Grace
By Josiah White
She sleeps; a sort of conceded contentment on her face. I
thin mattress is below her; a wool blanket draped on her thin frame. Thin fingers
on her right hand poke through a hole in her moth-ridden covering. She rolls
over; her hand is hanging in mid-air. The ring falls off and hits the floor
with a light ping, but she awakes suddenly, as if the very life she leads were
crumbling about her…
In a small town she lives, a
ramshackle former duplex her house. The left side is gone, and cracks in the
formerly shared wall grow ever wider as the wind bids. Inside, drywall dust
sits in little tidy, obsessed over piles on the floor as insulation peeks through
what remains of the walls. The ceiling is gone in places, revealing a second
story where light from a broken window shines down, onto the threadbare carpet.
Farther down the hall, which takes a left, is her room. Buried in the recesses
of the house it is, like a cave deep in a dark mountain, a nook within a
shelterless place. A mouse appears from nowhere, then a cat, feral and mangy.
Past the bedroom door they run, the cat for its dinner, the mouse for its life.
The door flies open as the girl chucks a broken brick at the commotion.
“Confounded place!” she spat, but no
sound came from her lips. She dared not disturb the wretched, artificial peace of
the house. Suddenly, she heard a step outside. She froze. Nearer it came. Then
he kicked down the front door.
“Mr. Smith?” she called weakly down the
hall.
“Please, call me…” he began.
“I can’t, it’s too…” She paused, not
sure what to say. She rarely talked, and subjects like the past or her emotions
she rarely broached, even in the silence all alone.
“It’s too… recent.”
“But it’s been thirteen years since…”
“Stop!” she fairly screamed. Tears
flooded her eyes and then froze on her cheeks.
“Not this year, I can’t do it,” she
resolutely declared.
“Your must; you can’t live here forever!”
“Besides, thirteen is an unlucky number,” She observed.
He paused as he muttered, “As if luck exists here…”
“Life is good outside of here,” he insisted in softer tones. “You
need to let go of the past.”
“No!” she screamed, and fell to the ground, sobbing. A fire
flashed through her mind, singing every desire to leave with red guilt. The
smoldered ruins of her past haunted her, while screams of death provided a
ghastly soundtrack. She couldn’t leave them, couldn’t let go. She deserved to
be here, after that wretched day. An electronic buzzing interrupted her
thoughts. She turned to look at the clock… 15:80. The mocking numbers laughed
cruelly as she blinked them back to normal… 15:00 military time.
3:00 normal time.
Mr. Smith was gone. Suddenly, she wanted to go with him, too
leave this awful place, but it was too late.
“Oh, well, he’ll be back next year as usual,” she sighed. But
then it dawned on her: it wouldn’t get any easier with time. She needed to go;
leave this ghost town of her past.
“Mr. Smith!” As she ran out of the house, she jumped right
over the broken door. As she flew through the doorframe, she realized that she
was free, free from her burdens, free from the past.
“Thank You, God, for Mr. Smith.”
