A Good Day
Oh, Lord; I’m out of coffee. I stand up to refill it, the blue clay cup in hand that was picked out in a store I never entered. That bitter taste washes out the copper flavor stuck to my teeth, something I just haven’t been able to brush out, since last night. The burning fluid pours from the silver pot, the black plastic handle heavy against my palm, keeping everything inside of it warm for up to twelve hours, the box assures me, but it’s really only for about eight. I’ve thought about taking it back to the store, getting a refund. I’m like that. People say things like, “Just let it go, it’s not worth worrying about.” But that’s no way to live. There needs to be rules. There needs to be structure. God made things a certain way. I keep them a certain way. Other people might be fine, leaving “i”’s un-dotted and “t”’s uncrossed. But I like to know what it is that I’m reading.
When it does get cold I make iced coffee. I drink it black. I like it better when I make it while it’s still hot, pouring it into two different sets of ice, chilling it, making sure not to spill a single drop – it’s better, fresher that way, the flavor not settled and stagnant – but I rarely think to do it. There are a lot of things I don’t think about doing that I know I love. There are lights on even though the sun is shining through the curtains but I don’t bother to turn them off. My eyes start to ache. It’s nothing I don’t deserve. We all deserve to ache, I know.
The TV is talking about a group of women pulled from the woods, their clothes torn and covered in dirt and blood. Three of them were still breathing but the other two had died and of those three one might not make it. The person who did this is unknown. My God, I think, what a horrible thing, what a terrible thing. I say a prayer and hope that the two are in Heaven and then I pray that the one who might not make it doesn’t so she can join them, too. Death is the most that any of us can hope for, and how perfect, how lucky it must be to get it so early compared to the rest of us. So many temptations that never have to be faced; so many sins never to be committed. It’s those of us that age that are tested the most.
Death is only something to dread if you are full of wickedness, and because of this I pray that I do not die soon. There is so much I need to sort out. My priest stopped taking my confessions and it makes me wonder if I am past forgiving. But it’s no matter, I think; the few must be sacrificed for the many. I can be a sacrificial lamb.
The clay mug drops from my fingers, I’m shaking so excited, my eyes stuck to the TV. I swear out loud, and for a moment I feel so guilty, but then I remember that I always will be. Guilt can be a good thing. I think about the women in the woods and I think about last night when I put them there and I am so amazed that any of them might survive.
They don’t know the mistake that they are making or the gift that I tried to give each and every one of them. They would look at these blood-stained hands, a color so deep nothing can wash it away, always red in the eyes of my God, and try and tell lies, try and say they were doing something that came from a place made out of anything but love. They would look at me and see a woman made of hate, the fools. All that I am sacrificing, and they still refuse their saving. But it’s okay. They’ll learn how wrong they were. They won’t like it when we are together again in Hell.
I get another mug out, another hand-forged thing of beautiful simplicity. Beggars can’t be choosers, and I am no beggar. I know what my next life will be like. This is the best things are ever going to be. And, I know, that there are two of them, up there, getting to see everything I won’t. I hope they say hello to my baby. God, I hope he’s happy. I hope he’s smiling so very wide. I finally turn that light off, and it feels so good on my eyes as the steam of my coffee raises into them, moved by breath. This is a good day.
