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Billy never understood it: going to church every Sunday when he had cartoons and corn flakes and PJs at home. He never understood having to wear his fanciest, itchiest shirt, especially because only the one would do so his mother had to wash it and iron it every week- even though she burned herself on the iron a handful of times through all her distractions. He never understood wanting to go somewhere where they told you what to do. It was all they ever did there, and there were few things he hated more than being told what to do. Stand and sit and stand and kneel and sit and stand and sing and speak speak speak. There were too many words he didn’t understand. There were too many people talking at once. There was too much and yet not enough going on to the point that he felt under stimulated and overwhelmed and desperate to crawl out of his skin and that incredibly itchy shirt.
There was no sense to be found in his grandmother either, and the way she clutched at her bible on her way to church. They used to drive her every Sunday, but then they moved further away and trips to church got less and less frequent until they stopped altogether. Still, she walked herself to church every week, some weeks every day. Billy only knew because his mother complained and worried herself sick over it. His grandmother insisted she wanted to. She had to.
“Just because you lost your devotion doesn’t mean I’ll lose mine.”
It took a couple years for Billy to understand the words.
And still it was nonsensical. So many questions of why sped through his head.
Billy would spend some weekends at his grandmother’s house and on those weekends, she’d drag Billy to church with her small wrinkled hand on his limp and sore arm. It didn’t matter how old he got- he was 9 and insisting his parents had let him stay home before and still she made him walk with her there. Stand and sit and stand and kneel and sing and speak and speak and speak.
“It’s good for you.” She insisted. Billy thought wistfully of TV and his grandmother’s pet cat that would lay next to him on the couch.
And on those Sundays, as Billy stood bathed in the bright light of the morning sun slipping through the colorful windows, somewhere in the middle of all those serious people, in his itchiest shirt that had wrinkles in it because his mother had been too sad to work the iron lately... his grandmother wept. Every time. Wept silently, tears spilling down her cheeks in rivulets of quiet emotion Billy couldn’t understand for the life of him. Eyes shining brightly, drowning in something indistinguishable, speaking the same words as everyone with a hushed voice like a promise to the world or herself or maybe someone Billy couldn’t see.
Billy never understood. More than that- he never forgave. He couldn’t help but turn angry eyes onto the building around them and the man at the front and the book gripped tightly in her hands. Too many factors in his grandmother’s anguish over something he couldn’t even understand.
But some moments etched themselves in Billy’s mind, and brought themselves to light on quieter days, in quieter moments of reflection and wondering. Moments when she would grasp his face… when she held out her shaking hands and stilled them on his cheeks, wet with tears because he was just a toddler and he watched a cat die in the street and he couldn’t understand. When she looked deep into his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like one of those promises and shed a tear for him and pulled him close. When she brought him over to light a candle to whisper a promise. When she gripped his shoulder and guided him to the kitchen to get a treat. When she prayed over her ice cream and over his too… maybe it made sense.
The time she introduced him to friends at church that smiled bright and friendly smiles and said “what a good kid”. The time she guided him through the church in the early morning when they got there before the service and she explained every picture and every story. The time she made him that fish pot pie that warmed him up from the inside out, because Easter was quickly coming and she explained why they couldn’t eat meat as they sat in front of the window and listened to the rain.
All the times she gripped her beaded cross over his bedside when he would fall ill, and closed her eyes tightly and rocked back and forth with it when one of the sicknesses got more serious. When he recovered just fine, and she laid a necklace with a woman on it over his neck and onto his chest- that same woman he saw everywhere in the church, the Mother. And then she looked at him with teary eyes and a watery smile as she allowed him to run off to play.
Maybe… maybe then, it made sense. In fractured moments of love and cherish, he could understand somewhere inside of him. Sometimes the devotion he saw in her eyes and felt in her actions made his heart feel right in ways words couldn’t describe. And those times, he could almost understand, as her passionate belief licked his wounds.
And he tried to hold onto that. Damn did he try to hold onto it- he’ll tell that to anyone. But it angered him still. Kind and beautiful moments never overshadowed the pain. It drove him wild with confusion and sadness and maybe something close to fear if he thought about it. At times he saw her as a woman possessed- obsessed and clinging to words and wishes and pleas of humanity. She clung to her book instead of taking her medicine. She yelled at his mother as she cried to her, begging her to listen. She walked and walked and walked even when she could barely keep herself up. She accepted rides only when she was begged to.
