anything.”
“It’s dying,” she said. “We’re dying.”
I picked up her toy, glanced at it then handed it back. She put it aside.
Demons stirred in nearby shadows, reminding me they had toys over there in the dark with them too. Bent, burned spoons, spent books of matches, used needles and the smell of cooked heroin. And the feeling, it was there too. The feeling when I put that spike hard and deep into my ravaged veins and The Devil held me tight and whispered his lies in my ear.
Like the obedient slave it was, my body ached for its master. I looked down at the shattered old watch on my wrist. It hadn’t worked in years but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. “What time is it?” I asked.
“After midnight.” Jenna smiled a little. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “Do you even know what day it is?” I shrugged. “It’s Christmas.”
“I don’t have anything for you.”
For just a second I glimpsed in her pretty sad eyes traces of better times from long ago. “I don’t have anything for you either. We’re destitute, you idiot.”
We both laughed, and she came to me and held me so tight that just this once our laughter refused to turn to tears. I wanted to hurt her for what she’d done. I wanted to hurt myself for what I’d done. But I wanted to believe even more. I wanted to believe her, and Gwynn too. I wanted to believe all the things he’d told her whether they were true or not. I needed to believe. So I did.
When we finally let go of each other Jenna said, “When I was at the soup kitchen, Cap gave us a Christmas present.” She pointed to the book under the little tree.
I stood and walked over to it, aware that had I wanted to I could’ve kept walking back into the bedroom and gotten the revolver from the box on the floor. Jenna knew it too.
I closed my eyes, saw the revolver in my mind and knew it could end all of this once and for all, for both of us.
I imagined a man whose face I couldn’t see spinning with horror and rage and helplessness, like a top gone out of control, stumbling from that haunted old elevator and flailing about outside our door, wailing in torment as blood and gore sprayed from his mouth and his life died right before his blind and bloodied eyes.
I reached for the dog-eared paperback. “ A Christmas Carol ?”
“I always liked that book when I was a kid,” she said as I rejoined her on the floor, cuddling up close and reminding me how good that felt.
“Me too. Haven’t read it in a long time, though.” I flipped to a random page, though I knew now it was anything but, and began to read aloud. “‘ There are some upon this earth of yours, who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us .’”
“No,” Jenna said, snuggling closer. “From the beginning, OK?”
Everyone always looks for some major event or horrible trauma, some explanation that’s unmistakable and clearly the culprit for the ruination of the soul. But more often than not people lose their lives slowly…gradually…quietly. So quietly, in fact, that by the time they realize it, they’ve already fallen into the darkness and the grasp of those horrible things that dwell within it. What we fail to realize is that recapturing those things happens exactly the same way.
The gun was in the bedroom. The blood and demons, the rage and shame, the twisted dreams and nightmares and riddles, all of it was still there too. But for a few quiet moments on a very early, cold and dark Christmas morning, I held Jenna tight and read her a story that claimed redemption and hope and forgiveness was possible for even the worst of us. And for a very short and wonderful while, we believed and felt alive again.
Alive. Loved. Necessary. Whole.
All that’s left
“It’s dying,” she said. “We’re dying.”
I picked up her toy, glanced at it then handed it back. She put it aside.
Demons stirred in nearby shadows, reminding me they had toys over there in the dark with them too. Bent, burned spoons, spent books of matches, used needles and the smell of cooked heroin. And the feeling, it was there too. The feeling when I put that spike hard and deep into my ravaged veins and The Devil held me tight and whispered his lies in my ear.
Like the obedient slave it was, my body ached for its master. I looked down at the shattered old watch on my wrist. It hadn’t worked in years but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. “What time is it?” I asked.
“After midnight.” Jenna smiled a little. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. “Do you even know what day it is?” I shrugged. “It’s Christmas.”
“I don’t have anything for you.”
For just a second I glimpsed in her pretty sad eyes traces of better times from long ago. “I don’t have anything for you either. We’re destitute, you idiot.”
We both laughed, and she came to me and held me so tight that just this once our laughter refused to turn to tears. I wanted to hurt her for what she’d done. I wanted to hurt myself for what I’d done. But I wanted to believe even more. I wanted to believe her, and Gwynn too. I wanted to believe all the things he’d told her whether they were true or not. I needed to believe. So I did.
When we finally let go of each other Jenna said, “When I was at the soup kitchen, Cap gave us a Christmas present.” She pointed to the book under the little tree.
I stood and walked over to it, aware that had I wanted to I could’ve kept walking back into the bedroom and gotten the revolver from the box on the floor. Jenna knew it too.
I closed my eyes, saw the revolver in my mind and knew it could end all of this once and for all, for both of us.
I imagined a man whose face I couldn’t see spinning with horror and rage and helplessness, like a top gone out of control, stumbling from that haunted old elevator and flailing about outside our door, wailing in torment as blood and gore sprayed from his mouth and his life died right before his blind and bloodied eyes.
I reached for the dog-eared paperback. “ A Christmas Carol ?”
“I always liked that book when I was a kid,” she said as I rejoined her on the floor, cuddling up close and reminding me how good that felt.
“Me too. Haven’t read it in a long time, though.” I flipped to a random page, though I knew now it was anything but, and began to read aloud. “‘ There are some upon this earth of yours, who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us .’”
“No,” Jenna said, snuggling closer. “From the beginning, OK?”
Everyone always looks for some major event or horrible trauma, some explanation that’s unmistakable and clearly the culprit for the ruination of the soul. But more often than not people lose their lives slowly…gradually…quietly. So quietly, in fact, that by the time they realize it, they’ve already fallen into the darkness and the grasp of those horrible things that dwell within it. What we fail to realize is that recapturing those things happens exactly the same way.
The gun was in the bedroom. The blood and demons, the rage and shame, the twisted dreams and nightmares and riddles, all of it was still there too. But for a few quiet moments on a very early, cold and dark Christmas morning, I held Jenna tight and read her a story that claimed redemption and hope and forgiveness was possible for even the worst of us. And for a very short and wonderful while, we believed and felt alive again.
Alive. Loved. Necessary. Whole.
All that’s left
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