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Shane Halpert doesn't have much longer to live. Each time he moves, pain sears through his limbs. Each time he talks, his throat burns as though he’s swallowed a cauldron of acid. Each time he takes in a lungful of air, his chest feels like it will explode. His only hope is to escape into an imaginary world he has created. A world that he calls That Special Place.
Shane Halpert doesn't have much longer to live. Each time he moves, pain sears through his limbs. Each time he talks, his throat burns as though he’s swallowed a cauldron of acid. Each time he takes in a lungful of air, his chest feels like it will explode. His only hope is to escape into an imaginary world he has created. A world that he calls That Special Place.
Or read it here . . .
That Special Place
XXX
He’d been so deep this time, so entombed in the grottos of his mind, that he almost didn’t hear the voices of his wife and daughter.
“Tina? Carrie?” he said in a raspy whisper that burned and slashed at his throat. It felt like he had swallowed a handful of needles. The weariness was fading and he was left to dance with every unpleasant sensation. Talking hurt, but trying to move hurt much more. Despite this fact, Shane Halpert lifted his head to find three people staring at him.
His daughter was the first he recognized.
“Daddy!!!”
She jumped up on his bed and plunged her head into the space between his neck and shoulder. Tears leaked from her eyes, soaking the hospital pillow. He fought with the pain and hugged her back. It was worth it.
Carrie was right behind her. She was crying, too.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Better,” Shane lied. The word did not come easily; it was broken, pushed out with effort: Bet-ter.
“Good to hear,” said the third person. It was Doctor Goldman. “I’ll excuse myself, but first I’d like to discuss a few things.” His eyes moved from Carrie to little Tina then back to Carrie again. Carrie got the message immediately. Did she want her daughter present?
Tina climbed off the bed and clung to her mother’s leg like it was a life preserver.
Carrie bent down. “Tina dear . . . remember the snack machine in the waiting room? The one you wanted the Three Musketeers out of?”
Tina nodded solemnly. A lock of her hair fell in front of her eyes and she brushed it away.
“Do you still want it?”
Tina nodded again. The lock fell again. This time she left it there. Where a smile should have been on the face of a child her age was only a thin horizontal line. It pained Shane to see his daughter like this.
“Go on, cupcake,” Shane said. “Treat yourself to a snack.”
“Will you come with me, Mommy?”
Carrie bit her lower lip. “How about Doctor Goldman has one of his helpers go with you instead? You can tell them how you like their outfits.”
Tina shook her head. She didn’t want to leave her father. Not yet. But her mother was persistent. After some careful persuasion, Tina gave in.
“Doctor?” Carrie said.
“Of course.” Doctor Goldman thumbed the intercom switch. “Katie, could you come down here. Room 211. Yes. That’s right. No. Only a moment. Thank you.”
A minute later, a tall, skinny blonde girl appeared at the door. Her hair was pulled back in a pony-tail and secured by a light blue fastener that matched the color of her eyes.
“Katie, this is Tina,” Doctor Goldman introduced. “Tina was promised she could get a Three Musketeers bar out of the vending machine. Would you take her to the waiting room and make sure she doesn’t get lost?”
The skinny blonde smiled. “Of course.” She put her hands on her knees, bending down. “You ready to go get that Three Musketeers bar?”
Tina didn’t say anything.
“Come on,” the blonde persuaded, “I don’t bite. And I know you’re a big girl, so you don’t even have to hold my hand. How’s that sound?”
Tina looked to her mother. Carrie nodded. So did Shane, although much more slowly. Finally, Tina took the dollar her mother was offering and allowed herself to be led out of the room.
“Doctor . . .” Shane said, raising a trembling hand.
“Shhh . . .” Carrie soothed. “Don’t talk. I know it hurts. I can see it in your eyes, even if you don’t say it.” She sat on the side of his bed and took his hand. In spite of the pain that exploded, he welcomed the touch.
“I love you.” he said.
A tear leaked from Carrie’s eye. “Oh, Shane . . .”
Doctor Goldman waited as long as he could.
“Mr. and Mrs. Halpert, I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a matter to discuss about Shane’s condition. It appears that . . . it appears that the cancer’s spreading.” He paused long enough to let the information sink in. Shane was not surprised. Carrie, however, was overwhelmed with sorrow.
