Rene was uneasy as he fell asleep the night before his first day back at work since…well…everything. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to sleep, but somehow he managed to slip away into unconsciousness.
At first, his dreams were a random stream of images and moments. Jeff Aquino trying to drown him. Squeezing the life out of Jeff. Khal being grabbed at the library. Misha walking up the stairs at work and smiling at him. Khal shaking his hand for the first time. Emory crying in her bed about the mystery woman who wanted to know her name.
Then he was in Australia, and none of the people in his current life even existed.
He was Cody again. And he was walking along with the faceless man, drunkenly celebrating about how they’d managed to kill that bastard McConnell together. Cody and his faceless friend were gleeful about how they’d sent a monster to the depths, especially as that monster had murdered the young man whose life Cody had saved on the boat on their fateful voyage across the great oceans.
“I took that wee lad under my wing, and I protected him.” Cody muttered, his ecstacy turning to sorrow as he remembered sweet little Colin. “When those bastards had us lifting bricks bigger than me head, I made sure they gave him only the work he was fit to do. He became like a brother to me, little Colin. Like a son even. We celebrated his 13th birthday with a bread we talked off a sweet old gal. That lad was such a proper young man.”
His faceless friend smiled, and Rene saw him now as Misha. Sweet Misha stood there with those ocean blue eyes, supporting Cody as he ranted.
“We made a great team, Colin and me.” Cody said, taking a long swig from his bottle and leaning back against the wall to stare wistfully out at the sea. “We belonged to no man, even as we was serving our time on this dreaded land.”
Misha was still listening patiently. Smiling. Content to let Cody ramble away.
“Then in the year of our Lord, seventeen-hundred-and-ninety-four, my boy turns seventeen-years-old. From dawn to dusk we’re working off our arses, and he’s not complaining one bit. Not one little bit, mind. He’s the one bright spot in the darkness of this penal fucking colony. Until you came along, of course, my dear friend. You being the only other light in this dark fucking hellhole.”
Cody took another swig, overbalanced, and nearly fell sideways. Misha caught him and helped him slide down to a sitting position against the wall. The bricks of the wall pulled at the coarse material of Cody’s flowy white shirt, but he hardly took notice.
“I could say the same for you.” Misha said.
His voice was strange. He didn’t sound like Misha. His voice was like the purr of a cat.
“That fucking cunty McConnell stumbles on us one day, and he decides he has some unfinished business with his former victims. He couldn’t kill us in the hold, so now he’s going to make our lives a living bloody hell. And every day he’s making his way by, glaring in our direction, pointing out where we’re going wrong, threatening to knock us into next Tuesday if we keep fucking up. Mind you, we’re hard fucking workers. Never a peep from us. We do as we’re told. But this fucker is relentless, or bored, or who fucking knows.”
Cody knows his friend has heard this already, but he can’t stop talking. Can’t stop venting about everything that’s happened, to get it all out, lest it consumes him.
“Colin was an orphan, just like I was. He was scared, just like I was. Do you know what his fucking crime was to bring him all the way across the oceans to this land of death and sun? He stole food. The boy stole food to feed himself, and those in charge thought, shackle up the young man! Send him on a voyage where he’ll vomit all the ways on them choppy seas, and then throw him into the scorching sun and make him build a new world for the bastards in charge. And one day, one day he might own a bit of land if he’s lucky and the snakes and spiders didn’t have their way with him.”
Cody began to sob.
“I couldn’t protect him. I couldn’t save him. McConnell smashed the life out of that boy, and I got there too late. He had his whole life ahead of him, and I failed him. I fucking failed him.”
“No. You did right by him.” That voice, so familiar.
Khal’s voice.
It was Khal sitting next to Cody now. Khal keeping him up with a steady hand. “You did everything you could. Colin’s death was not on you. It was the will of God.”
