by Ray Garton
A wide banner with the old couple’s smiling faces printed on it was stretched over the entrance. Multi-colored balloons were tied to the door handles and bouncing around as the wind gave them a tickle. Confetti lined the walkway like flattened, fruit-flavored gravel.
I arrived late. There was nobody outside, though the small parking lot was full, a few cars even having to park along the curb. I stepped up to the doors and listened. Pretty quiet. A faint murmuring sound, then a quick explosion of laughter.
I opened the double doors and walked inside.
The couple sat on stage, holding hands, their backs to the crowd. Their faded, gray eyes were locked onto the slideshow projected up onto the wall above the stage. Smiles parted just about every face in that place. I couldn’t tell who was related to them or who wasn’t, but it didn’t much matter. The old photos of the man and woman, young and in love, in various eras and vacation spots around the country, could have made anyone smile. Even I stopped and watched it for a moment, hypnotized by its charm.
At the far end of the place was where the kids kept themselves busy while their parents watched the slideshow and wondered with stars in their eyes if they would live such long, romantic lives as the old couple they had come to celebrate. A group of youngsters roughhoused and chased one another and howled with sugar-fueled laughter. The teenagers across from them rolled their eyes and mumbled about how corny their parents were and how they can’t believe they dragged them to this stupid place when their favorite show was on.
I stood there for a few more minutes. Observing.
I could hear the dogs yapping. I doubt anyone else could. Same way they couldn’t see me standing there.
Strolling back outside, I kicked the confetti into the air on my way to the van. When I swung up the van doors, the dogs went quiet. Even when I opened up their cages, they waited for my command before trotting out of there. Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Big bastards. Use them in Africa to hunt lions. Good, loyal dogs. Why I always felt bad when I had to starve them a little.
They followed me to the double doors. Started sniffing and licking their chops. Could smell the meat inside. I didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.
I eased one of the front doors open, the balloons thumping and dancing, and the dogs flew by me like fanged cannon balls.
The screaming started before I got the door shut.
I lit a cigarette and leaned on the van. Studied the pulsing red and orange colors streaked across the sky. I could taste the color like ripe citrus splashed over my tongue.
The doors got to rattling. Fists banging, feet kicking. They shook hard enough that for a second I thought they might burst open. They didn’t, of course. I hadn’t chained them up or anything. God made sure they stayed sealed. Made sure nobody could get out before it was time.
I smoked three and a half cigarettes before the red and orange started to fade like overwashed laundry. Dulling into a neutral gray.
With so many people inside, their screams sort of mixed together into one big, hysterical noise. I closed my eyes and focused and I could pick out individuals. Men and women. Kids. Age doesn’t matter the way some people think it would. A child is no more or less important than anyone else.
I could tell by the colors that it was almost over. Balance was just about restored. My job, for the time being, was just about finished.
The doors burst open and the people still whole enough to use their feet took off in all directions. Some of them untouched, just as clean as when they were smiling and watching the memories of that old couple lit up on the wall.
Most of them were bloodied up pretty bad. A good amount of them sporting bite wounds or pressing their hands to holes in their bodies where a chunk was ripped off.
I let them scatter and run off to safety. They don’t see me and since the sky is gray again, there’s no reason for me to bother them.
Once the able-bodied had cleared out, I stomped out the rest of my cigarette and stepped inside.
The old couple was still on stage. The woman on her back. Belly torn open and innards dragged out like garbage from a knocked-over bin. One of the dogs lay beside her, chewing on what might have been a liver, licking the blood off its muzzle. On the other side of her lay her husband. Chewed up bad but alive. Crying over her. Slapping her with whatever strength he had left and screaming for her to wake up. Bone showed through his mauled calf, ribbons of pale skin hanging off like the party streamers dangling from the ceiling and walls.
Two dogs, tails wagging, stood at the kid’s corner. Faces to the floor. Lapping. Wet chewing. One grabbed a hold of something, ripped a chunk off, and shook its head from side to side, flinging blood every which way. I didn’t look hard enough to see who they had over there. Don’t get off on seeing a thing like that. I’m no monster or anything.
Just doing my job.
Men and women lay across the floor. All over. Blood pouring out of them and making it hard to step without almost slipping. Throats torn out and swallowed. A few of them still clung to a bit of life, choking, eyes rolling in panic.
One woman dragged herself across the floor toward the exit. I stepped aside to make room for her. She looked up at me and reached one shaking hand out, but didn’t reach me before another dog leapt on her and snapped its jaws over the back of her neck. She screamed and got to kicking and thrashing, but went quiet when the dog shook its head and something snapped, popped like a firecracker.
I let them eat for a few more minutes. They deserved it. No rush getting out. Cops wouldn’t show up until I was long gone. God’s got something to do with that, I suppose. I’m no good to Him locked in a cage getting poked at with poles.
I whistled one good time and they lifted their bloody heads and looked at me, ears up, tails wagging.
“Let’s go.”
They walked past me and hopped into the van outside. Got right into their cages. Bellies full. Content.
