Thomas Sniegoski: A Hundred Words for Hate

“I eat love for breakfast and it gives me the wind something awful,” Mulvehill said with a snarl as he finished what was left of his drink. “I need a cigarette and my bed, in that order.”

He fished his wallet out from the back pocket of his pants as he slid from the stool. “I got this,” he said, pulling out some wrinkled bills and placing them on the bar. He gestured to the barkeep and took his coat from the back of his chair.

“Wow, even after I pissed you off you’re still picking up the tab,” Remy said, slipping into his own leather jacket.

“What can I say,” Mulvehill said, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes from an inside coat pocket. “I’m generous to a fault.”

Remy followed his friend outside into the freezing cold. The smokers who had been there when he’d first arrived were long gone.

“Shit, it’s cold,” Mulvehill said as he yanked the collar of his coat up around his ears. A cigarette protruded from his lips, and he brought a lighter up to ignite its tip.

“It’s January in New England; what do you expect?” Remy commented.

“Thank you, Al fucking Roker,” Mulvehill said dryly, making Remy laugh. “Where’d you park?”

Remy pointed to his Toyota across the street. “There she be,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I walked; figured it’d be one of those exasperating nights where I needed many drinks to keep from strangling you.”

“And was it?” Remy asked.

“You were one Scotch away from being throttled,” his friend said, cigarette bobbing between his lips.

“Guess it’s my lucky night,” Remy said. “Want a ride?”

Mulvehill shook his head. “Naw, gonna walk off the buzz.” He started to back up down the street.

“Talk to you later, then,” Remy said, walking into the center of the street. There wasn’t a trace of traffic as he strolled to his car.

“Hey, Chandler,” Steven called out as Remy stuck his key in the door of his car.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Can’t imagine she wouldn’t want you to be happy,” his friend said.

“You’re probably right,” Remy answered, letting the words slowly penetrate, knowing full well whom Steven was talking about. Pulling open the car door, he waved good night before climbing inside.

Can’t imagine.

Odd jobs—that was all he could remember doing for . . .

It seemed like forever.

They called him Bob, but he had no idea where the moniker had come from. He couldn’t remember his real name.

He couldn’t remember much of anything.

Bob was waiting in front of the Home Depot with ten others, waiting for work. They would do just about any form of manual labor for a day’s pay—gardening, painting, yard cleanup . . . odd jobs.

Odd jobs.

Bob stood by himself, away from the others, as he usually did, eyeing the entrance to the parking lot.

The smell was upon him first, a wave of hot, fetid aromas—the stink of a primordial jungle, lush with thick, overgrowing life. Bob closed his eyes, suddenly feeling as though he’d moved through time and space to another location.

A place that he could almost see inside his mind. A place where he had been before.

This wasn’t the first time he’d experienced this, but it was stronger of late, the smells more specific, the imagery more precise, and he kept hoping that one day soon, he would remember more.

More than the odd jobs.

“Hey, you comin’?” a voice asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Bob opened his eyes to see a thin Hispanic man standing in front of him. The others were already climbing into the back of a silver pickup truck.

“Yes,” Bob answered quickly, the lingering scent of the forest fading from his nostrils as he joined the other day laborers.

After a short drive, they ended up in a well-to-do neighborhood, clearing an overgrown lot to make way for the renovation of an existing property. Bob knew little more than that, and really didn’t care.

He couldn’t forget the latest assault to his senses. It was right there, teasing him, telling him something he needed to know, but didn’t understand.

Almost as if the memory were in some foreign tongue.

Bob stood in the lot, a scythe in his hand, cutting a swath through a thick wall of overgrown weeds. He concentrated on the rhythmic, back-and-forth movement of the blade, trying to forget the smells, the sensations, but elusive echoes remained, just beyond his reach.

The morning sun climbed high in the sky, and his shirt was soaked with the perspiration of hard work. Heart hammering in his chest, Bob let the scythe drop and removed his shirt, exposing his well-muscled flesh to the sun’s rays.

The high-pitched sound of a child’s laugh caught his attention and he gazed back toward the well-kept yard beyond the lot. The man who owned the property—Bob didn’t remember if he had even told them his name—was spraying a gleefully shrieking little boy with a garden hose.

Bob’s eyes were riveted to the scene, locked on the image of the happy child racing around the yard, trying to avoid his father’s attempts to soak him. It was all so . . . familiar .

And suddenly, the laughing child was replaced by the image of a man and a woman . . . naked, perfect in their form. They too ran through a gently falling rain.

A rain that fell upon a garden.

The Garden.

Bob let out a scream of agony and fell to the dusty ground he’d just cleared. For years— centuries —he had waited for a time when his visions would reveal their secrets, but now he wanted them to stop.

His fellow workers crowded around him.

“Is he okay?” the home owner called out. “Should I call nine-one-one?”

The silence in Bob’s mind was nearly deafening now, and he felt that the world had stopped for him—waiting to see what was to come.

Waiting for him to remember.

The man still had the hose in his hand, a steady stream of water arcing through the air to drench the grass.

The child stood watching, wet and shivering.

Why does he shiver? Bob wondered. Does he sense what I do? Does he know it’s coming?

Something was returning after so very long away .

It was almost here . . . but what was it? The images pounded furiously in Bob’s skull, and he screamed as the visions exploded in front of him.

If only the others could see, they would be screaming as well.

He saw the Garden, in all its wondrous glory, and in its center was the Tree . . . the Tree pregnant with fruit.

Forbidden fruit.

Bob was standing before the Tree, gazing at the pendulous growths that hung from its verdant branches, and somehow he knew that a piece of fruit was missing.

The sword of fire that he clutched in his armored hand blazed all the brighter . . . hotter . . . fiercer. And he was incredibly sad, for he knew that they must be punished.

They. Must. Be. Punished.

A hand . . . a human hand dropped down upon Bob’s bare shoulder, rousing him from his vision.

But now he knew.

He gazed into the frightened eyes of his fellow workers.

“Call nine-one-one,” the Hispanic man who had brought them here called out to the man with the hose.

“No,” Bob said, reaching out to grab hold of the man’s wrist. He could already feel his body changing. His skin was on fire . . . the flesh starting to bubble, pop, and steam.

The Hispanic man started to scream, but only briefly as his body ignited as if doused with gasoline.

And then they were all screaming . . . screaming as Bob’s flesh melted away, dripping like candle wax to the parched earth that he knelt upon. There was metal beneath the faux flesh, metal forged in the furnaces of Heaven, and it glistened unctuously in the noonday sun.