CASUALTIES
by J. Edward Ritchie
Beth hated public speaking. Whether presenting to the vacant stares of childhood classmates or testifying in a court-martial, her stomach twisted into a Gordian Knot of anxiety. As a career Army grunt, she learned to embrace her squad over individual glory—a necessary and devoted cog in the world’s greatest military machine. She dodged the spotlight whenever possible but, according to her parole officer, group therapy was a necessary step on the road to rehabilitation.
“There’s always that tension, you know? A calm before the shitstorm. It has a weight to it, thickening the air like an invisible fog you have to wade through. But this was different. We all felt it, an unnatural silence sucking the air from our lungs. We were being watched.”
The weathered eyes of American patriots focused on Beth, heroes one and all. Though disgrace marred her service, their collective gaze emanated understanding and support. Each time she relived her trauma with the group, naked in shame and guilt, she expected rejection. It never came. Tonight, she once again drifted away from the church conference room, trading its stuffy humidity for the blistering heat of Afghanistan. Her shirt, sticky with sweat, became seventy pounds of infantry gear. The swill passing for coffee in her foam cup was replaced with an M4 rifle. God, how she missed every miserable and glorious detail of active duty.
“The explosions came from all sides. Boxed us in a kill zone. And the hostiles…Christ, they were everywhere. A swarm of just, just hate. And rage.”
Beth moderated her breathing to keep a panic attack at bay. The men and women around her endured their own flashbacks with Spartan reserve. Though none of them served together, their bond was one of duty and suffering. A veteran’s thankless struggle in a country that jumped from one sensationalized tragedy to the next like hopscotch. How could their stories compete with the daily memes, political upheaval, and celebrity nonsense of the world stage? They had given life, limb, and sanity for an impatient, callous populace that wanted them to “get over it.”
“I got separated in the chaos. No bearings. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. I ducked into the nearest building. But between the smoke and the shadows, all I could make out was movement. I reacted, trusting my instincts, and fired. Three shots.”
Beth’s trigger finger twitched like an involuntary wince. A flashflood of dread weakened her knees, the same kind that took hold in the seconds between her wayward shots and confirmation of the kill.
“People watch movies and think you can walk off anything but a headshot. We know that’s bullshit. We know what a bullet does to center mass.” Grunts from the circle encouraged her to continue. “I knew when I heard the body drop—it wasn’t heavy enough. It, she was just a woman. A civilian, barely older than a teen. I hit her here. And here. And here,” she said, touching her shoulder, breast, and stomach.
The group shook their heads. Sucked their teeth. They’d all seen or heard of similar accidents. They understood the stakes and how a mission could go sideways in a snap.
“But she wasn’t dead, not right away. She grasped at my vest, trying to say something. Choking on blood. After the investigation, I found out she was pregnant. She wasn’t showing. How could I know? The area was supposed to be evacuated. What the hell was she doing there?” Excuses rattled off the tongue as if repeating her deposition, a force of habit. In the years since, she’d come to accept her culpability. “No, it’s not her fault. I shot prematurely. And she’s dead. Paksima Nuristani. Nineteen years old. Dead. Because of me.”
Beth finished her tepid coffee and crunched the cup in a fist.
“Dishonorable discharge. Civilian casualties were on the rise, so the judge made an example of me. Ten years in Miramar. He said that was how many years I set back women in combat. I served five, the same amount of time I spent in the service.”
Beth blinked away the memories that were always scraping behind her eyes. The group urged her on, many with prosthetics and battle scars that mirrored her own distress.
“I still see her face. The confusion and fear as she bled out. And her child…she never had a chance to see it. Hold it. Love it. There’s no forgiveness for me in this life, I know that, but God is love, right? He is forgiveness. He will understand. He has to.”
Cal, a former Marine and unofficial leader of their group, passed a box of tissues to Beth. Her tears had run dry long ago, but the gesture soothed her all the same. A moment of silence was customary after sharing for everyone to process whatever memories had been resurrected.
“Thank you, Beth. We all have faces that haunt us, but we work together to see them. Acknowledge them. Own our roles in their pain. We can’t change what is done. All we can do is make peace with it, and in our humility, strive to be better than we were yesterday,” he said. “Before we break for the evening, would anyone else like to speak?”