As I drove off, I realized how hungry I was. Decided that when I got home, I was making pancakes. Strawberry, with a tall glass of orange juice.
****
I was thirteen when I first saw the colors. When I first realized what my job was—what I was put on this planet to do. Like I said before, it’s not something that was explained to me. I just knew. When I saw that vibrant red and orange throbbing in the sky like bloody egg yolk smeared across God’s face, I just kind of knew. It all became clear like when you stare at one of those Magic Eye pictures, frustrated you can’t see anything, and then suddenly it appears. Just sort of pops out at you.
Tommy Nichols was having his tenth birthday party just down the street. I was outside dropping earthworms in an anthill when I saw him and his mom walking from door to door. Knocking and inviting the other kids to the party. I sat up and waited for my turn. Saw that the invitations were Batman themed. I wasn’t a big fan of superheroes, but I would pretend to be if it meant I got to go to the party.
Only Tommy and his mom walked right by me. Tommy didn’t even look at me. His mom gave me a small smile, but the smile faded when she saw the wiggling worms encrusted with flailing ants just beside me. A few of the ants had found my ankles and were digging their pincers in, curling their stingers into my skin. It hurt a little, but I didn’t stop them from doing it.
They were only doing their job.
I stood. Dusted the slimy soil from my hands the best I could.
“Hey, Tommy,” I said. We weren’t great friends or anything, but for some reason going to that party meant the world to me just then. “Happy birthday.”
Tommy didn’t say anything. His mom turned her head, but never stopped walking.
“Tommy’s turning ten. We’re only inviting kids his age, sweetie.”
“I’m thirteen,” I said. “That’s pretty close. I like Batman. I love him.”
“I’m sure you do. But you’re a little too old.” She wrinkled her nose. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to play with a bunch of little kids, would you? A big thirteen-year-old lik
e you?”
I shrugged. “Guess not.”
It was a lie, of course. I would have loved to play with them. I would have loved to play with anyone. It’s like the other kids, and their parents, could sense something was off about me. Nobody ever said anything, they just sort of stayed away.
The day of the party came. I wasn’t able to sleep the night before. Couldn’t stop thinking about Tommy. Probably wearing some kind of Batman birthday boy outfit. Something special for the day. I thought about all the presents he would get from the other kids. How they would all stand around while he opened each one and thanked them. How he would make a wish and blow the candles out and get the biggest slice of cake.
When I walked outside, I could hear them. Laughing. They were laughing non-stop for hours. I wanted to laugh. I wanted a piece of cake. I would have given him a present. The best present. Better than anyone else’s. I wanted to play at the house with the black and yellow balloons tied to the mailbox out front.
That’s when I saw the colors. Standing in my yard, having just kicked the anthill over again. I wondered how long it took those ants to put it back together again. Probably stayed up all night, just like me. Stacking grains of dirt one by one. They probably hated me. The same way I hated Tommy and all the other kids. Laughing.
I tell myself what happened next had nothing to do with my anger. I don’t do what I do for personal reasons, even at thirteen. From where I stood, it looked like that red and orange color was above Tommy’s house.
I did what I did because I knew that’s what I was supposed to do. I didn’t yet understand why. Not fully. When it was over, I knew I did the job right because when I walked out of Tommy’s house, covered in blood and wearing Tommy’s special birthday Batman shirt, the colors had changed. Dulled to a boring, soft gray. Still and neutral. The way God intended it to be.
I guess it’s God who gave me these responsibilities. Something powerful was behind all this. I know that not just because I could see the colors when nobody else could. But because I was invisible. I could still see myself. I held my hands in front of my face and wiggled my fingers. I even checked the mirror and saw my reflection just like any other day.
But to everyone else, I wasn’t there. Which was something I was used to anyway.
I knocked at the door. They heard that because his mom opened it, smiling with cake frosting smeared across her fingers. She licked them as she looked right through me and searched the street behind me. I expected her and the other kids to stare at me. I expected Tommy to throw a fit and tell me I wasn’t invited and to go home.
“Hello?” I said. She didn’t hear that. Just made a face and kept licking those fingers. I slid into the house before she shut the door.
That was the first time I found out about the dogs too. Because as I walked through the house like a ghost among all those laughing kids, stepping over torn wrapping paper and popped balloons, Tommy’s dog noticed me. Didn’t attack me or anything, just sort of looked at me. Whined a little.
What came next I didn’t really like. See, I do what I do because I don’t have a choice. But that doesn’t mean I like it. That’s why I started using the dogs. Not only because they were the only friends I could ever have, as bad a friend as I may be, but because they did the part I hated doing.
The butcher knife lay in the sink. Covered in frosting and chunks of porous yellow cake. The kids were admiring Tommy’s new toys and fighting over who got to play with what next.
So I picked up the knife and walked toward them. Stood right in the middle of them. Right next to Tommy who wore a plastic Batman mask. And still they didn’t see me. Didn’t see the knife either. Once my fist was wrapped around its handle, it disappeared like the rest of me.
I didn’t like doing the next part, but I did it anyway. Like brushing my teeth. I hated brushing my teeth. The taste of toothpaste made me gag, but my parents said I had to do it, and so I did.
