The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [100]
"I guess it depends on who you talk to."
"Not to mention the two thirds of the world who don't believe in the idea at all."
"What do you believe, Jacob?"
"Since I have come to the conclusion this is an area about which I can only confess my staggering ignorance, I've decided it's far too important a question to be answered with any degree of certainty."
"Leave certainty for the fanatics, you mean."
"Exactly. I take a wait and see approach. I'll either find out when I die or I won't." He laughed heartily, turned his sketch pad around, and showed her the finished portrait. His hand was sure and his eye discerning: Her features accurately rendered, the high cheekbones, the dramatic arch in her dark brow, but the resemblance ran deeper than appearances.
He's captured my character, she thought with a jolt: the pride, willfulness, and deep-seated vulnerability. Penetrating the layers of accumulated toughness, Jacob had seen the romantic idealist submerged below. An actress spent unnatural amounts of time before the mirror contemplating the state of her face—constantly on alert, shoring up the battlements, fighting to stave off every line and slippage—but she had not seen this forgotten gentle quality in herself for so long, the sight brought tears brimming to her eyes.
Was that naive, fresh-faced girl from Manchester still inside her? She felt a fool, weeping over such long-lost territory, but that youthful part of her nature had been good and true and Jacob had seen it clearly. She looked at the kind, frank tenderness in his azure eyes and for once didn't worry about whether her hair was in a tangle or her makeup ruined.
What does this man want from me? she wondered. Maybe nothing. What a shocking idea.
She tried to hand back the portrait, but he insisted that she keep it. She looked away, dried her eyes, blew her nose—it sounded like a trumpet to her; how attractive—and swallowed a fractured thank-you.
"If you'll excuse me for a moment," said Jacob, rising from his seat. She nodded, grateful for a moment alone, and watched him walk away.
He needed a breath of air; that queasy throbbing in his chest again; the third time since leaving Chicago. She hadn't noticed, he was sure of that, but he'd felt the blood drain from his face like water from a bath. A desperate light-headedness came over him, his vision tightening down to woozy tunnels. He gripped the handle of the car door and pulled with what little strength he could spare. Standing on the platform between the cars, now that she couldn't see him, he dedicated all his energy to recovering....
Breathe, you old fool: worse, much worse.
He doubled over, swallowing great gulps of hot desert air, feeling it sweep ineffectively through the dry bellows of his lungs; heart throbbing with effort, missing a beat, losing its rhythm—
Come on, Jacob, enough of this nonsense, you have work to do.
—tingling in his limbs, fingers going numb, knees on the verge of collapse, he held on to the chains that ringed the platform, looked down at the bright ribbon of steel rushing by beneath the train; sweat ran down off his forehead, soaked through his shirt—
This is worse than before; this is worse than it's ever been.
—his balance grew precarious, his mind shutting down to a single thought: Hold on to this chain. If he lost his grip he would pitch right over the side. Darkness grew around him, eyes barely able to see, heart skipping like a stone, hearing nothing but the tidal roar of his turbulent pulse....
One more step; so close, death hovered above him as light as a feather.
Then like flood waters cresting, the crisis began to recede; his vision cleared, widened, black spots swirling away, his lungs pulled in a satisfying breath, desperation