This Present Darkness

ONE

"Are you troubled about something?" Chad asked when Linus remained quiet.

"No." Linus looked up at him. Love glowed in his soft blue eyes. "Each time we attend church, you amaze me all over again."

"How's that?"

"The way you deal with them," he said quietly. "Sometimes I feel angry that they act like we don't have a right to be there, in our Father's house. Like we're somehow disgracing God because we love each other. But you..." his smile returned. "You take it all in stride and live up to the verse 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'."

Chad exhaled deeply and leaned toward Linus, kissing his head. "I have faith that one day God will open their hearts to us and we will truly become their brothers in Christ." He looked down and Linus was smiling up at him. "What?"

"Your faith inspires me."

"I'm glad." Chad paused and faced Linus. They kissed deeply. Chad heard the roaring engine moments before the black Mustang came flying around the corner behind them. He drew Linus to the far side of the shoulder as the vehicle sped by too close, spraying mucky slush all over Chad's expensive coat. He stared after the car as it rounded another bend and disappeared from view. He knew who was driving, and who was most likely in the passenger seat. Chad sighed, looked down, and wiped at the mucky ice clinging to the fabric of his overcoat, absorbing into the fine fibers. Feeling Linus' eyes on him, he looked up. His husband stared at him, a bemused smirk on his lips.

"How's your faith now?"

Chad grinned. "Damp." He reached out and tugged Linus closer by the lapel of his coat, and kissed him softly. "Luckily it's waterproof."

Linus laughed and folded Chad's coat collar up around his chilled ears and kissed him again. "Let's get home and warm each other up." He pressed close to Chad's body and smiled against his mouth. "A lot."

▪ ▪

Dead autumn leaves, crisp and brittle, swept across his path, swirling in the belly of a spinning chilled breeze and then scattered down the cold sidewalk. Cracks splintered the concrete, allowing weeds and grass—now brown and wilted—to reach through like bony fingers from a nether region. The icy breeze played havoc with Chad's soft brown locks, sifting into his ears and giving him a headache that settled in his temples, the ache creeping down into his jaw.

Though he wore the thick overcoat with the high collar—which currently lay flat around his neck—Chad made no effort to tug it up around his ears. His hands hung at his sides, gloveless, the tips of his fingers numb. Chilled tendrils crept up his legs beneath his trousers; almost to his knees now. The cold in his hands was steadily working its way up his forearms as well. Soon, he would be consumed by the arctic autumn day. Maybe he would simply turn into an ice statue, frozen to the sidewalk. Perhaps kids would stack Jack-o-lanterns at his feet and stuff straw up his sleeves; another Halloween spectacle to be gawked at as he faded into the holiday backdrop and ceased to be human at all.

His feet slowed, willing the metamorphosis to begin. The soles of his shoes didn't freeze to the concrete, though, and he continued to move forward, observing the hustle and bustle of the little town but no longer feeling a part of it all. There was a time when he had thought this town was beautiful, regardless the season. Now, it felt as dead and decayed as the brittle leaves tumbling down the sidewalk ahead of him, catching and sticking in unkempt shrubbery and along the gritty ledge of the sidewalk.

Everywhere he looked, Jack-o-lanterns leered back at him with evil grins baring vampire fangs. Witches with bony fingers reached for him from the porch eaves and the trees. Big, black spiders clung to windows and bats flapped their rubbery wings in the cold breeze.

The late afternoon resounded with the laughter and squeals of kids scaring and being scared as they raced all around in their morbid costumes. Chad had once thought it fun to "scare". Halloween one of his favorite holidays. To be genuinely scared was no fun, though. Chad now lived in a perpetual state of fear...and it was no laughing matter. Halloween was no longer the thrilling event he remembered; rather a frightening reminder that death was waiting just beyond that oh so thin veil that rippled between this life and the next. Sometimes Chad would concentrate and try to see through it, see what truly awaited people over there. Sometimes he thought he saw things and he turned away, because it wasn't a place of bright lights and welcoming arms of family and friends who had gone on before, as he'd always believed. It was a place of darkness...filled with dark entities lurking and lusting...waiting with sharp teeth and razor talons ready to rip the soul to shreds piece by piece.

At least that's what he now believed awaited him.

And those like you.

Wasn't that the consensus? If thousands—even millions—of religious people believed it so strongly, didn't there have to be at least a grain of validity to their claims? Could that many people get it wrong?

The odds against it left Chad with a hollow cave in his soul. Or maybe the hole was where his soul used to be, but which had been ripped out the instant he faced the truth and embraced it. Wasn't that who he was in the face of this hateful world—a soulless beast traveling the highway to hell?

He sighed. What did it matter? Alive or dead, he was in hell. He still feared the other side of the veil, but had long since ceased fighting his ultimate fate. When he vacated this mortal hell, he would go to the eternal one. That's just the way it was and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Chad paused when he felt someone watching him. No one looked at him anymore, so the sensation reverberated through him with an electricity he hadn't felt in a long time, demanding his full attention. He turned on his heel, eyes sweeping in a slow arc, uncertain the position of his spectator. No one was looking at him. At least no one within his line of sight.

Just his imagination. Perhaps some deep part of him wanted to be noticed, for in being noticed one felt necessary, possibly even worthy to be alive—as long as even just one person acknowledged their existence and valued it.

But no one was out there watching him, seeing him, glad that he was alive and there.

He was alone, and he would be alone until he passed through that veil.

Loneliness and despair were his only companions, keeping him from being "utterly" alone. Depressing fellows, yes, but "company" nonetheless.

Chad faced forward again and attributed the tingling on the back of his neck to the simple nip of the crisp air.

He walked on and didn't look back again.