Hide Me in Sheol by Matthew Erman (top 20 books to read txt) 📕

she was no longer in pain, there was scar tissue left, which along with various other damages had put off in her having children for several years or sadly never, as they would wait and determine if the scar tissue would repair itself.
I told her many nights, “It doesn’t matter, whether or not we have kids. I could pass out in your arms every night, I’ll love you no matter what, and not having kids won’t ever affect that. I just want you to know that, okay” I said to her the few nights she would rub her stomach and cry. The tests came back saying that her scar tissue wasn't repairing itself. She was a young twenty-six, and having just done her first big studio job, she was okay with waiting longer.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait.” She said to me one night, as we were jogging. She wanted me to get into shape with her, and although her body was fit and perfect (she was a dancer) she felt that we should be healthy together. I would jog with her, sweat dripping of my forehead, into my eyes and down my oily nose.
“Wait on what?” I said, barely huffing out the words between heavy breathes. My lungs were going to collapse at any minute I thought, and every bounce on the hard concrete felt like hammering blows to my chest.
“Man, you need to do start working out during the day, but anyway, I am talking about kids. You know I got the test results back today.”
“Yeah, you’re healing up they said.”
“I am, I am, but it’ll be a few years, so it’s not like we have a choice you know? I just figured my career is starting, and maybe kids should be put on the backburner. I want you to get published, and I know you want to be published. Plus there’s that movie we always talk about writing and filming. I have a lot I want to do before kids.”
“Hey, I’m one hundred percent behind this, I was always for waiting on kids, and even though we’re not married yet, I was thinking like early thirties you know? We can be the cool, hip older parents that listen to Sonic Youth and Sunny Day Real Estate.” I said as I flashed my smile, and although it was probably hard to tell it was a smile behind the pain in my sides from jogging for nearly forty five minutes.
When we got back to our apartment, Allison pulled out an old eight millimeter camera she bought on the eBay a few months earlier, and started recording a little home video. She asked, pointing the camera in my direction, “So, what did you do today?”

*

I had arrived at the production, people were wandering around like stray cats, and she stood out in a tent thirty yards in front. I parked. I didn't do anything except look at her, an expressionless gaze that drifted away, miles into a great vastness, one I would experience first hand. I felt a great sadness inside me that night before I picked her up, that night when it rained in Japan and the roads were wet, silk. I know now looking back what my sadness was, why my chest hurt so badly when I look at her face, saw her body's stance droop in a weightily rain and it was for our love. One that I felt wouldn't last, one that I put my heart and soul into. I knew looking at her expressionless face; that was my sin. My regret was doubt, doubt of my love, doubt of hers. It took several more minutes before she finally spotted me; she smiled and ran to the car. She climbed inside and I could tell the way she held herself she was tired, and had the calm of sleep pressed into her eyes, she was ready to drift away on the car ride home and I just wanted to watch her.
"Sorry about making you drive all this way out here." She said.
"Its fine, it's fine." I started the car and pulled out of the production area.
"So how was your day?"
"You mean my last three days? Well it's been hell. The director has been really intense; the actors have been very... blech. I don't know. It hasn't been all that great. You don't want to hear about it, I know you and I know what you like to talk about and having a shitty day isn't one of them..." She signs and flips her hair. "Anyway, what've you been up to?"
"I've been writing, watched some insane Japanese television again and finally decided it's not for me. I also was looking around before it started raining, at pet stores you know? I know you've been wanting a grey kitten so --" I glanced over at her and her eyes widened and she smiled. "I bought you one; the hotel says it'll be fine keeping it there as long as any damages are paid for."
"I can't believe you got me a kitten!" She was practically yelling then, and I remember all my doubts vanishing if not for only a split second. "Did you name it yet? I want to name her? Is it a her?!"
"It's a her."
"I want to wait; I need to see her personality before I get her a name."
"Well...I was thinkin--"
"Shush! No names until I see her. I want no bias at all."
"Okay, well...I guess you can tell me about the movie. You haven't really told me much at all about the actors or anything."
“I had some interesting shoots; one of the actors was getting a little prickish during the rain, and decided that cooperating wasn’t in his best interest. So it slowed the day down. I convinced the director to let me use this really interesting contrast, and with the film I used it made the scenes we shot look incredibly vivid in a very flat, two dimensional way.”
“Well, that’s great. I’m hoping this gets some great reviews, when it’s released. It would do wonders to your work rate and the quality of the films you work on.”
“Yeah I know, but I’ve worked on some good stuff! I mean, not all of it was crap.”
“Oh I know, it’s just, some times you were a bit enthusiastic about some particularly bad projects.”
“Like…?”
“Well, I remember you did a movie about two years ago, it was just the most generic crime drama. I remember watching it and thinking it was awful.”
“Sometimes, the movie can be awful, but I love trying to make each shot interesting, you know? A movie can have bad acting, and directing, but if it good cinematography then sometimes it can make a bad movie, an okay one.”
“I guess, I guess. You’re the expert right.”
“Well, wouldn’t you say a great book cover, and great chapter titles can make a bad book, an okay book.”
“Ehh, I don’t think it really works like that, I think the content matters more for a book, than a movie, all a book has is content. A movie has a score, composition, acting, actors, there’s a lot to like and dislike. In a book, there are letters, unless you’re someone who has letter preference, I doubt anything but the content will matter.”
“Good point.” She said as she fidgeted with her seatbelt. “You know, working on this movie has really opened my eyes to some things. I don’t know if you know anything about the movie.”
“Well from the snippets you’ve told me it’s a spiritual journey from Georgia to Tokyo. I think that’s all you’ve mentioned.”
“Well, the main protagonist, is this younger man who aft---“
The side of the small, Japanese car collapsed into the left side of my face. Aurally splotched onto a blank canvas, stuck, stick, stick stickstickstick, horrrrrrrror. careen down a side ofamountain, many long winding hills besides us, Allison! Allison! besides us where we lie, sink sinksink i felt upside, over and over
four seconds--four seconds--attachedtotheidea of four seconds after, head still spinning, i pray to god that i survive that allison lives so to be a family that i am sorry i am so sorry i am so sorry i am so sorry please let me live please let me live please let me live i dont want to dierollagain starting to roll over.
silence. sight scattered, blurred by cracks in glasses. still attached to head, head still on shoulders. both hands still on both arms. truck above on the road before the hill tipped over now layi g on side. allison beside me, could see blood and b gan to panic. th nking it was hers she was cut badlyon her h

