Death eluded him once more. Vincent could not comprehend why God or the Devil hadn’t taken him away. Surely, the Demons had possession of his soul. He moaned with undying pain. Remorse savagely burned his badly bruised body. One more time, Vincent faced the daily struggle to stay alive another day in a world that had turned on him.
The morning sun brightly burned onto his face. Vincent’s mind screamed for someone to turn the light off. He wished for somebody to shoot him dead. Vincent thought God and everyone he knew didn’t want him around, much less for him to be alive, so why is he still here? Questions went through his mind countless times. Everyday Vincent would wake up and stare at the ceiling, at the bare walls, and the cold, damp cement floor was very hard on his face. His saliva laced with blood and urine made his face wet and colder. Vincent wiped his face off with the back of his hand; the caked-on blood, dirt and cuts made him curse at his pain. The same pain that made his hand sore was also covered with bruises and cuts.
Vincent barely sat up and looked down at his legs. He had been beaten and raped. The slacks and underclothing he wore were torn into shreds and bloodied; they stood half way down between his waist and knees. He could feel blood seep out from his rectum onto the cement. The pain ran from his ass to his aching head like a tsunami making its way through a gorge. The dam had broken and excruciating pain traveled from his knee to his head with amazing speed. Vincent cried out cursing God with every breath he took. He tried to move his leg by lifting it up to a position where he could lift himself up, but he was too exhausted and the lack of energy deterred him even more.
The sunlight from the single window had moved off the brick wall that was behind him. Vincent sat alone, somewhere downtown, but he didn’t know where. He tried to think of what had happened to him, but his memory was foggy and barely existed. He listened for sounds, but the only noises came from his mind. The sunlight that hit him was now stripes on the painted brick wall barely visible as darkness was beginning to set in. Vincent sat in the shadows, cold and dirty, trash from previous inhabitants congregated around him. He looked up at the lone window and saw two slivers of high rise buildings. His focus turned down to a cigarette butt, which he picked up and with shaking hand he placed it on his busted lips.
Vincent could hear the noisy trash trucks race by his window scurrying to their next pick ups, crushing the beer bottles left behind by the drunks of the alley. Papers from the trash shook as a gentle blast of wind came through and settled on his being sending shivers of chills through his body. Tears welled up in his dark brown eyes as they glimpsed at the clouds racing by his window. He bent his right leg as tears ran down his face, the pain raced through his tired body. Vincent’s thoughts turned into a prayer. He asked God for mercy and let whoever beat him to come back and finish killing him. Once more Vincent’s hands hit the filthy floor; his anger escalated as he tried to push himself up from the floor. He struggled to stand up, barely able to hold his balance, knowing everything he had worked for had gone to pieces.
Vincent felt empty the victim of fate. He struggled to keep his pants on, pushing them up into his groin with one hand. A sudden burst of air came through the holes of his pants he had stolen from someone’s backyard. He felt the blood run down the backside of his legs. The silence of his mind gave him the incentive to force himself to move. He mustered the courage to take a step. He remembered walking down the hall hoping that his wife would talk to him. Vincent was surprised to find her with another man. He stood at the door of their bedroom where for twenty years he had made love to her. Vincent yelled at her that he hated and loved her for this. He hated because it gave him hope. He loved his wife because she was the kind of person he dreamed of. Now the worst is over, all the emotions, and all the dreams of ending their life together lead to disappointments.
His wife looked at Vincent as tears pooled in her eyes and flowed down her soft cheeks. The man on top of her finished what he had done so many times before as her heart could not take it anymore. She told Vincent that he would never have to look at her that way again, or kiss her because she was never to be with him again. She pulled out a gun from underneath the pillow, shot her lover in the heart and placed the gun at the side of her head and fired.
Vincent’s heart dropped and it dropped again as he walked roughly toward the single window where the life of the street clamored, the cars and trucks whizzed on by. He listened to the people talking, laughing, and living a life he once had. He realized minutes before he came to hours had gone by, he dreamt of making love to his wife. Vincent could not stop thinking about her, about how he used to kiss her, of how happy he was being married to her. A river of memories of a life that cheated on him broke his spirit and turned into an ocean of tears and despair. It seemed so very far away as the noise of cars raced by the window. The sounds traveled almost as fast as the pain hit his head every time he took a step toward the window.
Images of dark coffin with hundreds of pink roses draped over his wife’s casket came into his mind. No matter how much he wanted for his wife to be alive, Vincent did not cry at her funeral. He showed no emotion or feelings; it was as if he was a ghost in an empty body. People watched him as they cried a million tears for his beloved wife. He tried to cry, but he could not. Vincent wished his wife could have killed him instead. His need and want to spend the rest of his life with her still haunted him.
Vincent approached the window, he could smell the trash of dead rats permeate into his nostrils. He listened to the whispered sounds of cockroaches scurrying about the remains of the debris and human waste. He felt faint as the smell of alcohol reeked from the outside into his room. Vincent wanted to know where he was, what had happened. He needed a drink in the worse way. It was the one thing that kept him going. The taste of bourbon on his dry lips was as sweet as red wine as he savored for a swallow. His eyes looked tired as he searched for a hint in the alley of what city he was in. The building he was in was at the end of the alley. He could barely see the graffiti writing on the brick wall on the building across from him. It was too dark.
Vincent walked back to where he came from. It wasn’t long before his face hit the trash on the floor. His body moaned with a deep thump as it crashed onto the concrete floor at his feet. It was blanketed with broken glass and trash. There was no bed where he was, he covered himself with newspapers and waited for someone to murder him. He thought it was a cruel fantasy that his life turned out this way. Destiny has stripped Vincent of everything he possessed and the only pleasure he now had was he begged for someone to put an end to his life.
Not long ago, Vincent was a happy man, pant pockets full of money, freshly bathed, clean clothes, a girlfriend on his arm. She would resist and struggle at first, but eventually she gave him the pleasure he wanted. He kept her on the edge of his life, never letting her in. She begged him to let her help him, but he refused. Now the bitch was a memory in his mind tormenting him, staring at him, as he lay on the floor as if he was a circus freak with a birth defect. Other people from his past giggled and snickered as they looked down at him half dressed, soaked in blood. His dirty white shirt was the only thing he had from home. His wife’s perfume filled the air, as he wanted her to be with him. She was no where near him, but in the arms of her lover.
The only thing Vincent could sense was the music coming from the living room in his home. The music was filling him with a sense of peace. The feeling of joy and laughter he once had was sweetness to his soul. He wished he could see his wife as he lay in the next bedroom where she died.
Copyright © 2008, Vincent Parker. All rights reserved.
