WINDOWS

She points up at the stars, her head on my shoulder.

“He named them all.”

They are the dust of His fingers.

I shift my elbow propped on the window sill, the rough grain digging into my skin. My other arm is around her shoulders.

“Do you think He’s smiling at us now?” she asks.

Does God have a face, that He can smile? I tighten my arm around her shoulder. God may not smile, but He loves to see His children happy. Looking up through open windows to find His smile in the stars.

She looks up at me for a kiss. I close my eyes and lean down towards her lips.

A gunshot and a slapping crack next to my head.

Her body jerks away from me. Dead weight. God, no!

I spin and lay her on the ground. Please God! You can’t let this…

The whole side of her face is gone. Tendrils of flesh hang from splinters of skull. And red. Coursing swiftly.

I open my mouth. The pain will not come. I kneel over her, one hand on her belly, one hand vainly fingering her hair. I pull my hand away, sticky. God, why?

Her belly moves.

Noise that will not leave my throat curls me over with my head down on her chest, my forehead resting in the hollow of her bosom.
My hand on the living thing inside her. I need out.

God, why? Not my baby. Not my baby.

Not my Anna. Not my baby.

Don’t do this. Wake me up.

Tears come, to soak into her blouse. Just looking out the window. God, why?

The living thing inside her moves again. I huddle over it, to be near. Don’t go. To give it warmth.

God, why?

I touch her face, what’s clean. It’s the same as always. From the side I cannot tell. She could be sleeping.

In a pool of blood.

My knees are stained, my fingers wet. O God! Why?

Her face is cold under my lips. Her belly is warm. But there is no movement.

No more blood for it.

Her head is dripping, slowly. I turn it so I only see the sleeping side. My eyes cloud over.

Why? Just looking out a window.

I stand and lean onto the sill.

Looking out. Looking up.

At the dust of His fingers and His still-smiling face.

How can He smile?

+++

My lip quivers as the minister speaks. My eyes wander to the windows, the sunny day mocking me. Why doesn’t a drunken gunman stand outside this window?

My mind drifts to the words being spoken.

“She will be remembered with sorrow and love as a dear sister in Christ. But our sorrow must be tempered by the knowledge that she is in a better place.”

With a God who smiles at the horror. Naming stars.

He sits in the heavens and laughs.

I sit in a pool of my wife’s blood, feeling the warmth seep out of my unborn child.

Yes. She is in a better place. There is no blood there. No horror.

Growing silence in the chapel rouses me. I look up slowly at the minister of my laughing God.
I smile sadly.

The moment breaks as he nods and looks away.

You are not the guilty one.

I rise, to bring the service to a close as I follow her coffin out of the chapel, my hand resting on its smooth veneer.

They put a shining finish even on this box of death. Like a smile on the painted lips of a corpse.

Like the God who smiles down on gore.

+++

I can hear Flo standing there, breathing in and out softly, trying to decide what to do. I don’t really care.

I don’t move from my place at the window, my fingers searching the grain of the windowsill, trying to find the spot where my elbow was.

Let her make the first move. I’m cold inside, sluggish.

I don’t care that she hurts too. Anna was…

“What do you think she wants, Doug?” her sister asks.

She wants me to look out this window, find a smiling God.

I clench my fist, rest it impotently on the sill.

I can’t.

Flo’s skirt rustles like a memory, like Anna’s whispers when we made love. Then her hand settles lightly on my shoulder, trying to turn me away from the window.

I spin around, eyes wide, grabbing her hand.

It’s Flo. Relax. Flo.

She stifles a scream. For some reason her fear brings tears to my eyes. She’s not Anna. Never was.

I bend my head over her hand, letting the tears flow.

Anna wants me to keep looking up, even if she’s not there beside me. Never lose my smile inside.

But I already have.

I let go of Flo’s hand and look up at her slowly. She is crying as well.

I nod slightly. Thank you.

Go.

She hesitates, then steps forward to give me a hug.

I hold her for a few seconds, knowing that she’s torn just like I am, and that she needs someone to help. I’m willing to give her proof
that she’s doing something.

Even though she just reminds me of Anna and makes the pain more distinct.

She steps back and walks lightly out of the room, looking back just before she closes the door after her.

The door closing on the memories of my wife that Flo brings seems to add another level of finality.

I stand there, looking at the door.

This is my life now.

An empty room, the door closed forever.

And an open window.

With a God on the other side that I cannot love.

Flo tried. And I made her think she did something. But if anything she made it worse.

I look back at the floor under the window. There are no traces of her blood anymore.

That door is closed. The key thrown away.

She is gone forever.

+++

I cannot sleep. Every night it is the same. A silent bedroom.

An empty bed.

And I lay empty and silent under the quilt she made when we were waiting for our child.

We only slept beneath it once together. I remember the warmth of her hand in mine as I stayed awake and listened to her gentle breathing.

Now I stay awake waiting for that sound to come again. Even in a dream.

But that door is closed. She is gone.

So I lay awake, waiting, and even if I sleep I am waiting. For something. Always just around the corner.

But it never comes

I sit up. I have to do something.

I cannot pray, though I know it would help me, ease the burden that I know I cannot carry alone.

