A new vibration is behind his eyes—a leftover buzz of having been missing in the darkness—the unconsciousness of being unconscious. Something is pinched in his neck, tugging at his shoulders. Black slowly becomes gray and the vibration recedes. There is no pain, though his neck is at an odd angle as though he were standing on his head and then fell asleep. His feet are suspended beside him. A new feeling comes over Allen: an urgency to open his eyes. Everywhere cold objects are pressed numbly against him, or rather warm objects are pressing the cold that is him. The shift stick is pressed into his thigh. The steering wheel is wrapped around his left arm like a paperclip. His back is still against his seat.

Dizziness begins in his stomach and the urgent need to open his eyes becomes a sickness that overcomes him. His stomach shifts and he feels a warm liquid run down the side of his face and the length of his right arm hanging weightlessly in midair. One eye opens halfway and the darkness turns to a white haze. The other eye is glued shut. His left hand comes into focus through the one eye, resting limply against the steering wheel and the horizon’s line inexplicably running vertically. The clouds push like a bulldozer against the roadway vanishing sideways. Allen tries to move his left arm, move a finger. It feels as though he’s been sleeping on top of it, empty of blood, heavy and immobile. As though he were lifting a weight at the gym, it is trapped in mid-lift. This time he cannot let go. His psyche is not involved in the struggle. He cannot relax the muscles and as he tries a pain shoots up his arm, through his shoulder and clutches the side of his head like a vulture.

Something gives way and Allen’s head slides down off the seat back against his right shoulder. A pale light warm with ultraviolet rays washes over his open eye. Clouds drift by in the driver’s side window. Black contoured shapes of the mirror, the door handle, the eerily bent shape of the shattered door, frame the blanket of sky. The smell of winter moisture mixed with gasoline and blood tickle Allen’s nose. He tries to breathe in deep and the vulture’s claws ravage his chest and neck. Allen’s left hand spasms as the pain washes over him and he loses the feel of it completely, his reflexes catching some imaginary lighter hurled from his memory. After a moment, Allen can’t feel the tension of his seatbelt or the presence of the shift stick anymore. He is unsure if he is there and closes his eyes, disappearing into himself. Something gives way a second time and Allen feels his chin pressed into his chest. He can feel his shallow breaths coming more slowly and more costly, as though his involuntary reflex to breathe were winding down. He has to seize every breath he takes. He can neither stop nor start them, each one becoming a wash of consciousness, each one pounding another thought into his brain. I’m going to be late to pick up Jodie…

“Hey!”

A new voice calls to him—though it sounds like it is passing through water.

Through a thin line of haze Allen sees a black shadow’s head peering in the driver’s side window, the gray sky racing above it, flattening it. “Hey!” The voice is closer. “Hang on, partner. The po … nce are on th … all right?” Allen believes he nods though he cannot know if he does. There is no need for what he hears in the voice, he knows. No worry. No fear. In a moment of ambiguous desire Allen tries to move his left arm toward the shadow, to comfort it. Patience. The shadow sees the gesture and speaks. “I … know. Stay … ut … right? You … ay put.” Some response makes its way from Allen’s distant mind to the world but can find no mouth through which to travel. It lingers and disappears. Allen does not know that he smiles.

“…at’s … ight … put.”

Looking from the shadow to the clouds, Allen can see their lines more clearly now. The light from the sky is dimming. Curves and knobs and dents and wrinkles and bends and forks and valleys float above him, barely moving? A third time, something moves and Allen feels his world roll around him, his head, his eyes, all rock back without resistance. The world and the sky spin away as Allen’s vision sweeps across the dashboard and his leg to the passenger’s seat where his gym bag lay resting on the concrete below him. He suddenly feels desire again, desire against pain, to look at the clouds again, to look up.

“… o no no!” comes the shadow’s voice. Allen can see his vision reversing in a nauseating disorienting blur, feels his head turning, something grasping him … the shadow. “ … eep your head up, okay?” The shadow has reached for him, grasped his cheek, and between the silhouetted arm and head, Allen can see the sky again. His mind relaxes, something inside his chest caves and a sad, sad joy—the last joy—washes over him. He wants to thank the shadow for helping him see the sky. For a brief moment he can feel the man touching him and the cool wind of winter spirals down the man’s arm and pours across Allen’s face. Still, the colors—desaturated, blurred—Allen opens his eye to the clouds. The world becomes a white plane of clouds, empty and bright as if the sun were beneath him. The effort drags Allen’s one eye shut and darkness encompasses him again.

“…”

The pressure of the sky comes into Allen’s heart and softly embraces him like Jodie. It sleeps with him. For a last moment, Allen wonders if he is the clouds before he drifts away.

Read the whole thread: A Low Cloud Reflex

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