Lost, page 15
The cameraman followed him around the room. Jake, an old friend, and his cameraman for the last six years, knew not to get in the way. To back off, and get the best shots unobtrusively. The main thing was Mac connecting with the audience right here, not the audience who may watch later at home. The atmosphere was to be captured as organically as possible and edited to reflect the true nature of the show.
Jake backed between a couple of tables as Mac reached the back of the room and turned to face the audience from the back doors.
'Perspective,' he said, 'is powerful component of the way we live our lives. The way we choose to look at anything that happens to us, and the way we extract what we need to complete the story we tell ourselves, is what determines our attitude and reaction to the event. For good, or bad. Perspective can be any reason to say 'see? I told you that would happen.' Or 'This always happens to me.' Or it can be a reason to support our own story by saying 'I'm always lucky,' or 'Opportunity just seems to fall in my lap.'
Mac smiled at a woman in a red dress who was hanging on his every word.
'I have a friend in Kentucky, who’s always down at the bottom. He tries, but he just can’t get himself off the ground. He has fantastic ideas, brilliant marketing campaigns, world class people to help him, but he just never seems to take off. He works hard, day and night. He meditates, practices gratitude, exercises, takes care of himself, does what he needs to each day. But on this particular day, he said to me, ‘Mac, I don't know what's going on. I just can't get it together. Why can I never get past the ten thousand mark? This stuff is good, right?’’
Mac shrugged with a smile. The lady smiled back.
‘I had to admit it was. He had some quality ideas, but he also had some limiting beliefs and perspectives. A whole heap of them that were holding him back. Keeping him down. Some he didn't even know about. The thing with this guy was that he always THOUGHT that he was doomed to have bad luck, so much so, that he actively sought it. Every day. Every way he looked at it, his life was a negative misery. I remember one afternoon he called me.’
Mac began to walk back to the front of the room, a slow stroll, allowing the words to fall over the room around him.
‘I said, ‘how are you doing? How’s the business? How’s the family?’ he said, ‘oh, the business is great. I’m about to close a huge deal with a supermarket chain, got a meeting tomorrow, could be the most I’ve made to date.’ I congratulated him, and he went on to say, 'oh that's not all. I got a call from my wife. She's expecting our first child.'’
Mac smiled at the memory, coming to a halt in between the tables to allow Jake to move back before he continued.
'I was pleased for him. They'd been trying a while, you know. This wasn't small fry. It was big news. But the best was yet to come. The guy should have been ecstatic, and he was, until his last piece of news. ‘Mac,’ he said, ‘none of it matters. I'm in the hospital. I was crossing the street at lunchtime and got hit by a truck. Typical, huh? Just my luck!'’
Mac turned to look back at the audience from the front. None of them seemed to be breathing, all eyes were on him. He adjusted his jacket and moved back to the stage, climbing the stairs slowly, letting the silence envelop him, the anticipation building. At the podium he faced the rows of tables and shook his head.
'I said to him, ‘I'm so sorry to hear that. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?’. You know what he said?'
Mac looked at the concerned sea of faces. Some were now shaking their heads, most were still.
‘He said 'Nah, I'm fucked. This always happens to me. Any good that comes my way is always tailed by something ten times worse. I'll probably lose the whole deal now. I'm just at my wit’s end. Why does this keep happening to me?' I asked him if someone could take the deal on his behalf, and do you know what he said? He said, ‘oh, it won't come to that. I go home in ten minutes. I'm just waiting for painkillers for my broken toes.'’
Mac raised his eyebrows and gave a brief ‘look’ to the audience. A chuckle rippled around the room.
'I said to him ‘you broke your toes? There must be other damage, surely’. He said, 'no, other than that I'm fine, but by god I'm sick of looking at these hospital walls. They take so bloody long, I'm sure it's just me. Five people who came in after me have already been and gone.'’
The laughter swelled and Mac shrugged, letting it die down.
'So, this is a guy who had an invite to close a major deal, found he's finally going to be a father, gets run over by a truck and ONLY breaks his toes - and he calls that a bad day? Man, I'd like to share some of my bad days with him.'
Mac waited for the laughter to die down again, and took a sip from the bottle of water on the small podium next to him.
'The point is, that it doesn't matter what you threw at this guy, he would always see the worst. A different man would have called the day a success and laughed at the whole truck episode - a minor blip - but not this guy, no. Those broken toes were just another indication of how his life was prone to bad luck. It didn't matter what happened, he could only see the negative. There was no changing him. I’m afraid he's still the same now, there is no way of making him understand that his view is just that - his view. His perception, his reality, is exactly what he makes it, and in this case, if he had just chosen to look at things a little differently, he would have been counting his blessings, not cursing his toes.'
Amongst the laughter, a man shouted up from table three.
'Did he get the deal?’
Mac chuckled and threw the question back. 'What do you think?'
'No?' as the man shouted a sea of heads shook from side to side.
