Day 8: King's Law

Today’s Prompt: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude,” said Martin Luther King Jr. imagine a character who needs to forgive someone. Who does he or she need to forgive? What was the nature of the injury? What were its implications? Does forgiveness come easily to your character or is retaliation a more natural impulse? Does your character try and fail to forgive initially? See how your character’s desire to forgive creates obstacles and ultimately, fuels your plot.

— Courtesy: PW.Org

Word Count: 1,152

            “He ought to have known better. It’s supposed to be his job.”

No answer.

            “Damn, I should have killed him on the spot. I should, too.”

            “It would have increased the fatality by one. That’s bad arithmetic.”

            “It’s good equation, though. It is too, considering who’s involved. Leaving him alive creates a chemical imbalance.”

He rolled off the bed and walked around the room in an arc heaving heavy sighs. He turned around abruptly, retraced his steps and sat on the edge of the bed.

            “You can’t resolve this issue with a mathematical formula.”

            “My point,” he said. “Is I didn’t fulfill my obligations to him.” He stabbed the pendant lying in a tangle beside the bedside lamp.

            “Let it rest now.” She reached out and touched his hand. “Come to bed.”

He took her hand in his but kept his back turned to her.

            “You know what, everyday I remember that cussed day, every night the memory of it weighs down on me, and I feel like I played the role of the actor who forgot his lines at the defining moment of the play. The jerk who ended the play before it truly ended.”

She remained quiet. She’d heard those lines rehashed over and over again these past months she might as well live in an echo chamber.

            “And they say, I’m supposed to let it go.” He was off the bed again. “Just turn off the emotion, kill the memory. He was a part of my…” He reconsidered. “Our lives. Do you know how it hurts every time I check in his bedroom and he’s not there? Do you know how that takes it out on my feelings? I miss the non-stop racket that Home Theater of his produced. I miss 2Pac, Twista the whole lot of ‘em noisemakers, I’ll give the world to hear a skit performed by that noisy rapper… what’d he call the fella when I approached him about his taste of music?”

            “Lil’ John?”

            “Gotta be him. Lil’ John that should have been long gone. I miss the rich stew of complicated confusion which flowed from his room and rocked the foundations of this house.”

            “He’s gone,” she said. “Someday, you’re gonna have to face it on life’s terms. Why not today?”

            “The manic son of a bitch who thrust this misery on us is out there on the streets free as air. And all I have… all I have is a memory.” He pounded his fist into the wall.

            “Torturing yourself ain’t bringing him back. Quiet down a bit.” She extended her hand. “Come to bed.”

He loosened up a little bit and climbed into bed beside her. She reached under the sheets and held his hand. They both lay there each on his or her side and stared through the ceiling—they weren’t really looking at it. Their minds drifted off to some other place—a not-so-distant-past—to the time when a teenager, their little boy kicked football all over their yard and made a real mess of the neighbors flowers.

            The young man who had shared his dreams with them, the same with whom they’d both shared their hopes and joys. He’d been the strength of their marriage, a kind of breathing license. And though, he was gone, their union was not weakened by his absence but each half of the couple knew they’d both lost a chunk of their real selves. An essence they might never recover.

            “You know, sometimes, I wake up in the nighttime and I hear him as clear as the noise his home theater made while he was here, laughing and kicking that over-sized ball of his all over the house. The laughter wafts into the room like breeze through the drapes. Sometimes, I wake up and rush to the window but it’s mostly to erase the misconception; to prove to myself it’s all a dream. I’m not going crazy, you think?” He snuffled.

            “I hear him too,” she said in a whisper.

            “You?” He was propped up on his elbow, studying her. He reached out and plucked off the lone tear breaching the edge of her eyelid. She was crying too.

            “I never hear the bus plunge through the fence, tires screeching, coming for him,” he said.

            “Me too. Those are the best memories I have of him. I know I wasn’t home when it happened but this memory I’d love to keep. Forever.” She sat up on the bed and wiped his tears with the sleeve of her pajamas.

            “If we could have him back. For one day. It would settle every issue.”

            “We could, you know?”

He gazed at her but the point was lost on him. “I don’t get it,” he said, his voice gruff as he struggled with emotion overflow.

            “Forgiveness. Then every time we remember him. Every time, we hear him play football in the yard (if we would be hearing from him anymore after forgiveness has done its work) it would be as it really ought to be. No memory of death; of a DUI driver behind the wheels of a bus beating a path through the fence of the house rushing in for our son, knocking him into the ground like a hard tackle, dragging him several meters across the lawn then spitting him out like mangled flesh. Left for dead, because the driver was probably, too blitzed to assess the critical situation in time. No memory of bitterness and no time for it either. Who wants bitterness after you’ve experienced release? Not me. Forgiveness can achieve that level of freedom.”

He fixed his gaze on her, through her. And after staring for roughly, the length of eternity, he lay back and dropped his head on his pillow. She almost gave up hope that this night might be a rehash of every other night’s drama, when his voice drifted to her in undertones.

            “Did you say something?”

            “I said I’ll think about it.”

It was the reassurance she needed. It was enough. Not long after she dozed off.

He doused the bedside lamp. Then he fell asleep not because he wanted to but his eyelids defied motor control and slammed shut and of course, consciousness needed his break.

In the middle of the night, he woke to the sound of a ball bouncing off the wall. He crept out of bed and went to the window. His son was there as clear as day, playing football. He glanced up at him and waved, he waved back and hurried outside. When he got to the spot where his son had stood kicking the round leather stuff against the wall, he was gone. The ball, however, had been left behind.

            “Goodbye, son,” he said. He picked up the ball and walked back inside but not before saying the magic word,

            “I forgive. By all that is just and true, I forgive.”

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I am aware that not one of the characters in this story bears a proper name. It’s absolutely intentional.

Eneh Akpan

June 8th, 2014