the boy...he'd probably be dead as well. He was the one who dusted the keys!"
The other man smiled. It was more of a smile from relief. "That's true...I did dust them!"
***
Later that day, in Kirk's office, Detective Delaney sat across from him. Something in the father's words had been troubling her. "Nash's dad..."
Kirk looked up from his paperwork. "What about the dad?"
"He had said that Nash would cry at anything which touched him deeply..." She looked out the window and contemplated what she was saying. "What if something he saw on the internet...touched him in that way?"
"You really think something he saw on the internet could elicit that type of emotion?" the tired detective asked. "One strong enough to kill him?"
"I'm not sure..." she sighed. "The coroner's report from the autopsy only turned up two aspirins in his stomach. That's not much on top of whatever he ate the night before."
"I saw that on the report too..." He took a drink from a bottle of water at his desk. "They found nothing out of the ordinary...hell, how can I explain how a boy died, if there's nothing to go on? It was like he was a watch and his body just ran down...stopped working!"
"I guess this whole investigation will be downgraded to natural causes..." She shrugged, glad that at least nothing criminal had shown up in the case. Thinking back to Nash's seemingly advanced emotional responses she spoke aloud. "I wonder what he was looking at when he passed away? What would have been so traumatic to him?"
Kirk leaned back and tossed his pen onto the table. "Have we heard back from the techs yet? They were supposed to let us know what they found on the computer."
Still focused on the window, Delaney pursed her lips in deep thought, and replied almost vacantly. "Give them a call..."
He began to punch in the numbers on the phone and hesitated, "Is that 4317 or 4137?"
"4-1," she replied without looking up.
"I'll put him on speaker..." he said as he keyed in the speaker phone button.
"Lab," the voice on the other end replied.
"The computer that came in this morning? The one from the kid's room...what did you find on it?" Kirk leaned forward and folded his arms on top of his desk.
"We pulled the files, they were all over the place. ESPN, FightingIrish.com, Old Navy...you name it," replied the voice.
Delaney turned her head and looked at the phone. "What about the very last thing he looked at?"
There was a moment of silence. "The URL shows that he was on a site for 'Living Memorials'..."
"Explain please..." Kirk exchanged a glance with his partner.
"I'm pulling it up right now..." Again there was a long pause. "It's a site for people who want to create web memorials for the deceased."
Delaney sat up and leaned forward. "Can you tell us which one...specifically...he was looking at?"
"Hang on, I'm accessing his cache," the voice replied. "While I'm looking up the information, you have to realize that these sites are from all over the country...not just on the local level."
"That's fine, we're just curious," Kirk replied as he began to tap his pen against the palm of his hand.
"No...there's nothing there. The landing is dead...so to speak. It's blank," came the reply.
"Can you at least give us a location in the vicinity he was looking at?" Detective Delaney's frustration was evident in her voice.
"Uh....from what I have, and it isn't much...he was looking at a memorial from Minnesota," the technician replied.
"No name...?" Delaney asked again.
"Nope. Nothing...it just stops after Minnesota's landing page."
Kirk dropped his pen and began rubbing his temples. "Get the names that are on the Minnesota landing page...we'll see if any of those ring a bell with the family."
"No problem. I'll get back with you as soon as I have it downloaded." There was silence which enveloped the phone, Kirk reached out and pressed the button to hang up the phone.
"Not much to go on..." Delaney sighed.
"Not much at all." Kirk pulled his glasses off and began to pinch the bridge of his nose.
***
Earlier that morning, Nash lay wide awake in his bed. His mind was in turmoil at the approach of his eighteenth birthday. He tossed and turned in his bed, fearing that at some point, he would be forced to leave this loving family and enter the adult world.
He sat up and looked out his window; the birds were just starting to make their presence known. Outside the sun was beginning to lighten up the night sky. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair.
He got out of bed and opened his door, silently he walked down the hallway and into the bathroom where he got a drink of water. He took two aspirins from the bottle in the medicine cabinet and washed them down. After relieving himself and washing his hands, he quietly made his way back to his bedroom. Just down the hallway, he heard his foster father's alarm going off, waking him for work.
With a yawn the boy pushed his door open and stepped inside. He gently closed it behind himself and walked over to his computer, with a touch of his finger he turned it on.
