Ninteen-Twenty Seven

By Roan Church

 

A seven-thirty alarm is what starts me every morning and it too will be the thing that kills me, the adrenaline is far too much for me, and the wake to black is something I wish I could do without, but I can't, and I won't. Most days I just lay there in that pitch I despise, but today was different, today was special, so instead I cried in the blackness, cold dry tears my body exhausted already.

I can't remember the last time I had someone who I had loved so much die and the fear that I might be able to answer that question with yesterday is what keeps me locked in my bed. She wouldn't want this though, the crying, not in a way to say to me that I cannot cry, Isobel would never deny such emotions, but rather to say I should be up, tamping down the grounds in the portafilter, she'd be annoyed that I am crying over her.

So, I got up, the oven clock read eight and the sun had just risen twenty minutes ago. The sun, the sun is what gets me about autumn, the cold is tolerable, even nice, but the sun rising so late and setting too early is truly something I hate.

I have always been scared of the dark, not because it holds mystery, potential killers, and objects unknown to my eye, but because the dark is lonely, there is no other life in this world that could fill the void dark makes.

Eight twenty. I grab my rifle, a Remington 7600, and my water bottle. The door handle is cold to the touch from the winter outside. My Dakota Sport sat in the gravel driveway covered in pine needles from last night's storm, with its windows fogged, which is a pain in the ass because I know it's going to take forever to defrost, nineties cars now don't hold up all too well in the winter months, but its my baby, but if my child couldn't blow warm air out of his or her mouth for the life of it.

Eight twenty-seven. The first time I had taken a life I was not but fourteen years into my own, the pain of that buck who still lay alive on the ground, wounded enough not to get up, was felt throughout my body. My dad slit its throat and cut off its antlers, handed me one, and patted my right shoulder.

‘The shot was true, next time aim more into its run’ he told me, and a nod was all I could give staring at the blood inching towards my boots, but not moving.

I took his advice though and there was no need of slitting its throat the next life I took. The reaction was less than the first time, but the pain was all the same. This time it was a mother, I didn't know it was a mother but I convinced myself it was so I could hate myself a little more.

The act of hunting was forced on me but soon I became addicted, just like my dad, because the power you feel with the gun in your hand and a beating heart sixty meters from you is a god-like feeling. I never had a son to teach how to shoot, nor a daughter, I have my wife, but she never liked killing anyway. I don't like the killing all too much either, but I do it so we can eat a little cheaper.

I love the animals whose lives I take, not like my father taught me, half the animals he killed he left to lay there with sawn-off horns and no tail. In my dad's mind, he somehow thought he was skilled enough to take a gun out into the woods and shoot a creature who doesn't know you're there. You get a taste for the killing though just as much as you get the taste for venison.

Eight fifty-nine. I got to the hospital, taking the scenic way as a form of procrastination. Driving next to the beach, with the Puget sound gray and dark as ever, and the slightest hint of rain allowed for some solace. The door slammed, rather I slammed it, the air colder now closer to the ocean.

The building made out of glass looked like a modern morgue boasting its three stories. She was in there, waiting for them to take care of her, and burn her. She had always wanted to be cremated; Salt Creek is where she is to be laid to rest. Isobel would hate to be seen in an open casket, too much pressure, and it is less poetic that way.

‘Funerals are better attended when the woman of the hour is alive’ she would always tell me when we first got the news, now it had become real, her funeral that is. I couldn't bring myself to go in, into the glass coffin. A lame excuse for a husband, but soon not so much.

Fourteen thirty-six. I place myself higher up on the hill, it overlooks a meadow in which I know deer like to go and graze, today was no different, and soon a fawn came. I didn't move to make any noise, my gun was already loaded and aimed in the area, but I still didn't move the laser to the deer yet, I moved it. I kept my finger on the trigger but wouldn't pull it.

The power over a living creature you feel when you have a weapon that can end her long life with a single swing of my finger is the reason most people like to hunt and shoot. The power over another life when you have such little power over yours and others give me solace.

Knowing that I can take a life when this world is taking one from me allows a brief moment of…something, it feels good whatever it is. I whistled a loud sharp tone and the deer bolted, as fast as it could, and I shot. The bullet hit where it had been moments previous, not a waste of ammo because not taking the life of that animal allowed it at least one more day of it.

I can't live in this world without her, to not have the power over her life is heartbreaking, and to not be the indicator of change is foreign to me. Fifteen hundred. I had been here for about another half hour, waiting, since that first fawn came, nothing else crossed by. This is expected though, most living, self-preserving things don't typically like the loud sound of a gunshot.

Nineteen twelve. She lay there on her bed, a wounded animal, oh how I hated to lose control.

‘Isobel.’ I said a matter of factly, interrupting whatever thoughts kept her busy whilst looking out of the hospital window.

‘Oh hi, Eddy.’ snapping her head, saying this through a smile. A tooth glint back is all I said at first.

‘Sorry I didn't come in earlier, I couldn't, I just couldn't.’ Looking out that window was now all I could do when saying that.

‘You're fine. I would appreciate a text next time though.’ Isobel said, her smile not breaking. How can she just sit there stuck with a terrible husband, a husband who loves her so much he hurts her? I just want her to be well again, the cancer slowly eating at her, turning blood, muscle, flesh, and fat into useless cells.

I want it to stop, I need it to stop, how can I make it stop, I can't make it stop, but I need it to, Isobel I need it to. ‘Any updates?’ I said making eye contact with her again after I lost interest in the window.

‘It's getting worse, the chemo could only help for so long you know. But I'm still here!’ She said, her smile wavering for a second but coming back.

‘Well I love you Isobel, and I miss you, Rudy does too. He's been obsessed with sleeping on your side of the bed, all he does all day, he stinks though Isobel, I'm not sure how much longer I can take it.’

I chuckle at the last words, I open my eyes and meet hers once more, and the smiles are gone, and Isobel's eyes grow an emotion I have not seen in them before.

‘I want Eddy to die. I want to, I can't deal with this life anymore, or rather I can't accept the end of it. It was too good of a life to let go. I have made too many mistakes, I have so many regrets, I have hurt so many, and I have ruined so much more, but to have the privilege and the right to sit there and to say, no, no, none of that matters because I learned, and I became me, I lived, I love, I met you, my parents were good to me, this town was good to me.

This life is something I can't let go.’ She began to sob now, almost pleading with me to let her keep living. I wish I could fulfill her wishes. ‘This death is slow and is something I didn't know it would be. I can't stay happy anymore Eddy, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't hold on, I'm slipping.’ Her eyes were glued shut from crying, mucus running down her cupid's bow and into her mouth, the tears followed suit.

Nineteen twenty, I descended the stairs of the hospital, feeling almost like I was in a drunken stupor, one stair at a time, and my heart racing. The handle of my car is cold from the autumn air. I felt as though I was viewing myself from a third-person camera as I slipped the key into the rack lock.

My breathing is all I could hear and the strap around my shoulder is all I could feel as I ascended the stairs, the strap rubbing my shoulder raw. Screaming is what I hear next, dull, however, as though it was far away.

I found Isobel's room, she said something to me and I said something to her, but I can't remember, and if I did it wouldn't matter. The cool trigger felt good. This is what I wanted. Control. I was standing there, Isobel tore open, dead eyes staring at me as she lay on the ground, her blood pooling towards my feet, and I stepped into it, mixing the mud in too.

Nineteen twenty-seven. A sharp bang, and more screaming, a second shot followed it. Eddy and his wife lay dead.

 

Roan Church is from Asheville, US and is studying creative writing. He hopes to get some of his work out there as he enters the world and community of literature.