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Description
You knew me like the people did in ages past, you knew my soul; the one that I was supposed to bare to preachers and to priests. You knew me though, the way they didn't. There was no salvation in my future, now there isn't any salvation in my present. My presence in heaven is unwarranted and unwanted. God doesn't want me here and I don't want to be here either. This is not the afterlife I was promised, this is not my beautiful world. Not the place I wanted to spend the rest of my days, of all the days, in; this is place of clouds and happiness, not the place for me. I wanted fire, I wanted desire and what I have is prayer and post-mortem depression. I was working nine to five when I died, hoping for a little money. A little something to make our life easier. Working to make sure we had a life where that kid we wanted would be welcome.

227.

I think we would be,

an intimidating but alluring couple.

The one whose approval is sought and,

rarely given.

-

-

-

It wasn't something that had been decided on a set date. They didn't decide things that way. Maybe it had been an accident; maybe they'd just lost track of time. Living together for years—called it just something that happened. Seven years gone, and suddenly it was official. Things just seemed to end up that way for the both of them.

The neighbors never knew what to make of them at first. A tall, dark haired man and a tall, dark haired woman. Sometimes people confused them for one another. It was easy to do if you ignored how he always dressed up, and she always dressed out. But things got really confusing on the days when she left the house in his shirt and his hat, but her own pants, and smile.

Maybe they just liked to confuse the neighbors.

They were a couple, people said. They were welcomed to the block the day they moved in, and Mrs. Anderson brought a gift basket for the two of them with a card that said Welcome, Mr and Mrs; they took it and smiled, but a few weeks later someone commented that neither of them wore wedding rings. Or engagement bands. Mrs. Anderson was horribly embarrassed, but no one ever mentioned it, and sometimes she tells the story now, about the young couple that lived down the block.

There were plenty of other stories about them, too.

People saw them walking together—his arm looped around her shoulders, and her possessive grip on his hips. The shimmer of metal on his pockets, and hers. The way neither had much issue staring someone down.

Mothers and small children got along with them both fine, but dads crossed the street when they saw the couple coming. Dark eyes, people said. Those dark eyes looked like they'd seen hell, and they were never softened. No one liked to meet the man's gaze, and sometimes, people said, if you looked into the woman's eyes, it seemed like she was looking right through you.

A few months after they moved in, she came out of the house alone and sat on the porch. There was a bench that swung on the porch, something they'd added together a week after move in day. It didn't fit the surroundings, but people said it looked just fine, after you got used to it. And they sat together sometimes on the swinging bench, with his head pillowed in her lap while she ran fingers through his hair.

Mrs. Venn said he always looked like he was sleeping, except his lips moved, and sometimes he smiled. Mrs. Venn admitted that sometimes she spent an hour watching them instead of doing work around the house. That they were just so precious, and so…

"It's hard to say," Mrs. Venn said. "They just seem so dangerous in person, sometimes, but then you see the two of them like that, out and vulnerable, and they seem so young again."

People said Mrs. Venn had a soft spot for them, and she never denied it.

"But," Mrs. Venn said. "But mark my words—something'll happen someday for those two. They've got the hand of Fate on them, I swear."

Mrs. Venn believed in Fate and magic, and what others might consider silly nonsense, but when they looked at the couple, they didn't disagree.

-

-

-

The porch swing went back and forth as the woman with dark hair sat on it, her arms crossed over her stomach, and she looked like she was thinking. She laid back, or so Mrs. Venn said, and put her feet over the side of the bench.

"And she looked like she'd gone to sleep," Mrs. Venn said. "So I figured I had better go check on her; it wasn't warm out, after all, and she was underdressed, poor thing."

Mrs. Venn lived across the road, but it wasn't far to walk to get to the new couple's house. The woman with dark hair opened her eyes when Mrs. Venn came over, and she sat up. Mrs. Venn said something seemed off, almost wrong.

"Then I saw it," Mrs. Venn said. "These dark marks on her legs, like she'd been dipped in purple ink. They were all over. Not just her legs—arms too, when I saw those. And that was when I first started to think that things couldn't be all right."