A stranger known only as Gabe stood up, knocking over his chair in haste. Immaculate muscles lifted from the pages of Gray’s Anatomy flexed under a ratty, blanched hoodie. His form was one of balanced perfection, as if carved from solid bronze—beauty and might in harmony. He’d been coming to the group every Wednesday for over a month and never spoke. Never mingled. He watched and listened, emotionless yet present with an unspoken authority.
“My apologies for the dramatic gesture, but I’ve held my tongue long enough,” he said, jaw tensed. Beth couldn’t place the accent or odd word choices, but he wasn’t American.
“Please, continue,” Cal said.
Gabe glided to the center of the group, addressing everyone equally. His movements bore the agility and strength of a dancer. “I know war. I know the reek of spilled viscera upon the fields. The senseless demise of friends and foes alike. Brothers. I’ve waded through detritus of bodies piled to my knees. I’ve seen fire and darkness snuff all light and love and hope. The things I’ve done…great and terrible. I know it’s your nature to seek forgiveness from a higher power. There’s comfort in the lie, but a lie it remains.”
His profane statement provoked the group’s more devout members. Beth, too, felt a twinge of outrage from her embedded Catholic upbringing. Cal interjected on their behalf.
“We’re not here to criticize each other’s beliefs. If you’ve nothing else to share—”
“I’m here to tell you that higher power isn’t listening. He doesn’t care,” Gabe continued. Cal would’ve had better luck silencing a hurricane. “We are all of us infinitesimal motes swirling in His indifference. But you don’t need strength from Him, and you certainly don’t need His forgiveness. It’s in you. In each other. Don’t waste your time here praying for something that can only come from within. That is your power. Seize it.”
Gabe looked at each individual, concluding on Beth as if the entire monologue had been intended for her. Before leaving, he punctuated his rant with a mic drop of blasphemous proportions:
“Your God is dead. Live as you see fit.”
#
Beth left the meeting early to chase after Gabe. She’d seen many people in need of help abandon the group, often with tragic results. Poverty. Addiction. Suicide. Whatever had triggered Gabe, he wasn’t in the right mindset to be alone. Though their group didn’t have traditional sponsors, a sympathetic ear was the least she could offer.
Fog thickened the air of the parking lot into a grim haze. A lone floodlight crackled and blew out as Gabe crossed beneath it, raining sparks like fireflies. The pavement, bulging from tree limbs snaking below the surface, seemed to vibrate with each step of his tattered boots. Carried on a stride of directionless purpose, he sensed Beth’s approach.
“You should return to the meeting, Elizabeth.”
“No one calls me that. It’s just Beth.”
Standing inches away from Gabe, she beheld the true size difference between them. He towered over her, cutting an imposing presence without being beefed up or gangly. Everything about him was in proportion, only larger. Grander. They stared at each other, neither sure where the interaction was heading. The longer their eyes remained locked, the more Beth felt exposed. Studied. Considered. But for what?
“That was pretty intense back there,” she said, breaking the silent dissection. “Not much of a believer, huh?”
“I believe.” Wisdom beyond his years underscored the statement. “I believe completely.”
Beth had only met a handful of people with such religious conviction, and every one of them had been dangerous to themselves or others. But Gabe didn’t speak or act like a fanatic. He spoke with the concrete certainty of having first-hand knowledge. So he was delusional. She should’ve politely parted ways right then and there, but his cryptic eccentricities were magnetic. Part altruism and curiosity, Beth couldn’t let him go.
“Wow, good on you. I struggle with it. Always have. I guess that’s the point,” she said to gauge his interest in conversation. His walls were impenetrable yet not repellant. Screw it—in for a penny, in for a pound. “Maybe I could pick your brain a bit? Over coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Then I’ll drink, you talk.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
“How about that, bad ideas are my specialty.” Beth wasn’t letting Gabe off the hook. He wanted to say yes, to connect, but something held him back. Time to whip out the big guns. Even the mightiest of wills buckled under Earth’s greatest temptation. “Chicken and waffles.”
“What?” Gabe was genuinely stupefied by the phrase.
“Chicken. And. Waffles.” Those three words left zero room for compromise.
“Together?”
Beth saw the gears turning in Gabe’s mind as he tried to make sense of something that defied comprehension. Not only had she broken through his walls, she shattered them with a syrupy, buttery, poultry wrecking ball.