But I cannot let myself pray to a God who smiles down on the horror of this life. Once I could. Once I could ignore the pain and believe that He was good despite the heartache and disappointment that life is.

Now I cannot let myself pray to Him. Even if He is good.

And I know He is.

But I cannot let that God help me, not the same God who smiled at the drunken demon as he shot my wife in my arms.

I stand up and pull some clothes on. They sat in a pile by the side of the bed, thrown down when I tried to convince myself that I would sleep tonight.

I still don’t know what to do. But it has to be something more than waiting for a sound I know will never come.

So I walk through our house, leaving the lights off. My feet are silent on the carpets.

She chose them. Tan, with a hint of muddy brown swirled in like stucco.

Why does everything come back to her?

I keep wandering, looking in rooms, not knowing why.

Always remembering.

She wanted the clock there, not on the mantelpiece.

She always left this light on, no matter how many times I reminded her to turn it off.

She rested on the little couch rather than the big one when she was pregnant.

She always drew hearts and little notes on the chalkboard for me to come home to.

She…

Everything comes back to her.

My life is an empty room full of memories.

I stop outside a closed door. I know exactly which one it is. I turn the handle and push, staring at the emptiness inside.

This was going to be my baby’s room. We were getting it all ready for you, darling. We had the paint chosen, the carpet picked out.

The old leaky window was getting replaced with a strong new one.

And then it all disappeared. And I’m left with an empty room.

I walk inside and close the door softly behind me.

This room is my life.

Empty.

Full of memories.

I’ll stay here for a while. I belong. This is where I was going.

But I still don’t know what I’m going to do, because this life isn’t worth living anymore.


And there it is. The answer. A black hole opening up in front of me.

That’s where I was really going. What I must do.

I can’t escape this room…

The door is shut forever…

The window leads to a God I cannot love…

But there at my feet is another way – the same road that my beloved walked on her final journey away from me.

I always carry a knife in the pocket of my jeans.

I almost never use it.

Now I will.

+++

I must stand at the window, so He can see what He’s done to me.

The night sky opens above me. It’s the same clear night, no clouds, stars everywhere. The dust of His fingers.

Her blood is on those hands. And yet He smiles.

I lift the knife and let it gleam in the moonlight. I’m not going to cut. That’s too lame. The heart of my problem lies elsewhere.

I change my grip, trying to ignore the sweat that breaks out in the palm of my hand. Just one movement, as fast as a reflex, will open the only door left to me.

Her body is pressed against me, warm in my arms. She whispers, leaning up for a kiss.

And then she jolts slightly. Shudders. Goes limp.

The blade of my knife trembles. I try to still my arm, to channel everything in me to that single movement I must make.

I lay my other hand flat on the windowsill to steady myself.

I close my eyes. Her face, half of it sleeping, half of it gore –

I cannot….

My tears trickle down, gathering speed on the sweat beaded on my cheeks. My hand grips tighter. Then I cannot hold it back.

The knife flashes down.

Pain explodes.


I open my eyes slowly, the agony not yet overwhelming. My vision swims, but I am still conscious.

I look down at the knife stuck through my hand into the windowsill. By some miracle the blade missed the bones in my hand – slipping sideways between them.

Not one of my bones was broken.


I look up at the stars, a sudden pain hammering in my chest. They move around slowly, almost like they’re dancing. The night seems darker.

How could I be so blind? Not one of His bones…

Not one of His bones…

I reach for the knife, my hand trembling. A scream bursts out of me as I rip the blade upwards and hurl it across the room.

Flashing behind my eyelids as I squeeze them shut in agony is the burning afterimage of a cross.

I wrap my hand in my shirt to stem the bleeding.

That is the reason why He smiles…

Because not one of His bones was broken, but His soul was crushed for me.

All this pain is just another part of His picture. The pain has a purpose. He smiles because He sees the bigger picture I cannot see.

Pain is the dark curtain over a golden sunset. I must lose everything He lost before I can gain what He gained.

Darkness is just the backdrop of glory.

And so He smiles down on me.

I look up, out the window, cradling my hand and wondering how much blood I’ll lose. And there, just the same, are the stars – the dust of His fingers, every one of them a testimony to His smiling face.

+++

The children love him. They call for him to come and play with them. And he does, though he has no children of his own.
In the summer they watch the sun go down together, and sometimes when it’s dark they go inside his house, to a certain empty room, and lay back on the thick carpet.

Above them there is a massive skylight, and on the wall there is a message:

"When you are hurting, and your life feels like an empty room with no way out,

Look out the window, up at the dust of His fingers,

And remember that the God who named all the stars sacrificed His own Son to secure your eternal joy

…and that is why He smiles down on you."


He points out different constellations and shows them their names in the books from the closet. They laugh at the hard names, and sometimes he helps them make up their own shapes among the stars.

But sometimes the children forget to look at the stars that he points to, and look instead at the scars on his hand.

They call him the Jesus Man.

End

Thanks, sheesania!

If it was moving, then I am happy. That's precisely the story I wanted to write.

If you have specific feedback, I would love to hear it, but I'm not super concerned about polishing this up right now...so either way is fine by me.