“No!” she cried in a half-choke, half-sob. She threw her arms around her husband. “No! No! No! That can’t be! That can't . . .” She pulled her head up and fixed her eyes on Doctor Goldman. More firmly: “No, that can’t be. There’s a mistake. Shane can’t—”
“Carrie . . .” Shane began.
“No! They’re wrong! Test him again!”
“I assure you that there’s no mistake,” Doctor Goldman said. “Unfortunately there’s nothing further we can do for Mr. Halpert. He’s responded negatively to the chemotherapy in the past, and recent treatments have proved unproductive as well.”
“No!”
“Carrie, it’s not his fault. He’s done everything possible. He’s made my stay very comfortable.”
Carrie sniffled. Then in a soft whisper: “No, I won't believe it.”
“Carrie . . .”
“Mrs. Halpert, I can assure you that our patients’ well-being is our top priority here at St. Joseph’s. It pains me to tell you that there’s nothing further we can do. It also pains me to admit that we still haven’t discovered the cause to your husband’s immense pain. Typically, when a person is diagnosed with cancer, they don’t experience such discomfort when . . .” He went on but his words were lost. That didn’t matter. His tone was what mattered. There was nothing more the hospital could do. Shane was going to die.
“There is, on the other hand,” Doctor Goldman continued, “a small shred of a . . . I don’t want to say ‘hope,’ because the cancer is incurable . . . ‘possibility’ is a better word. There is a small possibility that the cancer won’t spread as quickly as we had originally anticipated. And this is only because it seems that every now and again your husband—yes, Mr. Halpert, you—seems to slip into what I can only diagnosis as a mini-coma, something I’ve never seen before. This is confirmed by the E.K.G. readouts, and has been occurring more frequently since the last coma, which was a true, deep, long coma. The one we were afraid he wouldn’t come out of. It seems that, while in these mini-coma states, the effect the cancer has on his body . . . how can I put this? Freezes. There’s no way to chart this, of course, but during these ‘states’ the color returns to Mr. Halpert’s face, his toes twitch, and his eyes move, even though he appears to be deeply asleep.
“What I’m trying to say—and I'm not trying to plant a false hope for Mr. Halpert’s recovery—is that if anything, the degeneration of his health only slows down while in these states. The second he comes out of them he is as you and I see him now: weak, in pain, and skin pale and clammy. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
Carrie didn’t answer.
Shane tried on a false smile that took a great effort to wear. “I do, Doctor,” he said. “It means that while I'm in what you call this ‘mini-coma’ I’m better, or at least look better, but when I come out of it I’m one step closer to—”
Just then an explosion of pain radiated up Shane’s arm.
Carrie had a look of horror stamped on her face. Her eyes were wide, tearing, and she pressed her palm against her mouth as she pulled the other away from Shane’s hand.
“Shane, oh dear God, I’m so sorry. I forgot. Did I hurt you? It was only a tap.”
Shane tried to hide the grimace and failed.
“I did. I did hurt you, didn’t I? I’m so sorry. I’m a horrible person. I just couldn’t bear to hear you say that. Couldn’t . . .”
“No,” he said, swallowing the pain and pushing it deep down, trying to ignore the fangs gnawing on his nerve-endings. “No, you’re not a horrible person. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You and Tina both.”
Just then the skinny blonde returned with Tina, who held a half-eaten Three Musketeers bar in one hand. There was a chocolate ring around her mouth. She took one look at her mother and asked, “Mommy, why are you crying?”
OOO
Shane Halpert stared at the motionless body of his dog Brandy. It was early, and he was the only one awake. At six he didn’t fully understand death. At first he thought his lifetime playfriend might just be sleeping.
“Brandy,” he called. “Brandy, wake up!” He stuck out his hand and gave Brandy a gentle nudge on the shoulder. The moment he touched her, he immediately pulled away. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong. His friend was cold.
“Brandy?”
He reached out again, slowly, and shook her. Surely she would wake up now. But Brandy didn’t. She was as still as a statue.
Shane didn’t know the term rigor mortis and would not really understand it until he was older, despite what his father would later tell him.
“Brandy?”
Nothing. His lifetime playfriend just lay there.
“Brandy?”
Soon the tears began to pool. Understanding followed: Brandy was dead. Sometime during the night, the light of her candle had burned out. What now lay on the carpet was no longer his lifetime playfriend but an empty shell, the vessel in which she had once cruised the earth.
“Shane honey?”
