. . . Against everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and near. I summon today all these powers between me and those evils, against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of pagandom, against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry, against spells of witches and smiths and wizards, against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul . . .”
He’s at it again. Holy fecking Joe. Our Father, our Father, our fecking Father. Jaysus, but give it a rest. He hears you. He gets the point, man. Pick another bloody book. Put the radio back on. Sing me a fecking song. Or speak up. It’s just mumbling. The same dull monotone, day after bloody day. Asking for forgiveness. For himself. For me. I know those words. Know them to my bones, whoever’s bones they may so be. I can taste his body, his blood. I can feel the glass beads between finger and thumb and see the light through the colored glass. I just don’t know my fecking name. I tell you something for nothing, my friend, whatever sins I’ve committed, I’m serving my sentence for them. This is purgatory. This is the place between. Trapped here, not something nor nothing; not feeling, not knowing, only half remembering, waiting for an alien body to decide if it wants to live or die. I know that prayer. I recognize it just from the words I can pick out. Idolatry. That’s what you’re apologizing for. Jaysus, there are worse sins. God in heaven, He understands. The Bible’s centuries behind the times and He’s in no rush to come and update it. Can you blame Him? Who would look at this world and think of it as somewhere worth visiting? Feck, those words are familiar, too. I remember them in a voice of purple silk. Not like this beige bastard, droning on, saying his pleases and his thank-yous every time the orange nurse offers him coffee and tells him he’s doing the Lord’s work. Feck it, sister, I don’t know the man. Don’t know myself. But whoever the feck I am, I know that I can only take so much prayer. He’s interrupting. Breaking my concentration. Every time I think I’ve got hold of the memory he stutters out another “Amen” and it pops like a soap bubble. But I’m nearly there, I tell you. It’s all just ripped-up pictures and swirled smells right now but I’ll unpick it, by God I will. I see a man. Beard like a bear. The sort of man who can blunt a razor in one shave. Angry eyes and big fists. And the little lad. Ratty eyes and red hair and temper like a ferret. The kid in the gold tracksuit. Gaffer tape and bruises. The fat man. Bald as a worm, glasses and blue stones. Snow hitting the windscreen like I’m driving through static. Lights on the road, then cold on my skin; shouts and bangs and a mouth full of blood and stones. My face in my fecking pocket. Christ, don’t listen to the beige man. Hear this. Hear me. Help me find the strength to wake, Lord. Help me remember. And let me have my vengeance.