'Of course he didn't,’ Mac smiled. ‘On deal day, something just as dramatic happened. He just kept telling himself the same old story, and sitting in the same old loop. Perspective is huge. Never underestimate the power of learning to see multiple perspectives, and then choosing the brightest one to go about your day with. If your friend didn't call? Instead of ‘she doesn't care about me’, maybe she's busy with her sick toddler today, or out running errands for her elderly father, she'll call tomorrow. Perspective is simple but so powerful.
Perspective is the difference between the fly bumping against the windowpane to reach the great outdoors through the glass, and it turning one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and flying out of the open door. Take stock, take a real good look. How many windowpanes are you trying to break through right now? If you turned just a little, it could all seem vastly different.'
Nods from the audience now. Some pens beginning to scribble, some clapping, and a cheer. Mac only hoped they had got something from it. Something real and poignant, something to work on, to investigate.
'Reality is what you make of the world around you. That's all. Anything you think - is as real as you think it is, and anything you can imagine - can become your reality. Anything.'
Mac stared at the puddle on the floor of the corridor as he thought about what he used to say to his audience on a daily basis. Most of his knowledge was rooted in science, although it could sound like lunacy to the unaware. Right now, his own words were beginning to sound like lunacy to himself, although in a slightly different context. Still, if it stood for one thing, it stood for another, right?
'But I'm not imagining this, am I?'
He stared at the puddle, as Rolo sat by the door of the cabin watching him with fearful eyes. He looked up at the dog.
'I don't know, Rolo. I don't know what to make of any of this.'
The dog whined but made no move toward Mac, who turned his attention back to the wet patch on the floor. Cautiously, he stuck out a finger and placed it gently into the cool liquid. The substance clung to his finger as he pulled it out and held it in front of his face with a frown.
'I'm not sure what other perspectives there can be to what's happening here, or how my imagination could possibly turn a couple of pools of water into a couple of pools of blood.'
He broke out into a cold sweat as he brought the finger to his nose and sniffed. Copper found its way to his nostrils, mixed with the musk that had been in the bathroom. The hallway shifted in his vision, and he struggled to hold on to consciousness, pulling deep breaths as he placed his hand onto the floor and dropped to his backside. Spots ran before his eyes. He breathed, slow and deep, until the feeling passed.
Rolo whined from the doorway, and not wanting to go back to the bathroom, Mac struggled to his feet and threw up in the kitchen sink.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sula sat on the bed crying as Mac tried to comfort her. She shrugged off his touch and let out long, hard, gasping sobs. Mac sat next to her.
'What is it, baby? What can I do?'
Sula gasped, and her breath hitched.
'Why won't you talk to me, Mac? I need you to talk.'
'I'm right here. I'm talking, speak to me, I'm listening.'
Sula's head whipped up. Her red-rimmed eyes were ringed with dark circles that had never touched her velvety skin before. Her hair was wet and wild, dripping onto the sheets with a plip-plip-plip-plip.
Mac tried to scrub the sound from his brain, tried to concentrate, but the noise was too loud, and there was now a major puddle around her. It irritated Mac that he would have to sleep in this bed tonight while she got the dry one. He wanted to tell her, to shake her, but he didn't want to touch her either.
'Sula?'
She bowed her head back down, dark curls falling over her face as she wept, her shoulders shook, and Mac felt a stab of agonising sorrow that he couldn't help her. He wanted to, but she wasn't herself. He didn't know how to console her. When he could take her anguish no longer, he reached a shaking hand to her shoulder again. Cold radiated from her skin, he felt it even before he touched her, and ice crept down his own spine.
On the bed, the puddle was turning red. Blood.
Mac stared at it horrified as big bright globs of it fell from her hair - or was it from under her hair?
Another drip fell and landed in the water.
Plip.
Mac's hand began to shake just above his wife's ice-cold shoulder.
'Sula?' he whispered.
His hand was almost on her skin when she whipped up to face him. He recoiled in horror, and scrambled back away from her across the bed, and right off the edge. He stood facing the woman that had been his wife, gasping for breath, every fibre aching to scream and run, while feeling so frozen to the spot that he could have grown roots.
Sula stared at him, the pain on her face absolute. Blood streaked down her features and soaked into her dress. She slowly cocked her head to the side with a small, but audible creak, then she put up a bloody hand extending her finger and beckoning him forward.
Mac felt himself drawn forward, equally repulsed and inquisitive at the same time. His heart was threatening to break down his rib cage as he leaned into her, the copper smell of blood leaving a metallic taste in his mouth.
She smiled. Sula, yet not Sula. This thing wanted to eat him alive, he knew it, but leaned in anyway.
'Mac?' she whispered, blood spilling from between her lips to run down her chin.
Mac was tongue-tied, his eyes glued to the horror of her face. He couldn't speak a word. He nodded his head, and she beckoned him closer still.
'I need you to talk to me, Mac. I have a bobble in my mind. A FUCKING BOBBLE!'
Mac's mind scrambled for her meaning as she continued, their faces only inches apart now.
'Help me, Mac,' she moaned. 'There's too much blood. Help me catch it before it runs.'
Her face twisted and her hands shot out to grab his jumper at the shoulders, bunching it with bloody hands.
‘ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?' she screamed at him.
