A Life I Lived

“In fact, how are you up right now?” The man said as he took a step closer to me.

“I gave you restoril, it should have kept you under for a day,” he said as he began to take out his small flashlight. And even though my eyes were flooded with light, and I could not see his dark face, all I could do was stare blankly at the man before me. What could I say? I was too shocked at seeing another human in this world for words to form.

“Who-?” I said before I was cut off.

“So, I am going to assume you know the locals. Just looking at the burn around your neck is a pretty good indication that it didn’t go well,” He said after taking the light away from my eye and mumbling into his hands. His eyes didn’t leave me, his mouth never wavered, his voice held. And I couldn’t stop staring at him for those few seconds. But after he was done talking to himself, he looked at me expectantly, waiting for an answer to his earlier question. I couldn’t answer him. No matter how much I wanted to break free from my stupor and scream in joy, I simply couldn’t. After everything that I’ve been through those last few days, I thought I was the last human alive.

And yet there stood a man in front of me looking at me confusingly as I had done nothing but stare at him for an entire minute.

“Uh, s-sir?” He said with a slight stutter as he began to look a little uneasy.

“Who are you?” I finally managed to whisper out of my mouth, still holding the same amount of surprise that I had before.

“Uhm… I’m Derham, I’ve been taking care of you recently,” Even though he answered my question, I just found myself wondering more. But even though I was thoroughly surprised at his mere existence, and my mind brewing with millions of questions,it only made sense to ask the most basic questions first.

“Where are we?” I asked him suddenly.

“Well, sir, we are at the safest place we can possibly be out in this forest, especially with those unsavory animals out there,” He said with a slight shudder as if he had experience with them. But as I was about to ask more questions, he seemed to have a few for me.

“Now, sir, if you would be kind enough to tell me your name,” He said as he pulled out a piece of charcoal from his pocket and pressed it against a page in his notebook, waiting for my response. But as I was about to answer his arbitrary question, I remembered that I had been shackled to the bed, and that didn’t exactly sit well with me.

“As soon as you tell me why I’m in cuffs,” I said with a slight bitterness in my voice. I didn’t care if he was mending to my wounds or for how long he was taking care of me, I didn’t want to be stuck in one spot and become some sort of guinea pig for him to experiment on.

But just as he was about to open his mouth and answer me, the ‘door’ swung open and a white man with a black Texan hat, dirty brown vest with a blue dress shirt, and dark blue pants strode his way into the room. His graying dirty blonde hair was short, unkempt and extremely curled, strands and pieces of it were wrapped around each other. His face was wrinkled and was mostly covered by a small beard he had, and his eyes were the bluest pair of eyes that I had ever seen.

But even though I was somewhat surprised at seeing another human, I was more surprised that he seemed to notice me instantly.

“Huh, look who’s up an’ about,” His southern accent making itself apparent as he spoke to me. But he soon turned his attention to the other man in the room and waved him over. Durham looked hesitant at first but slowly walked his skinny legs over to the southern man.

They didn’t utter a single other word until they were outside of the room and out of my range of hearing. And while they talked outside, I could do nothing more than observe my surroundings more thoroughly. I could tell it was day at that moment because of the small rays of light that skewered through the walls, and that they had a small supply of candles since I saw a small bit of dried up wax on a ‘table’ at my right. The table was just another log, like the rest of this shack.

But other than that, there really wasn’t much else to talk about. The room was completely barren of anything other than that table and the bed I rested on. But after a minute of sitting and letting my mind wander, the door sprung open with Durham coming in and the southerner walking in behind him. And after they surrounded me on both sides of the bed, there were a couple seconds of tense silence before I opened my mouth.

“Why am I-?”

“Yer in cuffs right now ‘cause we can’t trust ya,” The southern man said with a face of indifference.

“You can’t trust me?”

“Son, we jus’ found ya not a day ago. We don’ even know if yer dangerous or not. And out in dis ‘er forest, is better safe than sorry,” He said as he face slowly morphed into that of a stern gaze as he continued to talk to me.

“Now, son, ya min’ tellin’ us who ya are?” I’m not sure if it was just a gut feeling or me being paranoid, but I felt like I couldn’t trust him. He looked like the type of guy that would take advantage of you when he got the chance. But I was surrounded and cuffed to a bed so I really didn’t have any other choice in the matter.

“... James… my name is James,” I said softly as the southerner stared me down.

“That wasn’ hard now was it, James?” He said, rolling my name in his tongue as he looked at me. His tone was spiteful, and his face held a sneer smile. And even though I wanted to punch him in that moment, I simply stared at him. If only I knew then what would have happened months afterwards.

“Howard, I think we should move on,” Durham said on the sidelines as ‘Howard’ kept staring at me with his blue eyes.

“Right, now I'mma ask ya a couple questions, James, so try ta be truthful-”

“Where are we?” I said as I interrupted him. He looked a little peeved at being cut off, but answered my question anyway. Durham looked at me a little bit confused and proceeded to tell me where we were, again.

“James, I already told you, we’re in the forest.”

“I know, but I mean… where are we,” I exclaimed with my bound hands. Howard looked at me funny, but Durham was pretty quick to the draw.