#
Beth’s favorite late-night spot, Cici’s Kitchen, was two blocks away. The neon sign buzzed with a cartoon, buxom caricature of the owner winking while pouring a cup of coffee. For thirty years the diner found success as an unsung watering hole for insomniacs, alcoholics, and graveyard shift zombies. It had little aesthetic charm, but the food was delicious and (more importantly) affordable. And if Cici took a shine to you, her secret menu offered a myriad of nocturnal delicacies, including the aforementioned chicken and waffles.
A bell hanging above the door announced Beth and Gabe’s entrance. The vintage ceiling fan creaked overhead, threatening to abandon its post with each rotation. An arrogant suit barged between them to leave, scoffing at their plebeian existence. Empty booths lined the diner, an odd sight since it tended to be peppered with regulars.
“Best food in town,” Beth said to curb Gabe’s skepticism. “Trust me.”
Juan, fry cook extraordinaire, scraped his grill clean. If American-style classics weren’t your cup of tea, he had the ingredients and talent to whip up authentic street foods from his hometown of Culiacán. Beth had become especially partial to his fresh watermelon and oranges peppered with chili lime seasoning—salty and sweet.
“Sit anywhere you’d like, Hon,” Cici said as she cleared the suit’s table. Her tip was loose change scattered over a plate of scraps and leftover ketchup. “Every goddamn time. Did you spit in his food, Juan?”
“Sí, Cici. Pinche tacaños,” he replied, pretending to work up a juicy topping, but neither of them would mete out such (deserved) punishment. Cleanliness was next to godliness, and Cici’s Kitchen was nothing if not clean. Though the establishment was modest by highbrow standards, their pride and love for every square inch radiated from floor to ceiling.
Beth and Gabe sat in a corner booth with views of both exits—a habit shared by many combat veterans. Cici sashayed over to them, six-inch heels clicking on the tiled floor. A former model that never hit it big, she still moved as if on the catwalk. Her youth was fossilized by decades of unabashed living and a pack-a-day cigarette habit, but she commanded the room with an allure of women half her age. Cici’s beauty was in the certainty of her own worth, a rare trait for a country mired in shallow influencers.
“Where’d you him?” she asked, appraising Gabe’s finer qualities.
“He’s a friend from my meeting.”
“Ah, a soldier. You’re a big one.” Cici bent over the table to flirt with her cleavage while serving coffee, the same pose immortalized in her sign.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Gabe said. Who refuses coffee twice in one evening?
“I didn’t ask. That’s my special chicory blend, and you will try it.”
Beth kicked Gabe’s foot under the table until he spat out, “yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Attaboy. So what’ll it be tonight, chicken and waffles? Extra syrup, extra butter?” Spot on. Beth ordered the same dish every Wednesday. Juan had begun prepping it as soon as they arrived. Cici waited for Gabe to order, but he was a deer in headlights. Charmingly bashful.
“Same for him.”
“Coming right up.” Cici took another drink of Gabe before heading back to assist Juan.
“Extra syrup and butter?” he asked.
“Don’t judge me. What was it Sophia Loren said? ‘I’d rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size zero.’ We’ve all got our vices. What’s yours?”
“Must I choose only one?” The deadpan delivery made Beth choke on her coffee.
“Whatever gets you through the day. Drinking, smoking, screwing…all fine choices.” Her obvious probe into Gabe’s love life yielded only a film of sadness over his adamant focus. Loneliness. She saw it every day in the mirror. “You don’t have anyone?”
“I don’t mate,” he said. Beth had read stories online about people living an asexual lifestyle, but his view of sex as only a means of reproduction was baffling, like a child’s understanding of biology lacking any nuance of lust or love. Adorable.
“There’s more to companionship than sex.”
“Humans are social creatures,” he replied as if considering himself separate from the species. Seeing that Beth was going to press the issue, he added, “I do have a horse.”
That was unexpected and random.
“I’m a dog person. Two mutts. Complete lunatics. I love ‘em like my own kids—more than kids, because no thank you—but still, don’t you ever want to be close to someone?”
“I get off in thirty,” Cici said, bringing their order. “We can get as close as you want.”
The chicken and waffles plates were sublime: juicy breast and thigh meat deep-fried to crispy perfection atop a stack of thin, fluffy cakes with butter melted into every pocket. Vermont maple syrup cascaded down the entire presentation. Culinary indulgence at its finest. Beth wafted the scent into her nostrils while Gabe fumbled for a reply to Cici’s proposition.
“Relax, handsome,” she said, topping their coffees. “You couldn’t handle this. Enjoy.”
