Burden tried to sit up but the drugs and straps prevented it. All he could do was lie there in this prison of mind and body on his bed and stare with dilated eyes at the dirty yellow-white ceiling that pressed down on him. The orange streaks of light permeated the muddy glass windows, striped the tiles above him and illuminated the particles of dust that entered and exited his lungs. Burden was mesmerized by the gracefulness of dirt.

He couldn’t tell anyone about this dream. He couldn’t put in writing either. Instead, Burden recited it internally over and over again, memorizing it, all the while trying to make sense through the delirium. This dream had to be saved.

Every detail was contemplated, but almost none of it made sense to him. It was times like this, when his intellect was strained, that he wished he were more intelligent, more philosophical, more analytical.

Burden knew that this vision was not just one of the drug-induced hallucinations he encountered daily, but he didn’t know why it was important. There was something within it speaking to him, and that was what terrified him.

The black machine sitting next to him clicked on and began to hum and shake as the gears, sprockets and gyros twisted inside. Burden turned his head to watch it like he always did and, for a moment, he wondered if maybe today would be the day the machine would stop. Break. Malfunction. Fail. But it didn’t. He followed the blue liquid slowly as it oozed through the plastic tubing that led to the needle in his arm.

They told him that the blue liquid was a combination of vitamins and antibiotics. After the vitamins came the blood sample; the machine reversed its flow and extracted a healthy sample of his ichors for study and observation. Finally, the machine began pumping the green liquid into his body. This was the one that Burden always dreaded. This was the one that would once again render him cataleptic.

If only he could pull the needle out from his arm and fade back into total consciousness, he might make sense of this vision. But he knew the consequences of that action too…the scar on his forehead reminded him every time he caught his reflection.

He fought the urge to sleep with every muscle he had, but the drugs always won. And just as he lost awareness, he lost the vision he had fought so hard to remember.

* * *

Limbo aimed the desk lamp down so he could see more clearly into the wristwatch. The radio above him produced the day’s news; only more reports from the battle fields of the war that had divided the United States. This time it was the East fighting the West.

He picked up the small screwdriver and delicately tightened the gears inside. Holding the watch up to his ear, he listened for it to start ticking. The job was mundane, but so was his life. He used to be a writer, but he found that he was more valuable to the rest of the world doing something practical.

From the front of the store, the bell rang. Limbo shuffled through the boxes of watch parts and old clocks that congested his back office. Limbo crawled through the door and walked to the counter. There, a tiny gray-haired woman stood, holding an old and very large clock.

He forced a smile.

She set the clock on the dusty counter and Limbo leaned in to look at it. The clock was ticking and keeping time perfectly.

“What’s the matter with it exactly?”

Limbo stood and inspected but nothing happened. He looked at the woman but she just nodded her head towards the clock. The moment that it struck twelve, a cuckoo bird flew out of the top and bounced up and down.

But instead of a gentle, two-note “cuckoo-cuckoo,” there was a nauseating noise that sounded like the combination of a cat hacking up a hairball and fingernails grinding down a chalkboard.

Limbo cringed and moved away from the beast.

The woman had to yell to be heard.

“This goddamn thing won’t stop for another eight minutes! I nearly shit myself when it goes off!”

He tossed her an information slip to fill out, grabbed the clock and rushed it into the back room. Limbo threw open the closet and dropped the clock inside. He slammed the door shut and walked back up to the counter as the clock continued to scream from within its prison.

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

The old woman was looking out the window; she thanked him and hesitantly walked out the front door. As he watched her leave, he noticed a man standing outside, underneath the awning that hung above the shop door.

The man stood with his back to the door and he glanced around nervously. The old woman looked at the man and quickly walked away.

There were always some junkies that sat there who tried to keep out of the cold, and Limbo might not have even noticed him if it hadn’t been for his unusual tattered white robe and shaven head.

He walked around the counter and approached the door. As he got closer, Limbo could see that the man was not wearing shoes, and shaking violently. He tapped on the window and the man spun around. Blood dripped from his nose and the man’s eyes wandered around in their sockets, unable to focus and make eye contact with Limbo.

Limbo looked at the large scar running down his forehead and stopping just above his left eye. He was scared…Limbo could see it in his eyes.

The man quickly turned back around and stumbled away.

* * *

Burden stood under a bridge in the park as the rain poured down around him. The cold October wind rushed over and through him, causing the orange and red leaves to encircle and caress him. He sat down on the cold cement and hugged himself, trying to stay warm, and waiting for the tranquilizers to wear off.

From the pocket of his white hospital gown, he removed the black address book that he had stolen. He hesitated when he read the names inside—it was important that he believed he was rescuing them. Burden thumbed through the pages, looking at the names of the people that he was told to visit. He had already given up the idea of ignoring his dream. It had now become so embedded in him that it seemed like it was the only thing he had ever been taught. It was the truth of this world.