Shane twisted around at the sound of his name. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. At the top of the stairs stood his mother. She only needed to see her son’s face to understand the situation.
“Oh Shane. . . . Oh you poor thing . . .”
#
Later that day, after returning from the vet, Mr. Halpert and his wife explained the intricacies of death to their son. They told him about the soul, the Kingdom of Heaven, and angels. Most importantly, they told him about the huge backyards where Brandy could run and frolic with other dogs.
“Will I get to go to Heaven and see Brandy?” Shane asked.
“Of course you will,” Mrs. Halpert replied, but then swiftly added, “but not for a very long time.”
“You’re a good boy, Shane,” his father said. “Make sure it stays that way. Brandy will be watching over you. She’s your guardian angel now.”
“Is that like a regular angel?”
“No, these are special. They’re the protectors. They go with you wherever you go and make sure you don’t get hurt. Brandy’s yours now. She’ll be with you all the time, except invisible. And one day, when you grow up—much older than Grandpa—and you go to Heaven, you will become someone’s guardian angel, too.”
But Shane didn’t want to grow up. He understood what happened when you got old. You died, just like Brandy. Your body became stiff and frozen and just lay there, unable to feel the caress of a loved one.
Sure, he was being told about a magical kingdom, but then again he had been told lots of things. And those things weren’t true. Like how there was a magical fat man that slipped down the chimney and left presents under the tree.
One Christmas Eve, about two hours after he’d gone to bed, Shane had felt the urge to pee and made his way down the darkened hallway. And who did he see standing in the living room? Not the jolly fat man he’d been promised but someone tall and slender with his back to him. Clenched in this man’s hand was the glass of milk Shane had so lovingly set out, in the other a half-bitten cookie. The man raised the glass to his lips and slopped down the liquid. He made a smacking sound when he pulled the glass away. And when he bent over to set it on the table, he trumpeted a musical fart. Shane giggled and clapped both hands to his face. But what he saw next made his heart sink. The man turned around and Shane saw that he wasn’t magical at all . . . he was just his father.
After that Shane understood that lies were something parents told their children to keep them happy. He also understood that he never wanted to get old. When you got old, you died. And when you died, that was it. There was no magic land. There was no frolicking. Your body only lay there until someone picked it up and took it away, never to be seen again, just as his father had taken Brandy’s.
That was why Shane created That Special Place.
It wasn’t something thought out or designed. Shane didn’t reject idea after idea until, like Goldilocks’s porridge, it was just right. It just sort-of happened, the way many great things just sort-of happened. It was created with the power of a child’s imagination. A child who feared death more than anything.
#
Shane’s first experience with That Special Place was six days later. He was sitting on his bed holding a photograph of Brandy. In the photo, Brandy was lying on a patch of grass next to the porch. Her mouth was open, her long tongue lolling out one side. It looked like she was smiling at him through the picture, as if to say, “I’m still here, Shane. I’ll always be with you.”
Shane began to cry, and a tear fell on the glistening surface of the photograph. The drop of liquid pooled over Brandy’s face, distorting her image. Shane tilted the photo to the left and watched as the tear glided to that side. Fascinated, he tilted it the other way and watched as it rolled to the right. Back and forth it went. Up and down. Spreading love all over his lifetime playfriend. He stared at the teardrop so hard that his eyes began to hurt. It was so unbelievably perfect. Like a little mirror. He could see his own image reflected in it. And then, all at once, it was gone.
Everything was. There was no photograph, no floor, no walls, no ceiling, no color. Nothing. Only himself.
He began to panic. He was somewhere—that was for sure—but where?
“I wanna go home!” he screamed and, as he did, he unconsciously fixed the image of his room in his mind. All at once, as if he had never left, there he was again. In his room. Whatever had happened had ended.
His heart was pounding and his skin was damp with sweat, but he was back.
He felt something in his hands. He was still holding the photo. The second he saw Brandy’s face he felt like crying again. A lump appeared in his throat. He was concentrating so much on this unpleasant sensation that for a moment he didn’t realize something was wrong.
Hadn't there been a teardrop on the photo?
Wait, he was wrong. There it was. Although . . . he was almost sure that before he had noticed it, it was missing. It was as if while the teardrop was out of his mind, it didn’t exist.
Could that be possible?
He put the photo down and made his way to the door. His head hurt. He needed a drink of water. He needed to wash away the lump in his throat. He stopped. All at once he felt a rush of unease. What if he opened the door and there was nothing there? What if that big white empty space came back?
