A Hundred Words for Hate

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  His fellow workers crowded around him.

  “Is he okay?” the home owner called out. “Should I call nine-one-one?”

  The silence in Bob’s mind was nearly deafening now, and he felt that the world had stopped for him—waiting to see what was to come.

  Waiting for him to remember.

  The man still had the hose in his hand, a steady stream of water arcing through the air to drench the grass.

  The child stood watching, wet and shivering.

  Why does he shiver? Bob wondered. Does he sense what I do? Does he know it’s coming?

  Something was returning after so very long away.

  It was almost here . . . but what was it? The images pounded furiously in Bob’s skull, and he screamed as the visions exploded in front of him.

  If only the others could see, they would be screaming as well.

  He saw the Garden, in all its wondrous glory, and in its center was the Tree . . . the Tree pregnant with fruit.

  Forbidden fruit.

  Bob was standing before the Tree, gazing at the pendulous growths that hung from its verdant branches, and somehow he knew that a piece of fruit was missing.

  The sword of fire that he clutched in his armored hand blazed all the brighter . . . hotter . . . fiercer. And he was incredibly sad, for he knew that they must be punished.

  They. Must. Be. Punished.

  A hand . . . a human hand dropped down upon Bob’s bare shoulder, rousing him from his vision.

  But now he knew.

  He gazed into the frightened eyes of his fellow workers.

  “Call nine-one-one,” the Hispanic man who had brought them here called out to the man with the hose.

  “No,” Bob said, reaching out to grab hold of the man’s wrist. He could already feel his body changing. His skin was on fire . . . the flesh starting to bubble, pop, and steam.

  The Hispanic man started to scream, but only briefly as his body ignited as if doused with gasoline.

  And then they were all screaming . . . screaming as Bob’s flesh melted away, dripping like candle wax to the parched earth that he knelt upon. There was metal beneath the faux flesh, metal forged in the furnaces of Heaven, and it glistened unctuously in the noonday sun.

  Bob rose to his feet, twice as tall. Powerful muscles on his back tensed painfully, then relaxed as a double set of mighty wings unfurled, shaking off flecks of fire that hungrily consumed the dry grass around him.

  The fires of Heaven raged, the cries of his fellow workers abruptly silenced as they were returned to the dust from whence they came.

  Remy and Madeline were sitting side by side in two white wicker chairs on the front porch of their cottage in Maine.

  This had always been their favorite time, when the day eventually succumbed to the night. Usually they’d had their supper, and then retired with a cup of coffee, or a cocktail, to the peace of the porch and the surrender of daylight.

  The nocturnal bugs were tuning up, preparing a woodland symphony just for them. At least, that was what they had liked to think: a concert of clicks, buzzes, and hums for their listening pleasure only.

  “Hey,” Madeline said, reaching across to give Remy’s hand a loving squeeze.

  “Hey back,” Remy said, smiling at her. It was always good to see her, even though it broke his heart every time.

  “Good day?” she asked, as they gazed into the darkness beyond the porch. It sounded as if every insect in the woods had something to say . . . something to sing about.

  Remy was silent, not quite sure how to answer.

  “What?” Madeline asked, turning to him with the smile that transformed his insides to liquid.

  “Interesting day . . . and night,” he said, not looking at her.

  “Is that a touch of guilt I hear in your voice?”

  Remy shrugged noncommittally, even though he knew she had the answer.

  “You realize that’s a waste of perfectly good guilt,” Madeline stated, continuing to rub the side of his hand with her thumb.

  “Perfectly good guilt?” he repeated with a grin, finally turning to face her with a look of feigned innocence.

  “Mmmmm-hmm,” she replied with a quick nod. “All that energy could be put to good use elsewhere, like returning your phone calls, or giving to that kid outside the Market Basket collecting for Pop Warner.”

  “I didn’t have any change that day,” Remy protested.

  “And taking Marlowe to the Common,” Madeline continued, ignoring his outburst. “Poor baby hasn’t been to the Common in days.”

  “It hasn’t been days,” Remy attempted, before realizing that she was right.

  “See, perfectly good guilt going to waste over me.”

  “Nothing ever went to waste over you,” he said, missing her more at that moment than he had in some time, knowing that this wasn’t real, but realizing it was better than nothing.

  “Ah, flattery.” She squeezed his hand. “So, what was it like?” Madeline asked. “Being out on a date after all this time?”

  “Different,” Remy said. “Nerve-racking.” He started to laugh.

  “What’s there to be nervous about? You always gave good date.”

  “Gave good date?” Remy repeated with a chuckle.

  “It’s true,” Madeline said. “You were the best I ever dated. I always had the nicest times with you.”

  “You brought out the best in me.” Remy leaned forward and kissed her hand.

  “See?” Madeline said. “Even now you’re giving good date.”

  “This is a date?” Remy asked.

  “What would you call it?” asked the woman he had loved for more than forty years. “You’ve created this place in your head so we can spend some time together, and here we are, enjoying each other’s company. I’d call it a date.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what kind of date I was the other night,” Remy said, reflecting on his dinner with Linda.

