Sins (Snippet #2)

At some point, he found himself sitting on a bench in the courthouse. He was fresh from a case, awaiting his payment. His head was to the floor so as to focus on the bills dancing in his fingers. “Edmon.” A voice was heard from across the way, slipping to him in a whisper from a ghostly figure. Edmon looked up and focused on him. “Edmon!”
The word cleared the haze from his mind. The walls behind the bench began to back away, concaving into a cosmic blackness. The courthouse dissolved, leaving a thin sliver of crumbling linoleum separating Edmon and the bench. Edmon dropped from his seat, feeling far shorter than usual. He gazed at his pajamas, with their parading elephants and tigers. (i)These...these are mine. I remember wearing them as a child(i). The hazy hands from across the room ushered him closer, a soothing gesture that Edmon recalled from somewhere before. The fog cleared, and its tattered figure materialized. A familiar figure.
The figure slumped in the bench, eyes twinkling through the black of his hood. He removed his hood and stole Edmon's speech. “I'm sorry, son,” he whispered.
Edmon's mind raced as his mouth jumped hurdles. “F-father?!”, Edmon shouted,”You're a monster! You sic-ed a demon on me!” He stepped closer and his shouting weakened as sobs came in, heavy and deep. “How dare you accuse my father of being a bastard like...you.”
The figure kept his head facing down, looking as if waiting for a hole to open there and swallow him up. No such luck. He sighed, shifting his starry vision to Edmon's small figure. “Let me...tell you a story. A story about a fire.
“This fire was something I made. It coddled me as I fed it; it became the bed I slept on, the desk I sat in, the food I ate. The feeling was liberating, and I thought I was successful, maybe even happy.” Memories in Edmon's head began to shake themselves awake, and Edmon almost couldn't take it. It felt like a tempest raged inside his mind. If the figure noticed it, he didn't act like it. “That fire gave me permanence and significance, power among men!” He rose from the bench triumphantly, turning skyward eyes to Edmon. They seemed to bore into Edmon's skull and insert deep truth there.
He sat, choked down another breath, and continued. “The fire battered my mind, stretched and pulled it until that was all I stood for. I climbed into its mouth and it closed in on me, trapped me like the prey I was. I clawed at the walls of my burning hovel as I screamed for my own skin. I was a coward, the defeated villain, a scourge removed by some finite sense of justice in the universe. My life would've ended.” Tears of ash flowed from his onyx eyes, and his breath weakened. “It came like Moses and said I could continue living...” he bit grayed lips and looked down, “...on one condition: I corrupt my son or I would wither away.” His robe coughed ash with every weakening movement. “ I didn't hesitate, because what did it matter? I would live and that was important.
“That fire was a lottery ticket. I committed insurance fraud for more money, more reason to ignore my family; the fire handled that, taking your mother. The fire's about to take me, Edmon, the only righteous thing it's ever done. Edmon, I deserve what's happened to me, but you don't. Your life was taken from you by the man responsible for guarding it.” He winced heavily, taking quick breaths as his form began to shrink. “You're here as you were then: a child, innocent and pure. That's still inside you, Edmon! You're still that boy!” His fingers and legs began to dissolve, sprinkling onto the linoleum floor.
“Demons will crawl from every orifice of hell once they've found you rebelled against them, but you can't let them scare you! You're a good kid at heart, Edmon, and I wish I could've shown you that as a father, not as the bastard I've become.” He reached to touch Edmon's shoulder, but his arm fell short, dropping like sand in a broken hourglass. “Show them who you really are...son.” His face collapsed within itself, with the rest of his body following. Edmon dropped to the ground, dug into the still-warm remains of his father, the spark of life still buzzing in them.
Edmon woke to the courtroom, drenched in sweat. Life had given him what he longed for: his story. He cried.(i)Finally satisfied, and for what?(i)