1/0: Entries from the End Times

“I’ll quit.”

I stopped sipping the rich, white broth directly from the well.

“I’ll quit,” Etan repeated through a mouthful of tender dark meat he’d torn from the chicken’s leg. “I’ve let you down twice now, and I’ll be damned – well, I am damned – I’ll be double damned if I do it a third time.” He reached out to place a reassuring hand on my upper arm, but then immediately retracted it as if he were a leper and he didn’t want to infect me with his touch. “I’m telling you, so you’ll hold me to it. I’ll quit.”

The two-headed dog licked the chicken’s carcass with one tongue and lapped at the rest of the broth with the other.

“I mean, I’m happy to hear that, but what’s your play?” I popped a shiitake mushroom into my mouth.

“The only play there is.” He swallowed, pointed the MP5 submachine gun down, engaged the safety, and removed the magazine. He held it under the starlight, inspecting the chamber for any rounds, then pulled a screwdriver from a pocket in his dress pants. “Giving it up. Giving all of it up.” He yanked the stock apart from the receiver and set it on his lap. “Right after this.” He detached the grip, bolt, and barrel, thoroughly wiping each component with his suit jacket.

I scooted closer to Etan, handing him the barrel, bolt, grip, and magazine as he reassembled his weapon. “That sounds very difficult.”

“O ye of so little faith,” he muttered under his breath, “why do you doubt?”

“What about withdrawal?”

“For fuck’s sake, Aihan,” he bit out, the two-headed dog flinching at the edge in every syllable. “Can you at least pretend to have some faith in me?”

“I’m not saying I don’t have faith in you,” I snapped, “I’m saying there’s a better game plan –”

He clapped a hand over my mouth and pulled me against him, a lean-muscled arm roughly wrapped around my waist, my head resting over his racing heart. When I struggled against him, he only tightened his grip.

“Don’t you dare lecture me about plans,” he rasped against my ear. “I’ve had enough of you Christians and your talk about plans.”

I had never been more tempted to disobey the sixth commandment in my life. And I had come real close when my father asked me if I wanted to go to hell after I choked out that I felt like killing myself upon my return from conversion camp. And when my mother simply said that it would be disgusting when I asked her how she would feel about me marrying a woman.

I fell still at the sight of an obsidian owl’s massive shadow warping in the bubbling waters of the steaming river. Once it passed, he wordlessly let go of me and marched over to the trunk.

“My dad could’ve watched me become a champion if God didn’t plan to screw my spine over,” he grumbled to himself. He lifted the floor of the trunk and tossed one packet of cocaine into the dirt. He sniffed, then sniffed again. “I wouldn’t have become a crackhead to numb the pain if it weren’t in His plan.” Then another. Then another, already opened. Then, he took off his left boot and tossed out the packet he kept in its heel. He crushed it in his fist and catapulted it as far as he could.

The two-headed dog fetched it for him.

“No! Bad dog!” He whirled on our canine companion (companions?), but when his watery stare fell on its wagging tail, he dropped to the ground. He reached for the retrieved packet.

I kicked it aside. “Bad Zero.”

He retraced his hand and groaned in frustration, glowering at me from over the elbows propped up on his tucked knees.

But when the two-headed dog nudged him with its noses, sniffing inquisitively, he smiled shakily. And then, like salt in water, his bitter, reluctant laughter dissolved into sobs.

Each jerk of his shoulders wracked me worse than the pierced hands and electric currents that shackled me since my so-called correction.

I crouched across from him and cradled his head to my chest, combing my fingers through his dark disheveled hair. His breath slowly steadied, its warmth and weight soothing my red, raw collarbone. He pulled my hand under his shirt, pressing it until my palm laid flat against his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffed, “I just, I just don’t like myself when I’m not on it, and I get angry, but I don’t want you to think I don’t like you –”

“You should be sorry.” I pinched his chin, forcing him to meet my glare. “But you can be better, because you can, because I have faith in you.” My voice began to rise. “Because you’re not in my cottage anymore, and I don’t have the materials to save you if you have another seizure. You beat a whole club of darkened figures. You will beat this.”

