Rescue by Michelle Stoll

I got the idea to resurrect Paul because eleven years had passed since we’d spoken, including the year he’d been dead, and I wanted to tie up loose ends. I never liked the way things with us ended. Exploded is a better term. I blamed him, even changed details of our story to make myself feel better when I told it. Now, I wanted to do better and set things straight.

When I say bring Paul back, I mean in a loving way. “Jesus wept,” is the shortest verse in the Bible. It’s just before he calls his friend, Lazarus, out of the tomb. Nobody called Lazarus a zombie that I know of. I think he was happy to be back. Maybe a little disoriented, but happy to see his friends and family. Although my history with the church was no love affair, I had a fondness for things like compassion and hope. Lazarus was a hopeful story, and I believe in second chances.

The only reference manuals for resurrection are the Bible (case studies, instructions not included) and various tomes of dark magic (the phrase “fuck around and find out” comes to mind). Doubting I’d meet the qualifications for a disciple of anything beyond bad decision-making and gin cocktails, but wise enough to skirt the dodgier schools of necromancy, I reluctantly searched for “churches near me.”

I hadn’t been a regular attendee of any place of worship since offering an “Our Mother” prayer during a Wednesday night potluck. But I had to start somewhere. I chose a charismatic nondenominational church, the kind with a one-word name, like Remnant or Refuge. A church for the unchurched, they coo in their marketing materials. They may be that, but they are not churches for would-be resurrectors, that is for sure.

“Say that again? You want to raise the dead?”

“Like Jesus did.”

“But Jesus was the son of God.”

“Technically is, since he himself is resurrected.”

“You cannot raise the dead. Just thinking about it is an abomination!”

“Tell that to Lazarus.”

I was surprised how easily provoked brother what’s-his-name was and how fluently he conjugated curse words.

The mainstream Protestants were no less ruffled by my quest for information. Father Francis at St. Margaret’s at least heard me out before suggesting, should I achieve my desired outcome, I return for exorcism. I think he was hoping for a little excitement in the parish. My hopes sunk.

I’d heard of a church downtown, a “we don’t give a friggin’ dime to the Southern Baptist Convention” Baptist church. I’d heard they got their sanctuary burned down twice since the Civil War — once for holding dances for sailors after WWI, and later for standing up against school segregation. They’d recently had a Buddhist woman speak on Sunday morning. From the pulpit. It seemed worth a shot.

*

“So, you want to do some kind of memorial for your friend,” the handsome forty-something pastor, Martin, said, grabbing a pen and legal pad.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” I shook my head.

“A full on internment?”

“Oh, no. The opposite, really.”

Martin furrowed his brow and rubbed the bridge of his nose where his glasses had left a mark.

“Help me out here.”

“I intend to resurrect my friend.”  

Martin nodded. “Ok, I’m tracking now. We’re talking about digging up memories, reintegrating the past into who you are now –“

I stopped him. “I’m talking about calling him forth from the grave, or in this case the river where his ashes were scattered. I know it can be done, I just need some help so I do it the Jesus way, not the Frankenstein way, you know? Friends don’t make their friends into monsters.”

Martin was studying me, sorting out how dangerous I might be, not wanting to set me off but also not wanting to turn away a child of God, regardless of how unstable. I changed my approach. “Ok, look. The thing is, I had an affair with this guy and the end was magnificently heartbreaking, as one would expect. But it was the real deal, just the wrong time, maybe the wrong lifetime, if you believe in that sort of thing.” I waited but Martin nodded for me to continue. “He died last year. I heard he’d been struggling with, well, being here, I guess.”

Martin closed his eyes and slowly exhaled, reminding me of how the air left my lungs when I’d learned from an acquaintance, via an FYI text, that Paul was dead.
“Anyway,” I reached for a Kleenex, ”the Bible says that we can do it, we can raise the dead.”

“Have you considered that as a metaphor?”

“I have. But if it isn’t, we’re missing out on something amazing, aren’t we?”

Martin, I could tell, was a solid judge of character because he asked me to give him time to think about it and come back in three days. Clever, if not a little on the nose.
Three days later I returned, and Martin handed me a book about theoretical physics and a lavender business card with Maggie Stone and a phone number printed in dark indigo.

“According to gravitational physics, it’s entirely possible that Paul is alive, maybe well, maybe not. I can’t explain it. Read the book. In case that doesn’t pan out, go ahead and call Maggie. She’s an old friend from seminary. Mystical leanings. See what she has to say.”

“I never expected help from you.”

Martin smiled. “You know my favorite line in the Bible? It’s the last verse of John. I’ll paraphrase: A whole lot more happened, some remarkable shit, miracles. If I wrote them all down the world wouldn’t be large enough to hold all the books. Kelly, go find out what’s out there. I’m dying to know.”