  “Why, did you make her run screaming from the restaurant?”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t eat with her hands, did she?”

  “No, she knew how to use a knife and fork.”

  “Phew.” Madeline rolled her eyes. “For a minute there I thought maybe—”

  “She wasn’t you,” Remy interrupted quickly, his heart filled with emotion for the woman who had made him what he was.

  Who had made him human.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “I don’t think I was very good company because I kept thinking that I’d rather be with you.”

  “You’re so sweet,” Madeline said. She reached over and placed her warm hand against his cheek. “And I’m flattered, really, but I’m also dead, Remy. The only way we can see each other is like this. Just you and me . . . and your very active imagination.”

  They were both silent for a moment, listening to the insect song.

  “You didn’t bring me up, did you?” Madeline asked finally.

  “No,” Remy said. “I didn’t think it would be appropriate.”

  “Thank God for that,” she said with a gentle laugh.

  “Hey, I’m not as hopeless as you think I am,” Remy defended himself.

  Madeline leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. “You’re not hopeless at all,” she told him. “Just a little bit stubborn sometimes.”

  “Ya think?” Remy asked, putting his arm around her.

  They sat like that for quite some time, Remy not wanting to speak—not wanting to ruin the moment. It felt like it had when everything was perfect.

  When everything was just right.

  “Did you have a little bit of fun?” she asked him.

  “Maybe a little,” he answered, immediately feeling that twinge of guilt.

  “How much?” Madeline asked, sitting up and turning to face him. She held up her thumb and forefinger about an inch a part. “This much?”

  Remy shrugged. “Maybe a little less. She had a runny nose.”

  Madeline wrinkled
hers. “Really?”

  Remy nodded. “Yeah, it was cold, though, so I guess I should cut her some slack.”

  “I guess,” Madeline agreed. “Do you think you’ll see her again?”

  Remy didn’t want to answer that question.

  “Remy,” Madeline said, trying to get his attention.

  He looked at her then, wishing with all his heart that this could be real.

  “I asked you a question,” she said, her beautiful gaze urging him to answer.

  “Yes,” he finally replied, and as the words left his mouth, the sounds of the forest were suddenly—eerily—quiet. “Yes, we’re having lunch tomorrow.”

  Madeline smiled then, a smile that he’d seen thousands of times, a smile that had never failed to warm him to his core, a smile that personified the love she’d felt for him, reflected back as the love he had for her.

  “Good,” she said. “I like her.”

  “She isn’t you.”

  “And you wouldn’t want her to be,” Madeline said, slowly shaking her head. “What we had belongs to us.”

  “And only us,” Remy added.

  “Exactly.” She leaned forward in her chair, her lips suddenly so close to his.

  “No more wasted guilt,” she whispered, as their lips touched.

  Remy opened his eyes to the reality of his world.

  The Maine cottage was gone, as was his wife. Instead he sat at his desk, where he had been finishing some billing when he’d closed his eyes and let his consciousness wander. An angel needed no sleep, but often he would enter a kind of fugue state to rest his weary mind and spend time with his wife.

  Marlowe lay flat on his side on the rug beneath the desk, legs outstretched as if he’d been shot, his dark eyes watching Remy.

  The clock at the bottom of the computer screen said that it was after three a.m., and the street outside his Beacon Hill brownstone was quiet. Maybe it was time to alleviate some more of his burdened conscience.

  “Hey,” Remy said to his dog.

  Marlowe sat up at full attention, head tilted, waiting for Remy to ask the question.

  And he did. “Want to go to the Common for a walk?”

  No more magickal words had ever been spoken.

  The Labrador immediately sprang to his feet and began to anxiously pace.

  “Guess that’s a yes.” Remy stood and stretched, then headed for the stairs, a very excited Marlowe at his heels.

  As Remy was getting ready to take Marlowe on a nighttime walk, Fernita Green was dreaming.

  She had fallen asleep in her living room chair, as she was wont to do these days, surrounded by the clutter of her life, Miles the cat curled tightly in her lap, also deeply asleep.

  Sharing the dream of his mistress.

  Fernita walked through the jungle, tall grasses and thick underbrush moving aside to allow her to pass.

  Leading her.

  Miles purred and chirped, enjoying the freedom of this place that could only be the world found on the other side of the window.

  The big outside.

  Something deep inside told Fernita that she knew this vast, primordial place, and this calmed her as she walked the path that appeared beneath her bare feet.

  Where are my shoes? she wondered briefly, for there were far more important things to worry about. Although she could not remember what they were.

  Only that she was the answer.

  The jungle path abruptly stopped, a curtain of thorny vines blocking her way. Fernita stood before the obstruction, waiting for the vegetation to show her the way around, but the green did not react, softly rustling in the warm, gentle breeze that caressed this wild place.

  The wild was awakened in Miles the cat, his large eyes scanning the grass and trees for signs of birds, or bugs, or squirrels—signs of prey.

  But, disappointingly, there were none right then. There were only the plants here in the big outside.