I didn’t want to kill anyone. But God said I had to, and so I did.
I killed Tommy and half of the other kids before anyone realized what was happening. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. The knife went in easy. Piece of cake.
Tommy’s mom probably thought they were playing some kind of Batman game. The kids all screaming and falling over, playing dead. No more laughing.
They started to run. Trying every door they could. But they couldn’t escape. God wouldn’t let them. The same way He made me invisible, He sealed up those doors. Until the job was done. I didn’t kill everyone. Just enough to make God happy.
I don’t know why I took Tommy’s Batman shirt. That had nothing to do with my job. I was just a kid who wanted what the other kid had. And since it wasn’t going to do him any good anymore, I took it.
And I didn’t even like Batman.
****
The colors were God’s way of communicating with me. Like bleeding rainbows smeared across heaven.
When you ask a sceptic if they believe in God, one of the more common arguments is that there can’t possibly be a God because of all the death and suffering and tragedy in the world. They say this because they’re under the impression that God loves them. Why would God let those terrible things happen if he really existed?
God doesn’t have as much control as most religions say. Just like when I used to drop earthworms into an anthill. It was because of me the earthworm ended up in that anthill. And it was because of me the anthill was knocked over to get the ants pissed off enough that they would rip that worm to shreds. But I still couldn’t control them. I set it all up and knew what would happen, but I still got bit. That wasn’t part of my plan at all.
The reason there is so much death is because there is so much life. The reason there is so much suffering is because there is so much joy. The reason there is so much tragedy is because there is so much triumph. The world has a balance.
And that’s my job. To keep things balanced. To keep things gray and neutral.
I used to wonder why God needed me at all. Why He didn’t just reach down and fix it himself. I imagine it’s much like the anthill. Knocked over and destroyed. I could have gotten on my knees and rebuilt it, but it would have only been a pile of dirt. I was much too large to get down in the dirt and stack it grain by grain, the way it was supposed to be done. I was too large to dig in there and create the intricate tunnels.
When the scale begins to tip one way, I add more weight to the other side to even it out.
If it’s not one side, it’s the other. And my work is never done.
****
I had seen the colors that morning after tossing the Frisbee around with the dogs in the yard. Hovering way off in the distance. Shimmering blue stippled with deep purple like the scales of some exotic fish.
It had been a while since I had seen those colors. I put the dogs up and went into the house, opened up my laptop.
Quite a few stories were trending online. A couple of dead celebrities. Political scandals. Police brutality. Cats. The usual. But one story in particular caught my eye. And once it did, it seemed no matter which website I visited, which channel I watched, it was there.
A local woman with cancer. Deep in her bones. Nasty stuff. Every second was pain. Intense pain that can’t be explained with words, only experience. She publicly asked to be euthanized. Begged for it. And her family publicly denied her request. Said they loved her too much to do something like that.
They loved her so much, they were willing to drag out her death. Hook her up to machines that beeped pulses of life into her. Keep her around so they wouldn’t have to feel bad about themselves. So they could keep their hands clean and look good in front of God and the news cameras.
Half of the people online agreed with the family. Human life is too precious a thing to do something like that. The other half screamed for the family to abide by her wishes. To let her go to a better place. To end her suffering. If they really loved her, they would understand that.
When I pulled up
to the hospital, the media was already there. Cameras and microphones ready. Perfectly sculpted hair sat atop powdered faces, each reporter desperate to leap onto any of that girl’s family members who might walk in or out of the hospital entrance.
I walked through the reporters and past the receptionist and rode the elevator to the correct floor. Gail Flowers was her name. And her story had become so popular that security was waiting just outside the elevator, playing gatekeeper. Checking I.D.s and asking questions and searching bags.
I walked right by them.
Her family stood outside of her room. Talking in a huddle like they were planning some kind of trick play. Probably going over their lines for when they headed down to the horde of reporters. I didn’t care to listen to them, so I walked by them and into the room where Gail lay alone. A full tray of food sat in front of her, but she ignored it. Just stared at the ceiling. Whimpering. Fists clenching the sheets at her side and shaking, the veins bulging like earthworms.
She didn’t notice me. Smiling down at her.
“Hi, Gail.”
It took a bit for her to turn her head and look at me, and once her eyes were on me, she got to screaming. Threw her arms up and knocked the food tray onto the floor.
Before anyone had a chance to rush in, I reached down and scooped her up. Lifted her frail, weightless body into my arms and out of bed.
The nurses rushed in first. The family at the door peering in.
“Where is she?” one nurse said. “You heard her screaming, didn’t you?” She turned and asked the family the same and they all nodded.
The nurses searched the room, the bathroom, threw open the curtains. They gave each other a look that said This isn’t possible, and as they started trying to explain this to the family, I walked right out of there and back toward the elevator.
Gail never stopped screaming. She fought me the best she could, but it was like being beaten by a feather duster. By the time we got to the parking lot, she had stopped screaming. I could tell how bad each of those screams hurt her so I was glad when she stopped.