He sniffed again, his jaw set. “I can beat it.”

“No, you will beat it.”

“I will, I will.”

25/Pig

Today was a good day.

Etan tried to teach the two-headed dog to not fetch, but it didn’t catch on, so we ran over the packets when we drove off.

Thankfully, the two-headed dog did not inhale any cocaine.

Etan has not inhaled any either.

26/Pig

Today was a bad day.

He wouldn’t wake up for a while, and when he did, he couldn’t walk that well. We came across another T&T/Cardenas. He ate all the food in half an hour. I had him drink some lemon water with salt to help with his headache. He cried until he fell asleep again.

27/Pig

An owl tried to eat the two-headed dog. I drove. He climbed into the backseat and shimmied through the sunroof to shoot it out of the sky. He missed multiple times. When he did hit the owl, he hit it over and over with the gun while I grabbed the dog. He kept shouting at it as it flew away. He slept in the backseat. Cried occasionally. Later, apologized to me for being so angry. I told him he could be angry at the owls, especially for trying to eat our dog, but if he hit me, I’d drive us to the Copper Palace and tell the stone lions he had a fake ID. He laughed at that. Then, he kept crying. I asked him if he cried for his father. He said he didn’t know why he cried either. Apocalypse blues, am I right?

28/Pig

In the middle of the night, he woke me up and asked for cocaine. I reminded him that we ran over it all. He nodded as if he understood, but he kept asking for it. I had to remind him three more times. When he finally understood, he looked like he wanted to cry, but he seemed too tired to do it.

I hate seeing him like this.

He can’t even smile anymore.

I miss his smile.

I miss him.

29/Pig

I got tired of driving, and he’s tired of fighting owls, but we came across a bunker/library. It’s completely made of metal, iron, I think, including the bed and the books. There’s even an iron Bible! I let Etan have the bed. I asked him if he wanted me to read to him. He just wanted to sleep. I ask that You would shepherd his soul and heal his heart. You’re the Great Physician, aren’t you?

30/Pig

Etan asked me to read him some verses. I told him that wherever he goes, I will go, and wherever he stays, I will stay, and his people will be my people. I told him I don’t want to go to New Jerusalem without him.

He tells me he feels like he’s dying, and that he doesn’t want to die. I told him I don’t want him to die either.

I checked his heartbeat.

It’s weak.

31/Pig

His heartbeat is better.

He asked me to read some verses to him, so I read him all of the Revelations and the Bible didn’t seem that heavy even though it’s iron.

He asked me if New Jerusalem would really let someone like him in. I told him that as long as he believed You loved him, died for his sins, and rose from the dead, he would rise from the dead, too.

He smiled a little and he told me to look out for owls, even though there don’t seem to be any owls anymore.

32/Pig

He has a fever and he won’t wake up.

God, please don’t let him leave me.

I’ll be so lonely without him.

Don’t let him leave me, don’t let him leave me.

Please, don’t let him leave me alone here.

“Lord, I ask that You sanctify the vessel of my friend Teo Etan Cruz Ramirez,” I whispered sharply, my knuckles whitened from how tightly I clutched my crucifix. “Shield him from the flaming darts of the enemy. Victory is Yours. As long as we stand in You and stand with You, we stand in victory –”

“Aihan,” he said hoarsely.

“Etan, you’re awake!” I exclaimed, leaping out of my bed and kneeling beside the slab of metal he squirmed uncomfortably on, resting the back of my hand against his forehead. “Your temperature is lowered, Praise the Lord.”

“Praise yourself,” he grunted, struggling to sit up. “You’re the one who’s been looking after me.” Then, he gave up and flopped onto the steel mattress again.

