Sardenia

This was written in a few hours for a contest, leaning into fragmentation and genre play.

I walk a lonely road: the drunkhole who ran his car into a pole. We were not even divorced yet. So I never knew what became of her kids. I wish all of that the best. You don’t get the full sight of things after you’re gone you know. Is he listening?
Marley manifested. It was simple. If you had a legitimate reason to make an impact on the present (your past), you could choose to honor a somber mission.
He’d been gone two years. 95% of that had been a deep, dark sleep. Not dead. No, lingering experience, but mostly wispy remembrances by tingling nonexistent limbs. He realized he needed every minute of that rest.
And were it not nothing but that his dearly non-divorced spouse was at his side.
Sardenia? What are you doing here?
Before him lay the convent of his dreamstate: the last covenant of his humanity.
What you mean?
Her English hadn’t improved since his death, he witnessed.
You tell me you still drinking the cerveza, still in your pothole, and in that apartment, what you do, is the pleasing?
So then Marley thought that maybe he had arrived at hell. Or was this purgatory? Maybe he was an angel to guide her out of her hell.
One time I saw you at the middle of the night, was 3:30 in the morning. And I heard you all the night. So you was happy.
This was going to be…a process, Marley realized. Not only did he not have contact with Marty May, the bastard, but he was standing next to his victim. That was not a victim, but his beloved.
So you kicked yourself, Sardenia starts saying, and he just cuts her off.
Do you realize where you are, Sardenia?
I brought back to your hell hole. I want call it the pothole, but you always bring me so there es no escape.
What are you talking about?
2 minutes ago I had my birthday celebration with Marty or Barney, no me acuerdo, and it was a delight. I ate his cake, and then he was staring at me so curious, and I wake up here. So you tell me Marley, what es going on?
It's…do you know? Remember? The car? The pole? Mm. You thought potholes were funny Sardenia: that was my life.
Oy, mierda. I feel sick. It’s true.
And I saw you at the ceremony. I held your hand when you cried.
It’s.. the moment you.
But she cried.
It’s ok Sardenia, but why do you think you’re here?
You bring me here and it’s wrong.
Sardenia, I’ve been gone. It wasn’t fun. You recovered, though. You found Barney, Marty, Blane whomever. I was happy about that really.
Why?
The couple stared into each other’s eyes. There was never any divorce. They had always been bonded. That wasn’t broken.
I love you, Sardenia.
She engaged in the howl puffs and coughs of a dry sob. The afterlife didn’t afford tears.
For two years she had embedded in a symbiotic relationship with Marty. That meant whack whack and anger. Marley was calm, detached. Maybe he was boring.
But there’s no denying that he had cared, he had brought flair, and a magical mystery ponderance to the ordinary grind she had always wanted to escape.
Where are we? Sardenia asked.
Well, what I think… and he began to sob, as he grabbed a linen that was about as greased as a bowling ball towel. Such was the afterlife.
It will help you to rest, my dear, and he kept sobbing, because he knew even in this afterlife, there were no guarantees anyone wakes up.
I think… I think that’s good idea, my love. And she embraced him, at least one last time.
Thankfully he still had made contact with the three dimensional planet earth from time to time. He could linger over moments when he strained.
Recently he had been tipping over jars at Marty’s bar. Just the right mental attention allowed him to yank the loser’s leash.
But before he knew it, Sardenia was…stirring?
How long were you sleeping, she asked.
What are you talking about?
Do you know how long you’ve been here?
It’s been…two years three days and about five hours to the tee.
And was that June the 7th of 2029?
Yes…
But we’re in 2027 right now.
So have I flashed back in time?
Well, kind of.
Marty didn’t love you. He wasn’t capable. Too focused on the drink. And if I had stuck around you’d have never been stuck in this gridlock bedland.
And so, is that how I got here, then?
Yep, Marty wasn’t able to hurt you so much as just drain your life force. He was a drainframe. And so when he’d reached his end, you know, it was just some poison in your birthday cake, what I observed.
And so Sardenia started to laugh.
And when did you crash into that pole? She asked.
Oh gosh now, that’d be 2031.
And then she smiled, wide.
You’ll be just fine…please note, your honor, this client, in his fragmented frame of mind, has successfully dissociated to extend his consciousness to the culpability of, your dear prosecutor’s murder.
I rest in peace.