Gabe gawked at his food like it was alien cuisine. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Allow me.” Beth tore a chunk of meat from Gabe’s drumstick and forked it between two bits of waffle. She sloshed it in the butter and syrup before raising it to his lips. “It’s all about the balance of flavor. Trust me.”
Beth placed the bite in Gabe’s mouth and waited for his life to change. It’s not everyday you get to introduce someone to chicken and waffles. Per usual, he betrayed none of his thoughts…at first. As the waffle and chicken ground together, syrup coating his taste buds, magic happened. Gabe gripped the table with one hand and closed his eyes, transported to another universe. A rivulet of syrup trickled from the corner of his lips.
“Right? Right?” Beth said and dabbed the syrup with her napkin. “Food of the gods, my friend. Food of the gods.”
They proceeded to shovel their food, silent in reverence to the divine concoction. Come to think of it, she’d never seen Gabe eat anything. Not a bite of cookie or donut at the meetings, and Cal splurged for name brand snacks. Yet another layer of mystery.
“So where did you serve?” she finally asked.
“Heaven. Hell,” Gabe grunted between bites. Unlike his usual replies, the statement came without reflection or guard. Wary, he stopped chewing to measure Beth’s reaction. She wasn’t fazed. In fact, it was the most honest admission she’d heard in or out of group.
“Heaven? Sometimes. That high when you’re in it—really in it—fully focused. One with your team. I mean, we’re not supposed to talk about how good it can feel, right?” Her heart pumped with memories of missions executed to perfection, and then sank in equal proportion. “But then there’s the absolute, soul-crushing horror when everything goes to hell. It’s the yin and yang. Good and evil. Can’t have one without the other.”
Gabe hung on her words, transported to his own past. Every soldier who’d spent time in combat, especially ground combat, had the look: he’d seen some shit. Shit that years in group couldn’t erase. At best, the horrors were relegated to nightmares. At worse, they lingered as phantoms on the periphery of every waking moment. Gabe suffered the latter.
“It sounds messed up, maybe it is, but I swear, sometimes in that chaos, I felt closer to God. More than in any church.” That was an admission Beth couldn’t bring herself to reveal even during group. “What does that say about me?”
“That you seek meaning in entropy, to make sense of that which is senseless. And in your desperation, you cling to humanity’s oldest lie.”
“Which is?”
“That God loves you.”
The accusation and religious intolerance didn’t offend Beth, but his pity did. Gabe was projecting his own trauma onto her. Whatever the source, it held total sway over him.
“What is it with you and God?”
Gabe put down his fork, wiped his mouth, and leaned in. “I see billions of people praying and hoping for Him to fix their lives. To fix the world. The blind faith…it’s just like my brothers were. Like I was. And where did that get me?”
“You seem to be doing alright. You have a horse. That’s kind of a bougie pet. I imagine you’re a man of some means.”
Gabe smirked at the absurdity, not humor, of her speculation. “The horse is for my work. The only means I possess are what I carry with me.”
“What sort of work do you do? Rancher? Stable hand? Canadian mounted police?” She added the last option to lighten the mood. It didn’t work. Apparently the topic was off limits, so she shifted gears. “Fair enough. You mentioned brothers. Are you close?”
“We had a falling out.”
“Family is complicated.” Beth’s brother, an officer of impeccable reputation, had disowned her. The bonds of rank and duty proved stronger than blood.
“It started with our father. Suddenly we weren’t enough for him,” Gabe admitted without further prying. In sharing, he vented some of the steam pressurizing his psyche. “He created new children with no thought to how it would affect us. And not only were we ordered to accept his decision without question, to welcome them as family, he decreed that they were to be our betters. Perfection, unlike his original disappointments. The news wasn’t well received.”
“That’s downright dysfunctional.” Even if healed by reconciliation, wounds of familial estrangement left crippling scars. “What’d you do?”
“A great schism divided us, and then the war came. A civil war. Our family and home were left in ruins. Incalculable dead. Many who survived were condemned to imprisonment.” Though Gabe’s story was vague, the details hinted at his family being royalty or figures of political importance. Maybe even organized crime. “But we gave them a chance, Father’s new progeny. We guided their maturation, and it was good. For a while. But Father is fickle. I saw him become the same negligent tyrant all over. I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—fight for him again, so I left the family. Father is dead to me and I to him.”
