Dancing The Religious Symphonic

[MalReynolds]

Failure. It hit him as he lay in his king sized bed, the other side cold and unoccupied. The light streamed in through the window casting strange razor-blade like shadows over his face. He sighed and pulled the pillow from the other side of the bed, frowning. It still smelled like her. He didn’t know where she had gone. In the middle of one of their usual fights, she had taken an unusual step.

“I’m leaving.�

“What?�

“John, I’m leaving. I’m getting the hell out of here.�

The door slammed, the dishes in the cupboard rattled and something inside of him broke. He took the bottle of Absolut out of the freezer and drank it straight. He frowned as he chased the bottle with a fresh one from behind the ground beef. He only made a liquor face because it made her laugh. Now, he was just a sad man sitting alone in his kitchen drinking vodka, the taste so familiar he didn’t flinch.

The alarm rang, but he was already awake. The sound distorted under the pillow. He reached out, slapping it. It fell off of the nightstand against the floor. He could hear something inside of it break, an acrid but thin smoke coming out of the tiny black box.

He opened the window, staring at the gray sky, looking towards the city he lived just outside of. The buildings on the horizon reminded him of his grandfather, and his crooked teeth. John often wondered if he would have the same genetic defects. It worried him to think that one day he might end up like his Grandfather, not even remembering his wife.

Well, not that he had any prospects for marriage anymore.

-

The car wreck was bad. Very bad. His parents had been ejected from the vehicle. They had been drinking, but John didn’t find that detail out until later. Three years later. But that was beside the point; they were dead and it was unfair.

-

The shower was cold. The hot water knob was turned all the way to the left, but the water dripping from the faucet was chilling. It didn’t matter; all he had to do was disguise the awful stench of liquor (or was it brandy? He couldn’t remember) and be on his way. Walking into work smelling of the stuff would pass with some of his students that were more prone to partying, but John was almost positive that it wouldn’t go over well with his superiors.

He grabbed a can of Axe body spray from the cabinet and clicked the little plastic piece. Nothing came out. John sighed, reaching into the cabinet again and popping a percocet before manning up and grabbing his “special occasion� cologne that his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) had gotten him.

“It smells better than that Axe stuff you’re always wearing, John.�

Grin and bear it.

It was going to be a long day.

-

His grandfather had been taken out of the picture. Self inflicted wounds. In a moment of clarity, his grandfather had run a razorblade up his wrist, and had cut one of his Achilles tendons before he bled out.

The nurses found him two days later.

It wasn’t the best nursing home, John decided.

-

The beat up Ford Focus that sat in the driveway refused to start. The paint on the outside thoroughly keyed, the back wind-shield equally as destroyed. No matter. It was only a mile into the city, and that would be the end of that. Enter the school. Say hello, and sleep on the desk.

Did he have to teach gym today?

It didn’t matter. He pulled a DVD from his glove compartment. “End of Days.� He would put that in and sleep through is first set of classes. His students wouldn’t mind; they loved action movies and hated education, per usual. If they complained, he would blatantly lie about it. He had done it before.

He stepped out of the car, the air outside sucker punching him. He could have sworn it was warmer when he left his house. The gravel crunched under foot as he jogged to the end of his driveway, picking up the newspaper and starting the trek down the road into the city.

-

There might have been a child. The days were blurred then. A rash of violence and sex. Drug induced comas that he would snap out of. Woman after woman. Christine was none the wiser. Or maybe she was. Maybe that’s why she left.

He had sobered up and she still left. She left when he was straight, when he was faithful. When he was normal.

She still left. And he kept his promise, too.

Bitch.

-

The only remarkable thing about the walk into the city was that John saw no one else. Literally. Not a car on the road, not a person walking to work, not a peanut vender or a bootleg DVD salesman.

He had looked up, approaching the intersection where the school was built to find a tall building instead. Confused, he looked behind himself, back in the direction of his neighborhood. He couldn’t see his house. A thick fog had set in, obscuring his view. The next block was invisible.

John frowned. He looked at the street sign. Miscounted. A block away. John took off down the street, glancing behind him as the fog seemed to give chase.

The next block, the same tall building stood at the intersection. John continued down. The same building at the corner of the next block. A cold sweat broke out. Down the one-way street. Same building at the corner. As soon as he no longer saw the building behind him, as soon as the fog had swallowed it up, he could see it again in the distance.

The fog closed around him. Every step he took brought him to the building again. The tall building, although how tall exactly he wasn’t sure; the top was obscured by the fog.

It was at this point that John realized that something might be going on.

-

He had gone to church every Sunday as a child with his brother, mother and father. There were other things he wanted to be doing, as most children at church think. It was terribly uninteresting. It turned his parents into a robot, singing out of a book and then giving money to that round bowl that was passed around.

John didn’t even get an allowance.

Life isn’t fair.

-

The door to the building swung open, John stepping inside. He studied his surroundings carefully. Inside the building, there was no lobby. There was a hallway, and at the end of the hallway, there was an elevator.

John sighed, setting the DVD down on the ground on top of the newspaper. The newspaper was blank. John frowned, making his way down the hallway to the elevator. Without pressing the call button, the doors slid open. They slid shut and the elevator began to move upwards, without John pressing anything.

Through the speakers poured the muzak rendition of “I Only Have Eyes For You.�

Nostalgia.

