Humanity Teaser

From the first draft: a bit of teaser for my coming novella, Humanity. Coming out July 30th

I remember the evening that we met. I sat in the dimly lit chapel, my eyes straining to look upon the visage of Our Holy Mother through the orange glow of the prayer candles lined up on the altar. My forehead touched the holy wooden slab as I bent my head in prayer. I didn't really know how to pray, as I wasn't a very religion person. Not until I met you. My Angel.

You touched my shoulder, your soft skin brushing against my heaving shoulders.

I won't lie, I was startled a bit, I had though myself alone in the chapel. I hadn't wanted anyone to see me in that state. I heard grating laughter in my head anytime I thought of someone seeing me in that moment of weakness, but you didn't laugh. The only noise you made was a simple:

“What's the matter?” In your melodic voice.

Oh how it sang to me that night: how it sounded much like the Mother herself had stepped down from her throne in heaven and into this empty house of worship. And so, for the first time in my life, I bared my soul. Not in a confessional, nor to a counselor, but to this stranger that I hadn't even looked in the face of yet.

With my head bowed I told you how hard life was. How I had run with the wrong crowd after graduating from high school, and how it led me to a life of violence and crime. How it all ended with the death of a close friend and me on the wrong side of a gun after a mugging gone wrong. It was a miracle then that I had survived, despite the bullet lodged in my thigh.

I told her how after that I tried to turn my life around. Oh how I had tried. But I told you how hard it was to find work with a record like mine, and how hard it was on nights where my stomach cried to resist the temptation to smash a window a steal enough change to fill it. And how hard it had become to even find the will to rise up in the morning. I told you how it had all led up to me, kneeling at an altar of a God that I didn't believe in to fight my fate. To fight my nature. And to beg for a second chance.

You listened to my story and said nothing. You offered no words of comfort. No platitudes spoken a hundred times to a hundred other people, to try and ease my mind. And that, in of itself, was a comfort. It was as if you knew at that moment that I didn't need words, I didn't need those worthless platitudes that any inane person could spout out a thousand times without meaning a single syllable. You knew that I needed to bare my soul. To tear open my heart right there at the altar and offer it all up. You did what no one else had �" or would have �" done. You listened.

I lifted my head and for the first time I saw you: and you were beautiful. Your wavy, auburn hair was crowned by the moonlight that shimmered through the stain glass windows. Your peridot eyes illuminated by the light of the prayer candles. You seemed to me my own Virgin Mother at that time, and in that holy quiet, that sacred silence, we shared, you and I, shared a moment when our eyes met for the first time. A moment so beautiful, so pure that it would be an insult to try to put it to words.

You asked me a name, your voice lifting to the rafters like a hymn. An aria. Jesse, I answered, you told me that you liked my name. You then told me that you could help me get out of my situation and that your father owned a business and would hire me on at your behest. I told you not to worry about it, but you did. You lifted your hand off my shoulder and left the quiet chapel, and I was alone again.

I'll admit that I had thought that I'd never seen you again, that you'd made up some excuse to leave me in the dark there to wallow in my grief and solitude. I'll admit that I was surprised �" so very surprised �" to see you come back with your father in tow.

He introduced himself and told me that he'd hire me, but if he even suspected of me stealing from him that he'd turn me over to the cops. I agreed, ecstatically, and that began my climb from the gutters of society. I gave myself a pledge and a goal that night: to become a man worthy of your hand, to become a man worthy of your father's approval. To become a man that people didn't swerve to avoid on the street.

I started as a custodian at your father's business the week, it was hard work. Hard work that I often thought of quitting, but that pledge I made to myself that night kept me going, that and the fact that you'd come by every once in a while bringing your father lunch. Sometimes you'd bring something for me, too. And, even more rarely, you'd offer to eat your lunch with me.

It was those days: those rare days where I'd catch a glimpse of you hurrying in and out of the building, and those rarer days where we'd sit and talk that made life worth living, especially at the beginning when the temptations to quit and go back to my old self seemed to overwhelm me. You'd drag me back from that state of mind and into the present. You didn't know it then, but you saved my life an innumerable amount of times then, and you still do.

You told me why you took such a risky chance with me, and why your father did as well. You told me how he was once a raging alcoholic who beat your mother and you, but once he found God that he quit and turned his life around. You said that if he was able to get a second chance that you believed anyone would be able to. It encouraged me and that was when I decided to go to that chapel that you and I met every time they held mass. Both you, the Preacher and the Holy Mother herself that finally cast out the demons of my former self that still reared their ugly faces every once in a while.

