The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 10 (Final Part)
We hear guns.
The police shout, “Come out of there now. If you run, we will shoot.”
More gun shots. Then it is quiet.
An ambulance drives by. Then another.
Priya and I wait. Three police cars eventually drive by. Each police car has two people in the back. In one of the cars, I see two of the men from the truck. One is the driver, and the other was carrying the boxes. I don’t see the other men. In the rest of the police cars, there are only women. One of the women shouts at the police officer from the back seat. The rest sit quietly. One looks out the window. Her face is red.
Priya knows what I am thinking. She says, “I think it’s safe. Let’s go. Maybe your dad is there.”
Priya slowly backs the car out from behind the wall. We drive to the large building. Many ambulances and police cars are still parked outside. A news van is also there. Cameramen walk around the building, filming the inside of the large trucks and the metal boxes that sit on the ground.
Police are opening each of the metal boxes. First responders stand behind them. They shake their heads. Police cover the boxes again.
One of the police officers walks toward our car. Priya rolls down her window. “This is a crime scene,” she says. “It’s not safe to be here.”
“My dad might be there,” I whisper.
The woman’s frown becomes soft. “How old is he?”
“50.”
“The people in the boxes are all at least 70.” The woman pauses. “There are more people inside, though. You can come check, but are you sure? Some of them are dead.”
My heart sinks. I don’t want to see Dad if he’s dead. But I want to be sure.
The police officer leads us into the large building. The inside is much cleaner than the outside. The walls and the floor are cold and white. The air smells like bleach. There are aisles of glass tanks. Inside the glass tanks are people. Their skin is puffy and light blue.
“These are the successful ice bodies,” the police officer explains quietly. “A few spas in Clayton are working with scientists. The scientists know how to freeze bodies and melt them after. They started to ask people with diseases if they wanted to be frozen. We looked at the patient information. The scientists kept records. They froze people with any health problem: cancer, diabetes, PTSD, depression. They especially tried to get people with depression. They sent them messages: Do you want to die, but are you afraid? You don’t have to die. Freeze your body and sleep until your problems are gone. People were interested in that.” She sighed. “Sleep until your problems are gone. It sounds great.”
Was Dad depressed? He was never the same after Alex died. He was quieter. He was angrier. I remember Dad’s note. I’m sorry, Alex. If I didn’t buy you that car, you would never have died. It’s all my fault.
I stop at one of the tanks. An old man lies inside. His eyes are closed. His face looks gray. His thin white hair floats in the tank.
I know him.
I saw him at the spa in the mall. He went there to be frozen? Why did he want to sleep? And did Dad go to that spa, too?
The police officer brings me to another room. It is small, like a doctor’s office. But it doesn’t feel like a doctor’s office. A frozen body of a young man lies on a table. Two women stand next to him. They are wearing white coats. Five police officers stand behind the women. They hold guns close to the women’s heads. The women quietly pass tools over the ice body. A yellow liquid is pumped into his veins. Slowly, his blue skin turns a light pink. “He just needs some time to wake up,” one of the women says.
The police officer with me walks over to the women. She points at me. “Her dad might be here. Find him and wake him up.” Her voice is deep, and the other police officers raise their guns. One of the scientists sighs and looks at me. “What is your dad’s name?”
“Henry Brooks.”
The woman looks through a stack of papers. She shakes her head. “Not here.”
The young man on the table opens his eyes. He begins crying for help. The scientists walk away from me and go back to help him.
I run out of the room.
The building is filled with hundreds of tanks. None of them are Dad. If his body isn’t in here, will he appear on the side of the road as an ice body? Will a young girl see his body out of the bus window? Will his arms and legs be covered in blue and purple marks?
I slow down and look at the faces. I notice that the names are in order. Martinez, McDonald, Murano… Maybe the scientist was wrong. Maybe she made a mistake. I need to check.
Bailey, Boushaki, Brenes...
I see him before I see the name.
Dad’s skin looks gray. I see the bones in his arms and legs. Even though he is sleeping, his face is tired. Even if he slept a thousand years, he would never feel alive.
I press my hand against the blue glass. “Dad…” I cry. I look down and see his name printed on the bottom of the tank. Alex Brooks. He used Alex’s name.
The police officer comes up behind me. “Is this him?” she asks. I nod. “Over here!” the officer shouts. She kneels down next to me and hugs my shoulders.
The two scientists use a machine and lift Dad’s tank into the smaller room. They carefully take his body out and lay it on the table. “Melting” him only takes an hour, but it feels like a week.
His skin turns from gray to a warm brown. I see his chest rise and fall as he breathes.
I run over to the table. My face is wet with tears.
I grab Dad’s hand. It is warm. Full of life.
His eyes open.
-THE END-
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