Spoiler
Eh. This is my first story in English in a long time, so please feel free to point out any spelling/grammatical errors that I have made (I'm sure there are plenty). It's for a contest on here, and basically the guidelines dictate an in-the-flesh encounter with Jesus. If it feels preachy, sorry for offending! =)
God Comes After
Midnight is a terrible time for a cup of coffee.
But every time I breathed I thought of her.
And so I hauled myself to my feet—a little unsteady after all the crying and the drinking—and I followed the hum of the yellow lights in my pickup truck. The roadway flailed beneath me but I did my best. I made it to the door of the gas station with only a little dirt on the knees of my slacks.
Becca would have laughed at me, sorry sight that I was. She would’ve got that little crease across the bridge of her nose, between her sharp brown eyes.
“Don’t cry,” she would’ve said. Like I was being ridiculous.
I didn’t cry. Not right away. My eyes stayed dry even at the funeral. Everybody stood around feeling sorry for eachother, cried their big, ungrateful tears, and forgot all about Becca, getting colder in her casket. That should have been the worst part: the funeral.
I took a sip of my coffee.
It should have gotten better.
Only it didn't. The bathroom still smelled like her shampoo. I could still trace her outline, there, in that little green chair she wouldn’t let me get rid of. We used to fight about that chair. It was still all frayed along the seams, spitting foam onto the carpet whenever I moved it.
“I like it,” Becca had said.
And so it stayed.
So did the gun.
We used to fight about that, too. Those were the serious fights, and they didn’t finish with laughter or even with Becca’s broad, soft smile. But she was scared and I was bull-headed, so in the end it had found a home on the top shelf of my closet.
It was in my glove compartment, now. I had undone the safety in the parking lot—my fingers numb with cold.
I had written a note, too. I left it on the counter. Becca could read it if she ever wandered home again, disheveled and breathless, laughing at the joke she’d played. My stomach tightened and I let it pass.
The bottom of my cup came quickly, and the last few drops were bitter on my tongue. The thin, sharp taste lingered for a while before it dissipated. The warmth of the drink left my belly slowly, creeping up behind my eyes when I rose to my feet. The tears stung.
It was with singular, stoic purpose that I pushed the glass door open, eyes already fixed on the bumper of my truck. So when my vision swung up at the sky, and the dull impact of the frozen ground thrashed along my spine, it took me a long moment to recover myself.
The man at my feet groaned and I instinctively flinched away. Yes, there was a man there, and he peeled back layers of stiff blankets to peer out at me. His eyes were red and tired under a mane of matted hair. Something in me ached. We stared at each other for a long moment before I recovered myself enough to apologize for tripping over him.
“Can I buy you a coffee?”
It was a stupid question, but he wordlessly accepted, and the grime on his face cracked to make way for a gentle smile. He stood behind me as I ordered, and the clerk pointedly ignored him, handing me a pair of coffees and twitching his mouth into a frown.
“What’s your name?” I asked the man as he settled in the chair across from me. He put his elbows on the small round table—pressed his hands against the warm outside of the cup.
“Jesus,” he said amiably, raising a dark eyebrow.
I grinned at him, but swallowed the laugh that swelled in my chest. A sadness crept into the man’s eyes but he said nothing.
“Good coffee?” I changed the subject, gesturing to his cup. He smiled and nodded, drawing it closer and taking a deep, indulgent sip. As he did so, I noticed a pair of dark circles on the backs of his hands, but he caught my eye before I could look closer. He tucked his fingers into the sleeves of his shirt and winked at me.
“Some people like tea,” the man said suddenly. His eyes were fixed to mine, unblinking. "I could never stand the stuff."
I nodded.
“My wife—“
She hates coffee, I was going to say, but it snagged in my throat and I coughed…took a breath.
“Yea,” I said. “I like coffee too.”
“Your wife,” the man said, as though I hadn’t spoken. I looked up at him, angry for saying it out loud. He was studying my wedding band.
I grunted.
“Nice lady?” the man asked.
“Yes,” I said flatly.
The man's eyes gleamed, and he leaned forward as though he hadn't heard me.
“She was very nice,” I repeated firmly.
“Ah,” the man said, understanding. He leaned back in his chair and I pressed my shoulder against the wall on my left. “So she left you, huh?”
“No,” I said.
The man looked puzzled.
“Oh,” he said, and took another gulp of coffee.
We were silent like that, for a little while, until I set my cup down and looked at the man across from me. There was something about his eyes that I recognized, something that made the words come easily. I thought about the gun again and I took a deep breath.
“She died,” I explained.
Jesus waited, and the words came.
“We were in a car accident,” I mumbled. I drew a few small circles on the table with my fingertips. I shrugged and cleared my throat again. “She didn’t suffer.”
“You don’t believe that,” Jesus said.
I shook my head slowly.
And that’s when the tears came: great, wracking sobs that shook my body. I brought the palms of my hands to rest on my shoulders and curled myself inward as the pain radiated from my chest. I felt my lips pull back from my teeth and a soft keening sound filled my ears.
It took me a long time to find my breath again.
“I prayed about it,” I whispered.
Jesus’s face became strained and he let out a slow, sad breath.
“I know,” he said softly. He pulled something from his pocket and handed it to me. It was a slip of paper. It was mangled and grubby, but the writing on it was mine and I flung it away when I realized what it was. "Why did you write that?" Jesus asked me. When I looked up at him, I could see the tears at the edges of his eyes. Embarassed, I looked down at my hands--at the suicide note.
"I can't do this," I said.
"You can."
"Then I won't," I breathed.
Jesus reached across the table, then, and even as I pulled away he brushed his hand against my temple. A sudden, overwhelming sense of lightness overcame me. The burn of the coffee in my stomach returned, and abruptly evolved into a shocking contentment. My vision faded white around the edges, and Becca's perfume drifted around me in a smoky haze. Superceding it, the high, delighted voices of children cut through the brightness.
I gasped when the blackness returned.
Slowly, the convenience store swam back into view. Jesus was leaned back in his chair, watching me thoughtfully.
"What was that?" I demanded.
"A gift," he said.
"You can die," he continued softly. "But if you stay, this waits for you. Her memory, your children, and those feelings that you think are gone forever." Then, even quieter, he murmured: "She is not coming back. But she would want you to stay." He leaned toward me again, and this time I didn't shrink from him. The gun rapped gently on the table as he set it down.
"Your decision," he whispered.
I looked at the weapon thoughtfully, and then reached for it. The metal was cold in my hands, but there was still a tug as I stretched to one side and dropped it into the wastebasket. I took one last glance at Jesus, but he was already slumped forward over the table, snoring loudly. His mouth hung open, displaying a row of rotted and missing teeth. I hesitated, and then slipped a ten-dollar bill under his fingertips. Just in case.