Taking a seat on the chair he launched his internet browser, within a few minutes he began to peruse the sites he found there. Nash wasn't looking for anything specific, he was just looking. Somewhere close to 5:10 in the morning, he heard a light tap on his door.
"Yeah," he called out softly, and the door opened slightly, as his father popped his head in the room.
"You should still be sleeping, Nash," he smiled and glanced toward the computer monitor. "What are you looking up?"
The boy shrugged., "I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd browse the web a bit."
"Stay away from those sites you know you shouldn't be on..." he reminded his son.
The boy laughed. "You know me better than THAT, dad...I'm only going to be on for a few minutes."
His foster father smiled. "Okay, Nash, I have to finish getting ready for work."
"Have a good day," the boy called out softly.
"You too, Nash," the man replied as he gently closed the bedroom door.
Nash continued to browse, bouncing from one web address to another. He went into his local newspaper and ran down the scores, as he was inside he accidentally clicked on a link for the obituaries. He shook his head sadly and was about to back out when he noticed a banner for Moving Tributes. He clicked on it, curious as to what was behind this link.
He read on, it was a site for loved ones who had passed on. There was a heading which said, "View a sample collection of 'Living Memorials'." Each had a small thumbnail showing their faces below the heading. Nash clicked on one picture of a beautiful girl, near his own age.
It opened up a separate page, and the title read 'Lindsay Rene Allen'. Below it was the date of her birth and death...under that was her high school yearbook pose. As he sat and listened to the soft music playing behind the site, picture after picture began displaying on the screen from the slide-show which had automatically launched. Nash's throat tightened with sympathy for the beautiful girl, whose life must have been cut short by tragedy.
There was a photo of her with friends, appearing happy and full of life. There was one with her in her graduation cap and gown, she was smiling and mugging for the camera in her bright blue gown. Nash sighed deeply, wondering how she had died.
Again a photo came up with her beside her parents, all smiling, posing for the graduation photo. Next was one with her family, images of smiling brothers and a sister along with parents in a happier time. Tears formed in the boys eyes as a harsh photo of a gravestone appeared. On it were the dates of Lindsay's birth and death. A Christian symbol with the words below, "The day you died, an angel was born."
Nash felt a tear racing toward his chin, his vision was beginning to blur. The boy swallowed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. When the image cycled again, it returned to a professional shot of the beautiful girl standing beside a tree. Beneath it appeared a poem as if from nowhere. Lindsay had written it while still in school...it was about hope.
As he read, those words touched Nash to the core, and he began to cry. His soft sobs were choked with true, heartfelt emotion. Lindsay had been full of life with dreams and desires to live on. In that poem, she spelled out a future as beautiful as she had been. Nash felt his throat tighten, and tears raced down his face like rain as he tried in vein to choke back the sobs. Slowly the words began to dissolve...replaced by those from her family.
Through the tears that welled in his eyes, he read on. "Dearest daughter, the day you died a great piece of us died too." Nash swallowed hard - his mind cried for these grieving parents, crushed beneath the weight of their daughter's death. The text went on to tell of her tragic end. She had been visiting friends until late in the evening, on her drive home there was a terrible accident. They held on to hope as she lay in the hospital, her body deep in a coma...but her fight became hampered by her injuries. To the family, it seemed that day by day, her very soul itself began to disappear. They were certain that, on the morning her body expired, her soul was pulled into heaven. Just like that, a beautiful life was over...Lindsay was gone.
Nash's bottom lip trembled, his heart ached with grief for the family and the life cut short by death. Tears fell onto his shirt, one after another. He sat crying and trembling, facing the image. Lindsay's picture burned its way deeper into his mind, consuming him totally in grief.
Nash knew that this girl had no desire to die, she had goals and plans for her life mapped out, well into the future. With her now gone, what would fill the void that once was Lindsay? Would her family ever be able to truly move on?
Sorrow engulfed his heart, if only he could have experienced a love like hers. A hopeful life, carried aloft by parents now crushed by their daughter's death. By siblings who she had shared her innermost thoughts and desires. Under this weight, his cries grew slightly louder, forcing him to cover his mouth to prevent his wrenching grief from escaping.