The woman with dark hair smiled, and swung her legs down, away.

"Like she was hiding something. I wanted to tell her it was okay, but she didn't know me well, and I didn't think it was my place then."

Mrs. Venn started up a conversation. The woman with the dark hair laughed, and curled her legs under herself—invited Mrs. Venn onto the porch. Asked if she'd like coffee or tea, or anything chocolate.

"We spent most of the afternoon there," Mrs. Venn said. "She made truffles, and I had a tea to go with them. She was a good cook. But those bruises worried me.

"And it wasn't like he was around, either. Like I said, I was there most of the afternoon, and didn't see hide nor hair of him. A little strange since they'd been joined at the hip when they first moved in, you know?"

When dinner finally rolled around, he still hadn't appeared from wherever he was, and Mrs. Venn left the woman with the dark hair. She stayed on the porch a bit longer, so Mrs. Venn said, because she was still there when Mrs. Venn ate her own dinner, looking across from living room to porch.

"And then she went inside," Mrs. Venn said. "That was all."

-

-

-

Nothing happened on purpose. It was an accident of design.

The woman with the dark hair and the man with the dark eyes had names, but it didn't matter to anyone on the block what those names were. The woman with the dark hair was the woman with the bruises, and the man with the dark eyes was suspect. The woman with bruises seemed all right, everyone said, but people also whispered that she couldn't be happy.

The suspect wasn't around much anymore.

People said there might be an affair.

Other people noticed there weren't any wedding bands.

Neighbors began to whisper.

Mrs. Anderson went out of her way to be friendly to the woman with bruises, and invited her to all sorts of functions. The woman with bruises came to a few, and seemed to enjoy them. Mrs. Anderson told everyone about how the woman with bruises was a good conversationalist, if you could get past the way she looked at you, sometimes.

"I swear," Mrs. Anderson said. "It's like she's trying to see people on the other side of you. Those eyes of hers are damn unnerving. But," Mrs. Anderson said, "she knows a lot of books, and she wanted to be a writer when she was younger. She keeps us old ladies company and makes us think. Sometimes she even lets us read what she's written; it's a wonder that woman hasn't gotten herself published yet."

But, as Mrs. Anderson went on to say, the woman with bruises didn't seem to have much interest in the literary side of life anymore.

"Apart from reading, that is. She reads like books are going to walk off the planet any day now. That's dedication, I tell you. She's a smart cookie; makes me wonder why she bothers with that man of hers."

That man, Mrs. Anderson called the suspect. She said she'd seen him once or twice since Mrs. Venn had told her about the bruises.

"Never saw them for myself," Mrs. Anderson said, "but Mrs. Venn's got a right sharp eye, and I don't think she'd gossip at all, so it must be true.

"But I did see him," Mrs. Anderson said, "and he looked like he was drunker than anything. She came out of the house and put her arms around him, and pulled him up the steps, and into the house. The door shuts, and that was it. He couldn't even walk right."

Mrs. Anderson called Mrs. Venn and the two of them talked, watching the house across the way, wondering.

"In the morning—we went to bed late—but in the morning," Mrs. Venn said, "I saw her out on the porch again, alone, and he wasn't anywhere again. It was a good week or so before any of us saw him again."

"About two or three months after they'd arrived," Mrs. Anderson said. "I think that was how long it was. It felt a lot longer and a lot shorter. They seemed so nice at first, and all."

"He came home staggering drunk the same night the next week," Mrs. Venn said. "And she pulled him up the stairs again, and into the house again. And I got to wondering what that poor little dear had to deal with, you know?"

"Same night every week," Mrs. Anderson said. "And it went on for at least another two months."

"She kept having bruises."

"I swear I saw a burn mark on her, too, but I can't be sure," Mrs. Anderson said. "My pappy had one, from grabbing a poker iron out of a hot fire, but I only saw a glimpse, and I can't be sure."

"She stopped coming out," Mrs. Venn said.

