1/0: Entries from the End Times

34/Pig

Groceries

• Antiseptic
• Cotton balls
• Bandages
• Blanket

“I’ll quit.”

I stopped peeling the paper off a bandage.

“I’ll quit,” Aihan said sharply. “I hurt you when I said I couldn’t be yoked to an unbeliever, I hurt you when I lied to you, and I know it must’ve hurt you when you saw me hurting myself. I’ve hurt you three times now, and I’ll be damned – well, I am damned – if I do it a fourth time.” She grit her teeth when I dabbed at her thigh with an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball.

The two-headed dog flopped down in her lap.

“I’m happy to hear that,” I said softly, “but if it didn’t work for me, it might not work for you.”

“Then what will work?” She rubbed the two-headed dog’s belly.

I scooted closer and placed a reassuring hand on her forearm before cloaking her last cut with the last bandage. “We give it up a little at a time.”

“How?”

“I’ll snort it through my other nostril, and you can draw lines with whatever pen you use to write in your journal.”

The two-headed dog rolled upright and nudged her with its noses, sniffing inquisitively. She ran a shaky hand over its spine, then the corners of her mouth curled down and she tucked her face into the crook of my neck. Each jerk of her shoulders wracked me worse than the convulsions I had on her carpet.

“Hey, what is it?” I cradled her head to my chest and slowly stroked her silky black hair.

“I’m sorry,” she rasped, “I just, I just don’t like myself, so I thought if you thought I didn’t like you, you wouldn’t have to deal with my mess –”

“I’m sorry, too.” I pressed my lips to her temple. “All this time, you’ve looked after me, but I never asked about you.” I pinched her chin, forcing her gaze to meet my grin. “But you’ve fought it by yourself for this long, so it’s about time you called in the big guns.”

“You’re right, I have to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Confess my sins.” Her bottom lip trembled against my skin. “Even if they won’t let me in, I have to confess my sins.”

The hand I had in her hair slid to her upper back and rubbed it. I brought her brow to my forehead, cupped her cheek in my palm, and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Lord, I ask that You sanctify my vessel.” Her breath steadied as she rolled the beads of her rosary. “Lord, I –” her voice cracked and she fell silent.

I wrapped my arm around her and threw the other around the two-headed dog, so it wouldn’t feel left out.

“Oh God,” she gasped, “oh God, I understand if You can’t forgive me.”

“You’ll be forgiven,” I said sternly. “If a fucking crackhead like me can be forgiven, you’ll be forgiven for sure.”

“I’m sorry…. I’m sorry I hurt myself.”

“Amen.”

“And that Etan has to deal with a party-pooper like me.”

“Amen!”

“You didn’t have to say it that enthusiastically.” Her fingers wormed their way under my shirt and splayed over my heart with two left feet. “And I’m sorry…”

The cotton candy clouds thickened. Then, fine flakes of pink, red, white, green, amber, yellow, indicolite, and petalite danced through the air and around the Nissan Versa. They glistened and glittered when they gently lowered themselves to the ground, seeping into the soil, and a single stem with several buds bloomed from the damp spots.

“Look –” I playfully prodded her in the ribs “– it’s the Fruit Loops version of those cakes that God sent from the sky to the Israelites.”

“You mean manna?”

“Yeah, Fruit Loops manna.”

“That’s blasphemy.”

“What were you just saying? Something about being a party-pooper?”

She rolled her dark brown eyes, but warmth brimmed in them with her tears. “Says the man who Tokyo-drifted us through a carnivorous, multicolored canyon.”

“But I got us through it, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did.”

When she looked at me, it catapulted me twenty-five days into the past. I thought of her sitting at that perfectly set table, her hands in prayer position over her oyster omelette, her stunned, disgusted stare as my limbs flailed on her floor, likely mentally blaspheming her Lord for sending her a fallen angel when He knew she meant a well-adjusted one despite not specifying so.

And when I looked at her, I travelled twenty-five days into the now. Here she sat, having made a total mess of herself, her hair seemed streaked with the oil that fuelled our vehicle, hunched in the passenger's seat, her side pressed to mine as she shuddered at the iridescent tempest outside. She began to laugh sheepishly, and I didn’t need her to tell me. For the first time in a long line of confessions, she felt clean.

And for the first time, after many lines of coke, I didn’t feel forsaken.

I let the dog scramble into the backseat, and tilted her head toward mine, my fingertips barely brushing the delicate curve of her jaw.

“I want to be yoked with you,” I asked hoarsely. “Would you like that –”

She climbed over the center console and her mouth molded to mine. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her in, so she straddled my legs. My tongue and teeth trailed over her chapped lips, then her jaw. She nuzzled the notch in my throat and paused to suck at my pulse. My palms slipped under her skirt and smoothed up her inner thighs, pushing them apart.

She traced tight circles over my ribs with her thumbs. I tugged at the zipper of her racer jacket, then yanked her forward, so her hips slotted against mine, beginning to kiss across her collarbone.

But then, she recoiled, her face flushed. I let her clamber back into the passenger’s seat, reaching over to lace my fingers through hers.

“You okay?” I panted, carefully cupping her neck.

“Yeah, I just, I want to take it slow.” She playfully pinched my cheek and pecked my chin. “Is that okay?”

“What’s the rush? Second perk of the end times, Aihan: We have all the time in the world –”

A stalactite shattered through the sunroof. Then, several more pierced through the clouds, soaring straight for our vehicle.

“Shit, so much for that!” I seethed. rain

“Take it fast!” she screamed.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

I turned the ignition on, switched gears, and floored the gas pedal before the stalagmites tearing through the grass could skewer our tires.