The End.

This was an entry into a competition – completed at one in the morning, sent off at nine that day to arrive the next – even if it arrived, I know it isn’t good enough to win, so sorry, but please have a look – it ain’t competition material but please tell me what you like and don’t as I do want to improve and write stuff that people will like. This is ‘cause I do want to write for a living, and even if fate is agaist me, to do the best job I can do.

Well, sorry about that rant, but I needed to set a few things straight. If you are still reading – thank you, and please say what you think, even if it is mediocre and can’t really think of what could make it better (this is one of the reasons I sometimes don’t review.)

Now to the story – I hope you like it, even if it isn’t the best written thing ever.

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She staggered down the artificially lit corridor at three in the morning, and burst through the doors to the car park. It took a moment for Lauren’s eyes to adapt to the orange light and with that pain that comes from going into natural light after being stuck inside a building for the best part of a day thought to herself that the world didn’t look as she expected it to.

Lauren would have thought the world would have looked like a grainy black and white film in the darkness, unreal and fuzzy, yet it didn’t. It was there, sharp and focused, in humiliating Technicolor. Every colour hit her senses, almost as if she had seen it for the first time, and blinked the raindrops out of her eyes. As a perfect pathetic fallacy, it had been raining all day, but it was the first time she’d gone outside since lunch. Finding a sharp wall to lean against, she slumped down on the mossy ground and let out a sign she’d been cultivating inside her all day.

The rain beat down on her, drowning out her thoughts, drowning her summer clothes and she shook her head like a dog shaking itself after getting out of a river. Lauren sat there, unconsciously curling into a foetal ball and for the first time she burst out into tears. It started as a snivel, a whine, but as soon as she gasped for breath, tears escaped that barrier inside her that had always been strong and she felt herself become small and insignificant as she bawled like a little kid.

Why did everyone she ever love always get hurt? It seemed like it to her as she sat there, shivering in the darkness and burning with shame. She’d been a runaway from a messed up family who cut, drank and would break stuff when she got upset. Why on earth he’d agreed to be her foster father was beyond her, except for the fact he always talked to her when he came to volunteer at her “special” school. She was just like every other problem kid in her way – annoying, inconsequential, someone who thought the world owed them something it would never give her. Lauren half- coughed, half – laughed; didn’t everyone think that the world was meant to give them something it didn’t? Like George said, desire causes suffering, and her desire was some kind of stability and someone who loved her. Just like every other problem kid. But she wasn’t. Not every problem kid got as good a foster parent as George.

She’d been in school when she found out he’d been knocked down by a fucking S.U.V. It’d been her lunch break when she found out – typical George, makes sure she didn’t miss lessons when he gets run over – and the news had hit her like that Range Rover. If it hadn’t been for the RS teacher with a free afternoon, she probably wouldn’t have got to the hospital when she did – as the teacher drove her over, she told Lauren what had happened. George had been out on his bike when he was hit by the car and trapped under the wheels. The driver, their mind gone to pieces, dragged him along down the road, pressing down on the pedal, so flustered that they forgot that it was the accelerator in an automatic car. George, the skin practically ripped off his arms, head being dragged along after the car, bike tyres trapped in the wheels had been trying to untangle him, but his jeans were caught in the spokes, every movement making it harder to escape. Apparently he hadn’t screamed, except when he’d been pushed under, trying to keep a calm head until his helmet broke away and his skull had been pounded along the uneven tarmac.

Lauren hadn’t wanted to know more. She got out of the car, ignoring the teacher and ran towards A and E, not even thinking about finding out where he was. Bursting into every ward, yelling hysterical abuse at the staff, she demanded to know where he was, if he was alright, all things she feared and hoped until a nurse calmed her down, making her sit and think rationally for a moment, and lead to where he was.

Three doctors stood around him, checking he was attached to the jungle of wires he was hooked up to. He was bandaged, blood gently seeping through the grey – white cloth, face bruised like he’d been in a fight with one of the local gangs he worked with, machines beeping slowly. Lauren hadn’t got anything to say, she bit her lip, swallowed her tears and ran over to him.

Lauren, blubbering away thought how he’d looked like a statue, lying there on the bed. He looked like the statue on top of those tombs to knights who’d fought in the crusade. The way his hands rested on his chest, legs straight together, eyes closed peacefully, the dressing around his head like a helmet, he could have been one of them, resting on a bier, just waiting to be taken to heaven to rest. Lauren let out a gasp of sorrow before bit her teeth together and pulled her legs into her chest, wrapping her arms around them like a bony ribbon.