"Not out of the house, but just out into the neighborhood," Mrs. Anderson said. "She stopped coming around."

"I think I saw her crying over the kitchen sink," Mrs. Kay said. "She was bent in two, almost, and her face was all screwed up. Contorted—that's the word."

People thought something was going wrong. Word got around. The couple wasn't going to be a couple much longer, people said. He was coming back too late, and she was suffering. People thought she was the one in the right, if there was a right. People thought that she needed to get out.

"I asked her to come over, the night that he comes back," Mrs. Kay said. "I thought I'd be subtle about it, and suggest a girls' night thing. Movies and chocolate—that sort of thing. She just smiled and told me maybe another time. But I didn't want to press, because she looked tired."

"She wouldn't come around unless she thought there was a problem, which was part of the problem," Mrs. Venn said. "She didn't seem to think there was anything wrong."

People talked, though. People knew there was something wrong.

That he didn't come back until late in the morning on Wednesdays, and he was always slightly staggering. That she helped him up the stairs, and that sometimes she was outside waiting for him until he got back, and then she helped him up the stairs, and inside.

"Once the door closed, you'd know that was it," Mrs. Anderson said, "but just once I wanted to catch her when she was waiting for him and tell her it didn't have to be that way."

"She had something of a sixth sense for it," Mrs. Venn said. "She always disappeared if I went over to ask why she was up so late. And after two or three mornings into three o'clock, I just couldn't do it anymore. I figured she'd ask for help when she needed it."

"We were doing all we could," Mrs. Kay said.

-

-

-

People stopped talking after a couple months, when it all became routine. She didn't talk about the late nights, the early mornings, to anyone. He didn't. He kept coming back and she kept helping him up the steps. A few times he came back a little earlier, and once he didn't come back until the afternoon on Wednesday, and then he moved like the air was Jell-O.

But beyond the little things, people stopped talking about them.

He was the man with dark eyes again, and she was the woman with dark hair, although occasionally people saw her bruises and she was the bruised woman with dark hair.

When the springtime rolled around, they started walking together again, but they took strange hours. Sometimes, Mrs. Kay said, they'd leave the house at ten at night, and she didn't see them come back, and then in the morning, she saw the woman with dark hair outside.

"And she always looked really tired," Mrs. Kay said. "She looked like she'd gone and spent the whole night walking around or something. By god, you wonder what these people are on nowadays."

People liked it when the couple started to sit on the swing together again, though. Mrs. Venn said she went back to watching them.

"But," Mrs. Venn said, "I never could forget the way she was bruised up and all. It just didn't seem right."

-

-

-

Years make people forget. Other things come along. Other people come along, and sometimes people leave, too. They didn't leave, but a pair of newlyweds moved in a couple houses down, and Mrs. Anderson gave them a card that said Welcome Mr and Mrs, the same way she'd done with them.

But at least people weren't talking anymore.

"What d'you mean?" he asked, holding her. They were on the couch, and she was leaning against him; he was warm. "You like people talking about you."

"Not all the time."

The computer on the chair-turned-bench blazed with scenic violence.

She turned enough to kiss the corner of his mouth.

"I'll be gone again," he said.

She nodded.

Leonardo diCaprio ran off with a plane onscreen.

"Hopefully they won't call in overtime again," he said.

She turned more, and he resettled, leaning his head in her lap so she could run her fingers through his hair, massaging his temples lightly.

"Not really nine to five, is it?" she asked.

"No," he said. His eyes were shut. "It's not."

She watched him as her fingers moved through his hair. Passing time did strange things to some people, but she remembered this like it was a scene from their childhood together. Not real childhood—but teen years, on the verge of pretending to be adults themselves, before they finally rolled into the elder world.

"Hey," she said to him. "Don't fall asleep."

The right side of his mouth quirked up, into a small smile. "I know where your hands are," he said. "It's safe."

She pulled on hand away. "Now you don't."

"You wouldn't kill me anyway," he said, shifting onto his side.

She put her hand back into his hair.

The smile stretched.