Gabe’s voice wavered with defeat. Regret. He was rooted in the past, just as Beth had been throughout her time in prison. For five years, she didn’t receive a single visitor. She wouldn’t wish that loneliness on anyone. There was a beautiful person seeded within Gabe. He just needed to be transplanted from the toxic soil to bloom. Beth reached across the table and held his hands. They were strong and calloused—the hands of a man who didn’t shy from labor.
“If he doesn’t want you, if your brothers can’t see what you’ve given for the family, then who needs them? Family isn’t just blood. You choose the ones you love, and that love is a gift.”
“How can it be a gift when there is no one to receive it?” Gabe had so much belief but placed none in his own goodness. It pained Beth to see him so broken down by history and circumstance.
“Just because you haven’t found someone who deserves it doesn’t mean they’re not out there.” Beth retracted her hands, fearing her subtext was too bold. Was there something between them, or was she projecting her own rapid infatuation? “Jesus, listen to me blubbering.”
“Your blubbering is very wise, Elizabeth.”
The ridiculous turn of phrase tickled Beth. Gabe was confused, but her amusement soon leapt over to him. Their laughter filled the diner—joy untethered from attrition.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long, long time.”
#
Beth and Gabe stayed at Cici’s until the wee hours, enjoying a spread of desserts from pie to empanadas. Their discourse shifted to a lighter tone as they learned more about each other than war stories, though he still dolled out details at a measured pace. Hopped up on coffee, sugar, and lack of sleep, Beth knew she was in the midst of something special.
“No last name at all? Never? Not on your birth certificate or anything? How is that even possible?” she said through a mouthful of rhubarb pie. Gabe shrugged, as though the truth was inexplicable even to him. “Well you’re in fine company. Madonna. Cher. Prince. Bono. You have no idea who those people are, do you?”
“Is it so obvious?” Gabe was hilariously naïve when it came to pop culture.
“My god, where did you come from?”
“Nowhere you’ve been,” he said to brush off the question.
“How do you know? Maybe I’m a world traveler.” Beth thought they’d shared enough to ask for more concrete answers. “Seriously, where are you from?”
The door opened, ringing the bell, and slammed shut. Rude.
“Who’s slamming my door?” Cici yelled as she cleaned up the kitchen. At her insistence, Juan had already left for the night. “Kitchen’s closed. Coffee only.”
A disheveled man crept towards the counter, reeking of liquor and ill intent. Cici was happy to serve the homeless or people down on their luck—for free, if necessary—but this man had other designs. Violent designs. Cici left the kitchen to greet him with coffee. The wretch pulled a magnum revolver from his jacket and thrust it at her.
“Cash from the register!” he ordered, unsteady finger tickling the hair trigger.
The coffee pot fell from Cici’s hands and shattered on the floor. “There’s, there’s not much. You can have it. Please don’t—”
“Now!”
Cici fumbled with the register, stuffing the night’s paltry cash into a takeout bag, voice stolen by fear. Gabe’s eyes spewed napalm at the gunman. He was seconds away from making a move, but Beth shook her head. They couldn’t subdue him without endangering Cici. Even a blind man could kill with that hand cannon. They had to bait the gunman away from her.
“Everything’s alright, Cici. Give him the money and stay there,” Beth said.
“Shut up!” The gunman stomped closer to Beth until she could see the crack lesions speckled across his face. He was deep in withdrawal. Nothing more unpredictable and dangerous than a desperate, armed addict in need of a fix. “Cell phone and wallet.”
“Calm down. They’re yours.” Beth put her phone and clutch on the table. If all went smoothly, she could disarm the gunman when he reached for the items. She used short, simple sentences to diffuse the situation. “You’re sick. Let me help you. No one has to get hurt.”
Gabe was a statue. No elevated heartbeat. Not a drop of perspiration on his forehead. His demeanor was more threatening than the gun. More lethal.
“Perhaps someone should get hurt,” he said.
The gunman scratched at his lesions. “The fuck you say, stretch?”
“Let it go, Gabe,” Beth said, fearing for Cici. “It’s not worth it.”
“I can end this,” he replied, not breaking eye contact with the gunman. Beth grabbed his wrist to keep him seated.
“Wallet and phone on the table, or I swear to God—”
Gabe broke Beth’s grip and rose from the booth, daring the gunman to shoot. “What do you swear?”
Everything was going to hell. Again. Beth looked past the gunman and saw Cici raise a pistol that she kept in the register. “Cici, don’t!”