She gave her book to Billy’s mother one morning, after she had finally convinced them all to join her at church again. She handed it over with shaking hands and healthy eyes- healthier than Billy had seen them in a long time. Bright and clear. A smile that was a comfort. A look that was so serene.
She died suddenly the next day. His mother got a call from the neighbor who had gone over to check on her and ask if she wanted some baked goods. His mother wept the rest of the day and tried desperately to hide her tears behind smiles in front of Billy.
And Billy feared the book. Then he hated it. Then… he craved it.
A classmate mentioned the death of her own mother in class. She walked like she was in shock still. There was sadness in her movements. Billy learned the word “mourning”. He felt the despair encapsulate his heart as if he was mourning too- could imagine the pain and the sorrow and feared ever losing his mother. He remembered when his grandmother helped him understand death, so he wandered to his parent’s room and over to the book. He snuck in and stole it away and read what he could- the start of the world and the good deeds and the stories his grandmother once told him in the church.
He read about sacrifice.
Seven feet…
He read about hope.
You told her…. The wave was seven feet.
He read about humanity, and compassion, and understanding.
You ran to her… On the beach.
And he wanted that with him.
Yelling matches began. Infrequent until they weren’t. Crashing and shattering began. Quiet until it wasn’t- until it made its way nearer and nearer to his room. Until words became wails of despair and agony to “stay away from him”. When Billy began to clutch the book in shaking hands, began to rock back and forth, began to mumble words to himself he still wasn’t sure he understood.
Until he started taking sacrifice seriously. When his mind decided things were literal.
Stop it! Don’t hurt her!
Because she sacrificed. He heard so much. He figured sacrifice happens in lots of ways, in many forms. And he could sacrifice, too- get between it as well as his small body would allow. For the good in the world, and he saw a lot of good in the world, and she was the brightest.
So he could sacrifice.
But then she stopped. The book didn’t prepare him for when she would give up.
He wrestled with it for years.
How long? How long?! I miss you…
He thought sacrifice was a thing that always happened for the good. She told him he was all the good in the world- he was the sun and the moon and the stars and the Earth. He was every fantastical being. He was the light in her days.
But then she was gone- in a sudden and dizzying whirl of memories and pain, she became intangible. He watched, tired and dizzy from sleep, in the late late hours of the night as a cab raced her away from their home and into the darkness. It was an attempt to sneak away. Not even one last hug.
She left without her son, and Billy couldn’t fight the thoughts that in her flight, he became her last sacrifice.
I don’t understand… why not? Please Mom, don’t do this…
And he fought with himself more than anyone. In less than a month he was dodging jeers and anger and resentment and pain. He found himself mourning. He clung to the book while his ears rang from the yelling. He clutched it with red and shaking hands, clawing into the cover with desperation. He held it to his chest and begged for it to help him. He laid in bed and listened closely for the sound of the liquor bottles being slammed onto counters and he held the book. He mumbled the words he knew. He wondered if his grandmother could hear him up in the better place- if she was disappointed that he got the words wrong or just proud of him for trying.
Phone calls were frequent until they weren’t. Bruises weren’t frequent until they were. Billy clutched at his chain and the pendant and let hot tears hit his arms for the only Mother he had left.
And then the anger rose again. He quickly realized how he never forgave, and never should. How he couldn’t. Tears to books weren’t worth it- they only wrinkled the pages and blurred the words.
Sacrifice wasn’t worth it. Not when it involved leaving him in hell anyway.
Loud music drowned it out. He could make his ears ring all on his own.
Fights numbed it. He could bruise his body up on his terms, or bruise another body just the same.
Pushing away feelings fixed it. It can’t hurt to be someone’s sacrifice if you don’t care about them.
There were seagulls.
And he didn’t care.
He shoved the book in the back of his closet. He berated himself for ever thinking the words were real. He kicked himself for believing words and pleas were safeguards against anything physical. He sat and wondered to himself angrily, angry as all of Hell and every wretched being inside it, how he could remember his grandmother’s empty tears and think it was sane. Think it was reasonable. How he could experience her death and think it was understandable.
Fuck feelings and wanting and pleading. He didn’t care.
Not then.
But now...
She wore a hat… with a blue ribbon.
