Disclaimer - This story is non-profit, and is not in any way intended to infringe on the rights of the Hallmark channel. I don't own nothin' (not even grammar).
Dedicated to anyone who reads this and gives me feedback :-P
Warnings – Not really anything, hints at killing, but nothing really descriptive. Again, this isn't even necessarily associated with the Magnificent Seven; I just needed names and a background to work with, oh, and feedback please
Another day.
Another death.
Another dollar.
Another reason for my damnation.
How have I fallen so far?
It scares me sometimes how little I seem to care about my soul, how numb I am to the pain of others, how cold I am.
Every so often I break free of my desensitized prison, breathing fresh air after an eternity underwater. It's then that I get a rush of fear, and panic for my soul. But it isn't long before the undertow pulls me back down into the ice-cold numbness of rage and despair and I don't care anymore.
I wish I weren't so cold.
Some days I wish I could stay above the dark water, free of the dangerous emotions and warm in the light of the sun, and others I wish I could stay forever under the surface, ignorant that there's anything but the cold.
But no. I'm forced to live forever in a state of limbo. Afraid each time I'm free that it's the last time; a part of me even wants it to be.
So I'm going to stay on this path, this downward spiral, without any outside forces. Nothing to stop my descent into Hell.
Alone.
I'm not alone anymore. He's come for me. My best friend Buck has come for me.
I wish he hadn't.
My prison was becoming less like a prison, the undertow stronger, the ice more like room temperature, before he showed up. And now as I bob between warm and cold, good and evil, all I can hear is Buck.
"Chris, you've gotta stop blaming yourself." I wasn't there.
It had been nearly a year since I'd fallen, since God had abandoned me, and Buck had finally tracked me down.
"You couldn't have stopped it." I could've been there.
We sat at a card table in a mildly disreputable saloon, the saloon I had taken to sitting in looking for work.
"You'd have died too." I should've been there.
I was doing my best to ignore my best friend's words of comfort, my eyes on the drink I held.
"It was God's plan."
That's when I looked up.
My eyes narrowed. "God's plan?" Buck nodded, his eyes full of compassion. "God's plan!" I roughly pushed myself away from the table, my glass tilting dangerously, my chair loudly clattering to the floor. "How is suffering God's plan?"
Buck looked up at me calmly. "Everything happens for a reason, Chris. Even if it doesn't seem like it."
Rage surged through me, the undertow tugged harder, and then I was seeing Buck, his image refracted through a crimson wall of water. I felt the urge to kick, to cut, to kill; the same urge I'd felt toward the God that had led me to my current line of work.
I couldn't see straight, the water distorted my vision.
It was so cold.
I had stormed out of that bar, Buck watching me go, I hadn't wanted to lose my temper and do something I would have regretted. And I would have too.
A year's worth of habit is hard to break.
That was weeks ago and since then, every time I've gone looking for a job in the local saloon, there's Buck. Unobtrusively sitting in the corner nursing a drink he watches me. Driving away my regulars--disgruntled gang leaders and cathouse owners--he watches me.
Until yesterday. I'd had enough and I rode out of town. I didn't have a destination in mind; I just rode, the tide tugging me on.
And here I am. The place it all began. My former home.
The burnt out husk of my hopes and dreams.
My family's grave.
The memories are back, not dulled by time, but sharpened by my unvented grief. The pain, the fire...
Even now I resist.
Will drowning in grief be any worse than the watery grave I've already chosen?
I can hear Buck walking up behind, he must have followed me, he stands at my side. As we look out on the ashes, I can see something I hadn't noticed before. Among the ashes, among the scorched earth and death, flowers are blooming.
I've only been here once since it happened. It was after the funerals that I came back. It hadn't been that long since the fire then, but it was apparently long enough for the blackened ground to grow weeds.
The water must have helped.
A normally pretty wildflower, the anemone, had irreverently ripped through the fire-purged land, covering my family's resting-place.
The anemones are gone now; probably choked out by the vine-like morning glories that have taken over.
"It's over now, Chris." I can feel Buck's eyes on my neck though I try to ignore them.
"Why me?" Why did I live?
"It's alright."
"Why them?" Why did they die?
"You can stop running."
"Why, God?" I raise my eyes to the heavens, tears finally falling from my eyes. Buck's hand is on my shoulder.
"Come back."
"Buck," I turn, "I don't think I can."
"You can always come back."
"Not from this."
"Especially from this." Buck's eyes meet mine and I know it's true. "You'll always be forgiven if you come back."
I turn, again facing my home now overgrown with flowers. I realize that without sunlight these flowers won't grow, but then again they also need water.
Violets. My wife's favorite. There are violets amongst the morning glories. Tenacious little flowers; they always show up where you least expect them.
As I let go of my burden, I rise to the surface, Buck's hand grasping mine, helping me along. And as the sun makes the air around me shimmer with warmth, I can finally say goodbye. To my family, to my sin.
I've come home.
"As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee:
I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee."
-Joshua 1:5
End
To those of you who were absolutely confused by all the flower talk, here's what I meant.
Flowers sometimes have symbolic meanings, here are the few I used in my story:
Anemones = Forsaken
Morning Glory = Love
Violets = Faith