Too late. Cici fired, hitting the gunman in the shoulder. Beth stood to reach for his gun, but he turned and fired two shots at Cici. Both found their target.
Cici crumpled, dead before she hit the ground.
“Oh shit. Oh shit. She made me do it. You saw it. You saw it…” he mumbled, spinning backwards, unhinged. He looked over the counter and recoiled from Cici’s body. Calculating his chances of escape, he turned his gun on Beth and Gabe. No witnesses. “I didn’t want this.”
Gabe put his hand on Beth’s shoulder, forcing her to a seat, and exited the booth. “I’ve enjoyed speaking with you, Elizabeth.”
Beth’s brain shouted for her body to stand and back up Gabe, but her legs wouldn’t obey. Her instincts, everything that kept her alive in combat, were failing like a reactor in meltdown. When it was most needed, the power she once wielded had been rendered impotent by inaction. Beth the soldier died with Paksima, and now Gabe’s blood would be on her hands.
“Sit down, man!”
The gunman’s forced aggression couldn’t hide his terror at the sight of a chiseled titan strutting towards him like a goddamn terminator. But why was Gabe provoking him? At that range, against that caliber of bullet, it was suicide.
Gabe didn’t care. Absent worry, he seemed to grow in stature. The overhead lights dimmed as if he absorbed their illumination like a black hole.
“I’ll do it. I’ll shoot!”
“I know.”
The stitching in Gabe’s hoodie strained and split open like cotton gashes. The material over his back shredded into ribbons, pierced from underneath. Six skeletal, featherless wings burst from inside his body and spread across the diner. A scythe materialized in his outstretched hand: an elaborate, carved bone shaft with twin crimson blades on either end. Beth knew shock intimately—she’d been helpless in its grip before—but what seized her now was a rational and spiritual inability to accept what was unfolding before her eyes.
“Wh-what are you?” the gunman squeaked.
Angel? Devil? The truth wasn’t meant for mortals.
“Death.”
Gabe’s wings clenched like bony fingers stripped of flesh. The gunman fired wild shots until the barrel emptied into useless clicks. Three bullets passed between the wings, zooming across the diner, and demolished Beth’s coffee mug. The warm drink soaked through her shirt.
The final shot hit Gabe’s chest, but there was no blood. He didn’t even flinch.
“A coward with a gun. How very human.”
Gabe swung his scythe under the gunman’s chin. The blade lifted him off the ground, pierced through the top of his skull, and pinned him into the ceiling. He twitched as the final neurons of his cloven brain accepted the inevitable. A murderer’s last gasp. Gabe watched the life depart with systematic ambivalence.
“Gabe…”
The stain on Beth’s shirt was more than coffee. The bullet that shattered her mug was lodged in her left ventricle, releasing a crimson river with the force of a burst levee. A pristine center mass shot. Thirty seconds left to live, if she was lucky.
“Elizabeth?”
Gabe abandoned his scythe and rushed to Beth’s side. He cradled her in his arms like a child, wings curled over them both in a protective shell. Behind him, the gunman’s body plopped to the ground, empty air where the scythe had been seconds prior.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said, putting pressure on the wound. “You don’t deserve this.”
A hallucination of Paksima manifested behind Gabe, her form gnarled into a malevolent wraith about to exact vengeance in the afterlife—fear given flesh.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
Darkness encroached from the periphery of Beth’s vision. Her body fell numb. The taste of blood in her mouth turned to ash. The lingering scent of chicken and waffles dissipated. Hearing muffled, she fought to speak through the blood filling her lungs.
“There’s no light. He…He doesn’t forgive me.”
“He doesn’t have to. I forgive you, Elizabeth. Do you hear me? I forgive you.”
#
Gabriel watched the spark of life depart Elizabeth’s eyes, as he had so many others before her. If he hadn’t meddled in human affairs, if weakness hadn’t compelled him to seek solace in their flawed company, then maybe she’d still be alive. Maybe Cici would’ve had more years to delight customers with her chicken and waffles. Maybe the gunman wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. Maybe…what a horrid word. For Gabriel, all possibilities arrived at the same terminus: death. He and it were one and the same. Time—that is what he took from them.
“You don’t forgive souls. You reap them.”
The words gurgled from Elizabeth’s pursed, deceased lips like fetid gas. Her corpse rose from the floor, a mannequin propped on invisible strings. The flesh was held together not by bone and muscle but raw celestial fury piercing through the veil. It latched onto Gabriel, manipulated—defiled—by the same force that he’d pledged to serve.
