Storymania - Spiritual Scythe by James R

Spiritual Scythe
James R

Downstairs, like yesterday and the days prior, she curses the morning sun again. All of her days seem to begin with the same narcotic residue of her excesses. It’s already hot. The August morning sun piercing through the drapes downstairs bludgeons her senses. She sits upright on the sofa serving as her makeshift bed and pulls her terry cloth robe lapels toward each other. Her throat is parched. Her breath is rancid. She stands and then staggers her way to the kitchen. Every five feet or so, she steadies herself, swallows, and tries not to vomit. Her simple kitchen with the duck shaped clock hanging over the stove has become her morning Mecca. Once there, she tenses, folds her arms, and peers out the kitchen window to her backyard swimming pool. That Goddamn swimming pool. Her son’s tomb. Jake never even saw his third birthday. It had been nearly two months since her precious little boy was found at the bottom of the swimming pool that her husband had insisted be built.

Upstairs, unlike yesterday and the days prior, he makes eye contact with himself in the mirror. Previous days usually started and ended with the nuances of the self preserving tribunal between Condemnation's prosecution of the defendant, Rationalization. Today, he looks in the mirror to see the reflection of Guilt staring back at him intensely with Jake’s brown eyes. The verdict is finally in and the denial is over. In the end, Condemnation's case was too overwhelming. As the father of a two year old, there is just no way to rationalize his insistence, despite his wife's vehement objection, of having a swimming pool constructed in his backyard. It's not long before Guilt's cousin Regret takes advantage of the moment and joins Guilt in the mirror's reflection. He closes his eyes and weeps. The hurt of Jake's death was deep and unbearable. At the core of these wounds was the torment of knowing that Jake had learned to unconditionally trust his dad. He's now haunted by his betrayal of that trust. Today, as he looks himself in the eye, he’s not just sorrowful and guilt ridden. He’s tired. He wants an ending to his nightmare. His anguish is similar to blood in a sea. It makes him prey to the feeders. Guilt and Regret were the first to fill their belly as they picked at his soul but Sorrow, Anger, Bitterness and Rage were soon feasting on his soul as well. And then Resentment shows up and whispers advice into the ear of the tormented father who then places a call to his secretary letting her know that he will not be coming in the office today. He reaches blindly beneath the bed until he retrieves his shotgun along with a dusty box of shells. He loads the shells into the pump action shotgun, cocks it producing that very distinctive sound that a shotgun makes in advance of violence, and heads downstairs.

***

Mrs. Chalmers had always considered herself an observant person. She had learned a lot in her eighty three years and much of that knowledge was gained by simply observing. She had recently taken a special interest in the house across the street. It had been nearly two months since poor little Jake had drowned in the family swimming pool and with the house now up for sale, she was determined to keep an eye out for neighbors to be. Sure, she had her detractors. "Busybody" some had called her. "Nosy Old Woman" others had called her.

However, there were no detractors to be found on this day as it was she who had called 911 after hearing two gun blasts coming from the troubled house across the street. And it was she and she alone who saw the lady with the black attaché case enter the house across the street just minutes before those gunshots lacerated the morning calm. And it was after some hesitation that she articulated exactly what she witnessed to Officer Williams.

***

Detective Madsen’s rise from patrol officer to detective had not been a quick one. That was fifteen years ago. It didn’t take fifteen years of investigative experience to solve the cause of death on Sycamore Street called in by Mrs. Chalmers. Based on the crime scene that lay before him like a hideous snapshot, it was an obvious murder/suicide which answered the Who, What, When and Where. As to the Why, there will never be enough college degrees or enough life experiences to solve a human absurdity like the one in front of him.

Madsen studied the crime scene and took a mental inventory of the scene and remembered the For Sale sign standing in the front yard and quickly concluded that financial stress would probably be the driving force behind this grisly puzzle. If only. If only that were the case, Madsen would be able to quickly close the file on this case and move on, as callous as that may sound. If only Officer Williams had not relayed to him what Mrs. Chalmers supposedly witnessed just minutes before she called 911.

Madsen looked at officer Williams with a bewildered look and asked him to repeat himself. Once he was confident that Williams wasn’t suffering from heat stroke or wasn't playing some sort of sick practical joke that only a cop would understand, Madsen turned and stared at the house across the street and was struck by an unnerving intuition that Annette Chalmers was about to alter his life's journey. Madsen reached in his car, grabbed is micro-tape recorder and headed across the street to interview Mrs. Chalmers.

