Sometimes...when you realize what you
have, it might be too late....
Not the one I love.
You're not.
Not, the one, I love.
But as it devours everything in sight, as tabernacles, cloths, all of these symbols of
"not" begin to twist into ashes...the context of the same words begins to change as time
slips away...
Not the one I love!
Please, please...let it all burn...but don't take him....not the one I love.
It happened just after midnight...the deadline hour...but the only thing that's grown too
old too fast is the question "why."
"Why?....Why can't I just forget....why?"
Kneeling man....slave man...he bows beneath the almighty altar...praying with all that's
left of his will to be that man.
His answer flickered on a wick that fell to the floor as he grazed it in dispair....as he
was turning....turning away from all of it to go to her.
Panic, at first, is mechanical. Dammages....repair costs....insurance figures. He is, of
course, a tortured soul, standing within arm's reach of a fire...the threat, the danger fuels
him. But then....the desire to let it go.....to just let the fire claim it all.......
A choice had to be made. If he left, there was no turning back. If he stayed...he'd
douse the flames and carry on...all is well in the chapel.
But the more he watches the flames dance, grow....the more it becomes a symbol of
his freedom.
The prison is burning......
He knows he has to get out....but hesitates.
He wants to watch it burn. How cathartic.
Tonight, she would know how desperately he felt. He would hand her his heart to do
with as she desired. And even if she left it wriggling on the floor like a pathetic little
creature...there was still the dream....the dream...
The dream they had both burned.
That one last torn piece of a blue-tinted kiss
that he couldn't bear to drop......
Wasn't this just another ritual....another sacrifice....wouldn't they all...wouldn't
she be better off without him?
There wasn't enough time to ponder it.....a piece of the
ceiling....concussion.....darkness....smoke blotting out everything....
She jolted awake just after midnight...sleeping next to the man who called her a
whore...the one that she begged for a second chance....he was the only one....the
only one.
Something was wrong.
A headache sets in, like a migraine only without the blindness....she can see....she
always has seen...the face she ignores.
She stands out on that dark veranda, above the lifeguard's headquarters, above the
town....above a small orange dot in the distance....orange in the center, speckled with
dancing gray...a tiny shudder of realization....
"The Mission!!!"
That was what it took.
The screech of fire trucks in the distance.....but no one yet to be seen as she fought
her way through the door....smoke in the vestibule....smoke in her eyes....too hot to see.
And by some miracle in the midst of all these clouds, opaque, dusky...the man shrouded in
black appeared....the collar barely white with ash.
She secured him in her arms....dragged him away from the flame engulfed
altar...speaking, endearing terms slipping accidentally from her lips, "Come on,
Hon, it's alright. It's gonna be alright." Choking on ashes, but not the words.
She slammed the door of the small office...barred windows....shoved a white robe in
the tiny space beneath the door....it wasn't safe here....but for now.
He lays on the velvet...the little velvet couch for queasy brides. She caressed his sooty
cheek.....no response to her touch....
"Wake up, Antonio...you're safe with me now...open your eyes, Antonio...."
Nothing.
"C'mon...c'mon, Sweetheart...(another lapse)...wake up....look at me......."
Panic, at first, is like a bullet through the heart. Then a freight train. Her hand on
him...her hand doesn't rise.......at all.
"No...God, no...don't do this to me, you can't give up on me!!!"
Her lips administer something cold and routine with tenderness and intensity....she fills
an unresponsive body with a kiss of life. Presses, presses, nothing.
"Come on!!!! Please...please don't let him die....!!"
Unsure of who she's asking for this favor, frustrated, she pries the white thing from his
neck and flings it across the room....of course, only because it might be blocking the
airway....it might be stopping him from living.
Earlier that night, she begged and begged that man to love her again...it seems so
petty and shallow....now that she's pleading the man she loves to live again. To just fall
back into the world, to take that one deep breath, so powerful and sweet.
But suddenly, he does, it's like an explosion, she feeds life into him....he wants to live.
He wants to remember why, but she's holding him so close, blocking out the past...and the
present....she's whispering to him frantically, breathlessly...
"I love you...God, I love you....I almost lost you forever......."
"I love you too...still...forever...and I was dead....for a long time....because I
couldn't say that to you....."
"Everything's alright....it's gonna be alright....."
Flames dance beside the office door, still no one with water to be found.
Is it...will it ever be alright...........???......
The End
