The Toss of a Coin 

                       by DAF                                        
                         
                    ''I don't need to be pardoned for my past sins. What's in the past is in the past unless you take pleasure in opening up festering wounds that never seem to heal over. Time can heal many wounds but it doesn't make a deal with your memories. This one you cope with yourself in your own way but maybe I need to be pardoned for the sin I have committed. This is my story as it happened.''

                         I know I am getting too old now for the cold weather that's seeping into my bones and leaving me feeling short-tempered, but it was extra cold that night in mid-December. I don't know how many stops I had made during the night but I think it was three, yes it was three, I remember now because each time I stopped I was taking a mental flogging for events in the past and those which were about to happen. I felt like turning back to the safety of all that was good and what I believed to be good but I knew that was not possible. There was no running away from it now. I had to keep going in spite of the pain in my head and traffic that was now slowing everything down to a crawl which I took to be personal as to deliberately slow me down in getting to my destination. Each time I thought about the whole thing, I pulled the car over and lit another damn cigarette, sometimes not even smoking the things that were already killing me but that was not what was on my mind. I had another matter that was taking over like creeping lava, burning all that was good in its path and making me sick to my inner core. You know that sickness, half physical but more of a mental thing. The sickness that takes over everything that is you .. or passes you off for sane in this world and then you find you are starting to talk Gibberish to yourself and pulling faces that if someone else was to look at you they would look away very quickly because they would feel you are not quite right in the head, and rightly so. They don't want problems .. they have their own cross to battle with without you coming on to them like a raving lunatic, let alone that they are reminded that it could very well be them in the same situation that seems to find everybody, rich-man-poor-man some time in their life. 
                          
                         I had been driving now for almost three hours without any decent rest except for the self-imposed 'pit stops' that solved nothing in my thoughts and gave me no rest or peace of mind of any kind. I had a lot of 'soup' in my head and I wanted to vomit. You can never tell when something like this creeps up on you. You might see the signs but you chose to ignore them because you know you don't want the outcome, you only know deep inside from your own so-called intuition that it could only end up bad, and now I am here, in that state, in that 'place' that has no turning back. I prayed with all the faith I could muster up for me to step back into time and for things as they were before making my journey on this God-forsaken night ... and He has forsaken me. I should stop the poor-me crap and tell you how I got to this very 'place' physically and mentally.

                          I was putting my vestments away and hoping I would not be taking them out again for the rest of the day and tidying about after that sad but damned funeral that split my small community in half and put them at each other's throats like two superpowers trying to kill themselves but still in ignorance of the consequences. They each had their own reasons as to why she died and both were saying the same thing but just could not for the love-of-man see it. How far can anger trick the mind into that no state of mind can put things right whatever you feel that 'right' is? It's a constant battle between good and evil on any given normal day but this is no normal day and I don't know if any other day can ever be normal again. Evil seems to always win on the first toss of the coin .... tell me if I am wrong about that one ... try it. 
At first, I did not hear the knocking on the door until it became a heavy pounding like the sound of distant thunder approaching fast. When I opened the door a child was standing there looking very frightened, I could tell by the body language but with the determination to see the errand through. A piece of dirty paper was thrown on the ground in front of me and then the child ran away with the knowing expectation it did not want to be questioned by the figure in black ... or to get away quickly as if seeing me would mark him or her for life. I stooped to pick the greasy paper up. Greasy from the sweat of little hands and now those little silver dots were dancing in front of my eyes as I tried to focus to read. I read, and I reread and stood fixed to the spot understanding what had to be done but deep down not wanting to understand, and I reread again. It was not the first time what was about to happen. I knew what had to be done. I was expecting this, but it came sooner this time than the other times before. It was now way past midday and I was already halfway through this pack of smokes and allowed myself a not-to-often-smile. Maybe I smoked this brand because the camel on the pack reminds me of the story that started a whole list of events that took control of mankind and divided it up into 'the power of three, them, us, and others'. It was the way I was seeing things now and all because of a 'camel'. I closed up the vestry and took what I needed into my blue hold-all, it didn't take long. I knew what I had to bring and left a note for the housekeeper to say I had to go out on a sick call. It was without question understanding what 'sick call' meant here and also because it was not the first time I had to leave a note like it. Each time the 'sick call' took more out of me but on some very unexpected day and you can bet on it like a slap on the face from out of nowhere it will kill me .. maybe today is that day ... right now, who's to know ... except for maybe Him above and Him below.