Mac nodded his head. He had never understood her less in his life, but if she would just let him go, he would figure it out. Anything for her to let him go.
'I… I need to talk. I'll talk to you.'
Sula relaxed her grip and Mac felt overwhelming relief flood his pores, and then her grip re-tightened and she pulled her horror mask a mere inch from his. Then she opened her bloody mouth and screamed, spraying blood into Mac's face. Mac clamped his hands to his ears, shut his eyes, and screamed with her.
There was a loud thump, and a bolt of pain shot through his right thigh. Mac forced an eye open to find himself on the mezzanine floor in the cabin. He lunged around to look at the bed, scooting backward until his spine dug into the cabin wall.
There was no Sula, no-one on the bed but Rolo, who looked up at Mac bleary eyed from the covers.
'Shit. Shit. Dream, Mac, it was just a dream. Was it a dream?'
In the early morning half-light, a frenzy of nerves ran through him. He put a hand to his face, which was wet. Sweat, not blood. No blood. Getting to his feet, he peered over the balcony to the ground floor. Nothing seemed out-of-place down there, although he knew the corridor would be the place that anything would be out of sorts.
Blood.
There had been blood there yesterday, hadn't there?
Mac closed his eyes and leaned on the barrier, head in his hands. How could there be blood in the corridor? There couldn't have been. He must have been seeing things. It had been water, just like every other time.
And the bathroom? Someone had been in the tub, he had felt the steam, and yet there had been no-one there, had there?
'Fuuuuck!' Mac screamed into the darkness, 'I don't know, I don't fucking know!'
Disturbed, Rolo bounced off the bed and pulled himself up next to Mac, his paws on top of the railing, tongue licking at Mac's hands and face. Mac pushed him gently away.
'What's going on, Rolo? I think I'm actually losing my mind. Am I losing my mind?'
The dog licked at his face frantically and Mac moved away, giving the dog a rub on the head, before pulling on a jumper and going down the stairs.
'Blood in the fucking hallway,' he mumbled to himself. 'As if there was blood in the fucking hallway. You've lost it Mac. Never mind a screw loose. You have ten fucking screws lost and ten more on the way out.'
An hour later Mac and Rolo were in the truck having thrown a few things together and deciding to leave the rest. He would come back up here with Tom to sort out and clean up at a later date. For now, they were going home.
Except it seemed they weren't.
The truck was four-wheel drive, but even the high-tech system that the truck had installed could barely cope with the boggy mud of the land after the rain. Back and forth, and back and forth. Mac was getting nowhere fast, and he knew once they were in the trees, there wouldn't be room to manoeuvre. Stuck would mean stuck.
In the end, it had been the tree that had done it. Large and solid, and right across the track, just inside the tree line. The high winds had obviously brought it down, and Mac knew he would need a chainsaw to get rid of it. He had seen one in the shed, but even if he chopped it up, it was clear that the truck wasn't getting through the mud anyway. They were stuck here.
Mac slammed his hands onto the steering wheel and crunched the truck into reverse. Ironically, the truck moved back the few hundred yards back to the cabin without faltering, in half of the time it had taken to get to the tree across the track.
As the truck idled, Mac cried with frustration. The one thing he had been sure about was that he didn't want to go back into the cabin, which sat next to him undisturbed by his outburst of activity. Deceptively innocent and friendly.
Mac and Rolo got back out of the truck and entered its jaws.
It seemed to Mac that it grinned as it let them inside.
Three hours later, Mac was sat in his chair on the pier, wrapped in a coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, and with a blanket over his knees. There was a beer in one hand, cigarette in the other - the last of only three cigarettes that he thought he may have more need for now.
Idiot.
He shivered and stared at the icy grey loch. The morning was chilly, heavy and grey, but mercifully dry. Dry, he could take. He couldn't sit in that cabin any longer than necessary. His nose ran and his glove scraped across his whiskered chin as he caught the drip with a tissue, blowing everything out, only for it to drip again with cold only a few minutes later.
You need a shave.
Mac chuckled aloud at his own admission.
A shave? If you think I'm going anywhere near that bathroom, you're sorely mistaken. At this point, I may even dig a hole and shit in the woods rather than go in there and find the damn shower curtain shut.
Dirt flew into the air at the side of the pier. Mac frowned and leaned forward to see Rolo digging at the hole he had begun weeks before by the side of the wooden platform.
'You digging back to England, buddy? When the escape tunnel is complete, I'll be right behind you.'
Rolo stopped digging to watch Mac, ears silky gold, nose black as soot, right up to his eyes.
'You may have more luck digging with your paws than with your nose, that's what the claws are for.'
He motioned, air digging with clawed hands. The dog ignored him and set back to work. Mac shrugged and stared out at the loch, wondering if he could get frostbite from sitting outside too long, and deciding to get another blanket. If the cabin was willing, maybe he could even get a hot drink before he came back out.
He stood, stamping out his cigarette, and stretched his cold, aching bones. He was pulling the blanket around his shoulders when Rolo came running onto the pier with something long and black hanging from his mouth. Something that glinted in the grey light as Rolo tossed it high. It landed with a low thunk on the wood and Mac frowned.