“Hey –” I shook a package of dehydrated jujubes/dates at him “– look what I got from Cardenas.”

“Isn’t it a T&T?” He swallowed hard and his stomach rumbled loudly.

“Who says it can’t be both?” I handed him one.

He shook his head. “I’m alright, I think I ate too much.” His red-rimmed eyes darted upwards.

“The owls can’t bite through iron,” I reminded him. “If they could, they would’ve done it.”

His breath became harsh and shallow. “Am I really awake? This isn’t a dream, right? I didn’t die in that cottage, right?”

I never thought I’d hear that from a mouth other than my own. Pierced hands closed around my throat.

“You are not dead,” I said as cuttingly as the thorns on the crown the Lord wore before He had to carry His cross to Golgotha, as the spear with which the Roman soldier pierced his side.

“I think I’m dying.” He gulped for air and fisted what little material remained of his shirt, cold sweat beading on his brow, his fingers slipping through the hole that had formed over his heart. “I don’t wanna die, I can’t die –”

I cupped his cheek in my palm. “I won’t let you die.”

“How do I do it?”

“Do what?” My brow furrowed.

“Confess my sins.” He dragged a hand down the convulsing notch in his throat. “If this could be the end, I have to confess.”

“Alright, alright.” I seized him by the shoulders and squeezed them reassuringly. “If you’ll feel better, you can confess.”

“Can I confess to you?” His bottom lip trembled, and my chest ached, my tone softening.

“Of course.”

He continued to trace circles over his chest with his fist, blinking hard, and shaking his head. “How do I confess?”

“Just say you’re sorry, then say what’s on your heart.”

“Oh god,” he gasped, “oh god, what if, what if I can’t be forgiven?”

“You’ll be forgiven,” I said sternly. “It’s written in the Word, and the Word is the truth.”

“Okay, okay, I can do this.” He sucked in a breath and hissed it out through gritted teeth. “Okay, okay…” He massaged his temples. Pinched his nose bridge. Twisted the fabric in his fist. Sucked in another breath.

I threw an arm around him.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry I’m a fucking crackhead.”

“Amen.” I rolled a bead of my rosary between my thumb and forefinger, then lowered my head with him.

“And that Aihan has to deal with a lunatic like me.”

“Amen!” I patted him between the shoulder blades.

“Did you have to say that so enthusiastically?” He nudged me with his shoulder. “Anyway, I’m sorry I led her to those unicorn hunters.”

“You also rescued me from the unicorn hunters.”

He opened his left eye. “You used the taser on them first.”

I opened my right eye. “You got me the taser.”

“And I’m sorry…” he trailed off and he threw an arm around me. His fingers grazed my collarbone, and it wasn’t electricity that arced across it. His touch seemed cool and soothing. Gentle, like the touch of Mary Magdalene’s hair against Jesus’ feet after she poured her alabaster oil on him.

He rested his head on my shoulder and his warm, woody, earthy scent surrounded me.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t showered in a while, and I hoped my hair didn’t smell like the Lake of Fire to him.

I kneaded the nape of his neck, my cheek pressing against the top of his head, and his eyes fluttered shut. His heart beat through his upper back and against my palm, slow and steady.

Against the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I thought about the flesh that threaded his neck and shoulder into the comforting curve that cradled my chin when he kept the stars from stealing me away to Sheol. How the dimmed lights in my cottage reflected off the water weaving over his pectoral, intercostal, and abdominal muscles when I scrubbed the muck from them. How unabashedly he displayed them while he pleaded for me to come to the Copper Palace with him. He had no shame shackling him, and when I danced with him, my chains decayed, too. What a harlot. But the sort of harlot that would waste all their precious perfume on my feet just because I felt divinely obligated to wash him.

He opened both his eyes.

I opened both my eyes.

And the look in his warm, brown eyes made me sick to my stomach. There was light. So pure. So full of goodness. God, if he only knew how much filth I had in me. What I could not cleanse myself of no matter how much I confessed. He looked at me like a helpless lamb looked at its butcher.