I worked there for years, one of your father's most loyal employees, and it was when he promoted me to office work that I first asked you out. I told you that I couldn't afford anything fancy yet, but I could show you the night of your life. You agreed right away, to my surprise, and the following evening we went out.

It was just a walk around the park and a quick bite to eat at a local restaurant, but you seemed to enjoy it. And the lingering kiss you gave outside of the restaurant seemed to support that. Your kiss was warm and sweet: ricotta cream still on your lips like a shining gloss. We parted ways there that night, but met up and followed that routine every month after, each ending with the same sweet kiss.

Those kisses encouraged me to become an even better man for you. After work each day, I'd go to the library by your father's business and pick out a couple of books. Every time I had a break in work I'd read. Classics, text books, religious texts, it didn't matter what I read, I just read. Your conversations were incredible: you'd allude to things I've never heard of before, allude to literary figures I've never read about, allude to movements in history and I'd have nothing to add. I read to catch up to you, though I don't think I ever have. You always were carrying a new book with you every time I saw you, and I wanted to be able to match you in your knowledge and your thirst for reading.

We continued seeing each other about once a month for a few years, your father promoted me once more, and, with a renewed vigor and a higher wage I bought you a ring: a golden one with a peridot stone. When I first saw it sitting in the ring shop I knew it was made specifically for your hand, and your hand only. The soft gold mimicked the amber light of the night we first met, and the peridot mimicked your eyes.

It was December of our third year together when I gathered my courage enough to ask for your hand. It was promising to be a cold winter, as the world was already wrapped in white. Through our weekly walk through the park, I led you through a different route, back to the old chapel that you and I had met those years ago, when you turned my life around. We entered quietly: I glanced around, no one was in there that night, but it kept it's door open, like a beacon in the dark.

As we neared the altar where we met, I took your hand in mine and knelt in front of you. The gold on the ring flickered with the flames on the wicks of the few candles still burning that winter night. I asked you there to be mine, slipping the ring on your finger. You knocked me to the ground with your embrace, whispering soft yeses into the crook of my neck.

We held our wedding in the chapel: it wasn't grand, it wasn't eloquent, in fact it was quite bare bones. We invited your family and whatever family I could get a hold of on my side, coworkers and a few friends. Even though you deserved so much more than the small one that I could throw together in the three months from my proposal, you didn't seem disappointed.

I remember your flowing white dress: it's train running down the wooden aisle. I remember your gait as you made your way to me, your arm hooked underneath your father's, and a bouquet of daffodils in your other. I remember watching those peridot eyes locked on me when we exchanged our vows, and I remember watching them close as you leaned in for the kiss afterwards.

I remember our first dance that night, your veil pulled over your head, and your auburn hair was tied up in a french bun. I whispered into your ear how you looked as lovely as you did the night that I met you, and you stole a kiss from me in front of everyone.

I remember our first night together: our bodies entangled in embrace. Your hair carried the sweet aroma of vanilla, and your lips the saccharine taste of chocolate. Even the perspiration budding on your forehead was the sweetest honey, your warm breaths, and your soft murmurings below my ear, the greatest music.

I remember us basking in our shared afterglow: your lying on the crook of my arm, our body heat, and a thin sheet the only thing separating us from the chill of the early March air. I watched your sleeping form until I, too, passed into a deep sleep

.

I remember the next morning when you and I looked for a house, with the money you father had gifted us. We finally settled on one of those old houses, the type that you'd see in horror movies. Except this one didn't give off that horror movie feeling. It felt like home as soon as we walked in. You said you liked the soft pink of the walls outside, and the thin hallways felt cozy to you. We moved in over the course of the following week.

I remember these. I remember how we met, I remember how you changed my life. I remember our first date, our first kiss, the first time we held hands. I remember the conversations we had, and the songs that you'd sing to yourself when you thought no one was listening. I remember the flowers you lingered at most at the park whenever we went for our walks. I remember the years we spent together at that house, the look of joy on your face when you found out you were pregnant, and the utter happiness when our little girl was finally born.

I remember all of this. Every single detail. Then tell me. Please, please tell me. Who the hell is with you? Who the hell is that wearing my face? Who the hell is walking away with my limp? Who the hell is that, who's lips are locked onto your's, and who the hell is that who hugs my daughter, before driving away in my car?

Author's Note

Ignore grammar, first draft