Seamus O’Connor

Angele Dei

I am a child of divinity. I have been in this dark world for ten years. All spent with my father. My grandma lives with us too, but I am not so sure she is alive. She has never said a word. My father doesn’t love me. He doesn’t know what I know. I know what he does. My father does what he does for God. I sit in my room and stare at the ceiling. I hear the screams, the struggle everyday. Through the floor boards of the forgotten I am just like him. He speaks as I do; his actions are what I look up too. A knife, his instrument for sick surgery, my hands has held the blood as his have. I don’t sleep. He tells me I don’t need it. He watches infomercials all day. I occasionally watch along. He is sick, I am sick. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This tree was carved into a cross. The cross in which Christ had died. The Apple, being the forbidden fruit tasted by man to taint Gods trust. I hear them scream at night. What separates me from him?

He doesn’t take me to baseball games; he won’t be at my graduation. He sits home with them. I talk to them, dead or alive. They all tell me the same thing. “You will be just like him when you’re older, he is your father, he is your role model, and he is your inspiration. Skin on the walls, blood in the kitchen, I can’t take this. I am not you! I will never be you! I curse God, Why would you put me in this family of murder. I don’t hate god. This is not God’s work. I am John Wayne Gacy junior. What is expected of me? Like father, like son.

She was blonde, 45 years aged on her face. She looked like she couldn’t believe what was happening to her. Most of them share that expression. As for the weak ones they don’t even accept what is happening to them. Denial is something no one wants but everyone has. It has to be so lonely down there. I want to meet her. I brought her some left over Easy Mac dad made from last night. She didn’t say a word but her broken look worried me. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “What’s your name?” “Emily,” she responded with a skip between “Em” and the “ily” to take a breath. She is a school nurse. She helps the sick. “Mam, can I ask you something?” “Why are you a demon?” She began to weep uncontrollably. Her hands trembled through her hair. I almost wanted to comfort her. But I was frightened by my father’s words. If you touched the damned you became the damned. She cried in the corner as my father took his steps down the cellar stairs. His steps always seemed heavier when he walked down those steps. With every thud I remember all of them. Every “Help me,” every cry for a loved one. “I want to help you mam, Pray with me. Please pray with me, I can save you.”
Ángele Dei,
qui custos es mei,
me, tibi commíssum pietáte supérna,
illúmina, custódi,
rege et gubérna.
Amen.
“In the darkest of places there’s no where else to look, but in the light.” We both shouted the prayer at the top of lungs as he made his way down. His last step struck the ground and echoed throughout the whole room. He looked at the blank stare on our faces. I began to cry. I hate when I cry, I am weak. He stared down at me. “Get the hell out of here!” he shouted. I ran upstairs without looking back at Emily. I could hear his last words to her as I walked out of the shed. “You are no Light, you are no guardian. She interrupted him with a whimper. “I am the Angle of God, may he put his right hand over your heart and save your soul.” With a loud thud her whimpering stopped. He sat there in that room with her for 4 hours.

Every night I look forward to dream, because my life is a nightmare. I sat in the living room with my feet up on the couch. I never put my feet on the living room floor. I guess I felt it was disrespectful for all those who’s resting place it is. I turned on the television to get my mind off everything. The TV lit up then shut off. So I turned it on again, and once again it shut off. I turned around to see my grandmother sitting in her chair with the remote in her hand. I was confused; I have never seen her move. “Grandma what are you doing?” She got up leaned over on my shoulder and whispered “run.” That was the only word I have ever heard my grandmother speak, and that was the only thing she ever had to say to me. I looked back at her and said, “I will run.” I don’t know where I am running, but I will run until the ground takes out my feet from under me. There I will lie, until thirst takes me away, or maybe some one will help me. I will never see his face again. I wrote him a note before I left. Tore it up into to a million pieces that covered his bare mattress with all the hatred I have for that man.

I arrived at the corner of two empty streets. Not a soul in sight. The streets were paved with dust and the general stores were all boarded up. I stood under the traffic light and looked up. The light went from green to a dark red. I turned to my right to find an old homeless man on the street. He looked at me with a comforting expression on his face. He held up a cardboard sign that said, “Ever this day be at your side, to light and guard, to rule and guide.” I just sat there, tears begging to let them out. He walked over to me, stretched his arms out wide, kissed me on the forehead and hugged me. I cried for what seemed like hours but was maybe 2 minuets. We looked up at the light as we stood in the middle of the street. The light turned from red to green. The man put my head to his chest and gently whispered, “Go.”