The Hands of God

By Sean McHugh

He didn’t know where he was.

He had tried not to...he really did. He tried not to let it happen again. He nearly broke his bed the last time he did from all the maddening thrashing and he woke up with his pale, pathetic skin drenched in the perspiration of his own blood. He remembered that, too, and he knew it wasn’t good. His screams were heard by the neighbors at night and their curiosity was growing to a level that was more than he could tolerate. Especially that one girl’s...that one persistent girl. But, somehow, his humanity allowed it to happen. His mind screamed out a cry stronger than his willpower and self-induced insomnia.

He slept.

And, now, he didn’t know what hell his unconscious had propelled him into this time.

It could be surprising, sometimes, even to him, and, after ten years, experience never granted him the courage to face it. It only shoved a dose of nocturnal anxiety down his throat, under his skin, and into his eyes. At times, he found himself in a desert, walking all alone, bleeding, sand smacking his face and burning his skin like shots of glass particles from a salt drink. Just walked, and walked, and walked, until he died. At times, he found himself in an endless white mass, his shadow stretching out, even beyond the edge of the universe, and the shadow engulfed him, suffocated him, and he died. At times, he found himself in a laboratory, strapped down onto a table, where he was pricked, and probed, and prodded, feeling every agonizing prick, and probe, and prod, until the pain became too much and he died. At certain times, he even found himself in the very abysmal pits of hell, standing amongst hell, fire, and brimstone like an imp or even Satan himself.

Only the dead reside in hell.

At certain times, even his perception of color was imbalanced: his world could be shrouded in black, while at most other times, his hell could be bleeding with red...all the morbid tricks and teases of the Sickness--not even his bottle could stop it.

And he knew this had to be another one.

It wasn’t what he saw so much as what he didn’t see. He didn’t care for what did...not until his rusted green eyes darted all across his dream. It was then that a soldier's weariness activated within him: what he didn’t see bothered him...and what he didn’t see was any of the above. No perpetual desert walks with smacks of sand, no endless white mass with an overwhelming shadow, no laboratorial pricking, probing, or prodding, no eternal damnation, and no color imbalance.

And no death.

He was standing in the middle of a gigantic forest with seemingly no beginning or end: plentiful cypress trees with the sweetest green and the cleanest brown he’d ever seen, in his dreams and out of them. They were standing tall and erect, stretching into the sky like statues of nature, making near impenetrable umbrellas of leaves and branches. Each tree did this enough to create a sort of "ceiling", and this ceiling hardly let any light through. What little light that shone in the forest seeped through in small pervasions, gently and softly, like heavenly rays of light. One even hit him in the face, almost making him take his ugly hand and cover his face but he didn’t--not with his hands, he wouldn’t.

He just squinted his eyes, stepped into a shaded area, and scanned the scenery. Birds were chirping, singing a melodious song that scratched his ears like screams, and, high above him, birds flew from tree to tree, branches lending themselves to the act like hoary, wooden hands, as old and dry as his. Other than them, he seemed to be the only thing in the entire forest. No other human, no other monster, no other devil, no other long, lost friend or loved one or baby, or shadow, or anything was around.

He was alone.

He scowled at the insipid scene, snarling when he realized he had done so. He didn’t let his guard down. He couldn’t...not to the Sickness. He never could. This was probably another damned trick.

He looked down at himself and saw he still had his clothes on but his pockets were empty. He didn’t have his bottle--not his dagger, either. He didn’t even have his prized possession.

His head rose to the sky. "Where the hell am I?!"

The birds flew away in a flurry, away from him, and the song came to an abrupt end, leaving nothing but silence and his echoes.

"What the hell is this?!"

Nothing.

"You think this is funny?!"

Nothing.

He tramped around the leaves that carpeted the ground with his heavy boots, still looking around, as if he was in a war zone, and he looked up. "I know somebody’s out there!"

Nothing.

"Answer me!"

Nothing.

Somebody he used to know knocked on the lenses in the back of his eyes and scratched them, but he strangled the stranger with a tight close of his eyes and opened them up again at the sky.

"You think this is real funny, whoever the hell you are! Torturing me with these nightmares--you like that?! You think I’m gonna be tricked?! I’m not!!"

He gasped when he realized his ugly, leathered finger had escaped its prison and was stabbing the sky.

"I don’t wanna trick you," a voice said.

His head snapped in the direction it came from, his eyes wide and darting, his heart pounding, his hand soaring into his pocket like it was caught doing something, letting the wariness of a soldier take command. He saw nothing where it seemed to come from but he thought it must’ve been behind a tree, so, he walked for a few yards.

