What I Tell You In the Dark

by John Samuel

  ‘I want to rest,’ I tell them but it is lost in their shouting.

  I think about the future that awaits me now, jammed into the shell of Will’s life. I think of his family, of the doctors who will stupefy me with pills. I start to move my left hand down towards my empty jacket pocket. It sets off a cacophony of voices. Some policemen are telling me not to move, to stop fucking moving. Other policemen are shouting to each other – He’s reaching! He’s reaching!

  Still I continue, exhaling through the movement. This breath I put back in the world.

  It’s only as my hand is sliding into the silk of my pocket that I feel it happen. It hits me before the sound does. By the time I hear that brittle snap, I can already feel it spinning, tearing inside me. Then I feel a second one thud into my chest, right next to the first. Again that dry twig snap arriving just behind it. Some things move faster towards us, that’s all it is. Just physics and numbers. Parts gentled into shape.

  I am on my back, the sky far above me.

  When I turn my head to the side, I see a pool of my blood running into the ground. My hand is flapping like a fish, my whole body shakes with it. Many feet are moving around me, many hands are on me.

  But this time there is nothing else, nothing is tugging at me. He is not lifting me the way He lifted me from that hated cross, the way the tide bumps a boat off the sand. I am no longer His charge. Like all men, I must now lapse into darkness.

  My heart is stopping. There’s no mistaking it, the pressure just goes. I close my eyes. My moment. Consummatum est, for real this time.

  One final beat. One last thing.

  The hand of a child, Will’s hand, enclosed in another’s, the black of his sleeve, the band of gold on his finger, the path ahead of them both, and rising up there, at the end of it all, the mossy buttresses of his father’s church set deep in the earth.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I owe a debt of gratitude to the following people, all of whom have helped in one way or another with the writing of this book. First and foremost, my extraordinary wife, without whose love and support I would be lost. My parents and my sister, for always being in my corner. The one they call Gerontion, ideas man par excellence, and Beloved Aunt, a fellow artist in disguise. My agent, Nelle, whose vision and encouragement made all the difference. And Andrew Lockett, for believing in this book.