The Accursed
By Sevvie
Garrett
sat at the edge of his couch, its cushion stretched from the frame sagging
under his weight. He buried his eyes in
the palm of his hands, “Damn it,” he mumbled to himself.
He
looked up from his palms. The walls that
enclosed him were dingy; ash covered reminders at best. Most of the once dawn-tinted carpet was
covered in a thin layer of colorless cinder.
The
couch and him, his life hanging feebly by hallow heartbeats, was all that
remained of his world. Now he sat alone
in the empty confines of what has become his prison. Lonely, starving for company, praying for
salvation.
He
is one of the forgotten.
He
sobbed to himself as he has for several days.
His tears rolling down his tired, swollen face. Laments falling on deaf ears, on ears that
were no longer there to listen.
Garrett
sat alone, tired, and scared. It was the
dawning of the new millennium, the real millennium. It was a new millennium and
the apocalypse didn’t arrive like so many predicted.
Garrett
had forsaken God, put him off. He
thought about it. He worried, “What if
he does exist and the end of the world comes?” but he worried not nearly
enough.
All
through his days, he tried to convince himself that he wasn’t such a bad
person. He tried to make it to church,
but only passed through her doors once or twice.
He
ignored all the jabbering about the true End of Days. He ignored them all.
Now
he lives, for the moment, with that regret.
Garrett
lowered his head again, rubbing his hands through his hair he cursed, “God damn
you, how could you do this to me?”
He
stood.
Garrett
paced across the same stretch of carpet he has paced near ceaselessly, from the
couch to the window. It was the only
portion of the carpet that remained the bright dawn-tinted color that had
delighted his small apartment.
The
color was Tawny’s pride. She fell in
love with it the moment they entered the apartment, during the leasing agents showing.
Garrett
smiled for a moment; the thought of her warmed a small piece of his blackened
heart. Of course, God took her away. He remembered when they came for her, the
Angels.
Tawny
didn’t want to leave him, “I want to stay with you Garrett, I love you.” She said, as the Angels cradled her in their
ivory wings.
He
watched Heaven open up for her and millions of others. They all rode in a bassinet of downy wings
cradled warmly in the open arms of Heaven.
“They’ll
be back for you Garrett. I’ll be
waiting.” He recalled her words as she
vanished in the blinding frosty light.
They
never came back. Those Angels never
returned. New Angels did though. As the sounds of trumpets blared, echoing
through the vast sky like thunder, the Angels poured the sour blood of sin over
the soil of the earth.
Garrett
hid in his apartment as the earth shook and erupted. He hid, waiting for Tawny to retrieve him in
her beautiful Angel wings.
He
still waited. Alone.
Garrett
scoffed at the memory of the Angels.
But
he really yearned for their return. He
really yearned for God’s forgiveness.
Although,
God is forgiving, there are limits to even what he will indulge. Garrett didn’t feel remorse, didn’t call on
God to forgive his pathetic soul. He never
opened his heart to the grace of God, now he reaps what he has brought on
himself.
Even
now he shames himself and spites God.
Damnation
is his, as he has embraced it.
Memories
of Tawny faded as he returned to the window he has paced to, how many times?
It
mattered none.
Garrett
reached for the curtain; he ripped it away angrily.
The
amber world invaded his apartment. The
acrid air penetrated the walls and window, singing his nostrils.
He
looked out from his fourth floor window.
He saw the same sorrowful scene, for as far as his weary eyes would take
him.
The
soil bled molten blood; it was everywhere leaving destruction in its wake. The ten million, no hundred million fingers
of Lucifer flicked out over the land.
Serpent like flames devouring everything.
The
uneven earth dropped into an unfathomable abyss, then to towering creation that
reached for Heaven. The amber tinted
everything, the sky, and the man made structures that crumbled beneath the
opening lap of Hell.
What
remained of the earth, the true earth, stained as well. And the demons that marched the souls of the
infernal, their bodies roasted in the amber that engulfed all sight.
Garrett
looked down at the row of the damned marching single file to giant cauldrons
that boiled with Lucifer’s blood.
The
screams, the cries, the hands reaching for God filled his ears, as the definite
pain wet his eyes. He watched from his
fourth floor window as he has since Tawny’s departure.
He
watched the demons as they poked and impaled the damned. Breaking down the flesh until nothing
remained but the stripped souls of the forgotten. He watched the demons torment them with
longing and hope, where there was none.
How
cruel it was, awakening.
Soon
they would come for him. Soon the demons
would march him into a cauldron and rip his flesh from his bones. Soon his soul would rest in his never
yielding Hell.
Soon.
There
was no rush. He was all ready in the
mitts of hell, in time he would know their rancor.
Soon.
Until
then he would pace the floor from his couch to the window, stopping only to
relive his regret as the accursed.