Another Excerpt from, "Redemption."

I turned to face Charlie and screamed, “Get away from me.” But he slid closer and screamed at me, in to me, “You have learned nothing. You are dead to me.”

It was then I heard the sound. A dark thrum.  Like someone playing the The C Major 7th chord, but deeply discordant, not just out of tune, but dirty and lowly.

The sin moved through my bones and I knew if I didn’t find a way to stop it, it would live in the bones of my unborn children.

That dark music, a funeral dirge would play gently over their childhood. The thought of it gave me strength to stop. To face gently into the light.

And that was the moment I needed. All his anger and wraith. He kept screaming and I shrank, but I didn’t die. My heart didn’t skip a beat. The thing I was most of afraid of had come and gone. And I was still alive.

I tuned out somewhere during his tirade and tuned in long enough to  smile and turn my back.

As I turned my back, I felt him start forward and I spun. As Charlie came to a complete stop, I said, “Yes. I am dead to you.”

Off Webster and Left

Coming off Webster Road I made a left turn, then another, and one more for good measure.

One more turn would get me back home, but I thought one more would be too  much.

There was no more pain but somewhere along the way I misplaced my boon companion.

In her place a stranger.

A  painless tragedy.

I went to sleep that night wondering if I would ever see home again.