Flames and Ice
Based on a true event in Fort Worth, Texas
Susan's drenched clothes clung to her skin and weighed her down. She was a short, petite woman, so the extra weight, while barley anything, still made her muscles work with extra effort. her husband, Harled, was walking beside her, seemingly seemingly unbothered by the brutal downpour of rain. The seminar over creationism ws obvioulsy keeping him preoccupied at the moment, otherwise he would have been talking about anything spontaneous taht came to his mind.
The dark sky spun with clouds, like a raging sea. Thunder roared and dazzling blue serpents of lightning lit the shadows. From the churning clouds, rain pattered down like bullets, smacking down on the pavement of the parking lot.
“Do you remember where you parked the car, Harled?” Susan asked, shivering against the frigid wind.
Harled scrunched his brow, unsure of what to say. “I have a vague idea, Susie, but no. I’m not sure.”
Susan shook her head. It wasn't the first time he'd forgotten a parking spot, but still, he ussually remembered where he put it at some point. Despite the weather she couldn’t be too upset with him for not recalling where he had parked their car. She craned her neck up and again saw how vast the parking lot was. On neither side, could she see where the vehicles ended. She put her arm around his waist, relishing in the warmth that was given off from underneath his drenched coat.
A clap of thunder made her jump and coil her fingers tightly around his side. “Sorry, the thunder startled me.”
“It’s alright. As long as nothing happens to you, I'm fine,” he said, wrapping an arm around her.
She took his hand and squeezed it, rubbing some of the water off. They’d been married twenty four years now and had two grown sons. Both had moved out now, but they always stayed in contact. Raising them, while a pleasant experience, was not without its challenges. Sure most of the time the kids behaved themselves and Harled was a blessing to live with, life wasn’t always simple. Every once and a while she and Harled would argue about seemingly simple things, which sometimes, ended with either one or both of them being stunned into silence so still, all they could hear was their beating hearts and the creaking of the house. No matter how dire things became, their commitment endured. They had made a covenant before God, and were fully committed to keep the flame that was ignited blazing for eternity.
As she giggled, Susie could see Harled glance at her. The whole flame continuing to burn thing was funny with the fierce storm around them.
“What’s so funny, Susie?” he asked. “You know I like to laugh, too.”
Letting go of his waist, Susan stared at him and blinked as rain pounded around her eyes. “I was just thinking of us. Our never dying flame of love, I mean.”
His cheeks raised as he smiled. “You know, so was I. But what I don’t get is, how is that funny?’
She laughed again, running a hand through her slick hair, darkened by the rain. Looking around, she could see many other couples searching for their vehicles, too. At least they weren’t alone in their journey.
Susan hunched her shoulders and shook her hands, which were going numb. “The irony is funny. I mean, just think about, here I am, picturing a flame, and there’s all this rain.”
“Oh, I see,” Harled said, glancing up at the swirling clouds, but quickly dropping his head back down.
Susan shook her head. “Did the sky hurt your face?”
“It can’t be hurt anymore. But anyway, I think my ugliness made it scared.”
“Yes. I’m sure that’s why it’s trying to kill you.” Susan bit her lip, feeling sorry for what she said. “Sorry,” she said, lowering her gaze to the pavement, which was rippling with hundreds of rain “No need to be sorry, Susan. I find all your humor enjoyable.”
Susan didn’t say anything to that, instead she scanned the parking lot and noticed that several other couples seemed to be lost as well. Others, however, were already pulling away and driving off.
“Love,” Susan said, her voice horse, and her tongue dry. “Where’s the car?” In the roaring storm, her question was a mere whisper.
For once, he looked apprehensive himself. “I don’t know.”
She shivered, but not just from the cold, but nerves. What if it had been stolen? Then what would they do? Go back to the building where the seminar was given, she supposed.
“Did you like the seminar?” she asked, hoping to lighten up the mood. Swallowing, she moistened her mouth.
“Yes. Very much. I found it… enlightening,” he said, sneezing.
“God bless you,” she said, taking his arm.
“No, God bless us. Greg and Kevin, too.”
“Yes, our beautiful sons.”
She missed them, from the moment each of them pulled out of the driveway. First Kevin left the nest, and then Greg shortly followed. A piece of her had left, but it would always, she reminded herself, be there. It was just hard, letting them go on their way. She and Harled had stayed outside, watching Kevin’s headlights become swallowed in the darkness. But somehow, it was more painful to see Greg leave in the daylight, because, when he was out of their sight, it seemed, for a few moments of frozen time, that he had vanished into nothingness. It wasn’t natural, for people to be lost in the light. Wandering in darkness however, souls were always being lost.
Susan tightened her hand around Harled. Lost in the darkness. She shivered again, and felt her husband instinctively draw her closer to him. She was fragile she knew, but still, she could not fathom him breaking himself for her. Why? Why would he do such a thing? Neither one of them was more valuable than the other. Both were wretched people, only truly alive through Christ, who lived in them. Without that, neither one of them deserved the glorious gift of life.
**********************************************************
Harled cherished his wife. Before he’d met her, he was almost certain that the world only contained harlots now. Yes, that was a harsh claim, but still, it seemed to be the reality. They had first met in a park. He was jogging around a pond, while she was feeding the ducks. Harled smiled internally, feeling warmth radiate through him. The innocence that she had emitted as she fed the creatures had slowed him down. But still, he let her go on that lap, and when he ran another, there she was; still attending to the animals.
