Milo (chapter 2)

This is for later.

Now, what I do see is death--speaking of the uncanny. In retrospect, and if indeed it is a viable admission, I could on record as saying that the first time I saw death was the day I was born. October 12.  Weighing just about 1 pound and an ounce, as my mother says, I had let out a single cry after first breaths that were shallow and rapid. And then I giggled and smiled. She says it seemed that I was happy to make entry to the world, or rather that I couldn’t wait to as if in the world of the unborn I had been given a purpose that could wait no longer to be carried out. But being I was born prematurely I supposed what occurred within that tiny, not yet fully formed, mind of mine was that my life, though it had just then begun, would be a bit more precarious than my parents would have cared to accept. Not me. Whether my smile and giggle were as an acceptance of my design, I can't be sure. But I do believe It was more a perpetual middle finger to fate. And so I came two weeks early. Episode of frantic breathing drowned, and post birth wailing subsided, I laid cradled in my mother’s arms, a gummy smile gliding across my pinkish alien-like face, staring intently towards the exit of the maternity ward. I remember that my arms were outstretched--or at least I think I do. My mother says to her it was as if I was reaching out to someone that clearly wasn’t there. But someone, or rather, death was there.

 

It couldn’t possibly have been the case that I’d seen death as the skeletal, black-cloak drooped scythe-wielding reaper of souls as you've probably seen in the media, obviously not. Babies just don’t smile at things eerie; I remember granny Peppers had once said. She also says a good indicator as a parent to stay away from a welcoming neighbor (or anyone for that matter) bearing pie is if at the moment your newborn will not rest in crying up a storm. You should probably throw away the pie after they leave. I have a few qualms with that assertion, but that's Granny for you. 

"They are the angels of the world," she says. "Clean and pure. And for as long as they are, God is of them as they are of him. And so they see the human heart, they know who among us sits with a blackened soul." And life, as we know it now, is crawling with these people, the hollow souls as she calls them. As final verdict,--thou says the Lord, she also adds--and in keeping with her beliefs culminated, the world will soon, inevitably be consumed by hellfire. Sodom and Gomorrah sit at the mercy of the Lord.

 

One morning as we ate breakfast, the Local News headlined a story about a mother who, after telling several lies under oath, had eventually been pressed hard enough to confess she did indeed smother her six-month-old baby because it wouldn’t stop crying. I remember first that a frown had crossed granny Pepper’s face at the sight of the twenty-something anchor who broke the news. His name was Tom something. He was handsome in the required way; black haired, eyes cerulean blue. And a peeking smile that revealed--more than it concealed--a smugness about him, an arbitrary indifference masked by the journalistic tenor. She doesn’t like the tribe for that very reason. She refers to them as feigns tasked, by journalistic integrity, to seek out, and, narrate the world’s truths.

 

“I wonder if he understands that a child has died?” she moaned. “The essence of ultimate betrayal that this is--a mother killing her child.” She shrugged. And when the clip of the homicidal mother in court appeared on the screen, no regret or remorse behind those cold black eyes of hers which I thought was eerie at best, granny said:

 

“How can she be so callous?” she protested, as killer mom declined to make final remarks before her sentencing. “You will burn in hell for your transgression--for taking away such an innocent soul. Murderer! How can she not care!?” granny Pepper voice carried throughout the room, her breath hot with fury and coffee. But I sensed her reaction was more of hopelessness than anger. Disillusion of the human condition that I suspected had been mounting over the course of her seventy years.

 

“How can someone be so evil?” she’d said as the man they identified as killer mom’s husband stood up suddenly, a close-up showed bloodshot eyes--from the tears, he’d shed--filled with sadness. But there, too, was disdain. Rage and regret. There stood a man on the edge, on the verge of losing everything he may have held dear at one point.  

 

“I don’t know granny. Some people are just evil,” I then said, but this was not because I suspected granny needed my import on the matter. There was an inkling feeling I had about the man, something about him seemed off, that off-kilter feeling you get in those few, rare instances you see video footage of a mass shooter before he does the deed.

 

As I spoke, there was a sudden glitch in the TV’s reception that brought a brief buzz of electronic snow and granny, having seen enough, got up and took leave to the next room. There was no doubt in my mind that killer mom’s husband would have probably agreed with granny Peppers that his homicidal wife’s penance was sure to be paid at the very pits of hell. Except, unsuspectingly enough to everyone in that courtroom, as far as he was concerned her trip there would come sooner than later. The look in his eyes said he’d be damned if bars and brick walls were all the consequence she’d have to content with by some judge’s ruling for however long had been prescribed.

 

When the reception on TV returned, I saw death. At this time in my life this was not news, but, remember that I said when this is over, my life you’ll label a cautionary tale about missing signs. Its features were not as clear to me as it probably was on my birthday, but there she was. And I know this because as the husband moved towards the center aisle, a previously concealed gun red in his hand, he moved through her. Like some doorway to a world eerie, scattering black and purple colored waft which instantly reformed as he reached east of the aisle--aiming at the life of his callous, homicidal wife. He fired before the guards could get to him. How they managed to miss that he'd been carrying a gun all the time is beyond me, but his aim was true. As chaos erupted in court, there was another glitch in the TV’s reception….. But before that, and as shocking as the event was, for a brief moment amid the mounting chaos death saw me, too. I mean, as if knowing I was watching, she too watched back…

 

Author's Note

Unedited