Hide Me in Sheol by Matthew Erman (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

seemed like I had poured salt on a wound that had never healed.
“Well, I hope everything works out for you and your fiancée.” I began to go back to my seat.
“Wait.” She said quickly.
“Hmmm?” I turned around and looked at her.
“You don’t have to go, I’d like to talk some more.” She said.
“Okay.” I took the seat back again. She smiled. We sat in silence, appreciating each other. We didn’t speak much after that; she said a few things about her not being able to get pregnant. I told her how I hated my degree in business and wish I had done something important with my life. It was a mutual feeling. She dropped out of art school, after getting engaged. She wanted to support him. He was a musician, aspiring that is, and she took a day job to help him pursue that. We sat in silence until the plane landed. I took a nap, comfortably letting her watch me sleep. Half asleep, I’d justify the noises in the area by transposing them into my lucid thoughts, she would cough or move and I would dream of her doing these things. When the plane landed, I told her it was nice meeting her and all. It was then, when I checked into the hotel.

*

Allison had her sixty-eighth birthday on the third of April, much like every year, she celebrated by having her family over, now in their late twenties, they brought a cake and several presents. Her husband had been sick over the past few weeks, experiencing painful vomiting, and bloody bowel movements. He couldn’t keep much food down, and when he ate he felt a terrible pain in his gut. He had been bed ridden, most of the day, and now in his late sixties, was beginning to develop cataracts in his eyes and was often unable to distinguish faces. Allison sat at the coffee table most of the day, she drank cup after cup of coffee and read books. She’d occasionally try to drag her husband to the movies, but he was never able or willing to go. Although the pain she dealt with was one of a daily basis, she still found it hard to dismiss her emotions into bitterness. She loved her ‘children’ and loved her husband. She kept her promise to visit my grave every year, and often brought flowers and poetry to read. It seemed every year was building towards the moment she could travel to Ohio to visit my grave. She would write, and read for certain passages she thought I would have enjoyed. She did a lot of clipping, from newspapers and books, placing them in a secure bag, which would be left on my headstone. She liked to pretend that every year, when the pieces of paper, the flowers were gone that I came up to take them down to read. She didn’t like to think they were often being thrown away and recycled.
The birthday party was quiet; she, with Emmy and Lily (her two step children) and they would sit and speak about various things. The health of their father and how she was doing most of the time, these were the only things they spoke of. She was interested in their lives; she felt the need to live through them. They were youthful, and looked how she looked when she was their age. She often made awkward remarks about wishing she were younger, and had hair like theirs.
“So, how’s dad?” Emmy asked.
“He’s doing well, he seems to be getting better, he can keep down more food. He misses you a lot.”
“Can we see him?” Lily asked.
“No, no it’s fine, he’s sleeping, we don’t want to bother him.” Emmy said quickly.
“Well, if you change your mind, feel free to wake him up.” Allison took a sip of her coffee. “How’ve you girls been? You never call.”
“It’s been okay, Lily is dating someone. I’ve been a bit jealous. I’m the older one! I should get all the men.” Emmy laughed.
“Oh! How is he? I’d like to meet him if things are serious.”
“Things could be serious…” Lily said quietly with a smile, embarrassed.
“Well, bring him over next time. We’ll have a nice dinner.”
“Okay.” She said smiling.
“What’s his name?”
“Evan.” Emmy said quickly, pretending to be jealous.
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a painter, he went to art school. I’ve always been attracted to that, I grew up around it, with you and dad and it would be nice to have that in a family.”
“Well, that’s just wonderful, I’m very happy about it and for you. I want some grandchildren soon!” Allison said, Lily laughed again, her face turning a beet red.
“I don’t think we’re going to have kids until we get married.”
“Well good, just don’t wait too long!” Allison got up and washed out her coffee cup. “And what about you Emmy?”
“Well, I’m still single. I just, you know me…I’m picky.”
“It’s okay; I was very picky too, when I first met... Ma--" There is a significant pause. "—your father I mean, it was almost love at first sight…” She sighed a heavy sigh, now thinking back to before her current husband to me. “I remember the first time I met him, he was so handsome. I couldn’t stop looking at him, and he couldn’t keep his eyes off of me. I used to be a very pretty woman. I still am, but you know, things change.”
“Oh mom.” Emmy said.
“I just want you to know, there’s never a late time to fall in love. You’ll get there, and you’ll meet someone. Don’t worry, a beautiful girl like yourself, you have to be batting away all the bad ones.”
Emmy and Lily soon left after that, giving Allison a hug and a kiss. Allison went into the bedroom where David (her husband) was sleeping.
“Hey.” Allison said, gently waking him out of his sleep.
“Hey.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Worse, it feels like my stomach is trying to come out.”
“I think I’m going to take you to the hospital. This isn’t just some stomach virus; you’ve been feeling this way for two weeks now.” She said with a worry. They went to hospital and after some tests, the Oncologist said that ‘there's about a ninety-five percent change you have stomach cancer, the tests come back tomorrow, but I'm bracing you for the possible news’ they kept him at the hospital until they knew for sure. As they predicted, it was stomach cancer and as it was, very late stage stomach cancer. His chance of survival within six months was fifteen percent, and much like how these things happen. He died two months later in his sleep from sever hemorrhaging. Allison, having lost another loved one, drifted further and further into a distant shell. She never went outside, she never saw her ‘daughters’ and when it was announced that Lily was getting married, Allison was nowhere to be seen at the wedding.

