2Sweet Blasphemy
Rai Kamishiro
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I can't remember how old I was when I first killed a man.
I can't remember what my father looked like either. I remembered the little things, like how he used to peel oranges for me and later at night, bend me over the couch before fucking me, the surprise in his eyes as I took his Chief's Special and planted a spare bullet between his eyes, and the way his blood slid down my face.
This is my confession, and soon my penance, I suppose. I never really believed in absolute Sin. Then again, I never believed in God, either.
I can blame him for that, I suppose. I don't know why I followed him out of that house that morning, with the air cooling the red on my face, and me pouring my cereal in to a bowl, when he showed up. Plucking the eyes from my father's prone form, he seemed surprised at me, then greatly amused. My hand was small in his, but it was warm.
It's hard to believe in God when all you've seen is hell. It's hard to believe in a greater Divinity when all you've known of is the cold rhapsody his smile.
He would never tell me when I asked, and merely said that angels were the exactly the same thing as the demons.
It was hard to believe in a god that would forgive everyone, one that loved everyone no matter who you were when you were a small figure crouched in the cramped space between pews, breathing quietly and hoping you weren't seen, with the stained glass of the saints and angels staring down at you with their jewel perfect eyes, when you could smell the oil rubbed on the wood, and the lingering smells of service performed through out the years.
It was hard to believe that any god would ever bless me, when my legs were trembling with cramped muscles and raw nerves, the cold metal heavy in his hands, waiting, waiting for just the perfect moment, when I could feel Grey's smile although I knew he was no where to be seen.
It was impossible to believe it when I could feel the click after the trigger, the stinging pain before the blast, and the ridiculous force of recoil against a small body. How could I could be one of the blessed when I was panting in the pews, hands curved in to claws around the gun, limbs shaking uncontrollably as I stood up, stumbling over to the dead figure, a blood blossom on his black robes, feeling the soft hand on my hair and eyes, chuckling approval as the eyes floated out of the dead corpse and in to the angel's hands, and finally feeling the whisper of wings close around me.
Who the hell would give a nine year old a gun and say here, go play? How fucked up would a person have to be to think a child has any place with a gun?
Grey, that's who.
A nine year old kid with a gun is likely to stir up a shit load of trouble.
Is it a Sin if you Sin for a good cause? Grey sat me down one day and told me about Sin. I guess all the people I've killed are guilty, and Grey says they're guilty, and if I can't believe in a fucking angel, that I'd have to look deep inside myself and calmly put the nozzle to my forehead.
Grey told me about Sin. It was a Sin to do certain things, and people who sinned had to be punished. I don't think I believe in it now, but it keeps me getting out of bed in the mornings on this god-forsaken planet, and if I didn't get out, I'd have to lay there and think of all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. You can guess which outbalanced which.
There was a certain smile that came across Grey's face when he talked about Sin, in his resolute angel's voice.
Sometimes the big things don't matter, because if they did, the world would be a lot more unlivable, with a lot more sinners, so you have to cling to the small things. Like the calm before his voice told you of new sinners, the coffee he makes in the morning, and the quiet lull as I carry breakfast to the table, even though he never eats.
There's a proverb that says the road to hell is built with good intentions. If so, then the road has been built already. But I know that's not true because Grey says that the road to hell is paved with the skulls of priests. And if so, and it is because he says, then I'm not done yet. I don't know if I'll ever be done.
I know I'm not a good person, and I know I'll never be. I can't say I'm any better than the people I'm killing. I'm sure when I die that I'll end up in my own personal hell. Grey says that each Sinner I kill washes away a Sin, but then, think of all the Sins I committed already.
Someday there might be a little kid waiting in a pew for me, trembling because he's fucking scared, nervous because its his first time killing someone, and someday I'll be lying on the floor, bleeding my life out on the floor, choking on my own blood because there's some things that you can't take back.
Maybe he won't remember either.