Through her mother's words, he realized all throughout her young life, this beautiful teen had lived as though every day would be her last. Then, on the fateful day it came, he knew that she had no regrets...but, her poor family... He wiped away his genuine tears. He wasn't sure if he cried for the death of a beautiful stranger's soul, or for that of her family and their loss. He just knew that he would have given up everything to experience a life like she had.
Nash's tear-filled eyes watched as his arms dropped to his side, no longer was he able to raise them. A strange feeling began to permeate Nash; it was unexplainable, almost as though the heavens had taken notice to the grief that he too, carried! Slowly his body leaned in the chair, as if he were a sinking ship about to roll onto its side. Still crying, he collapsed onto the floor. Softer and softer came the sobs until a brilliant flash rendered his mind calm. Was it the angels coming for him?
Was this what death felt like? Nash could feel himself being pulled away, faster and faster he moved until his room was but a blur. As he rose from the lifeless teen boy he had once been, he could see his calm body laying as he had fallen. Upward he was pulled, away from his foster family and out into the unknown.
His soul floated in a sort of suspended bliss, then instantly plummeted toward the earth, and noise once again began to fill his ears. As the sounds became clearer, the slow screech that he had been hearing became drowned out by the tearing and rending of twisted, rolling steel. Time itself slowed to a fraction, almost within an instant it froze still.
A wispy form floated out from the carnage that had been a once gleaming automobile, and it hovered for a brief second. It appeared to be a ghost or spirit; she seemed to focus on his soul and smiled. An instant later, the specter seemed to rise upward upon a great beam of pure energy... straight into the heavens.
As the energy's light dissipated, Nash's soul floated toward the wreckage, as if being pulled along by unseen hands. He was drawn inside, entering through the same window the other soul had exited. As it settled, his body became aware of the most excruciating pain it had ever endured, constricted by the crushing weight of the automobile's metal.
Fighting for breath, the youth tried to look past the blood that ran into once bright eyes, but the pain was too much. Fighting to remain alert, the youth cried. Fearful of dying, foremost in the remaining conscious thought. Surviving against the odds this body was in, the pain neared the insurmountable. With a shuttered gasp, the body relaxed. Eyes slowly closed. Was this the bitter sleep of an unwanted death? The last thing heard, which was able to place within this mind, was a wailing siren growing closer...and closer.
***
For several long days the little family stood beside their daughter's bed. The prognosis had been grim, and they were told to not hold out much hope. When the final decision was made, her life support was terminated, and they were finally allowing her to die.
One by one they said their goodbyes, each distraught with their own personal grief. A tender kiss fell lightly upon the cheek of their dying sibling. Her brothers, trying to remain stoic for their parents...a sister trying to find the words through tears that would not stop. Each said farewell to a beautiful girl...their own little sister.
A mother and father watched their children's grief unfold, sad to be able to do nothing, all options seemingly gone from them. Too soon, it would be their turn.
The trembling woman fell onto her youngest daughter, great heaving sobs tore at her chest. The father stood at the opposite side of Lindsay's bed, gently stroking her hair. Words failed him, tears rained down from his cheek. He gently squeezed his dying daughter's hand...and felt an almost imperceptive squeeze back. His face lost its expression as he leaned in closer...an eye twitched.
He shook his wife, bringing her to look up...her eyes widened as their daughter licked dry, swollen lips. The mother's mouth hung agape, unsure if what she was seeing was true. Soft, almost inaudible sounds began to be issued from a throat which hadn't spoken for several days.
"Ugh..W...what...what happened?" the strange, raspy sounding voice gasped.
"Oh...God! Honey? Lindsey?" the mother cried desperately. "She's alive! Lindsey's alive!"
Suddenly there was a commotion around her, many rapid footsteps raced to and fro in an attempt see the miracle. Doctors and nurses raced inside to assist in the family's greatest news. The girl, who had been so close to death, opened her bruised and swollen eyes!
The girl looked toward the machine which had been unhooked only moments before, and knew that she should have died in that accident...the website said so.
Nash knew he was given the life he had wished for, a family who loved him completely. Somehow he would go on, inhabiting the life of a beautiful girl. He really had no concern that he didn't know much about her life, the accident would be blamed for that. He knew that he would settle in and live it as he knew Lindsay wanted...full of life, full of love.