*

I didn’t get very far into the physics book before I realized I’d been reading the same three sentences over and over. A quick internet search led me to an interview with the author in which she succinctly explained that, according to the latest theories, consciousness continues after physical death. I was glad to have science on my side.

I met Maggie Stone the next day.

“Aw. Martin’s great. One of the good ones.”

“Martin said I’d like you. You met in seminary?”

“I was only there a couple of semesters. I realized the retirement in that line of work was crap. I figured my calling was more in the fringes than the pulpit. Thus, you’ve been ushered my way.”

I led with a summary of my scientific research then gave Maggie the same down and dirty I’d given Martin, but with a few added details, like the way Paul called me “darlin’,” how I learned it is possible to have sex in a kayak, the fact that I kept detailed journals of our time together, and how after all these years, I still had the pawpaw I’d picked with him our last time together, its dried-out seeds rattling around inside.

“I’ll be straight with you. I’m about thirty percent freaked out about this, Kelly. I mean, The Monkey’s Paw, right? What are we getting into here? To be clear, I am not convinced it’s impossible, resurrecting someone. And I am also one hundred percent going to help you. But this is freaky shit, and you must be prepared for getting what you ask for and possibly regretting it.”

“I already have regrets. That’s why I want to do this.”

It was a go from there on.

I have always believed that things work out for the best when we act with good intentions. This situation was no different. We were breaking new ground, after all. Making it up as we went along. Things could go horribly wrong. There was a high probability that things would not go the way I hoped. Even if I managed to resurrect my dead lover, Paul and I would probably not live happily ever after. Lovers rarely do. But any red flags were overruled by the possibility of a second chance.

Over the next few weeks, Maggie and I spent endless nights around my kitchen table, our noses in every possible source of information that might shed a cat whisker of light on how to raise the dead. There was the Witches Bible, the Necronomicon, every apocryphal book of the Bible, volumes of Jewish mysticism, Quantum Physics for Dummies, Somewhere in Time, Irish prayers, Tibetan Book of the Dead, and every journal I’d written while Paul and I were together.

Maggie lit a joint, the old fashioned kind grown in someone’s flower bed, the kind with seeds that explode and leave little pin-hole burns in your shirt if you weren’t careful. She studied me.

“Kel, I think before we take this any further, I need to know more of your story. You know lots of dead people, many I’d venture to say who you loved deeply. Why Paul? What’s so important about Paul that you are willing to go to this extreme? What are you not telling me?” Maggie passed me the joint, I hit it too hard and coughed till I thought I’d vomit from my eye sockets.

“Okay, that’s a fair ask,” I said, catching my breath. “This is going to sound crazy.” Maggie raised an eyebrow and blew smoke out one side of her mouth.

“Continue.”

I launched into the part of my story of Paul that I’d only shared with my dog and my journal. “I had a dream about Paul before he and I met. Look, I have some fabulous dreams. This was something else. It was like some part of us met in an in-between. More solid than a dream but not ordinary waking time. Like some sort of spirit realm, maybe. In this dream or whatever it was, he asked me to promise I would save him when the time came, whatever that means. And I did. I promised him that no matter what, I would save him. No matter the cost, I would come for him. After that dream, after we met, we fell in love, then his wife found out and that was that.”

Maggie nodded. “Yeh. That was that.”

“Then I painted myself as the victim, shoved it into that closet reserved for drinking alone and sessions with my therapist, and forgot about it. When I heard he was dead and how he died, I remembered the dream. I made him a promise, Maggie, and I failed. I wasn’t there when he ran out of hope. I didn’t get him out.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re willing to play fast and loose with death, potentially create an undead abomination, and risk the wrath of God to keep a somnambulant promise to your long-dead lover?”

“Maggie, I swore.No matter what, I will be there.”

She studied me. At last, she stood up from the kitchen table, dusted off the weed shake from her faded jeans and pulled back her hair into a tight ponytail. “Let’s resurrect this motherfucker.”         

*

Maggie and I agreed that above all, channeling my emotions was vital. We chose the upcoming anniversary of our first date for resurrection day. It was easy to summon the feelings of that first kiss. They lingered in my body like a John Prine album on a Sunday night. Smooth and bittersweet.

With the date settled, the rest of the steps fell into place. After everyone had left the water for the day, I’d call forth Paul from the James River where we’d spent hours together. I’d read the magic incantation from the middle of the river, then submerge myself into the dark water like some ad hoc Persephone. When I emerged, Paul would be there, alive and in one piece with his eyes and mouth in the right places. I prayed for no screw ups there because he had such a nice face, but this seat-of-my-pants resurrection had plenty of room for error.

It was almost too simple, but Maggie and I rehashed the Jesus resurrections and there was nothing complicated about any of them. Just a guy willing to break the rules and piss off the wrong people to give death the finger. Whatever magic happened, it was omitted or erased from the patriarchified cannon. I was working on intuition, obsession, and a love that spans lifetimes.