ead the blood flowed through her blonde hair striking it with lines an awfully crimson crimson. it runs down

her head and like a

skislopedown her nose to a point. drip and land on several pieces of br k n glass.satontheroof. upsidenow justrealised. al i on! lison. mouth full of an our own voice nor not the same blood caught in the

throat likeatiger suckingdown toomcuh meat.not noticed much blood, in ym right ear thes a ringgg only in right

ear, far away voice outside the crash.
"Daijoubu? Daijoubu?"

"h lpwenffffffd help---' tried culling outcouldt get words througggh sp-p--it(--) fifteen seconds--fiftenseconds.unlactedh her seatbelt, fell head first into br k n glass.

<<<|>>>OUR EYES MEET<<<|>>>

Our eyes meet and she begins to scream and I am rushed back into reality.
"itll be okay itll be okay itll beokay." I said over and over.
"Daijoubu!? Daijoubu!!" blackness, her faceagain and my right ear only hears everything, moves her hands, like precise tools, unbuckles mine
fal

ls, no id ont. stuckpig stuck like a stuck pig. bled pig, stuck bled pig wont budge, wont move, sheet metal car pulled back over into chest, large rod ripped into chest, chest felt like menthol h d been rubbed over, over, over large v

apors, a smell, a flash of heat, noticing the blood, pumping more, heart working, working, working.
"DAIJOUBU, DAIJOUBU!!!!" peeling spine outribcage out, heart out felt like eversion.bound by chest by an alminum pike to the hide of the seat in the japanese car in the part of a life to a sea to a king i pray for my wife to let see the next day in the mudand the water of the mutual blood-- and with mud and water and blood on her face and the glass in her head and stuck in her

cherried hair still caught on some spectral light she said

i love you with so calmness and such clarity that made my heart flutter like it was the first time id ever heard her say it, say it, say it again, please keep me alive. i love you. memory hazy thirty seconds -- thirty seconds passed clutched chest pike in lung hard breadths width further and flexed, tendons in neck moved i love hr, i want to tell her, she looks at me,and says;
"Don't worry, don't worry. I love you."
I scream.

"FfffffffffffffffffffaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACc"

my body drops. pullt self off thing, felt air, water faced and now colder thus to be evr been. got dark, go back, no nonononononononono.tellher tell her teller her
tell her.
tell her

_/_____/_____/___________________......

*

I was pronounced dead at 2:32 am in a hospital near Tokyo. Allison stayed unconscious for three days where they treated her they then moved her to a hospital in her home town after a long flight. Allison had a dislocated shoulder, broke her wrist and suffered a severe concussion. She was not told until she woke up fully, two days later.
"Where am I?! What happened?" She is screaming,