Description
You knew me like the people did in ages past, you knew my soul; the one that I was supposed to bare to preachers and to priests. You knew me though, the way they didn't. There was no salvation in my future, now there isn't any salvation in my present. My presence in heaven is unwarranted and unwanted. God doesn't want me here and I don't want to be here either. This is not the afterlife I was promised, this is not my beautiful world. Not the place I wanted to spend the rest of my days, of all the days, in; this is place of clouds and happiness, not the place for me. I wanted fire, I wanted desire and what I have is prayer and post-mortem depression. I was working nine to five when I died, hoping for a little money. A little something to make our life easier. Working to make sure we had a life where that kid we wanted would be welcome.

227.

I think we would be,

an intimidating but alluring couple.

The one whose approval is sought and,

rarely given.

-

-

-

It wasn't something that had been decided on a set date. They didn't decide things that way. Maybe it had been an accident; maybe they'd just lost track of time. Living together for years—called it just something that happened. Seven years gone, and suddenly it was official. Things just seemed to end up that way for the both of them.

The neighbors never knew what to make of them at first. A tall, dark haired man and a tall, dark haired woman. Sometimes people confused them for one another. It was easy to do if you ignored how he always dressed up, and she always dressed out. But things got really confusing on the days when she left the house in his shirt and his hat, but her own pants, and smile.

Maybe they just liked to confuse the neighbors.

They were a couple, people said. They were welcomed to the block the day they moved in, and Mrs. Anderson brought a gift basket for the two of them with a card that said Welcome, Mr and Mrs; they took it and smiled, but a few weeks later someone commented that neither of them wore wedding rings. Or engagement bands. Mrs. Anderson was horribly embarrassed, but no one ever mentioned it, and sometimes she tells the story now, about the young couple that lived down the block.

There were plenty of other stories about them, too.

People saw them walking together—his arm looped around her shoulders, and her possessive grip on his hips. The shimmer of metal on his pockets, and hers. The way neither had much issue staring someone down.

Mothers and small children got along with them both fine, but dads crossed the street when they saw the couple coming. Dark eyes, people said. Those dark eyes looked like they'd seen hell, and they were never softened. No one liked to meet the man's gaze, and sometimes, people said, if you looked into the woman's eyes, it seemed like she was looking right through you.

A few months after they moved in, she came out of the house alone and sat on the porch. There was a bench that swung on the porch, something they'd added together a week after move in day. It didn't fit the surroundings, but people said it looked just fine, after you got used to it. And they sat together sometimes on the swinging bench, with his head pillowed in her lap while she ran fingers through his hair.

Mrs. Venn said he always looked like he was sleeping, except his lips moved, and sometimes he smiled. Mrs. Venn admitted that sometimes she spent an hour watching them instead of doing work around the house. That they were just so precious, and so…

"It's hard to say," Mrs. Venn said. "They just seem so dangerous in person, sometimes, but then you see the two of them like that, out and vulnerable, and they seem so young again."

People said Mrs. Venn had a soft spot for them, and she never denied it.

"But," Mrs. Venn said. "But mark my words—something'll happen someday for those two. They've got the hand of Fate on them, I swear."

Mrs. Venn believed in Fate and magic, and what others might consider silly nonsense, but when they looked at the couple, they didn't disagree.

-

-

-

The porch swing went back and forth as the woman with dark hair sat on it, her arms crossed over her stomach, and she looked like she was thinking. She laid back, or so Mrs. Venn said, and put her feet over the side of the bench.

"And she looked like she'd gone to sleep," Mrs. Venn said. "So I figured I had better go check on her; it wasn't warm out, after all, and she was underdressed, poor thing."

Mrs. Venn lived across the road, but it wasn't far to walk to get to the new couple's house. The woman with dark hair opened her eyes when Mrs. Venn came over, and she sat up. Mrs. Venn said something seemed off, almost wrong.

"Then I saw it," Mrs. Venn said. "These dark marks on her legs, like she'd been dipped in purple ink. They were all over. Not just her legs—arms too, when I saw those. And that was when I first started to think that things couldn't be all right."