  The jungle closed in around her. Fernita watched with a growing sense of unease as the path she’d walked slowly filled in behind her, reclaimed by the abundant overgrowth. A twinge of panic struck, but she managed to keep it under control as she turned her attention to the wall of thick, spotted vines dangling before her.

  She did not know why, but she was suddenly overcome with the desire to touch them. Before she could even question this nearly overpowering compulsion she reached out, then quickly withdrew her hand with a hiss as a thorn pierced the underside of two of her fingers and her palm. For a moment she stared at the dark blood pooling in her hand, then returned her attention to the thick vine before her.

  At first she believed it to be a trick of her eyes. There was blood on the vines where she had touched them . . . where she had been stuck, but the blood seemed to be fading away, gradually absorbed into the body of the vines.

  How odd.

  And as the last of her blood was taken in, the vines began to sway and shake, slowly pulling up and away like the thick velvet curtains of the old movie palaces, to reveal not the white of a screen, but a dark, winding path beyond.

  Fernita crouched at the opening, Miles cowering beside her, neither sure they wanted to go any farther, even though every fiber of Fernita’s being screamed that she should.

  The high grass had again receded, forming a snaking passage through the abundant jungle to a clearing. And in the clearing was a tree; perhaps one of the largest trees Fernita had ever seen. She could just about make out the vast network of thick branches that grew out from its massive trunk, tapering upward into the velvet black sky.

  How odd the stars appeared, almost as if they were too close.

  Fernita’s eyes were just returning to the path . . . to the glorious tree, when something stepped out of the shadows to block her view.

  It was huge, its body covered in golden armor that reflected the brightness of the burning sword it clutched in one of its massive, gauntleted hands.

  Frozen in fear, she could only look up into its face, which was equal parts eagle, lion, and man.

  What are you? she wanted to ask it, but the answer was upon her, floating up from the darkness from where it had been hidden.

  Cherubim.

  “You do not belong,” the creature shrieked, roared, and bellowed in one discordant voice that made her bones shake.

  And Miles hissed, his body pressed flat to the grassy ground, fur standing on end as if electrified.

  It pinned her there with its multiple sets of eyes, its large form casting a cold shadow across her naked form.

  It was the first moment that she recognized she was unclothed, and it would have caused her much confusion if she hadn’t been in the presence of a looming weapon of Heaven.

  The Cherubim lumbered ever closer; four sets of strangely beautiful wings unfurled from its armored back. Though terrified, she could not help but marvel at its fearsome beauty, staring up into its three faces as it lifted its sword of fire.

  “You do not belong,” it announced again, prepared to strike.

  And Fernita watched, unable to move as the fiery weapon descended, her mouth opening, not in a scream as she believed would pour forth from the depths of her very soul, but another sound that proved she was the answer.

  That she did belong.

  Fernita awakened from the dream, the answer to a question that had plagued her for so very long dancing upon the tip of her tongue.

  For a moment it was there, but as the recollection of the jungle drifted away like the morning mist, it too was gone. And in a matter of seconds, she had forgotten that she had even dreamed at all.

  Miles had moved from her lap to an open portion of windowsill, staring intensely out at the cold, predawn world, a strange trilling sound, as if he were excited by the sight of a bird or a squirrel, coming from his furry throat.

  “What do you see out there, crazy cat?” she asked sleepily, as she reached out and stroked his back with old fingers, crooked with age.

  Miles continued to stare, repeating the strange sound
over and over again, answering the question that the old woman asked of him.

  “It’s coming,” the cat told her, even though she did not understand.

  “The big outside is coming.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Watch out for the rats,” Remy called out to Marlowe as he stuffed the dog’s leash in his back pocket and sat on a bench in Boston Common.

  “Rats?” Marlowe questioned, stopping beside an old oak tree. He looked around, his nose twitching in the cold early-morning air.

  “I didn’t say there were any waiting to attack you; just be careful. You don’t want to get bitten and have to go to the vet for shots.”

  “No shots,” Marlowe growled, nose to the frozen ground. “No rats . . . no bite . . . no shots,” the Labrador grumbled, a checklist to make this visit next to perfect.

  Remy chuckled. It was still relatively dark in the Common, and he and Marlowe seemed the only living things willing to brave the more than chilly early morning. Still, he wanted to keep an eye on the dog; sometimes Marlowe’s enthusiasm got away from him.

  “And don’t eat any garbage!” Remy called out as an afterthought, one more thing for the checklist. The dog didn’t respond, but Remy was sure he’d heard.

  Remy settled in on a bench, crossing his legs and resting his arm atop the back, looking as though he were relaxing on a mild summer’s night. It was so cold that even the homeless who often frequented the Common appeared to have sought more protective shelter elsewhere.

  Good for them, Remy thought. This was the kind of weather that could kill if you weren’t careful.

  Looking around at his surroundings, Remy realized that it had been some time since he and Marlowe had been here, long enough for the city to put in some new, freshly painted trash barrels to replace the old rusted and dented ones. He considered pointing them out to his dog, who was pawing at a patch of frozen grass, but decided it would be better not to offer an opportunity for food. Marlowe’s appetite was voracious, occasionally getting the better of him, and Remy preferred not to deal with the consequences.