                           I pulled off the main road and onto the now familiar dirt road. You would miss that turn-off if you were to sneeze. Sleet was starting to fall heavily and slowed the wipers of the car down with the weight of ice and rain backing up in front of them. Tall blackberry hedgerows on each side of me with hidden ghosts looking out at me, sneering and taunting me as I drove up that dirt road. You would find it hard nowadays to see blackberries surviving the deeds of farmers' progress and so-called 'new farming methods'. I could hear them loud and clear the thorns of the hedge row scraping along the side of the car like fingernails on the glass as I made my way up to the double-storey farmhouse made from brick and the upper part in wood that could do with a paint job, even in this weather you could see that .. but it has been like this for as long as I have been coming here and I doubt if it will ever be painted again. Four hours now sitting in the car did not do my back any good and as for the pain in my side, it was as if a hot spear went through me each time I made this journey. If anybody was to see me getting out of the car even in this gray damp darkness they would swear on their mother's grave that I was drunk and in a way I was 'drunk' from tiredness. I stretched slowly in the hope I was not going to pull a muscle now in my back and walked with caution to the front door, picking and choosing my steps like a cat sneaking up on a mouse. Fourteen steps up to that door. You have fourteen steps and I think of the fourteen stations of the cross. Why anybody wants fourteen steps to a front door still amuses me each time, it comes with the job I suppose thinking like this. Standing on the top step and trying to get my wind back, of course, I was fooling myself, it was fear. Fear that made my heart pound that I could hear no other sounds, as if there were any to be heard but I am sure they were all there, encouraging me on .. ghosts too. It's always the fear that I can rely on to bring on those dizzy spells that I could never get used to from my first 'contact' with Him. My hand was shaking as if it was trying to stop me from doing what cannot be stopped now. As I reached out to the front door my hand wanted to fall down by my side like a timid dog wanting approval from its owner ... but the door opened automatically at the sight of my hand. I never got to 'knock' or for me to wait in that sweating fear for it to open from the other side. At first, I did not see him but got that heavy pungent smell like decaying vegetation. My body took a step back to protect me from fainting, or maybe it was in remembrance of what we are and of the feuding factions we have become and now confronting each other again. The Good and The Evil fight to claim souls. We stand for all that is good and for all that is evil and as you will come to know it without a doubt in your own way and in your own time as we all do at some time for we cannot escape it. We cannot go through life without facing one or the other and maybe both at the same time and make that fatal choice where the freewill is given the full freedom to act .. not even a priest of any making throwing all discretion to the four winds can call on God to decide for him. This is our voluntary choice as humans, our free will stepping in for moral responsibility to act without divine intervention ... don't you just wish.

''I got your message.''

''I know, priest. I delivered it myself, personally .. did you like the effect .. somehow a child can always bring the desired effect into play ... do you not think so, priest ?''

   ''Why do you do this to me ?''

''Why not, we have a good thing going here, why end our little friendship after all this time we have known each other.''

   ''It's killing me. My community would not be happy if they knew I was talking with the devil .. and a busy devil at that.''

''That's not fair .. you are like the child now, name-calling, and as for your so-called 'community' more than half, and maybe all for that matter will belong to me in the end one way or the other.''

   ''Fair .. don't talk about fairness ... you took that child's soul. She had not got the chance in life to see how her life would end up ... I knew you were behind it, you always are. Look who's talking about being fair. You have no fairness in you. You make me sick you do.''

''What's the problem, stop whining, it's only one little soul ... but you came all the way out here for it all the same, scourging yourself on that journey. Getting longer each time now, too many memories for you. You know I am with you all the time on your journey.''

   ''You just love to see me make that journey. To make me suffer all the more for their sins.''

''It was part of our little deal from the very first word spoken or have you forgotten .. no, you have not forgotten our first little encounter on that mountain when you were on your so-called 'forty days and forty nights trying to find yourself trip'... I made you the offer that everything in this world you can have all you had to do was ask me but you made your choice, so live with it now, besides, I like the games we play now, it's much more exciting this way.''

   ''No, I haven't forgotten. How can I forget when I have to live with it each day .. we were brothers before you wanted things all your way.''

''You are not going to start again about this 'good and evil' crap talk. You can talk about it to others but not to me .. I'm too old for this dogma now, but the way I see it I am winning the war against 'good' ... take a look around you ... take a long look at the mess they are making .. how many wars and depravity acts are in the making right now .. there are more so-called 'evil' acts being carried out in the world than ever before in its history and sometimes we don't need divine intervention to mess it all up, Mother Nature wants her revenge too and she will have it.''

   ''That's not the way I see it and for me, I still see the 'good' in all souls. There is still hope for 'good' to come through but you have the knack of looking up when I am looking down.''

''Yea-yea-yea .. heard it all before from you so let's get down to it and in your own sweet words ... I'm a 'busy devil' ... no time to waste here. We will see who will win her little innocent soul back on the toss of a coin. We will use my coin this time .. and on observation, we will have deliberation so to speak for the love of mankind ... O.K. you call .... ?''

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