The woman with dark hair smiled, and swung her legs down, away.

"Like she was hiding something. I wanted to tell her it was okay, but she didn't know me well, and I didn't think it was my place then."

Mrs. Venn started up a conversation. The woman with the dark hair laughed, and curled her legs under herself—invited Mrs. Venn onto the porch. Asked if she'd like coffee or tea, or anything chocolate.

"We spent most of the afternoon there," Mrs. Venn said. "She made truffles, and I had a tea to go with them. She was a good cook. But those bruises worried me.

"And it wasn't like he was around, either. Like I said, I was there most of the afternoon, and didn't see hide nor hair of him. A little strange since they'd been joined at the hip when they first moved in, you know?"

When dinner finally rolled around, he still hadn't appeared from wherever he was, and Mrs. Venn left the woman with the dark hair. She stayed on the porch a bit longer, so Mrs. Venn said, because she was still there when Mrs. Venn ate her own dinner, looking across from living room to porch.

"And then she went inside," Mrs. Venn said. "That was all."

-

-

-

Nothing happened on purpose. It was an accident of design.

The woman with the dark hair and the man with the dark eyes had names, but it didn't matter to anyone on the block what those names were. The woman with the dark hair was the woman with the bruises, and the man with the dark eyes was suspect. The woman with bruises seemed all right, everyone said, but people also whispered that she couldn't be happy.

The suspect wasn't around much anymore.

People said there might be an affair.

Other people noticed there weren't any wedding bands.

Neighbors began to whisper.

Mrs. Anderson went out of her way to be friendly to the woman with bruises, and invited her to all sorts of functions. The woman with bruises came to a few, and seemed to enjoy them. Mrs. Anderson told everyone about how the woman with bruises was a good conversationalist, if you could get past the way she looked at you, sometimes.

"I swear," Mrs. Anderson said. "It's like she's trying to see people on the other side of you. Those eyes of hers are damn unnerving. But," Mrs. Anderson said, "she knows a lot of books, and she wanted to be a writer when she was younger. She keeps us old ladies company and makes us think. Sometimes she even lets us read what she's written; it's a wonder that woman hasn't gotten herself published yet."

But, as Mrs. Anderson went on to say, the woman with bruises didn't seem to have much interest in the literary side of life anymore.

"Apart from reading, that is. She reads like books are going to walk off the planet any day now. That's dedication, I tell you. She's a smart cookie; makes me wonder why she bothers with that man of hers."

That man, Mrs. Anderson called the suspect. She said she'd seen him once or twice since Mrs. Venn had told her about the bruises.

"Never saw them for myself," Mrs. Anderson said, "but Mrs. Venn's got a right sharp eye, and I don't think she'd gossip at all, so it must be true.

"But I did see him," Mrs. Anderson said, "and he looked like he was drunker than anything. She came out of the house and put her arms around him, and pulled him up the steps, and into the house. The door shuts, and that was it. He couldn't even walk right."

Mrs. Anderson called Mrs. Venn and the two of them talked, watching the house across the way, wondering.

"In the morning—we went to bed late—but in the morning," Mrs. Venn said, "I saw her out on the porch again, alone, and he wasn't anywhere again. It was a good week or so before any of us saw him again."

"About two or three months after they'd arrived," Mrs. Anderson said. "I think that was how long it was. It felt a lot longer and a lot shorter. They seemed so nice at first, and all."

"He came home staggering drunk the same night the next week," Mrs. Venn said. "And she pulled him up the stairs again, and into the house again. And I got to wondering what that poor little dear had to deal with, you know?"

"Same night every week," Mrs. Anderson said. "And it went on for at least another two months."

"She kept having bruises."

"I swear I saw a burn mark on her, too, but I can't be sure," Mrs. Anderson said. "My pappy had one, from grabbing a poker iron out of a hot fire, but I only saw a glimpse, and I can't be sure."

"She stopped coming out," Mrs. Venn said.

