The Desert

I buried that man in the desert. Took my shovel and I gave him a shallow grave. By the time any rains have come he’ll be deep under ground, buried by the sand storms. If the rains come early, then the vultures will finish the rest. And if anyone wants to come snoopin’ round, I’ll handle it. The dirt there’s mighty soft. An hours work and that wasteland will be empty again.

I ain’t no evil man. I’m the renegade of God. Ya’ll can pass judgment of me but the only true judgment is given by The Father. You ever stare into a man’s eyes, and seen his soul? Course not, a man’s eyes ain’t the window to the soul. They somethin’ else. I seen his eyes, black and vile, cold caverns with no escape, man freezin’ in the dark. Those eyes didn’t hold no soul. Those eyes held only the cries of lives destroyed by that man. The pleading, burning cries of the innocent damned.

I seen his deeds. The butchers, the murders, the rapes, all in his eyes. I ain’t seen no soul. Only darkness, and the evil inside. He killed them all. The moment I seen him, I knew he’d killed them all. So I took my shotgun and my shovel, few feet a rope, and I took him to the desert. Most men cry when they see the face a death. He only smiled, a sly, all-knowin’ smile.

He wasn’t surprised when I kicked in the door. He didn’t go easy. His switchblade done its work on me. But I got the hold on him. I roped him and marched him into the desert, forced him to his knees, and unbound him.

He asked me how I come to see his secrets. I preached to him the visions in his eyes. He told me he wasn’t sorry. That he’d have kept killin’ till the day he died. He snatched for the shotgun but I struck him down. Then the change came, like the sudden burst of rain. He stared at me with his eyes; they’d changed. They were the softest blue of the sky, a swirling ocean, like a sailor’s daughter, the sound of the sea rushing through the heart. I never seen eyes so pure.

Kill me, he said. He fell to his hands, head bowed. Kill me, he begged. I done seen the frightened, fading eyes of innocents far too long. Kill me, he said. Let me walk to the gates a hell on my own accord. Kill me! He screamed. I raised the shotgun and fired once into his heart. He fell, eyes dead. And he smiled.

Long after the sun had fallen and the grave was dug, I made my way home. Night had fallen, like a hand cupping a moth, blocking the light. I made my way to my empty bedroom and sat beside the bed. The blood was gone from my hands, but it would never truly be washed away. The smell a his fear had left my skin, and yet it permeated me. I grasped my hands together and placed them on the bed, my head bowed. And I prayed. I prayed that one day all would be sacred again, that there would be peace. I prayed that one day, in time, I could forget the desert...