He turned the knob slowly, not really wanting to find out. There was a brief moment when he saw that nothingness. But it was only his eyes playing tricks.
Except it wasn’t! There was nothing beyond the door! Shane looked down, expecting to get nauseous from the impossible height, but didn’t. There was no depth. It was simply empty.
Without thinking, he slammed the door. The sound echoed in his room.
It was too much. The room began to spin and he fell on his bed. With an effort, he tried to stop it from spinning, and it did.
Am I dreaming this? he wondered.
It was a wishful thought but he knew he hadn’t fallen asleep. He looked over to his dresser. He needed an anchor. Something concrete to focus on. As he did this, he couldn’t help but think of the lava lamp he had always wanted. All at once, with an audible crack, it popped into existence. Shane jerked backward, slamming his head against the wall.
Oddly, there was no pain.
When he looked back at the dresser, the lava lamp was gone. He didn’t notice until he tried to find it. Which was exactly when it popped back into place.
Shane’s mouth dropped, an impossible understanding beginning to dawn.
To test his theory, he imagined the most absurd thing he could think of. He thought of a Volkswagen bus with a big groovy yellow flower painted on the front. With another crack, one appeared, fitting snugly in his room like a block in a Tetris game. It took up so much space he didn’t even need to get off his bed to touch it. It was hard and cold and solid. The imperfections on its surface testifying that it was real.
This can’t be, he told himself, but knew that it somehow was.
After drawing up enough courage, he made his way to the door again and opened it. Pure whiteness. He closed his eyes and concentrated, imagining his upstairs hallway. All at once there was another loud crack. His eyelids sprung up like window shades. There it was: the brown carpet, the yellow striped wallpaper, the rotary telephone sitting on the walnut table. And, could it be . . . somewhere deep in the unseen house, the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
Shane stepped back into his room and shut the door. The VW bus was gone—lost and forgotten in his amazement—but the lava lamp was still there. He walked over to it, grabbed it, and was surprised to find that it didn’t burn his hands. He knew they were hot, had even personally discovered this fact when he had grabbed Bobby Dulac’s a few months back (he still had the scar on his palm to prove it), but when he grabbed this one, nothing happened. It made him think of his head. He’d knocked it against the wall and hadn’t even felt it.
That’s how he came to the conclusion that pain didn’t exist in this magical world. To be sure, he bit his finger. Just enough to see if it would hurt. But without the pain to warn him he bit too deep and it started to bleed. With a spark of inspiration, he imagined that his finger was healed, but it didn’t work. Therefore he did the next best thing: he imagined a Band-Aid. And later, when he left this magical world, he noticed that the Band-Aid and the cut under it had come with him.
#
In the days, weeks, and months that followed, Shane perfected what he could and could not do in That Special Place.
One of the things he tried doing was bringing Brandy back. He got as far as creating a life-like stuffed animal, but that was the best he could do. It made him think of his finger. Along with repairing an organic substance and producing money or jewels (something which he had also tried), creating a living entity was impossible.
He also learned that what passed for a few hours in That Special Place turned out to be only a minute in the world he left behind.
#
As he got older, That Special Place changed its landscape. Often it was his room, other times it was a wide-open field with blue skies, and sometimes it was a house made of candy that he could snack on for hours. Later, the cotton candy lofts turned into an office and an endless library, where he could get his work done. He completed many A+ papers there, not having to worry about how long they were taking him. Yet, as time moved on, he frequented That Special Place less and less. Instead of exploring the capabilities of his mind—which were old news to him by then—he explored Katie Freeman’s breasts. Lust and love replaced fantasy. And by the time he lost his virginity, he’d forgotten how to access That Special Place all together.
That is . . . until recently.
#
While lying in the hospital stricken with cancer, he realized that if he had a chance to relive his life he would do everything the same except for one thing: he would hold onto That Special Place. Now that he was confined to a bed he yearned to have it back, to have a place in which he could walk around before returning to his broken body. And if he squeezed his eyes and concentrated hard enough he could just barely make it out, as though he were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope.
He whispered his apologies for days on end, confessing his arrogance, begging for it to return. Finally, That Special Place heard him. Like magic, he was back. He could once more bend reality. Whatever he imagined burst into creation. There was that long-time-forgotten gumdrop house. There was the VW bus and the lava lamp. And there, right beside him, was the stuffed animal that looked like Brandy. He picked it up and hugged it with arms that no longer caused a symphony of pain.