Cody shook his head, “An unjust fucking God then.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” Khal insisted. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No, it was that fucker, McConnell!” Cody growled. “The joy I had, watching his eyes bulge as we trussed him up with bricks and tossed him to the sharks. In that moment, he was every one of his victims. All the poor bastards he beat to death in that hold. And the water swallowed him up so satisfying like. Still, I wouldn’t care if he lived to a hundred in luxury if it brought back little Colin.”
Cody started crying again, wiping the tears from his face in embarrassment.
“He was lucky to have you, in those final years.” Khal said. “Truly.”
Khal gently took Cody’s face in his hands, and leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. Cody stared at him wide-eyed, somewhat shocked by the gesture.
“What was that?” Cody asked.
Khal swallowed and shrugged, clearly uneasy.
Cody brushed his fingers over the spot where Khal had kissed him, then looked down at his hand as though expecting to see something. Of course, there was nothing. Cody looked back up at Khal, into those deep green eyes, and without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed his friend deeply on the mouth. Khal reciprocated immediately, pushing back into the kiss, grabbing at Cody’s shoulders to pull him closer. They consumed one another hungrily, passionately. Khal reached up under Cody’s shirt to trace a hand over his chest.
It was dangerous. It was so dangerous to do this where anyone could see them, Cody thought.
So dangerous.
So dangerous to do this in the temple.
He was no longer Cody. He was Charun now.
It was 1686, and he was in the Hindu temple of Goddess Durga. He was supposed to be cleaning up, but instead he was kissing his best friend. Charun was not sure how the kiss started, but he knew he didn’t want it to end.
There were footsteps near the entrance, and the kiss was broken in an instant, both men stepping back to catch some air. The footsteps receded, and Charun looked about the temple before turning his gaze back to his dear friend, Khalid.
“What was that?” Charun asked, wiping his mouth with one turquoise sleeve. He was flustered, giddy. The kiss was so familiar, so normal, and yet he had never kissed someone before in his life.
Well, not this life anyway.
Certainly not a man.
“If we had been seen…” Charun pointed out, wanting to press his lips to Khalid’s once more, but knowing he shouldn’t.
“We weren’t.” Khalid explained. “It doesn’t matter. No one ever has to know.”
“We can’t be sure they won’t find out.” Charun pointed out, glancing sideways at the great statue of Goddess Durga. May she strike him down now if he had done ill to her by exploring impropriety in her temple. Perhaps he was destined to return now as an angry goose in the next life, or a worm.
“We’ll be safe. I promise. Our goddess protects us.” Khalid insisted.
“I don’t know how you came to be in my life, but I’m so happy that you’re here.” Charun said, taking Khalid’s hand in his and squeezing it. Khalid was grinning, the smile lighting up his eyes. “I could never have imagined someone of your origins, your religion, finding his way to this temple, to our gods.”
“Well, you were very persuasive. I know I’ve waited lifetimes to meet you again.” Khalid said. “You don’t know how hard it was to wait, to wonder if I’d ever find you again. But here we are. Finally.”
Charun blushed. He wasn’t sure if Khalid was speaking literally, but he felt in his soul that his friend was telling the truth. That in a lifetime past, they had been together in some form or other, and were meant to find one another again in future lives.
The temple, in all of its glory and brilliant color, faded away, replaced by the bright warm sunlight on the lush land of the Sunda Strait in 1882. Rene had become Cody, had become Charun, and was now Lestari, the young Sundanese fisherman, casting out his net as his friend watched in amazement.
“You do that so effortlessly.” Khal said, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked out at the glistening water.
“I’ve had many years of practice.” Lestari pointed out. “I’ve done this since I was learning to walk.”
“It was kind of you, to welcome me to your village. I know not everyone is happy with a newcomer, but you were so wonderful to let me into your home. To provide me food and shelter. Not many would have done that for the strange man who washed up on your shores.” Khal said.
“It felt like the right thing to do.” Lestari said. There was a question nagging at his mind. “How is it, my friend, that you speak our language so fluently? You’d only just met our people that first day on the beach, and yet you picked up our words like you were born to them.”
