A Triple Shot of Karma & Platinum Fury Focus

Part 3: Three of Swords

"Probably deserve the latter," she admitted, oblivious to attention from those already gathering around an inconvenient lump of pumpkin-colored humanity and young man blocking the yellow brick steps into Price's.

"She trip or sumptin?" one voice asked, followed by "She okay? It don't look like she's breathing man, and she gettin' a weird color..." "Uhhh-uhh, she ain't lookin' so good..." and finally, "Some paramedics are parked around the corner, should I run get 'em?"

"Yeah. Yeah, for sure get the paramedics," LeSharpe answered immediately, eyes never breaking contact with Maggie's as he doubled one hand over the other, counting silently while pumping her chest rhythmically. "I'm pretty sure it's a heart attack."

"Thank you plenty for trying, Quentin, but you can't help me today," Maggie demurred, surprised at addressing her thought to the back of his shoulders, above and beside her orange-ness.

So this was Afterlife. Kinda like 'Ghost'...

"Funny about seeing you this last time after so long, Quentin, but a Goodness, too. I'm still so, so grateful for everything you done for my Terri—I'm 100% sure we both are. She's coming home today, that's why I'm here getting this tasty chicken, but I guess neither of us is gonna see her now.

"You're a truly good man Mr. LeSharpe, and Terri wouldn't have survived without you giving her reason to keep living. I never understood why our Good Lord decided you two couldn't be together again. I'm sorry about that the most, cuz I'm sure it would've been good medicine for this old heart, to see more days of her as crazy-happy as when she talked about making love with you, or maybe playing with those beautiful grand-babies I know you two would've had.

"A thousand times I wished you'd saved yourself by quitting us for good, but I also wished there could've been somebody so strong years ago when I needed a champion myself. We did have good times though, didn't we, playin' bingo and smoking summa that good pot we liked? 

"I'm sure God already knows you deserve all happiness and blessings possible, but if I have a chance, I promise you, I'll remind Him."

In the half-minute after two paramedics with equipment hustled onto the scene, Maggie's spirit watched LeSharpe fade backward into the crowd, bags clutched absent-mindedly against a light gray oil change service shirt with 'Que' sewn above the right pocket.

Freed from her orange-clad shell's sweatiness, she trailed him while Quentin maneuvered along streets baking in Charlotte's sweltering late afternoon humidity. Occupants of air-conditioned SUVs discussing plans for positive and joyous weekend activities were ignorant of him, whizzing toward air-conditioned homes in Southpark, Weddington, or across the line to Union County.

He trudged in stone-faced despair out Fourth Avenue to where it became Randolph Road, continuing past Presbyterian Hospital and a complex of baseball and soccer fields across from the Mint Museum's gleaming whiteness, his brain shrieking crazy loud in protest, what had become a constant since the instant Maggie'd collided with him. 

A couple shit-tons of Old-times Disaster was mixing with being witness to the actual historic moment of life exiting her NOT already dead and buried two years ago body. That represented a lie waaaay beyond any fabrications he'd swallowed along the way.

Immediate and positive as his actions had been during a moment of emergency, he'd really wanted to grab a double handful of Maggie's jogging suit and throttle enough life back into her to gain some answers to an uncountable number of "What the fucks?"