A Light In the Darkness

     
I would just like to say that the Alan in the story is in no way related to me, Allen.  It was just one of those situations where Alan was the only name the story would except, I'm sure that makes since to a lot of you.  Believe me I tried other names.  Enjoy.



    Alan felt cold.  A tingling numbness took over his whole being.  A hell of a way to go he thought.  Oh well.  He couldn't even feel the rain as it pelted his forehead washing away the splattered gore.
     
    When it had first happened the pain was searing, a shockwave that violently pulsed throughout his body.  He let out a scream that would chill the blood of the toughest.  Unfortunately for Alan it died beyond earshot. 
     
    The numbness Alan now felt was an act of mercy.  He thanked god or whatever it was that deserved the thanking.  Not that he could blame a god for this, this had been his own doing.  The effect of a long list of causes, the last domino in the row.  The end to a life riddled with crushed dreams, failure and judgment.  The judgment was the worst of it.
     
    The worse feeling a man can have is the feeling of false judgment.  Persecuting eyes, snickers behind masks of indifference.  The whole world sat on it's throne and laughed at poor little Alan.  Well fuck the world.  Check out time.  Anywhere but here.
     
    Alan let out a smile, a smile mixed with grief and loss, irony and relief.  Relief that no longer would he spend his days obsessing over the thoughts of others.  Relief that when the lights went out his short miserable life would be but a dream, a figment of some imagination.  Alan stared up into the sky for what he knew could be his last time.
     
    Grey clouds swirled overhead illuminated by the flash of lightning.  Rain fell to his eyes in giant drops, it was a surreal sight.  A crash of thunder vibrated the iron fence that Alan had unluckally impaled himself on.  He barley felt it, his body was nothing but a tingly fuzz.  Above him was St. Mary Magdalene.  A dark monolith in the grey light of midnight.  A fitting place to die Alan thought.  He blamed religion for most of his setbacks.  Religion spoke of an all seeing god, a light in the dark.  Redemption is but a prayer away.  Redemption didn't save his mother from his father.
     
     

    He remembered terrifying nights alone in his room.  Eyes wide too scared to cry while his father brutally thrashed his mother.  Her pleading cries over ruled by his rage.  Alan could only imagine the horror beyond his closed door.  Furniture slammed into unsuspecting walls, sharp smacks of flesh hitting flesh echoed throughout the house.  Alan felt every blow.  This went on throughout his childhood.       
     
    His brother, whether too young or too mentally traumatized, had no memory of the nightly battles.  Alan never forgot.  He lived in fear of his father.  Fear matured with Alan into a full scale hatred.  He still hated him.  He hated the fact that he was too young to protect his mother.  He hated the fact that when he was grown the abuse was ancient history.  His mother eventually left her abusive husband.  Alan never fully recovered from those sleepless nights.  They haunted his life from then on, sabotaged at childhood Alan grew into a man with many psychological setbacks.  He learned at an early age that men were evil.  Men were abusive and selfish, they were scary.  Alan vowed at the age of eight to never be anything like that man.  Now, eighteen years later, impaled on the iron fence surrounding St. Mary's, Alan pushed those days away.  Days that seemed so far away yet still cut with a sharpened edge. 
     
     

    The storm raged on, washing away Alan's blood.  He imagined it resembled a crimson waterfall, flowing down an ebony shaft.  The muscles in his neck were too weak to lift his head or he would've looked at the foot of iron that jutted through his chest.  He felt like screaming.  There was no pain, he didn't regret his decision.  He just hoped it would be quick.  A second of free fall an then thump, sweet sweet nothing. 
     
    Alan had no way to judge how long he'd been there.  Time seemed to disapear when your bleeding to death clinging to the last moments of life.  The midnight sky lit up in a flash of lighting.  Alan could see the shapeless clouds pulsing far above him.  His thoughts turned to those he would leave behind.  His mother who fought to keep her home not to mention her sanity, a brother who he never had the ability to truly be there for. 
     
    He loved them both, he knew that.  He also knew that they couldn't save him, wouldn't save him was more like it.  Who can heal another when they had so many scars of their own.  It went both ways, Alan had no illusions of self righteousness.  He was just as guilty as the rest of them.  They decayed together, lost in a spiral of neglect and self pity.  I'm checking out mom he thought, one less burden.
   
