Sacrifice

He was the only honest man...

Sacrifice

The night the assassination failed his mother died in spirit when she opened the winter door. He stood there, her son of no man. Dirty flakes of snow blew in.

What have you done? she asked, and the son of no man only grabbed his chest as if in pain and staggered inside. He had no answer, no external injury, no salvation.

Under the floor lay shades of truth that peered through cracks, truth that saw the son of no man insist his purity amidst the bloodshed. The world was against him. The world was wholly corrupt. He was the only honest man.

He was the only honest man for he bowed allegiance to his deceptions and his cries of reprisal. No one else had the courage. He had shattered all his mirrors and couldn’t see what he had become, mere dust that formed the shape of a man.

His mother took him by the hand and asked him in simple words if he had ever loved her, and if he had, would he kiss her on the cheek, and tell her please, even a lie, that he was well again, that he remembered what she hoped for him as a child. The son of no man sat with his mother in the twilight of innocence and broke open his mouth to speak of graves he had yet to make. And of those he had yet to rob.

I will be supreme, he said.

It was an impressive display. And the nation, too sick to feel its illness, rejoiced. They waved flags and guns, cheered, invented beautiful names for some, and foul ones for others.

With gradual lowering his mother dipped her face to his feet and offered her son a shelter for his cruelty. Take it out on me, she said. I’ll suffer so the world does not. A mother must protect her son.

But there were millions of foreshortened lives viewed from his lens. There were clouds of toxic gas in his dreams, carts of corpses to haul. Emptiness drove him.

No, mother, he said. I won’t take it out only on you.

I gave you life, she said.

And I gave it back.

Bread broke and they ate, a simple meal with apple pie for desert. For a few moments they were one. For a short while mother and son returned to his boyhood when a boy of no father commanded ants with his sticks and furrows. Look how they go where I say, he said. His mother hugged him.

But then boots knocked the winter door and memories returned to their cells. The boots entered, praised the smell of home cooking and brought news of an inferno of excitement that swept over the land in the wake of the assassination.

Attempted, you mean, said the son of no man. The boots stomped their assent to attention. Of course. It was a failure of God, they said, but the son of no man didn’t understand irony and only licked a trace of blood from his hand.

Let us suck the prison from your mouth.

Allow us an appeal to Jericho.

We’ll write the cost of sacrifice on an eagle and set it free.

Each boot had guidance, advice for the son of no man in his quest for more power and ignorance. He listened with his stomach filled with pie, his mother at his side. But she had died in spirit when the bullet flew short. It had entered her own heart and lodged. She was a mother above all, and couldn’t bear to see her son so slandered by his own word and deed.

It was a rough corrugated way for her to remove her denial. She had to look at her deeds, too. Beneath her public concealment she knew she had done something wrong with her son. Many times, on the lawns and by the sea, she must have reached for the wrong example in anger. Such sons didn’t grow from clean seeds.

Come, she said. Her son moved closer.

Yes, mother.

I love you and I’ll take the blame.

For what?

For you my son.

The son of no man laughed, but his mother remained still. She was old and had nothing to lose. The world was upside down. Coolness burned and kindness angered. Wrath pleased. Mother lowered her hand. The knife of deliverance was wrapped in her robe. It still harbored the scent of apple pie on its blade, and it too was ready to serve its final purpose and be damned.

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Thank you for reading Dynamic Creed. This is a brand new piece. Inspired by events, sort of stream of consciousness. That’s pretty much all I can say right now, except for thanks again, drop a comment, hit a like, say a prayer, keep the faith, and all the best, Victor David.

• This piece is also found with the good folks at Bull Magazine.

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