-

“I Only Have Eyes For You,� the string band began playing. John had been eyeing the woman in the corner, offering a furtive smile. She was gorgeous, but also with a date. John had come stud, although looking around, he was immediately jealous of the men with women.

That didn’t stop him from walking across the room and introducing himself to the woman.

“Hello. My name is… I’m sorry. My name is ‘John’ and I was wondering, if perhaps you’d like to- I mean to say, would you… Well-“

“My name is Christine. I would love to dance.�

She took his hand and he awkwardly danced to the song. She laughed whenever he stepped on her foot. He soon fell into a rhythm, stepping forwards and backwards.

As all good things must, the song ended. She slipped away from him, back to the table. He stood on the dancefloor, an obstruction as the next number began. John sulked back to his table, to be tapped on the back by Christine.

“I had to tell my brother I had met someone,� she smiled at him.

“John Abrhams.� John extended his hand. She took it and they made their way back to the floor.

“Christine You.�

“You’re last name is ‘You’? Spelled like…�

“Y-o-u.�

John laughed.

And yesterday, she left him.

-

The doors slid open revealing a tiny room with a door in the back. There was a man on the other side of the door, gazing out the wall of windows at the city below. He was wearing a white shirt and black pants.

“I’ve been expecting you, John.�

John frowned.

“Do I know you?�

The man turned around, his long white hair flowing behind him. The man was old, wrinkles as derelict as time scarring his face. Black sunglasses obscured his eyes. The two sleeves of the white shirt were stained red.

“Don’t recognize your own grandfather?�

“My grandfather is dead.�

“Astute.�

John frowned.

It was going to be a long day.

-

He had planned on marrying her. He still wanted to. For a brief period, he had been more in love with one night stands and white gold, but that changed. He had changed.

So had she.

-

The old man (grandfather?) began to walk towards John. With every other step, the squishing in the dress shoes the man was wearing grew louder. Blood was pooling in one of them, and with every other step, a look of agony flashed briefly across his face.

“John, I don’t have a lot of time to talk to you.�

“Alright.�

“You need to change.�

“What… What do you mean?�

“Explicitly, I’m not allowed to tell you. That’d send me… Away, for sure.�

“I did change.�

“John, I’m trapped in this building. I can’t leave. All I can do is remember. Do you know what that’s like? I lived the last five years of my life without being able to remember that I had a child, and then to have it all back and not be able to do anything about it? I look down on the street, see you go to work. See Christine. I can hear your father talking to me. This isn’t much of a life.

“I prayed almost every night that I could remember again… And now I can. Funny, isn’t it?�

“I don’t really think so.�

“You’ve changed. You’ve taken the drugs out of your life. The string of women. There’s one thing. And I haven’t the time to teach you.�

“What-“

“My time is up. I’m allowed to tell you one thing: You must climb the mountain.�

“Where is it?�

“Outside of the city.�

“There’s no mountain outside of the city, Grandfather.�

“John, have faith.�

“Not likely.�

Grandfather grimaced. The door swung open and John was pulled through the door, into the elevator which rapidly plummeted down the shaft. It slowed. The doors slid open. It was a different hallway. His newspaper and DVD were nowhere to be found. The door to the outside world opened, the fog splitting down the middle revealing a road.

And a mountain, which loomed in the distance.

-

John had thinning hair. It was still brown, but receding.

Christine had long hair. John always thought she looked like Scarlette Johansson. He told her. She didn’t think so.

John did.

John thought a lot of things.

-

Litter lined the solitary road. At the base of the mountain, John stopped down and picked up a lone piece of refuse. A banana peel with words scribbled on the slick yellow surface with an ink pen.

“Write messages of love on a peel.�

John reached into his pocked and pulled out a pen.

“No.�

He began to climb.

The sun began to set behind the mountain.

-

She had slammed the door. She had cursed at him for existing. She said he ruined her life.

He still loved her.

-

The climb was long and arduous, but there was never a point where John felt as though his life was in danger. His white shirt had become throughouly stained by the dirt and falling rocks, his hands blistered and bleeding. An unknown force drove him forward.

And at the summit of the mountain sat a man behind a desk. Thin glasses, mahogany wood. A chair with wheels and a filing cabinet to one side. The man behind the desk tapped his pen impatiently.

“Hello, John.�

John stared at the man. Short black hair, slicked back. The only area on the ground that wasn’t dirt the desk sat on. Floor. Wooden flooring. The chair slid back. A desk drawer opened and the man pulled two pieces of paper out.

“Just two questions.

“Why don’t you believe in me?

“And are you capable of changing?�

John took a step back.

“Because you took my parents, my grandfather, everyone I ever knew from me and I got nothing back. I got a crappy job, the woman I love left, my grandfather killed himself. After a while, I just stopped.�

“But you can see me now. Do you believe?�

“No.�

God made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“Well, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, John. Because, in all honesty, I don’t believe in you.�

Across from the desk was an empty space.

God scratched through a line on one of the forms.

-

There was no one at the dance that night. Christine left with her brother.

Two years later, she was killed by John’s grandfather, who was driving drunk at the time instead of being holed up in a nursing home.

John’s parents lived on. They had worn their seatbelts instead of fussing over him.

His brother died in the accident.

Well, not his brother.

The man who would have been his brother…

If he had existed.

-

Mal

[whiteflame]

Nice. haha loved the ending. How...cruel.

[FishFishRevolution]

Owned by God.