He had introduced himself to her, and she to him. It wasn’t intentional, but they ended up telling each other which churches they attended, and it just happened to be the same one. And so they encountered each other every so often at the services, but not much was really exchanged.
She was eighteen at the time, and he nineteen. As far as his memory could recall, they married within four months. Truly, he wasn’t sure what motivated them to commit to each other. Initially, he felt almost no romantic feelings toward her. Only as their friendship grew did he begin to realize that she was his other half. But whatever the reasons, he couldn’t comprehend living without her. It was great, he knew, taht he ended up marrying the first woman in his life. He wouldn't have to remember any awkward experiences with what society called "girlfriends".
Suddenly, loud cracking sounds rang around him, and then he yelled, as his shoulders were struck by rocks. Icy rocks. Susan screamed too. He squinted against the rain and saw large chunks of ice shoot down from the sky, pattering the ground with such force, that the crunches continued to echo long after they struck the pavement. The chunks of ice were the size of golf balls.
“Susan!” he shouted, gathering her in his arms and bending her down, shielding her with his body. He trembled as the hail stones pummeled his body, bashing against his skull. The pain was excruciating, but still, he gnashed his teeth and hugged his wife to his chest.
His head and back were being pounded with such ferocity that his vision was going hazy and his muscles were blazing. Through his blurred vision, he was still able to see other men, covering their wives with themselves. One man, with a shredded umbrella was trying with all his strength to keep the black, contorted thing from being blown away by the wind.
****************************************************
“Harled!” Susan screamed, her tears mixing with the water on his coat.
“Susan! Stay benath me!” he said back to her.
His voice, it sounded as if it were coming from behind a waterfall, and yet, he and she were one. She peeled her face away from his chest only to have his hands grip tigher around her and have it pressed back against him.
With her mouth covered by his body, her screams were muffled. With every spasm that ran through his body, she weeped as if the pain were hers. He truly was her protector. This was how committed he was. No matter the tribulation, he would defend her. Harled was so selfless. She’d seen it before, through his devotion to their savior. And now, he was showing that same love for her.
“Harled… I love you,” she said, her husbands slick polyester coat pressing against her lips.
A yelp screeched from his mouth and then he said, “And I you!”
Harled’s eyes were shutting and his mind becoming shallow. He had to shake himself and bite down on his tongue to stay conscious. Through clouded vision, Harled saw men collapse. Their wives cried out in agonizing shrieks that sent surges of adrenaline shooting through his body, keeping him awake.
He felt warmth seep from his lips. With trembling, hail bloodied hands, he stroked his wife’s back. He felt her small hand reach up to his, and felt it shake as hail struck it, and yet, she didn’t recoil. He closed is eyes, absorbed in her compassion in the midst of terror. With her hand clasped around his, nothing mattered. Not the howling wind, the lightning serpents, the exploding thunder, nor the pain beyond pain that he was enduring.
“Susie, I’m not going to let you go,” he said.
Somehow she heard, and squeezed his hand, never letting go as the ice rained down. Only seconds had passed, he knew, but it felt much longer than that. This was bad. His mind was barely functioning and his scalp was oozing blood. If only he could-could… what? Shove himself and his wife under a truck or something? Break window and climb in a car?
Yes. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? He just had to… had to… his eyes rolled around in his head and he began to sway.
“No, Harled! No!” he heard his wife scream.
I won’t pass out. I won’t, he told himself. He glanced down and saw his wife’s tangle of dark soaked hair and then only blackness.
******************************************************
Harled was falling, and Susan could only fall with him, her singers still coiled around his, binded by pain. She struck the pavement with a thud, but the pain was nothing; all that was on her mind was Harled.
Reaching out with her other hand she reached for his face, but recoiled as a chunk of hail bashed against one of her knuckles, almost breaking it. Forcing the pain down, Susan reached out again. She retched her hand back underneath Harled’s body as a puddle of blood formed around her.
Her skin went cold and her entire body numb. Oh please, God, let it be my blood. My blood, not his.
“Not his blood. Not… his blood,” she whispered. But realizing that it was futile to deny that it was her husband’s life seeping away, she closed her eyes and cried. In her ears, her sobs muted the storm.
“Until death do us part,” the words echoed in mind. Harled had done the ultimate sacrifice for her. He had made a commitment to keep their flame of love ignited, even if it meant perishing for it. Here Susan was now, a widow beneath her love’s body.
Harled. How odd their encountering was, but it was meant to be no other way. They were strange people in a dead world. No matter how much it pierced her soul, she would not dare become angry at the Lord. It was not his fault that death came onto the world. It was all because of the Liar and her mother and father who died because they disobeyed God and let the serpent tempt them.
Susan opened her eyes and rocked underneath Harled. His shell was here, but her love was beyond her earthly reach. From a slit underneath Harled’s coat she could see other woman, peering back at her from underneath their husbands. God’s protectors on earth. It was so heart-wrenching. So many husbands were beating their wives to death at the exact moment that these gave their lives to save their spouses. Till death do us part had many faces, and this one was one of eternal compassion.
But she could not feel only mourning for Harled, but pangs of resonating hope. He was now more alive than ever. For what is greater than the day of birth, but death? Like her, he was born dead, and saved by Christ, and now, he will be alive eternally. Death, she realized, was not to be feared, but looked forward to.
But tonight wasn’t her demise, it was her redemption. In marrying Harled, she had been given a second chance on life in a wicked world, because the Lord knew she could take it. He still had missions for her, and she’d obey every calling He gave her.
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