He didn’t have to say it.

You shouldn’t love me, I thought.

“I can’t love you,” I whispered against his forehead, the pierced hands digging their nails into my esophagus. “I can’t be, I can’t be unevenly yoked.”

His dark brows knitted together. “What do you mean you can’t love me?”

“I can’t be unevenly yoked.” I hammered the final nails through my crossed feet and splayed hands, water and blood spraying from between my ribs. “I can’t love an unbeliever.”

He lifted his head from me, and it seemed like someone had cut through my crucifix, into my chest, and pulled out the tangled, matted strings of my heart.

He didn’t look at me – wouldn’t look at me for a long time.

Too long.

“That night, when you told me that you didn’t want to go to New Jerusalem without me…you think I’m going to hell, don’t you?”

“The Lake of Fire –”

When he spoke, his tongue lashed me. “ That’s all you thought of me all this time. An unbeliever. An empty vessel. A lost lamb in need of your salvation. I can’t believe –” the warmth waned from his face “– I can’t believe I thought you actually cared about me, that you were different.” He didn’t even shout at me, but that only worsened the barbs of verbal leather shredding my spiritual skin. No wrath had replaced the warmth. Just disbelief. Disbelief that I could hurt him like this without raising a staff to him.

“Of course I care about you,” I snapped back with my own whip braided from the words festering in my throat. “I wouldn’t have rescued you if I didn’t!

“No, you rescued me because whenever people like you save someone, it just reminds you of how much better you are than them.”

“That is not – people like me?” My sclera stung. “What do you mean ‘people like me?’”

“You’re telling me a bigot like my mother can spend eternity in paradise, but my father, my beautiful father, will burn forever because he doesn’t believe in a God that hates him? Were you…were you lying to me?”

“No! No…” I swallowed hard. “It’s just…the Word…the Word is the truth.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me there’s no place of truth – you know what, forget it. Forget it. I don’t even know why I’m arguing with you. People like you can’t be reasoned with.”

“You were the one who told me that God didn’t hate me!”

“Yeah, well, that was before you told me that as long as I don’t believe in Him, He’ll hate me, too. What’s the point of having doors pointing in all four directions if they’re not truly open?”

What if they don’t let you in?

The thought hit me like the first stone would strike the temple of a Sodomite condemned by the crowd.

He tossed me the keys to the Nissan Versa. “If you want to go to New Jerusalem so badly, then go.”

“I told you, I’m not –” I clenched the keys hard enough for the teeth to pierce my palms “– I’m not leaving you –”

“To what? Burn in hell?” he asked softly. “I'd rather burn in hell than spend eternity with people like you.”

I backed away from the iron bed and the iron Bible and climbed out of the iron bunker and my eyes seemed to shrivel under the starlight as I opened the car door and turned on the ignition and shifted the gear from park to drive and reversed and drove and drove and drove and drove.

You liar.

I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry.

You fucking liar, you know that’s not why he shouldn’t love you.

I broke the crucifix in half and unsheathed the blade inside. I inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. Tried to inhale. Tried to exhale. Failed. Failed. Failed. Failed. I had been forsaken. I had always been forsaken. I had been born forsaken. My father, my Father had forsaken me the moment He had wired my brain wrong.

I could bear the possibility of my mother’s disgust toward me, my father’s disownment of me despite her protests, the both of them choosing the church over the Word.

But I never expected <participant id =0>, who made me so happy, who cared so much for me the moment he met me, maybe even before he came into contact with me night after night to hurt me like this. And for my Lord to let him.

I couldn’t believe that I believed in Him.

No more prayers. No more confessions. No more repentance. I would ask Him why He did this in-person.

And the only tears I’d shed would be from my wrists, as scarlet as His sweat when He pleaded for His father to remove the cup of suffering from Him.