He had remembered how to journey to That Special Place, after all. The only thing was . . . he’d forgotten how to leave.
Months passed, followed by years, almost a full decade, all the while Shane trying to remember how to return. He tried everything that came to mind. He even tried clicking his heals together three times. No matter what he did, his efforts were in vain—he was trapped in a land where he had everything he could ever imagine except his escape.
It was during this time in which the “coma” Doctor Goldman had previously mentioned occurred. While Shane’s mind was trapped in That Special Place, his body lay unresponsive on the hospital bed. It remained that way for a full six months until, by sheer luck, he figured out how to return.
XXX
“Mommy, why are you crying?”
Carrie tried to lie. “I—I’m not.”
Shane knew Tina was a very observant child, even at five. “It’s okay, cupcake,” he said, his throat burning with every syllable, “Mommy’s just—” He tried picking his head up but paused when the invisible swords plunged deeper into his neck. “Mommy’s just happy she saw me, that’s all.”
Carrie placed her hand gently on Shane’s chest. “No,” she said. Then in a whisper: “I know it hurts. Don’t move.”
“Mommy?”
“I’m fine, honey.”
Doctor Goldman nodded at the blonde nurse, and she turned to leave. He followed shortly after.
“I love you,” Shane said when he was alone with his family. They talked for the better part of an hour until his voice was barely above a whisper.
When visiting hours were over Carrie said, “Shane, can you promise me one thing?” She looked at Tina. “Can you promise us one thing?”
Shane tried nodding, winced, and then said, “Yes” instead.
“Promise me that you’ll beat this thing. Can you do that? For me . . . for us.” She leaned over and hugged him, sobbing hard.
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Tina scrambled onto the bed. Kneeling beside her father, she looked him deeply in the eyes. “You sure you promise, Daddy? Because if you don’t, you’d be a liar.”
“I promise, cupcake. I promise with all my heart. I’ll beat this thing . . . for you.” He drew in a long breath. “I’ll beat this thing for the both of you.”
At that moment Doctor Goldman returned.
“I’m afraid it’s time for Mr. Halpert to rest. As you know, visiting hours will resume tomorrow morning at eight.”
Carrie snapped him a venomous look. “I know!” Then, in a softer voice: “I’m sorry. I know. It’s just that . . .”
Doctor Goldman raised a hand. “No need for apologies. I understand.”
Carrie hugged her husband once more and placed a kiss on his lips. Tina did the same.
“Be good, you two,” he said. “I’ll see the both of you tomorrow.”
“I love you, Daddy,” Tina said.
“I love you, too, cupcake.” He tried to smile. Carrie and Tina tried to smile back. As he watched them leave the room, he began to cry.
#
Shane lay in thought, staring at the blank ceiling. He had, since waking from the “coma,” retreated into That Special Place a number of times. He needed a place to go to give his mind a break from the constant agony his body was sending. Now that he knew how to return, he realized what he must do: instead of retreating to that world for comfort, he must retreat for the same reason he did as a maturing adolescent: work. Time was not something he had on this side. Even as he contemplated this, he felt his body weakening. Each time he moved, pain seared through his limbs. Each time he muttered a word, his throat burned as though he’d swallowed a cauldron of acid. Each time he took in a lungful of air, his chest felt like it would explode. His condition was far worse than Doctor Goldman had diagnosed, and Shane felt with deep intuition that he had no more than an hour left to live. But, if he journeyed into That Special Place . . . he’d have nearly infinite time.
The concept was intoxicating. He thought about it for nearly forty minutes before comprehending that if he did this he couldn’t return until he had completed his task. He also comprehended that if he did this he’d become the architect of his own jail. But there were no other options left. If he wanted to live, this is what he would have to do.
Decision made, he focused intently on That Special Place, that landscape that was all his own, where time and the rules which governed it were different than the regular world’s. He imagined himself standing in a chemist’s outfit before an infinitely long lab table. One that was covered with a vast array of beakers, vials, microscopes, and incubators. One that would be the envy of any scientist. He imagined this fantastical workshop equipped with every chemical, every substance, every instrument known to man. He imagined this as he left his body behind, determined to return to his loving wife and daughter only after he found the cure to the disease that was spreading throughout his body.
He imagined it . . . and he was there.
Copyright 2009
