Damnation Lane

"Thank you for this," she said and she seemed sincere. We were then met by a savage and liquid heat, yet she said it again, "Thank you." Still grateful, I gathered, and undaunted by the ambient and fluid misery that engulfed us.

Her gratitude was untimely, and misplaced. I told her so as we trudged along. "We aren't done yet. We've not yet arrived." I struggled to find some way to define what was coming, but I could not. I found no ready terms to place what she faced within her grasp. "This is only the fringe," I explained at last, and lamely. These words could hardly do our environs justice, and still I added, "These are like suburbs."

She did seem somewhat swayed, but not for long. I could see that her resolve remained with her, she only nodded, and there was nothing left but to proceed.

We advanced in the traditional manner, though I did take pains to slow our progress where ever I could. I poled through these treacherous waters with the utmost care, with a great deal more care than my long experience and intimate knowledge of this passage would typically warrant. Biding my time, hoping she might come to her senses, though I only hoped in vain.

She simply had to reconsider, she just had to know that this was not meant to be, yet she didn't. There was no reconsideration from her, and whatever she did know of the scant rationale behind this, she kept to herself.

The bent and twisted gates of perdition were before us, far off and still distant. I could stall no more. I could see her resolve remained with her.

"Eternity," I observed, because that was what I was supposed to do.

"Of course," she remarked, then said no more. Nor did I, because no warning would suffice. She would see, and I could only hope she would see ub fairly short order, because there comes that point of no return. And it comes differently every time.

Sometimes it comes too soon. This was one of those times.

One minute I'm pushing us through all this liquid ambient hot misery, and then it's all gone in an instant. The pole is gone, my ferry is gone, I'm astraddle some contraption or another that might have been a tricycle anywhere else but here.

I'm not alone, she's bound to it in unspeakable ways, in tow, bouncing along behind me. When I realize this, I try to slow the thing, to brake it any way I can and give her some sort of respite. I have no luck at all.

We are arrived. I don't want this for her, I wish she didn't want it for herself. It can't be too late, I won't let it be too late.

"Stop!" I pleaded. "Don't do this!"

Perhaps she mistook me, perhaps she thought I was speaking for her, not to her. "No!" she insisted, "Don't stop! I want it! I have this coming!"

It took me right back to her succumbing, to her wretched departure from an unkind world delivered unto her in the dark city streets of a hot summer night when all she had in her mind was a later night than she had planned for and a busy day before her when she woke the next morning.

I didn't have to see what they did to her, but I've had to see it before. I don't let it get to me, often. But she was different, something so sweet about her, something so pure.

Her innocence was fragrant, heady, intoxicating. Broken and irreparable, she lay there in a back alley and it was hopeless so I was summoned to see her on her way. She had Up written all over her but when the time came all she could do was demand I take her Down.

I didn't have to, but I did. I did it for her. I didn't want to, but I did. And now it was just way too near to too late, I didn't know if I could cure it.

Suburbs, how I wished I'd never suggested any such thing. Damnation Lane meets Condemnation Avenue and I'm stuck pedaling some bastardized child's toy like just another wasted soul with her dragged along behind me though I wish it was otherwise. My mood was dark, to say the least.

A crossing guard with a bloodied machete in one hand and an Uzi in the other, his sickly features maniacally gleeful as he hacked passers-by to gory bits, held up a hand and barked, "Whoa!"

My mood was dark, his future darker still. I am not without some prowess, even here, but I should have foreseen what his obliteration would bring. Torment comes in stages and even I can be dealt some suffering or another when placed within His auspices.

Fortunate that only a Seer came, but my passenger's luck was run out now. "You bring us an innocent, Reaper."

I nodded, reluctantly.

"She wishes this?"

"I cannot dissuade her," I'm forced to admit, also reluctantly.

All around us are terrible things, perverted and obscene variations on a wicked, suburban theme. Ordinarily it would mean not a thing to me, but I'm with her and I'm for her. She may not realize this but I know that eternity goes on forever. I know that Damnation is a road far better when it's less traveled. I know that Condemnation is a detour, and should not be a destination.

Convincing her is beyond me, even so.

"I'm ready," she intercedes and I wish she hadn't. She's not ready, she doesn't know, she has only seen what is precursory.

Darkened streets and late at night in an otherwise quiet part of town, she might've protested but her voice was shattered and with good cause. She might have bolted but how could she, she was broken in all the places that mattered and violated everywhere as she lay helpless and unable to do anything to spare herself what was to be her fate.

Nothing in light of what was before her now and she could tell me how she was tainted and insist there was no redemption for her now. Spoiled and sullied and unworthy, but she had to see nothing could compare to what she demanded I deliver her unto.

"She's not," I protest feebly and to no avail.

These are city streets before us, similar city streets. Only worse. She'll take up residence here on Damnation Lane and I know what she faces and maybe she does too. More of the same only worse and I guess she expects nothing more and would accept nothing less.

Punishing herself for what she never had coming, sometimes I lament the human condition, what it does to the innocent, the unsuspecting.

Eternity goes on forever, I have to help her. Somehow.