The dream was always the same now; for the last four weeks he experienced it daily until he knew it by heart. But it wasn’t a pleasant dream…it was all too real. It was like a mental instruction manual that he had to follow.

First, as he was being escorted to his weekly shower, he would grab the hammer from the toolbox of the carpenter, the moment the orderly turned around to talk to the nurse, and hide it under his gown. Once he was in the shower room and the other patients had left, he was to hit the orderly over the head with the handle of the hammer and knock him unconscious. The keys would be attached to his belt loop and Burden would take them. After that he was to wait seven minutes in the closet for the shift change, and as the nurses and orderlies came and went, he would unlock the back service door and walk into town to find Stalwart’s Watch repair shop. When the man working took the clock into the back room, Burden would run into the shop and grab the black book that sat next to the phone. The old woman would yell, but the man would be unable to hear her. Before Burden would leave, he would threaten to kill the old woman if she said a word and then he would walk out. Finally, he would begin what he was destined to do.

* * *

It was only after the police came to visit him, did Limbo find out his mother, Adore, had been missing for the last two days; no one called him anymore. She had been out for her daily jog, and never came home.

They asked if there were any other relatives or friends that lived near-by whom they could call. Limbo walked around the counter and reached for his black address book, but it was gone.

At first, he found it traumatizing. Even when he explained it to them, they screamed and cried. No one ever understood. But after the forth or fifth, he was numb to it. Burden knew why he was doing this—he understood the reasons.

He was saving them.

During the search for his mother, Limbo had moved back home to take care of his younger brother and stepsister. The police still had nothing new to tell him.

He was out buying groceries at S-Mart when he noticed a man pushing a shopping cart full of white bed sheets, rope, and salt. The guy looked familiar but Limbo couldn’t remember from where.

Limbo followed furtively and watched the man unload his supplies into a brown and tan minivan and drive away.

* * *

He was cleaning the shop walls when he noticed it. It was behind the mirror in the upper corner of the room. A tiny surveillance camera, probably installed when the place was a pawnshop, and left and forgotten when the previous owner was evicted.

Limbo traced the wiring from the camera to an old digital recorder that had been left behind the wall. He pulled it out and hooked it up to his TV, and was surprised that this machine, which was probably thirty years old, still worked. It had secretly and silently recorded everything that had happened in this store.

He scanned the hard drive back. Most of the video recorded was uninteresting to Limbo. He advanced the video faster. After reaching the end, he took a closer look. Towards the end of the video, an unusual streak of white crossed the screen and he stopped. He reversed the recorder and watched again.

On the screen the old woman brought in the clock. Limbo took it in back. The junkie stumbled into the shop and limped over behind the counter. He grabbed the black address book, shuffled back around the counter and whispered something into the old woman’s ear. He left.

Limbo picked up the phone to call the police.

* * *

The cold wind wisped through the forest and Burden thought, for a moment, that he could hear the trees singing Christmas carols. Curled up against the trunk, he drew the stolen flannel blanked tight against him but could not get warm. The night was clear but very crisp and cold.

Under the added weight, the thick bows of the branches creaked and moaned above him. Burden admired the silhouetted figures above him, wrapped in white sheets, swaying back and forth in the moonlight.

It wasn’t as beautiful to watch when there were only a few, but now that there were almost two-dozen, it was like a ballet--hypnotic. The movements swelled like an ocean’s waves when the wind blew stronger.

The noise of the rustling leaves brought him back from his trance.

All night she had been crying and whimpering. She was bound at her hands and feet, and she didn’t understand that it was for her own good. She didn’t take the time to listen to the story, to the truth of this world. She only kicked at him, screamed at him.

“I am here to help you,” Burden had explained earlier in the afternoon as he drug her out of the van.

The woman looked up to the trees and went white. She fell to her knees and began sobbing uncontrollably. Burden knelt beside her and told her everything. He told her that he was going to save her, that after this they were all going home. It was then she had lunged at him, pushed him down and tried to run away. But it was no use.

After that, she just lay there crying.

The polluted gray cloud cover of the afternoon had made the forest glow in a gentle yellow tint. Slowly the wind had picked up and cleared the sky. Burden made his way to the top of the hill and watched the sun set.

Gray to blue. Blue to yellow. Yellow to red. Red to purple. And purple to black.

Now, under the light of the moon, he watched her, shivering. He rose to his feet and draped his blanket around her.

“This won’t hurt, Adore. Just relax and take a deep breath.”

* * *

Weeks went by and the police examined the video. Limbo provided a description of the man. The police said they’d do their best, but all the anti-war protestors kept them busy--they couldn’t make any promises. Limbo knew that his mother would just be filed away with the other thousands of missing persons.

