"LET ALL THE THINGS THAT YOU DO, BE DONE WITH LOVE"
- 1 Corinthians 16:14
It was written with huge bronze letters, right above the door of the church. The townspeople found it to be charming, especially my religiously scrupulous mother. The form of love it refers to is agape, the highest and purest form of love, the same love that Job radiated towards the Lord as his children and wealth were agonisingly stripped from him. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.
I examine it for a while and walk away.
In the past, my mother would often read scripture to me before I slept, she would pause between every line and ramble on about how mighty and kind our Lord is. and I would nod each time she would finish her grand sentences and slowly drift off to sleep. Perhaps I should have cherished those times a bit more.
The December air feels like the claws of an enraged beast ravaging my skin, slashing without mercy.
My teeth clatter together rapidly as I walk through my town. My disgusting, putrid and nauseating town.
I stick my hand out at anybody that passes by, begging them for any form of food or money with a very apparent face of shame painted across my face, and I was hardly successful with my job.
A few hours pass by and the cold was probing harder through my skin and my tattered clothes made it even harder to withstand.
"You are pretty bad at this you know?"
I hear a girl's voice behind me, calm but assertive.
"Excuse me?"
I say, turning around to meet her gaze.
"Well you should atleast know that you are always supposed to say please before you ask for anything"
She is a girl of about the same age as me, she is smiling ear to ear which was odd considering that we have never talked before.
"You must be the son of that Hughes guy.....Arthur?"
"That's me"
I say, my teeth still clattering as I mumble the words out.
I notice that her clothes are in a similar condition to mine, but she seems completely indifferent to the cold.
"Wouldn't you like to know my name?"
She says, tilting her head.
"Sure, I guess"
I say.
"My name is-"
She suddenly stopped talking. Her face turned pale and her eyes grew wide with horror.
"Are you alright?"
I say, the feeling of intense cold was overshadowed with confusion.
She suddenly placed her right hand on her mouth, and through the gaps of her fingers streams of blood were escaping. The blood was vast in quantity and the sound it made as it collided with the floor resembled that of heavy rainfall.
"What the-"
She was still staring at me with the same ghastly expression, which was amplified with the waterfall of blood flowing out of her mouth.
"Arthur, please....help me"
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The knocks are fairly quite but they still manage to jolt me up from my nap.
"Come in"
I say, rubbing my eyes and quickly trying to rub off the saliva that is rolling out of the corner of my mouth.
The door to my office opens and a woman enters. It was my personal assistant, Charlotte.
"Sorry to disturb you, you must have been dreaming"
"Did you hear me mumbling in my sleep?!"
She nods.
I kiss my teeth and fix my crooked tie while avoiding her gaze, clearly trying to hide my embarrassment.
"Would you mind telling me what your dream consisted of?"
She says, her expression void of any emotion.
"None of your business"
I say, quickly glaring at her .
"I see"
She says.
I glance at the clock which was showing 6:10PM.
"Damn it, i wish you woke me up earlier. Regardless, i want you to finish up with the paperwork, i will be off"
I quickly slip on my coat and check it's pockets. After making sure everything is inside I dash past Charlotte and jog across the hallway and out of the building.