"Hello, my son," the voice said again.

He snapped to where the voice came from again, which was behind him, and saw who had called out to him.

It was…her…it was really her. It wasn't the Sickness persecuting him under the guise of a saint. It was the saint, herself...leaning against a tree, her arms crossed, smiling. He could tell because she had that...feeling...that aura of tranquility that he hadn’t felt in a decade…her smile, her blue eyes…not blood red, as the Sickness' were. But...she was different...in a way he never wanted to see.

She was naked.

He caught his wide eyes trailing down her body before darting them back up at her face. "Why the hell are you naked?!"

"You needn’t have any shame in Heaven, son."

He frowned at her...staring...allowing himself to look at her body. These...birds...songs...trees...and her. This couldn't be Heaven.

He glared at the trees and her. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know."

His thoughts made his eyes wander off into a billion possibilities. "No," he shook his head. "I’m not in Heaven. I can’t be."

"You are."

He stared at her for awhile before asking: "Did I finally die?"

She didn’t answer.

"Did I?!"

She still didn’t answer.

"This is another game, isn’t it?"

She just uncrossed her arms and stood up straight, her eyes becoming pearly...somebody knocking on the back of them, too. "Look, son…I’m worried about you."

"Worried?"

She nodded. "I’m worried you will die."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She stared at him for awhile and looked to her right, although there were nothing but trees in that direction, as there were in every direction…or so it seemed. But she seemed to be looking at something beyond the trees…something even taller and mightier than them.

"Follow me," she said and ran.

"Wait!"

She didn’t, though She kept running, and the stranger behind his eyes pounded again and compelled him to follow…to go to what she was running towards.

And he did.

He ran, feeling as real as any reality he ever staggered through: his breath, his lungs, the stray branches that smacked his face and his body, and the intermittent seeps of sunlight. It all felt as real as the birds and the songs and the trees and her. And he couldn’t even see her ahead of him anymore…as if she disappeared. But the stranger told him he was going the right way, and he was, because he sooned reached the end.

The end was a cold, hollow area; it wasn’t a forest. He was out of that sea of nature. Now, he was in a circularly hollowed area, like a clearing breath of God: no cypress trees or branches whatsoever. Just the grass, the flowers, the rivulet, the birds, the butterflies, the sky...and the church.

"A church?"

There, in the center, there was a desolate, dilapidated church, its cross on the roof stretching high into the sky more than any of the trees, seeming like it was kissing the sun. Soured statues of only Jesus and Mary were at its gates, broken, sitting on its slight elevation, sides with blank stained glass windows. The birds, the butterflies, and nature seemed to be the only thing keeping this sad area company.

"What’s a damn church doing here?"

Nothing...he knew this game before, so, he went. Went in through the metal gate, one of them falling with a screech and a "plomp", be just keeping on, walking up the path, hearing his boots crunch on the grass as if they were punishing it, falling as blasphemous as sandals before the Burning Bush. He ignored it and kept on forward, crossing over a small, wooden bridge that hovered over a stream, and passing by flowers. He soon reached the large, double oak doors and kicked them open.

The church looked just as lonely inside as it did out. The heavenly light that seeped through the forest was now blaring through the stained-glass windows, but that seemed to be the only thing illuminating the vacuous vestibule. Otherwise, it was gloomy: the tabernacle was empty and dirty, only having a large statue of Jesus being crucified behind it, the confirmation candles were out, the chandeliers were out, and a few pews were broken with nothing on it but a few torn Bibles.

A few Bibles and her, that is.

It was a small hall, really. There were only ten pews and she just sat at the fifth to her left, looking forward at the tabernacle, as if it was on fire with bread and wine, and body and blood. She didn’t turn around to him or acknowledge him in any way...just kept staring forward. So, he walked down the middle aisle, hearing his boots thunder on the linoleum floor, just booming their blasphemy, echoing throughout the church, until he reached the side of her pew and stared at her for awhile longer. She was slightly smiling up at the tabernacle, as if this was a place she used a sit...watching a sight she used to watch...as if she wasn’t there at all. Still not noticing him, either, so he gave up, walked next to her and stood right to her right.

He just snorted and plopped down on the pew.

Suddenly, she sighed. "Remember when you last went to church?" He looked at her and glared forward at the altar, which looked like an abandoned stage. "No."