Why hadn’t she been hit? God, she deserved it more than him. She’d been bad all her life and he’d tried to save her, but what had happened? The good one, George, the guy who believed in that fucker God more than anyone she’d ever known had been betrayed by the Lord, punished for no reason. She felt the anger boil in her; how could God do that to him? God had hurt her in the past, her Dad used to tell her how she’d sinned every day before he’s beat her, telling her why she was evil, but God had never listened to her, even as a little child, screaming for him, anyone, to save her.

Lauren felt around in her pocket for the cross she’d taken from him, not even sure why she’d stolen it. The RS teacher had gone ages ago, so it wasn’t as if she was around to complain at her. She pulled it out of her pocket, tears subsiding for a minute and stared at it through sore eyes. It was just a plain wooden cross – he had a couple of Gold ones, but not today – just plain wood, like the cross Jesus had been nailed to. She’d taken it from him because she had begun to realise, when he stopped breathing, that it might be all she would have left of him.

Lauren clasped her hand, the wood biting into her flesh, cutting into it like a cigarette burn and looked up at the sky, hoping for something. She didn’t know what yet, but as she looked up she felt the urge to fall to her knees and put her hands together, the cross suspended in mid air by the thin silver chain. Rain beating down on her she whispered in a croaky voice “Our father, who art in heaven…”

No he wasn’t. He was lying in there, dying slowly while you sit here in the rain praying to something that doesn’t exist, no matter how much you hope.

“…Hallow be thy name.”

Hallow like her empty life, like those left outside society.

“…Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…”

She shivered; her thin, insubstantial top clinging to her body like a fog clings to the landscape in winter, emphasising the red scars from where she’d cut herself to make her problems go away, hair flattened to her head, dripping down her shoulders.

“…on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread…”

Please, do something God, she prayed in her stomach, reply, please reply…but she had forgotten the rest of the words, having not said them in so long. She sobbed and shouted, “Please God, hear me!”

Nothing. The rain pounded, her heart actually ached, her eyes singed with tears, her throat scalded, making her voice croaky.

“Please, please listen to me?” she whispered, unable to speak. She sobbed and in between breaths she said, “p-please listen to me…”

You must accept everything, or deny everything.

“God, please be there…please don’t let me right.”

What man can deny everything?

“Please…help me; I can’t do this alone…”

This is your choice.

“God, please don’t leave him, he loves you so much…”

What kind of choice is that anyway?

“God, don’t hate him like you hate me.”

She screwed up her eyes and hoped for…what? A flash of light, a loud voice telling her everything would be alright? A hand on her shoulder telling her that George would be alright? A warm fuzzy feeling?

Lauren lent forward, hands together still, putting her head to the ground. She hoped and hoped, but nothing happened, her heart felt as if it would burst, she trembled so much that she hurt and still nothing had happened. She didn’t feel better, she didn’t feel a connection with God, she just felt further away. She knew that faith wasn’t easy – hell, she didn’t have any, but she hoped that God had some mercy.

“Please God, don’t hate me…” she quivered, leaning against her head. She pressed her hands further together and cried – not for him, not for her own life, but for herself. For her soul part of her mused.

It was just then she realised that God didn’t hate her. She felt a rush of love come over her, like the love George had shown her even when she was cutting herself, when he’d found her on the bathroom floor with a razor and cutting her arms like a zombie. The way he’d cradled her in his arms as she cried, just like she was now, and told him every detail of her sorry life.

Shh Lauren, everything’s all right, everything’s all right…

She felt herself purged in tears, reaching out for that love, holding the cross to her chest like a security blanket. Please don’t go, she thought, I need you.

Of course you do, said a voice in her head, I love you.

Lauren was overcome with new tears and didn’t fight them. There was nothing she could do as the terrifying lover came over her, feeling awe and pain at the same time, immense power yet fragile defencelessness as she asked the voice to make sure George was okay.

She never understood what the voice meant by what it said, but after a while, sitting around and thinking, she stood up slowly, scrabbling on the wall for a hand hold, and walked back into the light. No matter what happened,. She thought, somehow it’d be all right.

This is not the end.

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Thanks for reading, it is really appreciated. :).

This is not based on any real experience, although a crash like that happened outside my workplace, the hospital is based on the one in which my Garn died and it’s full of good ol’ teen angst. Never had a religious experience myself (although I sometimes suspect I have had an experience diabolica – an experience which turned me against God, but there can be no way to be sure) but a keen amateur in the philosophy of religious experience.

I hope that you enjoyed the story. It’s a bit cliché, but it’s one of my favourite cliché’s. Ta for reading – Xandra the Blue.