Forever Love

Chapter 1. Nancy would have been content to fall asleep and block it all out, but the pillow was flat, and the sheets were rough and nubly. How could she get comfortable when it was so chilly? Ben would likely tolerate only one more wriggle before he’d comment on how he couldn’t sleep. Adrenaline shot through her arms. She felt heat explode into her chest and vibrate upwards into her cheeks. Her heart was held in a vice grip. Slowly, insidiously, the anger crept upward binding her in its suffocating tentacles. Laying in the silence she hoped the darkness would swallow her intrusive feelings—but it would not. Darryl—she had not heard from him for two weeks. She was angry. No. She was furious. She could not understand why her anger was so intense; she tried to stuff it away. It refused to be stuffed. Suddenly she saw fat stubby fingers tighten around a thin neck. Quickly she opened her eyes and surveyed the bedroom. Nothing was different. Was she visualizing herself strangling Darryl? Her anger was intense, but it was not murderous, or was it? Again, short fat fingers flashed before her eyes. A brief moment of relief came in the awareness that her own fingers were long and slender, and then the word “decency” jumped into her brain. Simultaneously, absolute hatred and intense love swept over her. How could these contradictory feelings exist so completely and at the same time? And where could such overwhelming love come from at a moment like this? The vision was unsolicited and spontaneous and she could not understand what was happening. “Calm down,” she told herself. “It’s some sort of visualization. Look at the picture, and see what’s happening. Just look. That’s all. That can’t hurt. Can it? Just observe.” Nancy was comfortable with the technique of visualization. She used it in her work as a psychotherapist. It was a relaxing way for people to get to their own inner awareness and so she focused on the chunky fingers with their perfectly manicured nails. She followed the fingers upward to a man’s broad, powerful hands clenched around a smooth slender neck. Nancy sensed the woman being strangled was about sixteen or seventeen years of age—her face distorted, her hair dark, curly and shoulder length. The vision came to Nancy with the knowledge that this teenager was herself. How could this be? And whose hands were around her neck? Were they Darryl’s? Perhaps. No. They were older hands—hands of an older man. Feelings of being this man’s daughter overlapped with feelings of being his wife. But how could she be either let alone both? And why had the emotions of both love and hate struck her simultaneously? Whose love did she feel? And whose intense hatred? Was it the murderer’s hatred, or her own? Sleep was definitely out of the question now. Nancy slipped out of bed, pulled her thick warm housecoat around her and moved quietly towards the bedroom door. “Are you okay?” Ben’s ability to sense when she was upset was almost psychic though he was not convinced of any such ability in anyone. Yet sometimes he knew how she felt before she did. This vision was much too bizarre and incomprehensible to discuss with him right now, besides he’d give her a quick, logical “It’s probably just a nightmare.” “Uh huh. I can’t sleep. I’m going downstairs for a while.” There was no response. He was asleep again. She guessed he sometimes checked how she was even when he was not fully awake, the way he instinctively wrapped his arms around her when she reached for him in the night. She made her way to the living room and, while encouraging her body to relax, sank into the couch. She looked again for the thick strong hands around her throat. Her breathing ceased. Her head tilted back as if her neck was made of rubber. She sensed the man had tightened his grasp until her neck snapped. A number of questions bombarded her practical mind. Had he twisted and broken her neck in his hatred or had he some calculated reason for murdering her? How could she see these nightmarish pictures with her eyes wide open? And what were these physical sensations? Suddenly she sensed someone kneeling at her feet, his arms wrapped around her legs, his face wet with tears. She saw herself reach for him and pull him towards her, their tears intermingling. This must be where the feelings of intense love came from.