*

It had been ten years since David had died. Allison was seventy-four and living in a retirement village. Emmy and Lily decided it would be best if she stayed some where safe, and able to constantly get help if she needed it. Lily’s son was named David after her father, and Allison grew very close to the young boy, who was now almost a year old. She took care of him often, when the Lily couldn’t and Allison told him many things she hadn’t spoken to another person in nearly forty years.
“You know, I loved another man once, not your grandpa.” She said talking to the baby, who was in her arms now. The child cooed softly. “It’s very odd thinking back to him now, he seems like a dream. I can barely remember what it was like to be young, for some reason it seems nothing has changed. I still feel the same; I still feel the same than I did then. I look at my hands and I see my same hands. I look at my face in the mirror and I see my face. I was young once, it’s hard to believe.” She got up and put the baby in its crib, one that Lily had gotten her for when she took care of him. The baby now was resting its eyes, almost asleep as Allison pulled out a small box that she kept behind a drawer in the small kitchen. Inside the box there were many things, mostly Polaroid pictures of her and her late husbands. Several odd gifts, including a plastic lobster I had given her in Tokyo. My cufflinks from the wedding were in the box as well. Most importantly was a picture of us, in Tokyo in our apartment, along with my first published book, and some poetry I had written to her. It all came back though to the poem she wrote when she was in her thirties, she read it one last time. Repeating to her softly the final two lines, “He would see where we go when we both die. He would see where we go when we both die. He would see where we go when we both die.” She had an odd way about these things sometimes. She could always predict how long a movie could be, or when the villain would die, or if he did at all. She could tell me when exactly a song would end, or how many tracks were on a CD. That night, after Lily had picked up David and went home, Allison went to sleep. One that she would die in, peacefully, quietly, and dreaming about grey kittens.

*

Since going to Chicago, three years had passed, and I was still at the same job. I had being back and forth between so many places, Chicago was just a footnote in the years since. I was single, as my job wouldn’t allow me to meet anyone, or anyone willing to put up with the long hours and constant trips. Many sleepless nights I’d spend in lonely hotel rooms watching television until the early morning. I’d wake up at three, rush to whatever reason I was in the city and leave. It was cyclical and awful. It was when I went to Tokyo, that was when the final nail in the coffin of my often oddly déjà vu filled life would be hit. I was on a business trip to see an investment the company had made into a movie. The shooting was starting in a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo. I was staying in a small hotel near the shoot, about fifteen minutes, I often wished it were further away so I could fully enjoy the foreign landscape. Japan, from America is often viewed as a place of brilliant wonderment, a place were introspective college kids go to find their introspective Japanese soul mate. I knew it as a cold, lonely place often like the big cities in America, they showed many beautiful things, but offered no companion except the few giant towers, that stood on the backdrop of the horizon like stilted silhouettes.
In many ways, I had died the same. A truck had plowed into my small car at night, as I came home from visiting the production. The car rolled over in the same fashion, I was impaled the same way, and I died shortly after the initial crash. I heard the same man, in my right ear; “Daijoubu?! Daijoubu?!" I felt the same rushing sensation, the same feeling of going under hypnosis, or falling under a strong sleep. When I opened my eyes, I was in the same void, standing in front of nothing, hearing the voice of an unknown entity.
“Hello, again.” The voice