August 5, 1993
It wasn’t so long ago. It was only when he left us for good. It was the summer before the reaping.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes were full of something, but I cannot tell you what it was. That something caused me to stir in the darkest parts of me. His eyes twinkled. This time they didn’t shine because of love or happiness. They shone a colour which spoke poison to my heart.
“Matt, what’s wrong?”
He gave me a weak smile. I didn’t want it but I took it anyway.
“Nothing’s the matter. It’s just a gloomy day-a gloomy Sunday.”
It was a dark and dismal day. The wind blew softly carrying with it the last warmth of summer. I watched the prophet named Matt as he leaned back on the couch. He put both hands over his face.
“You are hiding something from me.”
He was silent. The house creaked bringing the whole scene back to reality. We were two poor people sitting around talking about why we were unhappy. Or, at least, I was talking about it. Matt straightened his posture and stared at me.
“Yes, something’s wrong. She isn’t here.”
I was confused. “What?”
Matt cleared his throat. “The goddess of love is absent today. I do not feel her presence at all. There are no sultry substances in either corner. See, look! There are only cobwebs!”
I looked into the corners of the room and they looked the same as they always did. I thought Matt was being silly.
“She isn’t real, you know. None of them are real, the gods…the other gods. They used to be real but my God destroyed them.”
Matt shook his head and grumbled. “This is not the time to be judgmental and a know-it-all. She is not here, whether you believe or not. She is not here and she has been here everyday before!”
I saw a lock of hair fall into Matt’s face. I reached out and pushed the brown strands back behind his ear. He smiled. “I want you to see her. I want you to understand what’s been happening. The only thing is, this is the first day that she hasn’t been here with us. This is the first day that the corners of the room grow dark. Something else is here.”
I realized how late it was. I also realized that I would have to leave town soon. In days, I would be on my way to school. It would be weeks before I saw him again.
October 31, 1993
From room to room I wandered. I saw a clown, a horse and even a banana. There were things everywhere that seemed to be ludicrous. The party pulsed and I made my way down a long hall dressed with rainbow lights. I stopped underneath a green light and slid down the wall. When my bottom hit the floor, I laughed. I was high. I felt warm, cradled in a soothing cloud of euphoria. There wasn’t much that could break me from the haze and there wasn’t much that could take me higher. I was there, nothing more than being. There was a voice which lifted from my drunken depths and pronounced itself as my friend.
“Help me.”
I knew his voice. I could feel the rasping of his breath upon my ear as if he were sitting right beside me. There was no one else who sounded like that. He spoke again and this time, he pleaded.
“I want to live!”
There was no mistaking. The prophet needed me and he needed me now. I turned my head to gaze down the corridor. Red, blue and orange lights led the way toward the front door. I was mystified with concern-paranoid beyond measure.
“I’m coming.”
January 2, 1994
I stood at the foot of the mound of earth. Nothing moved but the wind through the leaves and my hair across my face. The scene was shod in sliced portions. The sky was cut away neatly from the rest of my view. It was a strange dream, but it was not.
“I’m still here.”
I spoke to the ground as if it would grow a face and speak back. Part of me wished for a response while part of me hoped like hell, that no sound came back.
“Live…”
I heard it again-as clear as a glass of water. His voice wasn’t strained no did it shiver. He was as real as he could be except for the fact that I couldn’t see him.
“I’m here. I told you I’m here! Now, what do you want from me?”
There was a silence then. It was a void that made the birds stop singing and the earth stop sighing. It was something so quiet that it screamed in inaudible whispers. The unsound of it made me want to scream. For a moment, I wished he would just shut up!
“Why are you speaking to me? Why don’t you just be quiet!”
The cemetery wept. I cannot tell you about the wet mud under my feet as the tears of the graveyard. I cannot say it was raining to symbolize the mourning. I can only say that the cemetery wept because my heart felt it. There was a feminine presence there too, one beside my own. I felt her all around me.
“She’s here, Matt. It’s her, isn’t it.”
“Yes….”
I didn’t understand then anymore than I had been baffled months before. I can say I knew her. I can also say that there were more Gods than I wanted to admit. There were many and they crowded around me, suffocating my will to run away.
“She’s here and I know what you did.”
The ground was still and so was everything that surrounded. It was awhile before the prophet spoke, but when he did, I knew why he wanted to speak at all.
“I want you to live.” He spoke and the earth opened up in front of me. The soil exploded into thousands of bumble bees. I could not move.
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