He decided that he would go out and find her by himself. He knew that he somehow had to find the scarred man.

Limbo waited in the parking lot of the S-Mart everyday that week, hoping that by chance the man would come back. It wasn’t until the eighth day that the man returned.

After about twenty minutes, the man came out of the store, sipping on a bottle of chocolate milk and carrying a bag of supplies. Limbo waited for him to get into his van and then followed him.

The van drove out of town and got onto the interstate. Limbo kept his distance and pursued the van into the forest. The roads were bumpy and dry, so Limbo followed the dust trail kicked up by the minivan.

After an hour of driving into the woods, the van pulled off of the logging road and the man got out. Limbo stopped his car and watched.

* * *

He set his bag down and walked up to the top of the hill. Burden sat down on a stump, and waited, watching the sky. It would be soon now--the war’s intensity had grown and it would be time to leave. An intense feeling of pride and satisfaction grew within him as he reflected on his performance. There were many others like him working around the world; saving the best minds planet wide. He alone had rescued thirty people.

Satisfaction quickly became panic when Burden turned around and saw a man slowly walking between the trees, reaching up and touching the white sheets of the wrapped bodies.

* * *

He wasn’t scared. Instead it was more like a curiosity. Gazing up, he counted almost thirty people hanging in the trees from their feet, wrapped in white. There was no blood on the sheets or on the ground. Limbo got the feeling that a lot of care had been taken with these people. Was the man psychotic, mentally ill? This wasn’t something this guy just did for a thrill.

Underneath each of the bodies was a sort of shrine. There was one small candle under each body, surrounded by that victim’s personal belongings. Limbo stopped by the candle encircled by a pair of running shoes and pictures. He knelt down and picked up the picture of himself with his brother and stepsister.

There were no feelings running through him. He didn’t feel angry or sad. There was no crying or sobbing. He was numb. He was cold.

He had found his mother.

* * *

“Are you her son?”

The man turned around quickly and stood up. Burden was scared, terrified of what might happen. This had not been a part of his dream. He took a couple of slow steps backward. The man was solid, showing no emotions.

Burden asked again. “Are you Limbo? Are you Adore’s son?”

The man flinched when he said her name and looked down at her monument. Would this man understand that he was helping his mother; that she wasn’t dead, just freed? That his mother would soon go to her true homeland, to the birthplace of humanity? The birthplace of consciousness, emotion, and thought. Would this man be any different from the others? He had to say something.

Burden tried to form the words, but the channel between mind and mouth was severed. His thoughts ceased when Limbo pulled a small black pistol from his jacket pocket and pointed it at Burden.

* * *

He tightened his stare and his grip. The man fell to his knees upon the muddy leaves and closed his eyes.

“Please…no,” was all that he could say.

“Why?”

Limbo watched the frosty breath of the man and waited for him to say something.

“Put the gun down and let me explain.”

What could this man say that would bring his mother back? Nothing. He took a step forward and pressed the cold barrel against the man’s head.

“Please don’t! You need to hear what I have to say,” he pleaded.

Limbo thought about it.

What would it matter? If the crazy bastard tried to run away, he wouldn’t get very far. Limbo decided to give the man a chance to speak his final words.

Burden watched him lower the gun and nod to him.

“Go ahead,” Limbo said slowly.

His insides were twisted and his heart was close to collapsing. Burden opened his eyes, and climbed to his feet.

“I was guided by a dream given to me. I was chosen to save these people.”

“Chosen to murder.”

Burden turned to face Limbo. “Do you believe in the afterlife?”

Limbo looked away. “I don’t know.”

He walked over to the body of Adore and began to unravel the tight sheet around the head. As the sheet was pulled back and her face revealed Limbo winced back at the sight. His mother’s skin was sunken leather, her eyes sown closed.

Burden started to explain.

* * *

Limbo watched him carefully; the man was clearly mad. His finger moved along the edge of the cold trigger as he listened.

He told him that human beings were not of this Earth. Their true home was in another galaxy and our ancestors, beings of a much higher consciousness, brought them to this earth to live and grow.

They were the ones who had given Burden these visions, this responsibility.

“Bullshit. Then why these people?”

War was close to annihilating the earth. The ancestors knew this, and all around the world, people like Burden were chosen to save the brightest minds, the best thinkers, philosophers, artists.

Limbo shook his head and began to smile, but only slightly.

“Are you finished?”

“It’s the truth,” Burden tentatively.

Limbo raised the gun and aimed it at Burden.

“Here’s the truth.”

Limbo pulled the trigger back, but stopped when the man closed his eyes and whispered --

* * *

“Listen...”

 * * *