CRUSH © 2002 M.D. KOFFIN THIS DRAFT IS FOR PREVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S EXPRESSED PERMISSION. The Infinity poked its nose out of the casino parking lot, the driver attempting to squeeze out and make a right around a parked car on the street, shielded from oncoming traffic by the semi making a slow left into the lot. The truck cut the corner too short, forcing the annoyed driver to back back into the parking lot, or risk getting his front end run over by the long freight box. The driver turned his head around, casually throwing his arm over the back of the passenger seat, and in the last split second of his life, saw the cab of the semi rushing toward him at an unnatural angle. It happened to fast for him to even register the pain, as his car that was now molded around him like crumpled tinfoil squeezed out his last breath. In that eternal moment when he thought he could hear blood pouring from his broken body to the bent floorboards, he wondered if his wife was thinking about him. "Lila?" He became aware of the stark brightness of albino pale surroundings. A hospital room he immediately guessed. The lighting exposed him in a way he did not like, as if he were under a million watchful glares. It was an eyeball whiteness that made him almost panicky with a desire to hide. His feelings of nakedness brought him back to his original assumption of a hospital room of some kind. Why a hospital? The crash came back to him with smashing recollection. Rushing at him as the truck had...the shell of his car shredding with a tortured scream that the metals were never designed to make, an impact breaking his teeth loose in his mouth as his skull cracked and pierced his brain. Blood dripping. He couldn't have survived. Somehow he knew his eyes were open, but he saw nothing but that same emptiness. He sensed rather than felt that he was standing. There was no perspective, no pressure under his feet to confirm this. He must be paralyzed. Maybe they disconnected his spinal column so that his nerve endings could no longer register the pain he must be in from the accident. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Carere. Or may I call you Sam?" He whirled, or at least he thought he did. There was no sensation of movement or turning, just sudden refocusing of his attention on a little man in a patchwork coat. The little man looked like a circus hobo without makeup. His coat seemed amazingly vivid in contrast to the nothingness about them. "Are you a doctor?" Sam asked doubtfully. The little man smiled an amused smile and the shades of orange on his coat appeared to brighten. An odd illusion, Sam thought, he must be a clown-magician of some sort, to entertain the patients at the hospital. "Did they cut my spinal column? I can't feel anything." He did not know why he asked the little man, other than it was his first concern. Again his response was that amused smile and a wash of oranges. "You can't feel anything? Are you sure?" He refocused on his own body. He was dressed as he had been before the accident. Red suit, black shirt, expensive shoes. "How...?" Before he could finish the question, he paused. He still felt that same vulnerability, like he was being dissected by that unnatural light around them. But he had to ask. "Am I dead?" "No. You are most certainly not." Relief washed over him. He had a good life. He was young, good-looking, and successful. He had a beautiful wife waiting at home for him. "Lila?" He asked again. "Yes. Her." The little man's mouth turned ugly and a dark irridescent green shimmered in his coat. Sam was fascinated by both reactions. After regarding him for a moment the little man sighed. "I must show you if you are to make the choice." The outrageous colors of the little man's coat rippled hypnotically. Where the pattern seemed random before, there was now a picture of his wife. Of Lila and another man. "Ray." Sam sneered, immediately angry. His attention was glued to the coat as the colors swirled, setting the picture in motion. A montage of secret rendevous battered at his refound joy for living. She had insisted the man from her art class was just a friend, even implied that he may be gay. "It's not true." Sam denied, feeling a sickening tightening of his stomach. "Who are you anyway? What kind of sick joke is this? Where am I? Why are you showing me these things?" "No joke." The man spoke grimly. The reds on his coat deepened to the color of drying blood. "A choice needs to be made." "You said that before. What choice?" "Life or death." "My life?" "Hers." CRUSH © 2002 M.D. KOFFIN THIS DRAFT IS FOR PREVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S EXPRESSED PERMISSION.