The Vision

The Vision...it comes and goes....watery almost, cloudy, vague. From up above I look down. It is a rail yard. Twisting lines of iron, zig and zag, as far as the eye can see. Old rusted box cars sit hopeless and depressed, broken.  Small wooden shacks, rotten and condemned, are sprinkled here and there throughout the bleak landscape. In the distance, angry smokestacks spit out orange flames and black smog. It is grey this day, as it always is here, and the rain steadily falls.


And then, a figure appears, far on the horizon. It steadily approaches. The figure is short, rather squat, has wavy yet styled, blond hair. The figure is wearing a tan dress, pantyhose, and walks with high heels. Soon, the figure walks towards one of those dilapidated outhouses, near a burned out tractor trailer. The figure knocks at the door, and soon after, it opens. There is someone inside the shack, for a black hand emerges from its shadow, and shakes the figures hand. The figure enters the shack, and the door closes. Time passes, and so do the rain showers. Now the door opens, and the figure walks out. But this is not the same figure as before, it is the one from the shadow. He starts to run, splashing in puddles, he is frantic, he is panicked, he is out of control. He falls, gets up, and begins to run again at break neck speed, but he stumbles again, and splashes into the mud. He scrambles and claws at the earth vigorously. Suddenly, his eyes go wide, they begin to bulge and pulsate. Brown foam begins to drip from his clenched mouth, he is shaking, clutching at his chest, and then just as suddenly, he moves no longer...his eyes fall back into place, his mouth relaxes and opens, and a white tongue droops out. His arms are needle ridden, his fingers are scarred and the flesh of his fingers are warped with burns. From my vantage point, I fly to his limp form immediately. I hover five feet above him, and I see that he has expired. This black man died of an apparent heart attack. My curiosity is running high now, so I float to the shed. Doors and walls mean nothing to me when I am in the Vision. I gently descend, slipping right through the ceiling and into the shed. It is dark, the single burning candle cannot drive away the gloom. The shack is filled with trash and debris; McDonald's hamburger wrappers act as a carpet, empty bottles of vodka collect dust as they stand upon cracked cinder blocks, milk crates filled with syringes and broken glass, a soiled mattress with a charred left side lays in the corner, a picture of Doctor Martin Luther King hangs crookedly on the wall. It smells of urine and feces and burnt plastic...and of death. There, in the middle of the room, is the figure, the woman who I saw enter this place, but never saw leave. She would look as if she just decided to take a nap right there on the floor, her face quiet, calm, almost angelic, a slight smile played across her face, though this peaceful image was shattered when I noticed the nine inch railroad tie that was neatly embedded in her left eye socket. Her eye glasses were still on, the iron tie shattering the glass of the left lens panel. A steady stream of her once warm blood ran out of this socket, wreathing her head in a crimson crown, but the flow had now ceased, for the pump had forever stopped functioning.


I drift up again, through the ceiling, lost in thought. What happened here? How could this have happened? Why did it happen? What circumstances led each of these people to this dreary, forgotten shithole, where the rats feed upon each other.
I can feel the Vision starting to waver, shimmer. The Vision is coming to a close now...it is almost over. I can barely see the rail yard now, it's like looking through a plastic sheet or a windshield on a rainy night. I can see objects, but they are fuzzy now. The shack just caught on fire. The Vision is over. I have answered the question: What ever happened to Willis Drummund and Mrs. Garrett?