Islands

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Anger. Agony- pain pounding in my head, behind my eyes, surging through my veins like fire. Rage. White-hot poker in my belly- a pain that is similar to the other, accompanying the dull ache that fills every last inch of my body. Nothing moves. Tried to wiggle my fingers, and there is nothing but that low slung hum through my being. Nothing but that painful fire. Is this death? Am I dead, and about to head off to Dante's inferno of literary import?

Eyes open, seeing nothing but red tinted haze. Blood sticking in my eyelashes, catching the light. My first thought slams through my brain with the impact of a Mack truck. Snapshot memory. The guy tried to kill me. Hands like Thor's hammer, crashing down, breaking my face. Just another gallows god, judging me and wrapping the rope around my neck before stringing me up. I've been here before.

My first thought completes, circular like a snake that spans the whole world, tail in mouth: I'M GOING TO KILL HIM.

On the heels of that is another: IF I'M NOT DEAD.

Suicidal, I am not. It happens that way, it seems. Just a momentary preoccupation to distract me from my initial irritation. Anything that distracts from an irritation is, in itself, another irritation. Nearly coherent. May not be concussed after all. Instead I have more bumps to add to the collection.

I've become a cliché somehow. I think. The memory eludes me. I wonder what the other guy looks like. What other guy? Short-term memory loss. We've been here before. Look up wrestler in the dictionary, and you're sure to find it among the many job hazards, along with broken bones. I'm not a wrestler anymore.

Wake the fuck up, Jackson. You're not invincible…

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Somewhere in London, UK
Date unknown.

Moonlight. The first thing he saw was pale silver light, washing down diluted from the dirty skylights. The second thing he saw was the blood. Dried red, pooling on the floor under his head, mixing with the saliva that spilled over his fattened lip.

Panic slammed into him. Animalistic and instinctual- fight or flight brought on by that sticky crimson puddle.

He grunted, and a cough shook his massive frame, a racking, horribly painful cough that boiled up from the blackest pits of his lungs, and left his throat bleeding like raw hamburger. He gagged for breath, hocking and spitting up a wad of thick bloody mucus. It landed in the middle of the blood, twitching as though animated with its own gruesome life.

"Feckin' disgustin'." The voice that spoke with a muted Scottish brogue beside him was familiar, and served only to drive the tension one notch tighter.

Jackson looked up from half-sprawl on the dusty floor, eyes rolling in their hollow sockets as he sought to gaze into the face of his visitor.

"Yeh look like shyte," McLeod muttered, folding his arms across his chest.

"You should see the other guy," Jackson rasped, the witticism immediately dissolving into another spate of coughing.

"Mebbe yeh should see a doctor-"

"Shut your hole," Jackson croaked, "I'm fine."

McLeod stared at him with dead, lifeless eyes, smirking.

"I thought I left you behind, in Minnesota… Chicago… something." He waved a hand, dismissing his own parade of words. Places. He didn't even remember where he was right now. Didn't even know what place this dusty hardwood floor belonged to.

"Aye," McLeod chuckled softly, slipping a perfectly rolled joint between his lips and sparking it up with a lighter. "Yeh did."

"The dead," Jackson muttered, pushing up to his hands and knees, letting his head hang so low that his hair brushed the bloody puddle, "are supposed to stay dead, Bruce. Didn't they tell you that?"

McLeod pulled the sickly sweet, skunky smelling smoke into his lungs, and held it for a moment, measuring Jackson with that dispassionate stare. "Mebbe they did. Prob'ly wasn't listening." He spoke with the strained sound of a habitual pot smoker, only a thin wisp of smoke escaping with his words.

Jackson lifted his hand, pressing it against his cheek. Now he felt the pain. Agony like fire in his eye as his fingers probed the distorted skin. "Fuck me. It's bad, isn't it?"

"Lotta blood, Jaxie. Yeh coulda died. One day, it'll stop flowing, and yeh'll be-"

"I saw you die," Jackson muttered, "bullet to your brain, you were dead before the car went into the quarry. I saw the fuckin' video. It wasn't fake. It wasn't staged. Aleks sent me your finger."

McLeod said nothing, simply nodding his head slowly as he took another lungful off the spliff.

"Bullshit." Jackson growled, lips skinned back from his teeth in a grimace that displayed the dried blood between them, staining his gums black. "People don't come back from that. Who the fuck put you up to this?" His voice cracked, dropping into that harsh rasp that he was known for. Too many late nights. Too many cigarettes and too much booze.

"It's not the death that matters." McLeod said softly, reaching down and ruffling Jackson's hair as though he was a beloved child.

"No? Then what the fuck is it? I'm coming unglued? Hallucinating? Is that it?"

McLeod cocked his head, puzzling over the answer. "Prob'ly are," he replied affably, adding a bemused smile as he pinched off the burning end of his roach. "Does it scare yeh ta think mebbe yeh are?"

Jackson was silent, head bowed as he stared at the moonlight on the blood. Silver and rubies. The blood was real enough. He could taste it at the back of his throat. He could smell something like ozone, weirdly metallic. "Who am I?" He said finally, as though grasping for some sort of universal truth in the chaos.

"How the hell should I know?" McLeod snorted, spitting a mouthful of pasty saliva off into the shadows. "I just work here, yeh should know that by now…..… wake up-"

Jackson blinked, confused as hell. "What?"

The moonlight sparkled and darkled, brightening to the glare of a thousand angry suns-

The ozone-ammonia stench like cat piss filled his nostrils, making him alternately gag and gasp at the same time. As a result he made a very horrible sound as his eyes flew open. White cinderblock walls. Dingy brown institutional linoleum floors. Fingers held open his eyelid, checking his response. They were pure black, not a speck of iris showing beyond the dilated pupils.

The water hit him in the face like a hard slap, cold as ice. "He's responsive!"

The voice was deafening, making his head vibrate like a gong. "Get the engine running, Ian! We need to get this sod off to the hospital!"

Jackson's face was ashen, panic gleaming there in his wide eyes as he stared up at the medic. "Listen… please… I just… want to go home. I don't want to go to the hospital. I want to…" his words dropped off to a pained whisper, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he closed them to avoid the light. "Go," he muttered, "away… go…" He drifted into silence, the words kill that bastard never leaving his lips.

"You'll be fine, mate. They'll fix you up, good as new."

Calm assurances meant nothing to his deaf ears. He closed his eyes, and gave himself over to the panic and the pain...

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No man is an island. Fuckin' hippie bullshit. If you die I'll feel the ripples. I'll shed a fuckin' tear because that's what I'm programmed to do- as a human being.

Donne didn't know shit when he penned that so-called little kernel of wisdom. No man is an island. Mankind is interconnected. We're social creatures. Just head down the Vegas strip, and you can discover the truth of that one yourself.

I'm not social.

I don't give a shit if you die. Don't much care if you live either.

Does that make me a cold bastard?

Probably.

Like I give a shit. Took me a while to make it here, to the middle of "No-Caresville". Took me even longer to appreciate it. Now, what the hell, I'm thankful for every little moment that ticks by, and dehumanizes me. I'm not really alive. I mean, sure, there's blood pumping and air moving... but that's the automatic shit.

Every instance that stripped me was a blessing. There's no pride.

They were damn good lessons. Taught me a lot about myself and the people around me. Made me realize there are no Gods here. No.

We invent faith as an excuse for weakness.

Man is the lowest life form in the universe. Stands to reason then, if I'm less than human, I am more than human. Means I've just promoted myself to a status better than your pithy little gods.

Only human. Just a man.

I've heard that shit before.

I'm not just a man.

I'm more than that. I'm your God. I'm your Devil.

Kickass.