Orgy of Souls

The water hit him with a hot sting as soon as the glass door closed behind him. He moved to turn the temperature down then decided that he wanted to feel the scald, enjoy the ability to feel anything. The poor water pressure spit out drops in fits and spurts within the glass tomb of the shower stall, splattering his shaved head. The other family legacy was his premature baldness. His illness nibbled at his vanity, but not so much that he wouldn’t shave his head rather than nurse a balding pate. He turned his back to the stream, leaning against the rear of the shower enclosure to allow the hot water to scourge him. If he had any courage whatsoever, he’d open his veins now and be done with it. The thought of being discovered naked in the shower—a conflict with his personal vanity—was only made worse by the knowledge that suicide was one of the greatest sins. Ultimately, however, he wanted a better ending to his story.

The sputter of the showerhead caused him to turn around. His routine was to hold his mouth ajar to rinse it out, but he was met with the taste of rusty nails. Opening his eyes, pink splotches spotted the floor. His skin blistered under the pelting water. Sores scored his flesh; his budding melanomas swelled like overripe fruit. The cratered flesh of his arm, riddled with spent pustules, issued thin trickles of blood like poxed stigmata. The wounds cracked, drowsy eyes filling with tears of mucous-like pus, before bursting in splays of blood.

A startled scream escaped his throat as he tumbled out of the stall. Samuel patted at his skin as if he were on fire. Only his now all-too-usual discolorations marbled him. Scarlet streams, a blood frieze, streaked the shower. He grabbed a towel to sop up the mess, but after a few unsuccessful swipes he unfolded it to make out the words “Blood Must Be Paid.” He dropped the towel into the remaining pool of blood. When he found the courage to pick it back up, it was no more than a crime scene inspired Rorschach.

7

“Vodka. To one of your better creations.” Samuel filled his glass most of the way then added a splash of cranberry juice—something to calm him down—and toasted his Savior. Surely the blood spatter was from an animal caught in the pipes; he made a mental note to call the plumbers out. The hemography had to have been a trick of his eyes. That was the easy explanation. He swallowed a large gulp. “You just don’t let up, do You?”

With only the press of the empty spot in his all-too-lonely bed waiting for him, Samuel chose to wander the rectory. Ghosts and spirits filled the sanctuary, echoes of the past. His parishioners had long shuffled off with each lit candle, with each recitation of the ancient ritual. A formless, nameless dread kept him awake more nights that he cared to remember; a spiritual blind spot of ache and discontent. No joy, no terror, just the endless numbing that faith provided until the candles were lit in his shadowless home. Samuel, content with his role as a cog, never questioned, and always did what he was told; trusting that God knew what was best. Some people were just like that. Not everyone was cut out to be a leader of men. Some had to do the work, carry out the vision of others. The truly best were those who knew their role, their place in the greater scheme of things, and settled into it.

“The ironic thing about choice,” he said out loud to no one, “is that usually when you make the wrong decision, the right one is there in front of us, also. Some people love the drama, the stirred pot of making the wrong decisions. Or they’re addicted to it or something ‘cause they keep making the wrong decision. Playing the odds, you’d think they’d accidentally fall into a right decision every now and then. But no, they keep going their own way, screwing up their lives and taking those who love them along for the ride.”

There was something hard-wired into people that made them content when they believed in something bigger than themselves. All the expectations were like a false hope that God kept yanking out from under him.

“You like messing with people, don’t You?” Samuel took another swig of his juice. “We’re like Lucy and Charlie Brown, You and I…and I don’t look good in yellow.”

When it came to being in control, Samuel didn’t know who was worse, Samson or himself. Maybe that was why religious belief annoyed Samson. If a supreme being existed, He held the ultimate control, not Samson. If the universe followed any sort of order, he could learn the rules, no matter how abstract. That was what Samson did best—adapt. Don’t give him any bullshit excuses for your life. You were responsible, you were in control of your own destiny, no matter the hand you were dealt. But Samuel couldn’t live like that. Things, life, had to have meaning. Things had to come together in a way that made sense, even if he couldn’t see the whole picture.

Right now, he was content to search for meaning within the rest of the bottle of vodka.

8