Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice The street was dark, even in the moonlit snow, and the cold seemed to penetrate right through the flesh to the bone. The buildings to either side cast deep shadows across the path. No lights glowed from the empty windows. No street lamps broke the pall. He huddled into himself for warmth, shuffling in the slush - going where? His mind blank as his staring eyes - breath forming icicles on his moustache - slowly a memory broke into his reverie... "You're nothing but a useless, alcoholic scum! I don't know what I ever saw in you!" Her violent outburst had come as if from nowhere... along with the flying book that tore an inch-long gash in his exposed forehead. The blood clouded the vision in his left eye, but no pain seeped through his fogged senses. He didn't remember picking up the knife - or plunging it deeply into her soft body - again and again. In a blood-soaked daze he saw her lying on the darkened rug. In that same daze he ran from the house into the wintery street where he now found himself. We fear Satan's inferno - the eternal Hellfire - the wrath of a jealous God - punishment for unresolved sins. There is no Hell other than our own self-made purgatory here on Earth. Life imprisonment without parole - the verdict and the sentence - but nothing could compare with the self-imposed inner torment. Each day his soul burns in his own fire of remorse - could Satan's fires do much worse? 1-1-2002 Another in the "dichotomy" series. Written January 1st, 2002 © on Jan 01 2002 09:23 AM PST, Heinz Scheuenstuhl    other