Judgment

I have to say it’s not everyday you debate how best to deal with a corpse.

         He has a twisted sense of reality this partner of mine, my partner in crime…no. He tells me I’m his partner in judgment.

         We are fixing things. Fixing the broken. We go about and we repair the broken fridges and the clogged up sinks of society. We are just your friendly neighborhood repairmen. We cleanse the wounds and cure the diseases of society. We set your broken bones and mend your cuts and ease your pains. We are doctors working as traveling salesmen.

         But it’s more like Jehovah’s witnesses. We show up at your door and give you the product of our labors whether you want it or not. We know you need it. So take it. Embrace it. Live it.

         This rotting carcass of flesh; flies already beginning to buzz, already beginning to creep toward his emanating aura of disease and ill will. He needed the product of our labors. We wanted to give the world a better meaning. Purpose. Purpose. Purpose. Everything we have done and will do is for the greater purpose.

         At least that’s what He’s telling me.

         He. My partner in crime. My partner in judgment. I met him at a rehabilitation center. A rehabilitation center for what I will never know, I’ll never care. He said it’s not big enough.

         What isn’t big enough?

         “The center. The entire world needs help.” He smiles. A grin. Mischievous with a hint of well meaning from ear to pointy ear.

         The entire world? No place could handle fixing the entire world.

         “That’s true, but that’s why there are people out there trying to fix it on their own.” He smiles another smirk, bigger than before, his eyes were wider than my stomach. Made me feel a bit better about myself but I wouldn’t let him know that. Self doubt is weakness to him. Self doubt needs judging. I don’t want to judge myself. Judging is a last resort for me, and he is the only judge we are allowed to recognize.

         He set so many rules. So many reasons to follow them. My head swarmed and collapsed and exploded from the pressure. I just want to follow the rules. Make them simple.

         “Fair enough. We are going to save the world, one person at a time. Help me help them. That’s all you have to do.”

         Simple enough.

         What isn’t as simple is what he wants to do with bodies. What he has done with bodies. What we have done with bodies.

         Dumpsters. Rivers. Lakes. Sewers. Chopped up and put into your breakfast cereals.
         
         Cinnamon Toast You.

         He isn’t very picky with how we get rid of them. It’s getting to that part he wants to get done. Quick, Easy. Long, Tough. Either or. Both and.  It seems to have more to do with his mood than with how he’s judged.

         “Those with malicious intent in their hearts must be cleansed, must be healed, must be fixed, must be judged. They are not something to be helped. They are a virus. We don’t want a vaccine, we don’t want to be close to them, we don’t want to build a tolerance, a resistance. We want to stomp them out.”

         We are the alcohol for the germs of society.

         The germs might be the reason for this smell. This god awful putrid stench, encapsulating my body, from every pore to every hair to every inch of skin to every organ and piece of flesh upon my bones. I can feel it. Melting away my outer defenses. I feel helpless to it.

         But I can’t let him know. Fear is something to be judged. I don’t want to be judged. Only he can judge. I do not want to be judged.

         English is a good course to learn how to bullshit. Doing what I am doing now is a good way to hide your emotions.

         Amazing how doing certain things teaches you something completely different from what you were supposed to learn and you learn nothing pertaining to the original subject.

         Ah the wonder years of youth.

         You would never have known I was that young. You would have never known he was that young. Again I exaggerate. A hyperbole for life. A train running over me. Over and over again. I am the penny left to stretch out beneath the iron pumping, pulsing wheels and above the cold lifeless rails. It’s like the shittiest Oreo you’ve ever seen.

         A perfect analogy of life for those that never looked up.

         This body does nothing but look up. That’s about all it can do in a hole. Why he thought this body needed to be dealt with in a more civil manner I will never know. I do know that digging a grave is an eerie experience.

         Is it weird I wouldn’t mind doing it again?

         I take the spade and begin to bury all the remains, the dirt and the worms and the germs and the lifeless blood of earth covering up the corpse of the sinner. Adding insult to injury, but for him it’s adding icing to the cake. A slight tap, evening out the ground to cover the uneven deeds of the miscreant man, finished. Judgment for the day complete.

          I drop the shovel, plopping it on the ground and I bash my hands together to remove the dirt the grime and the sin. Bending back for a quick stretch I can hear a small grunt of dissatisfaction from my partner in saving the world. I bend back up and raise my eyebrow in a quizzical look. I would hope we are done, my fingers hurt from gripping the shovel.

         A sigh. No smile for me today. “We need one more.”

         It’s as if he can read my mind.
         
         Why would we need another one? We did our judgment for the day. As He said we are saving the world one person at a time.

         “Today we are saving her in two’s.”

         He hands me the shovel, holding the shaft of the spade himself. I bleed a little as I grip it not really having any other choice. It’s kind of odd how sharp this tool is, this instrument for saving the world. Sharp as a knife and can lift earth on its entire plane.

         I wish I had that kind of potential. It would seem this shovel is better carrying the world on its shoulders than I am. It would seem I’m not cut out for this business but he keeps me around. I feel needed. Wanted. I have purpose.

         As I turn the device around I begin to slowly dig another grave, another hole to add to the countless others that have been dug over the millennia to bury the dead. But we aren’t just burying the dead, we are burying the sinners.

         We are saving the world.

         Slowly I dig my way into the world, 9 feet down and 6 feet long and 3 feet wide.

         “Most graves are 6 feet deep but no, not the sinners. We must place them down lower than others. They are nothing, they are grime. They must be placed below.”

          Here I realize that I’m only 5 foot 5 inches. Near midget sized. No wonder I can’t support the world on my shoulders. I can only help him. I can’t even help myself out of a damn hole.
         
         I reach my arm out to the top in hopes of getting a helping hand but all I can feel is the cold cool touch of steel. I look up and I came face to face with the barrel of a small pistol.

         All the fear I have been trying to conceal, been trying to hide from being judged is now slowly dripping down the yellow front of my pants.

         “You’re being judged. You have doubted our cause. You have doubted yourself. You have doubted me. Doubt is a sign of weakness. You. Are. Weakness. And Weakness must be cleansed. To be weak when trying to save the world is a sin. Sinners must be judged. You, must be judged.”

         It’s like living in slow motion. I can hear the hammer slamming down and creating the spark that sends the bullet into my chest. It rips through me like so many others. I slam into the back of my grave, yes, my grave, the irony of it far deeper than the hole I’m sitting in.

         I can smell my own fear. My own fear of the unknown. And I can feel the pain. I can feel the blood swimming down my chest like prisoners trying to escape from their own harsh reality.

         “And so, you are judged…. But unfortunately you are not the last of the night. For killing, is the worst sin of all.”

         I look up and see him placing the gun to his own forehead, to his own body, and I cannot begin to comprehend. He is the judge. He is all that is right. He is the law.

         The Law cannot be sin.

         My eyes widen as the gun drops to the ground and his lifeless flesh collapses upon me in the hole. Knocking out the last breath I had, I begin to whirl and go in and out of what little existence I have left. I can feel my blood mixing with his body. It would seem that our time to judge is over.

         We have been Judged.

         But at least we saved the world.