Heaven - ONC 2022 LONGLISTED - old version

chapter 14: once

Once.

Once Cookie saw his beloved fern standing green and fresh he called Sina back into the bathroom (actually, Cook burst into the spare room and dragged him by the wrist while Sina scowled and told him he was in the middle of a very important bit in his story).

"Boy, you're reading a Batman comic. I think it can wait a minute."

Once they entered the bathroom, Cookie pointed. "Look at her," he gushed before picking up the pot and caressing the leaves. "She looked like shit an hour ago."

"I watered her," Sina said blankly.

When Cookie raised a brow, Sina added, "I also cleaned up her leaves. She didn't need much, just a little affection. A little love."

"Well, boy, you did well." Cookie jerked his chin to the living room and smiled. "Bought two packs of smokes. Opened one. Take the other one."

"Don't need to pay it back?"

Cookie chuckled. "You were never going to pay back any of the others. Forget it. Think of them as a gift."

"Don't need no gift," Sina huffed.

Brushing past him, Cookie chuckled. "But you need my charity." Plopping a kiss on Sina's crown, Cook walked out.

"Whatcho do that for you twit? You know I don't care for affection." Sina began to brush the kiss off as a chuckling Cookie headed to the kitchen uttering something about replanting the fern in a larger pot.

Sina was going to wipe the kiss-stained hand on his jeans but he stopped himself. Lowering his arms as soon Cook was out of earshot he whispered, "You're good people."

Once.

Once Caleb returned home he felt like punching his fist through the drywall. A floodgate opened and memories came wailing out as soon as he sat at the kitchen table. Burying his face in his hands, Cal recalled a past he wished he no longer remembered.

Once, long ago his faith had been strong and his love for the Lord holy. Father Caleb had been part of a church somewhere in Mississippi. The congregation had been something like Delores and the others – but worse. Though violence had never been his forte, Cal ended up killing one of them.

It was a priest named Father Ambrose whose vile spirit had leaked into his congregation and rushed over them like a tidal wave of poison. When Caleb had befriended a man called Samuel, he saw firsthand just how horrid people could be.

The friendship between him and Sam turned into love and it spread like wildfire. But their love found a brutal end when Father Ambrose's condemnation of two men falling in love led to four of the parishioners kidnapping Sam. The four men strung Samuel from a tree and left him to die – helpless and alone. When they came for Caleb he was already on his way to the priest.

Guilt gnawed at him for years. Had he been there with Sam that night, he knew he would have been able to protect him. The What Ifs and the Should Haves hung around like unwelcomed guests.

It took one foolish minute for Cal to go from vigilante to murderer. He did not know that Father Ambrose's oldest son, Mark had returned home to celebrate becoming the newest pastor in a church a few towns over. In the dark of night, all Cal saw was a stray ray of light shining down on the while cleric's collar. When he dug his fangs into Mark it was swift. Yet when the ray of light turned into two then three and it was bright enough to see, Caleb realized it was not Ambrose but an innocent man who lay in the pool of blood. Trembling, Caleb felt his hands come up sticky with blood. The scent that wafted to him was like poetry. The faint beat of Mark's heart was the singing of psalms. A hunger, so unlike one he had felt in years, came over him like a needy child and tugged at his arm until Caleb gave in. He fed off Mark until the young man's heart stopped and everything fell silent.

Caleb left that night taking nothing with him but more guilt, Mark's collar and a rucksack that contained a few changes of clothes, a bible, and whatever was left of his faith.

Traveling for two days, he came to a tiny, forgotten town near Wichita full of dusty roads and blank-eyed faces.

Cal bought a trailer from a man who swore he had seen God and the Devil playing chess in his fields last Easter. The man had handed him the keys as he stared into the distance asking Cal if he had ever seen an angel.

"No, sir," Cal remembered saying. It was a half-truth. He had seen himself many times, but Kadisin were no longer the angels that the stranger was implying. There were no wings on Caleb's back anymore. There was no heaven waiting for him. He was to suffer and perish on earth like everyone else.

Caleb had driven the trailer to a part of the woods he was sure no one would come to. He lived there until the hatred he had for himself and the world faded into a throbbing ache he could carry in his pocket.

He knew it was not God or faith that had caused Sam to be murdered. It was the hatred people carried in their hearts for others who were different. If Father Ambrose had been a kind and compassionate man, Caleb knew Samuel would not have suffered and Ambrose's son would not be buried in the woods where no one could bless his grave. I would not have suffered either. Wouldn't that have been something?

Finding solace in the bible, he spent his days longing to return to church. The desire grew with each passing passage until he could no longer ignore it. But Caleb did not want to return as part of the congregation. He wanted to lead it.

It had taken years for Cal to put on Mark's clerical collar and leave the trailer. For the next few decades, Cal had made his home in various small towns that didn't care where their holy man came from just as long as he knew how to quote the bible and dish out as many Hail Marys they needed to feel like their sins had been washed away. But Cal could never stay long in one place for too long. He didn't age like humans were supposed to. After a handful of years, he'd silently slip into the night in search of a new church to fulfill that aching desire to be close to God.

words: 1115

total words: 12383