“... Now that’s a little tougher to explain,” Durham said as he folded his arms. He looked down at the ground and didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. And then, suddenly, he looked up and told me everything that he possibly could.

“You see, James, we don’t exactly know where we are. We know that we’re not on Earth, and that we aren’t exactly in the most stable of environments, but we don’t know what this planet is called or even what this country is called, if it is a country. As far as we know, this place is only populated by ponies. We don’t even know if there are any other species of talking animals,” I had to sit on that for a while. We’re not on Earth anymore. I knew we had to be somewhere foreign, But on a different planet? I thought about it before, but I still found it unbelievable.

“How? How are we on a different planet? How does that make any sense?” I said as I looked at Durham with pleading eyes. And so he opened his mouth and told me the truth.

“It’s the only thing that comes close to making sense.”

“That’s not tha point! Tha point is, is that we ‘ave another one ‘ere, an’ that he ‘asn’t answered mah questions,” Howard said, disrupting our conversation and directing my attention towards him.

“Now, James, ya min’ tellin’ us where’d ya get that lantern?”

“What?” I was more confused really. Out of all the things he could have asked me, he asks me about a simple lantern that I had brought along with me.

“Answer me, boy,” The pure anger in his voice was beginning to show in his face and the fear in his eyes couldn’t have been more prudent. He didn’t really seem to care for my confusion in the slightest, and I felt like he was about to rip my head off if I didn’t answer him, so I told him the honest truth.

“I found it last night. I was running and the handle caught my leg. I thought it was in good condition so I took it with me,” He didn’t seem happy in the slightest with the answer; in fact, he seemed to get even more angry. He turned away from me for a couple of seconds, but quickly turned back around to asking me questions

“Why’d ya ‘ave so many bullets in dat bag of yers?” He said with a suspicious tone, and a scolding look.

“I have so many because I-… I was moving before I came to this world,” It was a half-truth; I was moving when I was thrown into this world.

“Ya jus’ ‘ave so many bullets on han’?”

“It was grandpa's, he gave me the guns and the bullets when he died,” It took a little bit longer to make that impromptu lie and he noticed as he eyed me suspiciously. But he let it go and asked me another question.

“What’d ya do 'fore comin’ 'ere?”

“He means your job,” Durham whispered to me.

“I was an NYPD detective, part of the homicide division, and was second best of my class in the academy,” I said with a small bit of pride swelling in my chest at stating the fact. Howard made a side glance at Durham before looking back down at me and asking me another question.

“Did ya eva’ kill?” He looked at me with the same stern look that he had plastered on his face throughout the interrogation. I looked at Howard's eyes for a little bit and was about to respond when I realized what he asked me. But instead of being offended or surprised I didn’t say anything. I looked away from Howard and stared into the brown walls of the hut. Howard waited for about a minute before he realized that I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

“Ah’ll take that as a yes,” Afterwards, we didn’t say anything for a while. I don’t know if he wanted me to say something, or if he was thinking about more questions. But after listening to the nothing, he asked me another question.

“What happen’ to yer wife, chil’?” He said as I felt him flick something onto me. I slowly looked down to see the photo of Kathleen and Timmy, both smiling as I was taking a picture of them. It was photo that I had put in my wallet as some sort of reminder of my duty to my family. I’m surprised I forgot about it, maybe I just wanted to forget them altogether. But even though the photo was taunting me of a happier time, a simpler time, I simply ignored it and continued to stare at the wall in front of me.

“...Ah think we’re done ‘ere,” Howard said as I felt him slap the wallet down on the bed, and heard him shuffle his way towards the door. But not before Durham gave him his two cents.

“Can we at least take the cuffs off? I don’t think he’s that dangerous-”

“Ah’ll take ‘em off when ah think he’s not a danger,” Howard said in a more spiteful tone as he walked out of the room giving me one final glance. A few moments after the unpleasant experience, I felt Durham glance down at me with his pastel brown eyes.

“Don’t mind him, James, he’s not always like this. He’ll warm up to you eventually, you’ll see,” I didn’t respond to him, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone at that moment.

“So, James, if you don't mind me asking, how does your foot feel?”

“...Fine,” I could hardly hear myself in the small voice that had slithered out of my mouth.

“Alright, I’ll come back here in a couple of minutes and rinse it. Shout if you need anything,” He walked towards the door, opened it, and promptly closed it behind him. As I layed in bed, I thought back on the things that I did and all the things that could have been. From the time I started walking to where I am now. From all the wrongs to all the rights. All the things I should have done and all the things I shouldn’t have even thought of doing. I couldn’t help but think of how my life could have led me to where I was.

From that pothead of a friend I had, to the times where I held a baby in my arms. I couldn’t help but think of how all my decisions in life lead up to that moment where I was handcuffed to a bed in a world dominated by ponies.

And through my wonderings, the photo of my wife and child fell into my left hand. I broke my stare from the wall and looked down at the photo. I stared and stared at it just hoping that I was going to wake up next to my beautiful wife and my child. That this was all just some terrible dream and that I would find them waiting for me on the other side. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. That it would never happen.

And so, I slowly crumpled the photo in my hand.