"You were five. I took you to the church just two blocks away…dressed up an’ all. I remember, you liked all the singing. Especially the Hand theme. You loved that."

His glare intensified...hands starting to tremble in their pockets.

She looked at him. "You haven’t been there since."

"Why the hell would I go to a church for?"

She stared at him for awhile, him and his scarred face and his blank, hollow, rusted green eyes. She laughed weakly. "Yeah…you’re right." She looked ahead.

They didn’t say anything for awhile. He just looked forward at Jesus, hanging up on the crucifix, his hands nailed to both sides, his feet nailed one on top of each other, his life blood oozing out from them, his beaten and battered head hanging low.

Been there...done that....

"How’s your sister?" she asked.

"I don’t have a sister."

She looked at him. "Yes, you do. Or did you forget I gave birth to her? Four years after you?"

He glared at her. "I’ve only got a cousin, okay? Get that straight."

"If that’s what you want her to believe, fine."

"And you think I don’t want to?"

She shrugged. "I don’t know. Why don’t you?"

"She’s better off not knowing and thinking of herself as a part of our family." He looked forward. "That’s why."

"So, you’d rather have her live in a lie?"

"If it’ll make her feel better."

"It doesn’t. The longer she doesn’t know, the more painful it’ll be for her when she finds out."

He glared at her. "And what makes you think she will?"

"Oh, she will. I know she will, eventually."

He just looked away and grunted, grasping his pockets again, wishing he had his possession.

"How’s your father?"

He bit his lip and looked at her. "I don’t have a damn father, okay?!"

She looked at him. "Yes, you do."

"No, I don’t!"

"How’re you gonna not even acknowledge the man that helped me bring the both of you into this world?"

"How is he gonna not even ‘acknowledge’ his own damn daughter?! You tell me that! And what for? Oh," he jerked his head back and looked forward again, "that’s right, she’s white. Sorry. I forgot."

"Stop it, Jon."

All emotion vanished on his face at the sound of that name and he slowly looked at her. "What the hell did you call me?"

"Jon...you know, the name I gave you? The name you 'forgot' all about?"

"The name my ‘father’ doesn’t bother even telling me?"

"I said stop."

The Sickness...it’s the Sickness.

"This isn’t the way I wanted all of you to be."

He looked away, down at the floor, and he started sweating, his hands trembling, his stranger scratching at his walls with claws.

"I wanted you to be better than this."

He couldn’t say anything.

She stood up. "Follow me." She started walking out of the pew and he just stood up and followed her, his feet feeling wobbly and numb, as if he were drunk. She didn't seem to notice. She just walked up to the altar and stood before the tabernacle, also standing before the statue of Jesus.

He stopped just behind her and looked up at it, wishing that was him so bad.

"You see him, son?" she pointed up at it. "Do you know who he is?"

He glared at her. "Jesus."

"Yeah--do you know what he did for us?"

"Die."

"Yes. Not just for you but for everyone." She turned around to him. "I want you to know something once and for all, okay?"

He frowned.

"I died for you."

The stranger screamed, its vibrations choking his heart, resurrecting a faded red area within him. Red....

"No," he took a step back. "It was my fault and I deserve to die for it."

"No, it wasn’t, son. Stop saying that."

"Why?" He stabbed his finger at her. "You know it’s the truth!"

"It isn’t."

"It is!" He looked at his hand as if noticing it for the first time: how sheltered it was in leather glove, how little they ever saw the light of day, being sheathed from the world like a monster in a cage. It was a revelation that rattled its twin still in its pocket. "These hands right here did it."

"No, they didn’t. And, even if they did, that wouldn’t change a thing."

"How? How wouldn’t it?"

"God doesn’t care if you’re a murderer or not." She put her hand to her chest. "I don’t, either. If you’re truly sorry for it, it doesn’t change a thing."

"Even if I just devalued my entire existence?"

"It doesn’t devalue a thing about you. Nothing can ever take your value away. That’s something that can only be found inside of you. I wouldn’t give birth to somebody that wasn’t ‘valuable‘, would I? Or die for somebody that wasn’t ‘valuable‘?" She pointed back at Jesus. "He wouldn’t have, either. But he did." She patted her hand against her heart. "And I did. Doesn’t that tell you something?"

It didn’t tell him anything. It just asked him something. "Why do people have to die?"

"I can’t answer that, son."

"Why not?!" He rose his hands up, "You say we’re in ‘heaven’, right?! Then tell me!"

She just kept frowning at him.

The Sickness--that’s all it is. It’s getting to you.