Nash had come home.
***
His soul had been catapulted backward in time, landing at the very moment it was needed the most! A spirit finally home...at rest. His life-force provided the healing for a girl he only knew as a image on a computer's screen, a body which only moments prior, had been removed from life support as the family prepared to move on. Somewhere within that little bent and broken body, a young teenage boy's soul had been captured. Unable to leave, his soul became Lindsey, fulfilling that little miracle we call destiny. A newfound life uncovered during a terrible accident, discovered on a quiet rural road somewhere within...The Twilight Zone.
Comments
Funny how things seem to go?
Nash had come home...
...I recall several of the narrations by Serling opening with, "Submitted for your approval." You capture the ironic flavor that Serling sought to portray in the show, and the subtleties of character shine through. Add a Bernard Hermann score or view this in glorious black and white, and it mirrors any of the fine episodes we knew, and will gain more than just approval here. Thank you for this, Anon.
Love, Andrea Lena
Nash
Very well written. Thank you. I just didn't like to see him trade one loving family with pain to cause the same pain to another loving family. Funny how things work in the Zone.
One Family's Sadness Traded for Another's
There are some interesting things to consider. Nash received a life that subjectively might have been better than his previous life; but, at what expense? Now his foster family grieves at his unexplained death. Anther family rejoices in their daughter's recovery. Hopefully her empathy sensors have been tuned down a bit. Stuff happens. I guess the best thing is that under the circumstances, the girl recovered. This is certainly not a story about justice. We don't know the circumstances of the horrible accident. I'm assuming the girl was not at fault. We have one family's elation, and another's despair. Who deserved what? In this universe governed by the Twilight Zone's macabre sense of right and wrong, this is the way things happen. I would hate to think it would ever happen this way in this universe. It brings up more than I can swallow.
It was certainly a nice story, and in the sense of the small picture, things turned out a bit better, but ... did they?
Portia
We underesitmate
ourselves. However first I want to say how much I enjoyed this. I had to grab tissues before I could comment.
To address Portia's points, this is a little like person giving their life for another, but only a little. It was certainly done as selflessly given it wasn't asked for. I've thought about how we can fail to see how we affect the people around us. Lost within ourselves we can't see how the little kindnesses we do day in and day out changes the world around us. I think it was that way with Nash. He was just being himself and didn't know how that touched everyone around him.
I too very much like the dry Twilight episode tone. Being strange, many of my favorite ones had nothing to do with the horror stories that became popular. Instead I fell in love with the quirky ones that was much like this one.
Thanks for this marvelous tale.
hugs
Grover
Well... seriously, his foster
Well... seriously, his foster family called him son, but was unwilling to feed him without the state money? They weren't described as disabled, so they ought to be able to earn enough money to feed four persons. They could sell their house if they really need the money that bad and if he's 18 Nash could have worked...
There would have been solutions if they'd wanted to preserve their family, but apparently compfort was more important. I hope the empathy will help nash more in his/her new girl-life. But she should keep the fuck away from those memorial sites. Porn is definitly less dangerous.
thank you for writing,
Beyogi
Even though Nash's soul was placed in to Lindsey's broken
body, there was a calm there. Nash had been a very delicate and emotional boy, who cared for everyone, even those he didn't know. His death was mandated by He who makes the rules, so that Lindsey would live. We have to remember that Nash was kind of distraught over turning eighteen, and being forced out of "the system". He would have had no one to look after him, until he got a job. He who makes all the rules in the universe, decided that Nash's life force, soul if you will, would be better spent living as the dying girl he grieved for, but didn't know. His genuine tears for Lindsey, is what made He who makes the rules, place Nash's soul in Lindsey's body.
Wonderfully written in the vein of Rod Serling who not only narrated Twilight Zone episodes, but was also the show's creator. Thank you for sharing.
"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."
Love & hugs,
Barbara
"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."
Jeeze! Make me cry much?
This is a great story, written masterfully. A definite two box kleenex story.
It brought to mind the loss of a dear friend of mine, and that made me cry even more. It was a cleansing cry though.
Terrific job Anon.
Hugs through my tears,
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.