“She is mine, Gabriel.”
Humans race through their lives like hamsters in a planetary wheel, entire cities worth dying each and every day without causing so much as a blip on the cosmic radar. Senseless, banal deaths. Father didn’t know their names. He didn’t care about their stories. Only one being was truly invested in their fates.
Satan.
Known as Satanail when Gabriel yet called him brother, before war cleaved the Heavenly Host, humanity was Satan’s passion. Every soul sent to the pit was a prize beyond measure. He would no more part with what was owed to him than the angels would permit a damned soul into paradise. Good and evil. Celestial absolutes: those were the terms that dictated Gabriel’s existence, but humans too often occupied the gray space between.
“You’re mistaken,” Gabriel said, a risky accusation. The dog that barks at its master is often met with the lash. “I’ve delivered legions of vile souls into your Hell. I know when a human is beyond redemption. She isn’t one of them.”
“You are blinded by sentiment and deception. Open your eyes.”
Elizabeth’s corpse pressed its palms to his temples, injecting waves of an ethereal current that carried her life’s memories. Truth unfiltered by perspective and unaltered by time.
Gabriel found himself alongside Elizabeth in Afghanistan during her ill-fated mission. Every sense, every angle of the action, was exactly as she described to the group. Elizabeth became separated during the ambush. She was alone. Confused. Terrified. Too exposed. Dodging bullets, she retreated into a nearby building to regroup. A shadow from the corner startled her, but that’s where the truth and her constructed narrative diverged.
Elizabeth didn’t fire. The shadow begged for help—in English—and came into the light, arms raised. Paksima repeated the plea on behalf of her unborn child. There was no threat in her manner or words. In that moment, Elizabeth had a choice: risk her life to escort Paksima (an innocent) from danger, or fire. She pulled the trigger fully aware of her actions, a choice so reprehensible that she entombed the truth in her subconscious.
“She lied to herself. She lied to you. Lies stacked upon lies teetering atop a foundation of guilt. This is her truth.”
Afghanistan dissolved back into the diner as Gabriel yanked the corpse’s hands from his head, horrified and ashamed of his naiveté. The meat puppet whispered in his ear, cheek still warm with the illusion of life.
“Liars, the entire wretched planet of them. They never change.”
Yes, Elizabeth lied. Yes, her sin was heinous. But her desire to improve and atone was pure. Even if her psyche had been unable to rectify the truth, she was working towards redemption. That had to mean something. Thus, against his better judgment, Gabriel appealed her fate.
“Don’t take her. Grant me this one allowance.”
“There it is, your truth. This isn’t about her.” The corpse circled Gabriel, taunting him with a lyrical cadence. “If she could be forgiven, a maggot of no import, then surely you, Gabriel of the almighty Host, could return to favor upon a day? But the angels don’t want you. I do.”
The corpse stood on its tiptoes and pressed cracked, bloody lips to Gabriel’s. During the morbid kiss the body dehydrated and withered into a husk. Released from Satan’s grip, it ruptured on the floor like a dried leaf crushed underfoot. A final command escaped the desiccated carcass, carried on the wind into the ether:
“Ride, my horseman.”
The diner doors exploded off the frame in a tempest of glass and wood. An ashen horse galloped inside and bucked at Gabriel, all sinew and lean muscle. Steam shot from its nostrils, burning his hands like airborne acid. Its furious hooves stamped, causing the entire diner to shudder, until a sinkhole opened like a gluttonous maw to swallow all traces of Cici’s Kitchen.
An infinitude of futility crushed Gabriel’s spirit. For months he’d rejected his calling. Denied his purpose. Believed in the redemptive power of compassion. And because of that humanity, he’d been played for a fool.
Never again.
Elizabeth’s life had served a purpose, though not one that Gabriel intended. He wasn’t judge, jury, or executioner. The fleeting fate of humans, one or a million, wasn’t his concern. Forgiveness and damnation were decided by greater authorities, as it always was and always would be. His epiphany brought a new clarity of purpose.
“We have souls to reap.”
Gabriel mounted his horse, once more imbued with a power that bore witness to life’s end on all scales. When a child’s first breath was also its last, he was there. When cataclysms devastated entire civilizations, he was there. Death was his vocation. His destiny. His name. And so he would ride on.
Until the end of time.