ALL THAT WAS LEFT BEHIND

Paper Angels

He hauled back more, endless supplies into the shed. The crash it made as the planks hit the ground echoed into the air, wakening the sleepiness of the world.

            He had returned from the complete and utter mayhem of the town. Figments of memory of it ran around in his mind. Police cars flashed their blinking lights all over the faces of those confused, terrified people.

            “Kidnapping!” they cried, frenzied and horrified.

            Jarrod didn’t know what to think, he could only slink back away into his work.

            It was bad. Fury poured out in that tiny concealed space, pure fury and loud confusion.

            He tried to forget about what it might mean, and slipped into the house for the night. He toppled inside, the eternal work-in-progress of a house. it was to be expanded wider and wider across the clearing in the woods, higher and higher into the sky. It was to be his mansion of glory, except that it was the one thing that caused him pain.

            He staggered up the stairs, climbing each new set that lured him away, as if he were climbing deeper and deeper into a monster’s stomach. Finally, he reached the stuffy, frigid room, isolated from the rest of his work, and isolated from the rest of the world.

            Pictures of angles fluttered like the celestial glory they were in the slight turn of the wind, pouring through the attic window. Each pure, snow white page was home to a carefully sketched angel in their peaceful lives, and was tacked up onto the wall of the empty room. They were arranged perfectly, as to almost take off in a flawlessly scripted rehearsal of flight while trapped in the pieces of paper.

            He staggered through the door, stiff in agonizing pain and anger. He stubbed his toe on the doorway coming in, sending him off in a series of grumbled complaints. He flopped on the squeaky metal bed, the only furniture in the room.

            The day proved to be long, and not in the least bit pleasing. His body was sore and aching from the constant hassle assigned to him on the property. Steady wood chopping was the main priority for the day. A few trees came crashing down during the previous night’s storm, a blessing to the house’s progression, but certainly not to him.

            A terrible anger concealed him, and he was done with the work, done with the life. He didn’t want to think what the dreaded man did to those people in the town. He didn’t want to think that he was so close to it all; he could touch it with his fingertips.

            He couldn’t fix it though. If he tried to fix it, he might break everything of importance to him.

            Life was cruelly unfair. He was only trying to escape the horrid shadow locking him from his home, himself, and his family.

            He reached down beside the bed, looking for a way to escape the world, just for the moment. He pulled up the Goosebumps knapsack, and rummaged for his current reading material. It was his only family just then. The words were the only way for reference and consultation. They breathed life into his troubled soul.

            A cold glassy surface brushed against his fingertips in the bag. He pulled out the cool glass jar, filled with juicy pickles swimming in their juice, and stared at it. He stared at it coolly, and without much thought.

            He breathed, listening to how it sounded like the waves of the sea.

            The breeze swished into the room, swirling the paper angles in their dance.         It was all just like waves of brackish water crashing on a beach. Just like the sea.

            He breathed again, taking a deep shaky breath. Crude and torturous days filled his mind with a treacherous hatred. He held the jar in his right hand, grasping it tightly.

            He sat up and raised it over his head, quickly chucking it at the wall in front of him with all of his strength, in the flick of his wrist.

            He sat, and watched the jar explode and shatter to the floor, but Jarrod heard nothing.