10. The Choice

The road was long, but there was light. It penetrated through the trees in red and orange tinted hues. Go towards the light. That’s what people always said in movies and television shows. This must be the way. The woods on either side of the road looked dark, uninviting, impenetrable. That wasn’t the way, it couldn’t be.

Mara never expected to be here. Well, that wasn’t quite right. She expected she would die someday, but not now, she wasn’t even forty. If only she had not gone for that jog. It was her normal routine, but she could have slept in, that bus would have never hit her. If only, if only. She supposed she had an eternity to think about that.

Go towards the light, she told herself. The wind picked up, rattling the leaves on the trees, changing the pattern of dappled sunlight on the road. She started to run. She had to be close. The road rose up in front of her. It was probably just over that hill. Paradise. She wondered what it would look like. Would her grandmother be there? Would there be ancestors she had never met to show her the way? Mara picked up the pace.

“Hey there.” someone said.

Mara stopped dead in her tracks. She looked around. There was a man standing on the side of the road. He was dressed in a rumpled pair of jeans and a dirty t-shirt with holes in it. His hair, which fell to his shoulders, was black and thick.

“You’re going the wrong way.” the man said.

“No, I’m not.” she replied, as though she knew for sure, which she didn’t.

He shook his head. “You should come with me.” He pointed to the dark woods behind him. “It’s this way.”

Mara took a step back. She felt afraid. “I don’t think so.”

He laughed. “How would you know? You’ve never been here before.”

She didn’t know, not for sure, that she was going the right way. But the light ahead seemed safer than this stranger.

He took a few steps towards her. She noticed that his feet were bare, and also that his eyes weren’t exactly a normal color. Orange perhaps? He used those orange eyes to glance at the light that was so tantalizingly close, beckoning her. “That place, it’s not what you think.”

She looked over his shoulder at the tangle of impossibly dense woods behind him. “And what is that place?”

“It’s where you want to be. It’s where you should be. It’s everything you want.” He pointed at the dirt road beneath their feet. “This is where you have to choose.”

Mara took yet another step back. She didn’t know this guy and she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “I’m going to the light.” She could feel the warmth of the rays on her arms, so close. She was so close.

The man shrugged. “Do what you like, it’s your choice. Don’t blame me when you realize what you’ve done.”

“I don’t even know you.”

He cocked his head to one side. “You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.” she said angrily. The nerve of this guy. “I’m going now.” she announced.

“You’ll regret it.” he said. “Especially when you remember who I am.”

Mara searched her mind trying to think of who he could be. Was he someone she had met in passing during her life? She had waitressed all through college. Maybe he was a customer that she had been rude to? She supposed it could be anything, or he could be lying. That was the more likely case. She was being tempted. It was so biblical, but she was dead, she supposed it came with the territory. “I’m going now.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Mara turned away from him. She looked ahead. The rays of light beckoned her, like fingers reaching out to pull her down the road, over the hill, to the next stop on her journey. She began running again. A minute or two and she would be there. She glanced over her shoulder, she couldn’t see that man anymore, whoever he was.

She jogged along, listening to her feet punch the ground. She felt good. She was dead, but it was going to be all right. She hoped she had a nice funeral. Mara crested the hill, the light seemed ready to envelop her, and she was ready for it. It was then that she remembered who the man on the road had been. The memory came to her suddenly, as she stood at the top of the hill, looking down. He had been right, she had gone the wrong way.