*

The day arrived. Maggie drove me to the boat launch at dusk in her neighbor’s hardly-street-legal truck, my kayak bungeed in precariously. We waited for the other boaters on the river to pull out and leave while we ate Vienna sausages and crackers.

“Remind me again why we’re eating pig foreskins right now?” Maggie sniffed the finger-like sausage at the end of her plastic fork.

“Paul and I always ate these on our floats,” I said and handed her a can of cold beer. Maggie gagged a little on the sausage but made up for it with an extra swig of beer.

We unloaded the blue kayak, slid it into the emerald water, and I was off to do the unthinkable. The river was empty except for the hundreds of little night bugs and frogs providing a symphonic escort. I paddled around a bend, out of sight of the parking lot, and rested the boat’s hull against the shoreline. I’d never felt so awake.

I shook the dried up, eleven-year-old pawpaw husk, its seeds transforming it into a sacred rattle meant to awaken the spirits. Then I broke it open and placed one seed beneath my tongue. I tied off the boat to a sycamore branch low against the bank and waded into the water until it was up to my chin. Then, more confidently than I’d expected, I began to call Paul.

I love you and always have
We have traveled rivers of time to reunite  
Death will not prevail
I seize the power of life over death
No matter the cost
I have come for you
Wake up and arise reborn!

As the last word fell across the dark river, I submerged myself. Little fish darted between my shins and aquatic grass curled around my wrists. I held my breath as long as possible, gasping as I rose. The river was silent. Even the frogs and insects hushed. I was alone.

I waded back to my kayak, untied it, and climbed in. Fireflies greeted me from the treeline, their lightshow illuminating the river’s surface. Muskrat sloshed into the water beside me. The night was innocent, magical, and alive. River water clung to my hair and trickled down my cheeks and over my lips. I suddenly felt foolish — and relieved. In my grief I’d imagined Paul wanted this, wanted me to pull him out of death, out of the river. But this was just a silly ritual. Martin was right. The only resurrection I could pull off was my own.

I slid my paddle into the water and turned toward the dock. The crickets and frogs resumed their conversations. I played with the pawpaw seed still beneath my tongue and wondered if I could catch some rare fungus from sucking on an old seed. One thing was sure: If I died there would be no rebirth. I’d proved that.

A hundred yards from the dock I spied something among the shadows along the riverbank. A gray kayak rested beneath cottonwoods. Someone was in the boat, their arm hanging over the edge, hand bobbing in the water. Their head was tilted and swayed side to side as the boat rocked like a crib.

I searched for the boat ramp ahead, but the lights were off and there were no vehicles in the parking lot. No Maggie. No help. The night creatures again fell silent. The only sound was my heartbeat, my paddle and the bobbing of the gray kayak.
“Hey,” I whispered towards the boat, as if I were afraid of waking what appeared to be the sleeping passenger. “Are you okay?”

This person was either unconscious, drunk, or dead. Regardless, I had to get them out of the river and find help. The night’s earlier fantasy of raising the dead gave way to an urgent attempt to save someone’s life. I approached the boat and extended my paddle to draw it close enough to tie on.

As I pulled the boat out of the shadows, I could see by moonlight a man’s form. He wore cargo shorts and tennis shoes, but no life vest. I had to find out if he was breathing, so I turned his head and checked his neck for a pulse. He was too cold to be alive. Then I saw his face. It was Paul. He looked just as he did the last time I saw him years before.

I hadn’t planned what to do if Paul actually came forth. It was way more unsettling than I’d expected because, in truth, I suddenly realized I had not expected to be successful at all. And yet here was Paul, as beautiful as ever, looking like he was napping in his kayak after a long day of fishing. But he wasn’t breathing, so technically I had not finished the deal. I’d only resurrected his body.

“Shit fuck damn! Oh god, oh god, what would Jesus do, what would Jesus do?” Maybe he’d remember learning to give mouth-to-mouth that summer he was a lifeguard.

I boarded the ghost boat, straddled Paul’s lifeless body, tilted his head, and pressed my mouth to his, forgetting the words I’d called to him minutes earlier. With the first deep rush of air I forced into him, the pawpaw seed, patiently waiting, fell from my mouth into his.

Fireflies circled the boat. Bullfrogs belted out baritone hymns from the rushes. Paul’s eyes opened wide as he drew in the sweet evening air. Then it appeared, the pirate smile, the left-side dimple, the up-to-something hazel eyes. He wasn’t a monster, not a zombie. He didn’t seem confused or upset to be back. He didn’t ask how he got there or what would come next. No, Paul simply tangled his living fingers in my hair and said, “I knew you’d come.”

Michelle Stoll

Image by Ada K from Pixabay – A grey kayak in the bushes beside the river.