Annette Chalmers was unshakable in her conviction that she witnessed a lady dressed in black with a matching black attaché case enter the house across the street just minutes before those two fateful shotgun blasts.

Madsen exhaled heavily, paused and then asked Mrs. Chalmers to start from the beginning and to speak in the direction of the micro-tape recorder which was now out of his pocket and standing upright on the coffee table before them. Once she finished her account of the morning, he excused himself and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and to gather his thoughts which were fluid and uninterrupted.

Madsen finished his cigarette and went back inside to thank Mrs. Chalmers. As he was leaving, Annette Chalmers spoke up. She began, “Don’t leave just yet, Detective. I need you to understand something. I know what you think of me. I know that you probably do not take me seriously. I also fully understand that I am old. But I didn‘t look out the window this morning and suddenly enter the senility stage. My late husband, who by the way you never asked me about, was in the military. If you had asked me about Robert, you would have a better understanding of my high regards for authority and law enforcement. That’s the reason I decided to tell officer Williams what I witnessed although I knew exactly how I would be perceived. But you know what? I thought of little Jake. Detective Madsen, I saw a woman dressed in black carrying a black attaché case enter that house across the street just minutes before those two awful shotgun shots drove me to call 911. So, before you leave detective Madsen, do you have any questions you would like to ask me?” Madsen stood frozen at the door. He now felt like the out of touch, crazy senile one in the room.

He slowly sat down on a nearby recliner looked at Mrs. Chalmers and asked, “Did you see her leave?”

Mrs. Chalmers replied, “I have a cordless phone so I was able to keep my eyes on that house from the time I called 911, and I can tell you that no one walked out that front door before the police showed up”. Detective Madsen thanked her and promised her that he would call her tomorrow with any questions that were sure to come up.

“One more thing detective” she said as she pointed to the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket, “those will kill you. I ought to know. I have been a widow for seventeen long years thanks to those horrible things”

Madsen looked at her sympathetically and quietly confessed, “Then,” he said, “we have something very much in common. I too am a widower. Carolyn, my wife, died in a car accident just over twelve years ago.” Mrs. Chalmers got up, walked over to him and kissed his cheek before Madsen headed back to the office more perplexed than he had been at any other time in his life, much less in his career as a detective.

It was after 8:00 PM when Madsen finally arrived at his home that night. The first thing he did was grab a cold beer out of the fridge, take off his shoes, throw himself on the sofa and light a cigarette. It was quiet. He liked it that way. He wasn’t one to automatically turn on the television as soon as he walked through the door like so many others. He liked the quiet after work. It gave him time to reflect. Of course, this particular evening, his mind was reflecting on the day’s events. After a few beers, he rose from the sofa with the intention of heading to the kitchen for a late dinner consisting of re-heated fast food left over from the night before. However, after he stood up, he began feeling discomfort in his chest. He was becoming dizzy and pretty soon the discomfort turned into intense pain in his shoulder and left arm. His jaw also began to hurt and when he started having trouble breathing, he knew he was having a heart attack. The phone was in the kitchen. He tried to start walking toward the kitchen but he collapsed on the living room floor in agony. He was fighting for his life and he knew it. As he struggled for his life, he looked up and there she was.

She had entered his house and she was standing just inside the front door and she looked exactly how Mrs. Chalmers had described her. He scrambled to his feet and all he get out of his mouth was, “You!” He was struck by her extraordinary beauty. To be more accurate, he was mesmerized by her beauty. Her raven black hair was almost as stunning as her dark mysterious eyes and her perfect form. As he stood there gazing at this magnificently beautiful woman standing in front of him, he slowly began to realize that he was no longer in pain. More than that, he felt wonderful. His mind was uncluttered. He felt unburdened, healthy and strong. He was actually feeling the unmistakable aura of love. He instantly thought of Carolyn. He then watched as the lady in black shifted her stare from him to the floor behind him. Madsen followed her gaze and saw, lying on the floor a few feet away….. Himself.

He saw himself lying motionless on the floor clutching the carpet in an obvious last feeble attempt to cling to something of the material world. He quickly turned to the lady in black and whispered, “You’re….Death?”

She responded in a very calm, melodic and reassuring voice, “Yes Detective. It’s ok. Everything will be fine” She opened her black attaché case or as she liked to call it, her modern day scythe. Then, she handed Madsen of all things, a Death Certificate. “Come quickly” Death said to the dumbfounded Madsen. “I know you have many questions, all of which will be answered in due time, but we must go now. Carolyn is waiting and as someone in your line of work knows all too well” she said as she snapped the attaché case closed, “I have a very busy schedule”.