GAS STATION
ANGEL
The
light rain that
fell made the
road slippery and
dangerous for the old, black
Buick. But this
wasn’t the reason
that it was
going so slowly.
There was no reason to rush. Everything
was finished.
The only thing was left to do, was
the final part of the ceremony. After all he deserved an honorary epilogue,
since he once used to be the most famous author, full of money, and awards.
He was now coming into the night’s
kingdom, where cold, solitude and darkness prevails.
Welcome.
Welcome.
Visibility was confined, behind and
all around the storeroom. Monstrous and
dumb was standing over imposing behind the old gas station, which now was empty
and deserted.
Silence.
The car pulled over along side the gas pumps. He turned the engine off, opened the glove
box and grabbed the torch and a pair of gloves out of it.
Behind the broken glass of the old
rusty pump, you could just make out the last words of the old sign that
read
“SUPER 12 GALLONS”
He put his gloves on and opened the
door.
With a big effort he pulled out a big
long parcel, wrapped up in plastic, and let it fall on the ground, making a
dull deep and dark sound.
Darkness.
Darkness.
The rain had stopped. Nevertheless it had enough time to turn the
ground into mud. That couldn’t stop him. He took the shovel out of the boot,
grabbed the parcel from one end, and started dragging it, across the pot holes
now full of rainwater, reflecting darkness.
Darkness full of rusty old car parts,
dismantled boxes, thrown out old tyres, with wires and pipes, chopped up
corpses, barrels, sheets of metal and a light.
Lightning.
In the glassy glare of the dead the
lightning was indelible, while they kept on glaring with no interest in participating, from the
stand of a forgotten wisdom.
He stopped asthmatically , breathing the thick septic breeze.
The parcel now tangled up with a
metal sheet.
He could hear his sweat dripping on
the plastic of the parcel, under a moon marking his footsteps, on the road, his
own road, that was nearing the end.
He freed the parcel, dragged it a few
more meters under the glance of the fierce storeroom, and started digging a
hole, big enough to fit all those trusted to him, accompanied with a prayer.
Amen
By the time he dragged the parcel at
the edge of the hole, the moon had long gone. He unzipped it, and emptied the
contents in the arms of the earthen oblivion.
When the first beam of light poured
through the ceiling of the fierce storeroom, he found himself staring into the
hole, now full of manuscripts, postscripts, notes, scattered words, corrections,
and a white page. The moral of a story
he never got around to write.
Emptiness
He grabbed the shovel, filled up the
hole with the earth, and turned around to leave. When he got to the car, the
morning dew was half smiling on the faces of the dead. He threw the gloves and shovel in the back of
the car and started.
The old gas station and the dumb storeroom
were now left far behind, to care for
their dead, while he was coming into the other road, in the opposite direction, where words never catch up with the reigns of
the eternal light.
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