    Alan realized his eyes were closed, he forced them open with whatever will power he had left.  Funny how his body fought to live while his mind wished for death.  The concept amused him.  His only claim to the world was the patter of rain hitting the grass, the occasional crash of thunder.  Won't be long now he thought.  That was when a shimmer in the rain soaked lawn caught his fading sight.
     
    A gold ring lay just under Alan's outstretched hand, it was his wedding ring.  Alan's wife was long gone, entwined in the arms of a richer much saner man.  Alan had kept the ring anyway, he never took it off.  Four years Cat, he thought, four years and I'm still in love.  I forgave you the second you left.  I never even expected you to marry me, it was the happiest day of my life.
   
    Alan could smell the clean crisp air of the church, her hair smelled like roses.  The look in her eyes, it was pure joy, pure love.  How that face changed the last day he'd see his beloved.  On that particular day her hair was a tangled mess, it smelled like an ashtray.  Her face once bright with youthful love was a ghost of it's former self.  Dark rings lined her eyes, all Alan saw in them was pity.  Pity and a longing for something better, something Alan could never give her.  He let her go without a fight.  Alan would never be with another woman, ever since he was alone.  His deteriorating mind his only friend.

   

    Four years later on a stormy October night Alan stumbled out of his one bedroom efficiency, fueled on Jack Daniels, on a one way trip to oblivion.  Not even bothering with the lock, since the door hung wide open, Alan groped his way to his trusty Toyota Supra.  With a hellish smile and a fuck it all gleam in his eyes Alan backed out of his parking spot smashing into the car behind him.  "That's what you get for being a pussy."  he slurred merrily, speeding his way out of the complex.  He made his way to St. Mary Magdalene, the church of his youth, his marriage, and now his final act on this side of hell. 
   
    By now the storm was at full power.  Alan stood just outside his Toyota.  Gusts of wind thrashed his hair, rain pelted his desperate face.  Wiping away rainy tears Alan sloshed through the lawn turned lake.  He had no intention of breaking in, Alan already knew of the service latter in the back.  "To the back of the church and up the wall to jump to my death I go."  Alan laughed a little harder thatn he intended to, which caused him to laugh even more.  It sounded like the laugh of a man on his last rope, the laugh of a crazy person.  "Bingo who is crazy.  Now I'll take afterlife for four hundred."
   
    Clutching his aching side Alan made his way up the slippery rungs.  It was bolted to the wall, the climb was directly horizontal.  Alan's hand reached the rim of the roof.  He pulled himself halfway up and supported his weight with his elbows.  Alan stole a glance down, good fall he thought.  The back of the church resembled an alleyway, about three feet from the back wall was a sharp pointy black iron fence.  Why was it so close, who knew.  All Alan knew is despite the fact he planned on jumping, impalement wasn't his cup of tea. 
   
    As if the very thought sparked the humor of some devious spirtit, Alan felt his foothold on the latter waver.  "Shit." he barked.  Adrenaline gushed into his system, his once drunken mind completely alerted.  It did him no good.  Alan lost all hope of preventing the inevitable.  His foot slipped off the latter, his elbows slipped off the roof, and Alan took a three story drop onto an unforgiving iron spear that waited below.

    Currently Alan's time was growing short.  He could feel the fingertips of death, he welcomed them.  There was nothing left for him here.  He had no great task, no calling.  He had no one to care for or no dream to chase.  The cards he held were long ago exposed, no tricks laid up his sleeve, no hidden aces, nothing.  A smile twitched across his pale blood starved face, "Bring me home baby." 
   
    Every now and then the sky was lit up by the flash of lightning.  The great strobe light in the sky painted a beautiful view.  Giant clouds black and gray rolled across the heavens.  Shapes conformed, blurred together until they formed what seemed to be one massive being.  It began to breath, it looked at Alan, Alan looked back.  Never before had he seen such a sight.  Tears welled up in his eyes as the sky reached out to him.  Be it Angel or Demon Alan cared not, it meant the end, it was over.  No more tears would be shed for this world.  No more pain.
   
    Summoning every once of his waning strength Alan raised a trembling hand grasping his heavenly host.  Great energy swam through Alans body like an electric jolt.  The feeling he felt was that of peace, harmony.  Alan smiled, a radiant light manifested in the distance.  Alan was blinded by it's glory.  The rain soaked church fell out of view.  Alan was swallowed by it's radiance. 

    If there was a name for what he felt Alan didn't know it.  If there was a way to describe it it would be one word, forgiveness.