Khal frowned thoughtfully.
“I’ve always had a gift with languages, I suppose. I find some key words, and then it’s all context. Your language is beautiful. It’s a joy to speak it.”
Lestari grinned at his friend. He had felt such happiness since Khal’s arrival upon their land, like he was a best friend Lestari had known since he was a baby. Khal had taken to him above all others on their little stretch of paradise. And while the others had been curious, there could be no mistaking the strange connection between the two of them. Lestari had even been teased by some of his friends for his new relationship, but he shrugged it off and went to work, just like he did every day to bring fish back to his village.
“It’s nice to have you out here with me. Someone to talk to. The days are pleasant, regardless, but your presence makes them extra wonderful.” Lestari admitted.
Khal grinned as he worked on his task of preparing the fish that had already been caught for the trek back to the village.
“I think of you as like an uncle.” Lestari said.
Khal burst out laughing, which startled Lestari. After a moment, Lestari too began to laugh.
Lestari faded away to become Aidan, the Irish farmer, who was sharing a meal on the beach on a particularly nice day with Khal. It was 1921, and Aidan was 38 years old. The meal they are eating was in memory of his dear sister Ashlin, who died a year before, thrown violently from her runaway carriage.
Aidan passed his good friend Khal a piece of cheese that he had just sliced. It went so well with the berries they had picked. Such a treat, on such a beautiful day. How he wished his sister was there to enjoy it.
“I only knew her briefly, but your sister seemed like such a good soul.” Khal said. “I’m so incredibly sorry, again, for your loss.”
Aidan smiled and took another bite of cheese. He looked thoughtfully out at the ocean as he chewed, wondering what his sister was up to now. Wondering if she was watching him from heaven. What he wouldn’t have given to switch places with her. She never even had the chance to become a mother, and he’s certain she would have made a wonderful caring maternal figure. Ashlin was always reading to the local children. She’d never found the right man to make little ones of her own with, and now the world would never know what she could have offered.
When Ashlin was alive, and Khal had just moved in with them, having been a newcomer to their village that they had been more than happy to house and accommodate, Aidan had briefly wondered if she and Khal would get married and start a family. Of course, he was an outsider, and clearly different than the rest of their village. That would put a damper on relationships for the children. But Ashlin and Aidan hadn’t cared that Khal was different. They weren’t upset that he came from Northern Africa. To them, he was like a member of the family.
“I’m sorry that you were the one that had to find her like that.” Aidan said after he’d finished chewing his bite of cheese. “What a horrible sight it must have been.”
Khal looked away, and it was clear that the memory was uncomfortable for him. Aidan had had nightmares for months after Khal had brought his sister home in that terrible state. Her body had been a mangled mess, her hair matted with blood. Her eyes had been miraculously closed, but she did not look at peace, her face scrunched in fear and pain.
It had taken ages to get the horse back. As angry as he was at the poor nag, it wasn’t the horse’s fault he’d been spooked. He was a sweet horse anyway, and he was expensive. Aidan couldn’t just get rid of him. He needed him for the farm.
Aidan watched Khal staring out to sea, an unreadable expression on his face. He felt extreme gratitude toward his friend for sticking with him after everything that had happened. And for being the one to return his sister to him.
“Thank you.” Aidan said. “I think you may have saved my life after my sweet Ashlin passed. If you weren’t here, I may well have followed her.”
Khal turned to him and smiled, “I’m glad you’re still here.”
Aidan turned back to Rene now.
Rene was still standing on a beach, this one warm and tropical. He was wearing a white flowy shirt and similar pants. He turned slowly around, taking in the beach, the pristine water, the gorgeous natural beauty. When his back was finally to the water, he saw the bungalow for the first time, with its white curtain flapping in the breeze.
A woman stood there on the patio, looking at him, beckoning him toward her.
Rene began to walk up the hill of sand toward her, getting closer and closer, until suddenly he woke up.
The alarm clock was going off.
Rene opened his eyes with a gasp.
Stories From Montana 