Now now now...
A long dress… with a blue and red flower.
Days have been gray for years. He also left his sun. He didn’t pack it with him.
She left him then she left him and then he left her too. Left it all behind.
Y-yellow sandals… covered in sand.
But he never found a way to leave behind the memories. Even when they fade in pulses, they don’t leave him. In the dark of night, he sees them. In the light of day, he sees them. In the sunshine and the shadows.
He sees them now.
She was pretty.
He sees her and her smile. Feels her and her warmth. His body has been so cold for so long… has been freezing for days but maybe also for years. He’s been cold for so long. But the chill of the ocean that he remembers like he turned 9 only yesterday… he remembers that differently. He remembers that’s different.
Her laugh is a song and her eyes hold prayers. The sand is so soft beneath his feet. The seagulls are calling him home.
He feels tears and he sees them too… on another face, bloodied and saddened and desperate as the flames of Hell themselves. Desperate, perhaps more like the clouds of a more promising place, beckoning him to something better.
Maybe desperate like the Earth. Like the trees and the leaves and the grass. Desperate like a human.
She was really pretty.
Yes… yes she was.
She was the sun… she was the sun and the moon and the stars and the Earth. She was every fantastical being. She was the light in his days.
And just because light fades, doesn’t mean it can’t come back. The book has told him. Told him light can return. Told him light is there if you only search for it. Told him sacrifice is for light.
Oh god that book… Where is it....
He’s been in the darkness for days. Weeks months years. There’s been so little light. But there was one… one that came into his mind when he was wallowing and forgetting himself. A girl, who held her hand out and looked at him like a human. Made him feel human for the first time in a long while. Let him shed a tear before the monster took over him. Let him show her all the fears of his life.
And that light is here now, talking him out of himself… now now now-
And you… you were happy.
Yes.
Sacrifice is for others. Sacrifice is for those who depend on you.
Sacrifice is for the light brushing his cheek. For the child in his heart still, begging in pleas he’s borrowed from his grandmother.
He stands on shaking legs, with the light of the sun in his heart and with hot tears filling his eyes, and he wishes with all of him that he had that book. His fingers twitch at the memory of feeling it in his hands. His heart lurches at all the memories- memories of women who held him close and begged to some invisible force that his life be easy.
He remembers, briefly and vaguely, the pleas of his grandmother. That he be happy and healthy and safe. That life be easier for him than any of them because he deserved it. She begged and pleaded all the time. She hoped and she wished.
His body aches standing here, staring down the monster that mirrors the evil that’s taken over his body and made it its own. And still, he’s within himself again. He sees it as clearly as he can with tears and with headaches and with every last memory and every last strike of pain.
There’s fear coursing through him… but that’s what comes with sacrifice. He knows that better than anyone, he thinks. He allows himself that last, tiny bit of selfishness.
Sacrifice isn’t easy. It’s pain and it’s fear- it’s the worry that maybe it won’t work. Maybe it won’t be worth it. Maybe the pain searing his hands at holding every evil thing back is only giving mere seconds of grace before the world ends anyway, putting all his actions in vain.
But this monster is him too. It’s the thing consuming him. With every strike it takes to his body, it’s attacking itself, and he knows this. Even mere seconds of grace can be worth it… maybe sacrifice isn’t always about success, just for the chance of hope. Isn’t that right? Just for a chance...
It’s violent… does sacrifice always have to be so violent?
His body falls… does sacrifice always have to end with someone fallen?
There are shrieks, distant and muffled…
Light fades and enters and fades, pressure appears on his arms and his name is being spoken. His mind briefly registers the face, the face of a girl he’s sacrificed himself for enough times he couldn’t count. A girl he’s stood in front of, metaphorically, to block any pain from reaching her. A girl he’s inflicted pain on, despite.
“I’m sorry.” is all he can force out, even through the desperation licking at him to say more. Say it all. Say everything.
In his last breath, the pain fades until all he can feel is the stickiness of the pendant on his sweaty and broken chest- the Mother pressed to him.
And he thinks of his grandmother. Thinks and wonders, with the wispy, fleeting thoughts going dark and black… thoughts of a place of hope and how his grandmother must be there- waiting with her clear eyes and kind smile and shaking hands to help him through it. To grab his arm and show him around. Just like she always did.
He wonders if he should thank her for the book.