"Not out of the house, but just out into the neighborhood," Mrs. Anderson said. "She stopped coming around."

"I think I saw her crying over the kitchen sink," Mrs. Kay said. "She was bent in two, almost, and her face was all screwed up. Contorted—that's the word."

People thought something was going wrong. Word got around. The couple wasn't going to be a couple much longer, people said. He was coming back too late, and she was suffering. People thought she was the one in the right, if there was a right. People thought that she needed to get out.

"I asked her to come over, the night that he comes back," Mrs. Kay said. "I thought I'd be subtle about it, and suggest a girls' night thing. Movies and chocolate—that sort of thing. She just smiled and told me maybe another time. But I didn't want to press, because she looked tired."

"She wouldn't come around unless she thought there was a problem, which was part of the problem," Mrs. Venn said. "She didn't seem to think there was anything wrong."

People talked, though. People knew there was something wrong.

That he didn't come back until late in the morning on Wednesdays, and he was always slightly staggering. That she helped him up the stairs, and that sometimes she was outside waiting for him until he got back, and then she helped him up the stairs, and inside.

"Once the door closed, you'd know that was it," Mrs. Anderson said, "but just once I wanted to catch her when she was waiting for him and tell her it didn't have to be that way."

"She had something of a sixth sense for it," Mrs. Venn said. "She always disappeared if I went over to ask why she was up so late. And after two or three mornings into three o'clock, I just couldn't do it anymore. I figured she'd ask for help when she needed it."

"We were doing all we could," Mrs. Kay said.

-

-

-

People stopped talking after a couple months, when it all became routine. She didn't talk about the late nights, the early mornings, to anyone. He didn't. He kept coming back and she kept helping him up the steps. A few times he came back a little earlier, and once he didn't come back until the afternoon on Wednesday, and then he moved like the air was Jell-O.

But beyond the little things, people stopped talking about them.

He was the man with dark eyes again, and she was the woman with dark hair, although occasionally people saw her bruises and she was the bruised woman with dark hair.

When the springtime rolled around, they started walking together again, but they took strange hours. Sometimes, Mrs. Kay said, they'd leave the house at ten at night, and she didn't see them come back, and then in the morning, she saw the woman with dark hair outside.

"And she always looked really tired," Mrs. Kay said. "She looked like she'd gone and spent the whole night walking around or something. By god, you wonder what these people are on nowadays."

People liked it when the couple started to sit on the swing together again, though. Mrs. Venn said she went back to watching them.

"But," Mrs. Venn said, "I never could forget the way she was bruised up and all. It just didn't seem right."

-

-

-

Years make people forget. Other things come along. Other people come along, and sometimes people leave, too. They didn't leave, but a pair of newlyweds moved in a couple houses down, and Mrs. Anderson gave them a card that said Welcome Mr and Mrs, the same way she'd done with them.

But at least people weren't talking anymore.

"What d'you mean?" he asked, holding her. They were on the couch, and she was leaning against him; he was warm. "You like people talking about you."

"Not all the time."

The computer on the chair-turned-bench blazed with scenic violence.

She turned enough to kiss the corner of his mouth.

"I'll be gone again," he said.

She nodded.

Leonardo diCaprio ran off with a plane onscreen.

"Hopefully they won't call in overtime again," he said.

She turned more, and he resettled, leaning his head in her lap so she could run her fingers through his hair, massaging his temples lightly.

"Not really nine to five, is it?" she asked.

"No," he said. His eyes were shut. "It's not."

She watched him as her fingers moved through his hair. Passing time did strange things to some people, but she remembered this like it was a scene from their childhood together. Not real childhood—but teen years, on the verge of pretending to be adults themselves, before they finally rolled into the elder world.

"Hey," she said to him. "Don't fall asleep."

The right side of his mouth quirked up, into a small smile. "I know where your hands are," he said. "It's safe."

She pulled on hand away. "Now you don't."

"You wouldn't kill me anyway," he said, shifting onto his side.

She put her hand back into his hair.

The smile stretched.