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And Gage, who now had less than two months to live, laughed shrilly and joyously.
How I Went to My Son’s Funeral with a Hangover by Louis Creed, author of How I Just Missed Him at the Crucial Moment and numerous other works.
It came and dissolved him, unmanned him, took away whatever defenses remained, and he put his face in his hands and cried, rocking back and forth on his bed, thinking he would do anything to have a second chance, anything at all.
He did not sleep for a long time, and before he did, the curved bone of the moon looked in the window at him.
Madness. Madness all around, close, hunting him. He walked the balance beam of rationality; he studied his plan.
Why was he standing here, trying to summon up Gage’s face anyway? He would be seeing it soon enough.
A new sign came in view, reflective paint twinkling eerily. NEXT EXIT ROUTE 12 CUMBERLAND CUMBERLAND CENTER JERUSALEM’S LOT FALMOUTH FALMOUTH FORESIDE. Jerusalem’s Lot, she thought randomly, what an odd name. Not a pleasant name, for some reason…
The mist stained to a dull slate-gray for a moment, but this diffuse, ill-defined watermark was better than sixty feet high. It was no shade, no insubstantial ghost; he could feel the displaced air of its passage, could hear the mammoth thud of its feet coming down, the suck of mud as it moved on. For a moment he believed he saw twin yellow-orange sparks high above him. Sparks like eyes.
He cocked his head back once and saw the mad sprawl of the stars. There were no constellations he recognized, and he looked away again, disturbed.
“Hello, Jud,” Gage piped in a babyish but perfectly understandable voice. “I’ve come to send your rotten, stinking old soul straight to hell.
Jud realized that he had been fooled again, and the only consolation was that it was for the final time.
Grief, not stupidity, Louis. There is a difference… small, but vital. The battery that burying ground survives on. Growing in power, Jud said, and of course he was right—and you’re part of its power now. It has fed on your grief… no, more than that. It’s doubled it, cubed it, raised it to the nth power. And it isn’t just grief it feeds on. Sanity. It’s eaten your sanity.