He laughed at that thought and shook his head. "You know what? Nevermind." He started thundering backwards and said, "You’re just a damn hallucination, anyway!" He glared around at the walls. "All of this is!" He looked down, saw a pew in front of him, and kicked it. "This pew is!" He looked up and pointed at the window, "That window is!" He looked at the wall and pointed at it. "That wall is!" He waved his arms in the air. "Everything is! It’s all just a dream!"

He turned around to storm out of the church but bumped into something--somebody, actually. And that somebody was her. She somehow ended up in front of him with a light, yet powerful glare and he stumbled back, his eyes broadening and his jaw sagging.

"Can an illusion do this, Jon?"

He glanced over his shoulder, back to the altar...nobody there. His eyes slowly moved back to hers but, before he could ask anything, she had taken her hands and clasped his face between both of them, feeling the smooth skin and human warmth he hadn’t felt for ten years.

"Can an illusion do this?"

He tried to say something but his thoughts kept slipping in and out of his mind too quickly for him to wrestle them down. All he could do was melt in the warmth of her hands, the stranger having bored a hole which allowed tears to collect in his eyes, being the residue of his evaporation, his hands on fire. They were fuming with heat that even those gloves couldn’t suppress.

"I’m not an illusion, son. I’m just as real as you are." She then just smiled lightly, taking her hands from his face and jerked her head softly, cocking her lips. "At least in this place." She turned around and went out of the oak doors, letting in a new hiss of cold air...cold air that always sent chills down his spine to feel.

He looked down and smacked his hands against his cheeks, where her hands just were, and where he just felt them...actually felt them. He felt them as good as he would’ve ten years ago. "What the hell..." he whispered...and almost yelled when he looked up and outside. He then ran outside, stood on the top of the stairs, and looked up at the sky, snowflakes tickling his face.

It was snowing.

It was snowing...that damnable red snow. It wasn’t red, really, but, to him, it might as well have been. In the snow...in the soft mounds and thick covering that now painted the ground white...that’s all he saw: red. Red was all around him. Red was bleeding and burning into his eyes to the point where he wanted to rip them out. Red was poking and scratching his tear ducts. Red was blinding him in memories that uncontrollably replayed themselves before his eyes. Red was pounding at his head, and beating at his heart, and red was killing him just like he killed her. Red…red…red…

"No!"

"Be strong, Jon," she said, standing at the right corner...disappearing into it.

"Stop!"

She didn’t. He turned around to go to the back of the church through the inside but saw that the doors were closed. Pushing at them didn't make it budge. He even punched at them, screaming "Open, damn you!" but they didn’t. He just slumped back against it, sliding down into an almost fetal position, watching the snow fall, feeling the cold and seeing the effect it had on the flowers, the stream, the bridge, the hedges, and the endless forests beyond. And he saw how it now seemed impossible for him to go to any of those. ...Trapped...and he didn’t have the possession to help him endure it.

His fear mutated into aggression, though, the same process that worked like oxidation on his eyes, and he utilized that aggression now to muster the courage to charge through the snow and along the side of the church, ignoring the crunching under his boots and the flakes brushing his face. Just running.

When he reached the back of the church, his tracked ended in the snow and he glared at the scene.

A white girl and a black boy...playing before him...the girl simply chasing the boy all around the area: around the lonely cypress tree, over the bridge of another stream, through the garden, and on the inner border of the back gate, smiling and laughing among a flurry of pure, white snow. She was watching...that was all. They didn’t seem to notice anyone or anything else.

He walked to her side, glare following every which way the boy and the girl went. After awhile, he glared at her, too...smiling at them.

"What the hell is this?"

"The Libido."

"The what?"

"The desire." She held her hand out to them, as if reaching out for them. "That’s the way things should be, son."

He looked at the both of them...oblivious...chasing. "How?"

"Relaxed." She put her palm faced up, letting snowflakes float into it. "Carefree. Honest. Open. Innocent."

"That’s impossible."

"Yes, it is. Anything is possible. Impossibility's a myth."

"So, you’re saying anything’s possible?"

She laughed a bit. "With the hands of God, you can do anything." He just looked at her hands...so soft...so beautiful, so pure and untainted with blood and scars.

"Remember what I told you about hands that day in church?"

He frowned, his eyes narrowing, and he looked out into the field, his narrowed eyes following the children.

"You don’t."

He grunted.

"I told you that you have the hands of God, remember?"

He laughed. "Yeah...I remember."

"You can do everything with those hands." She looked at him, her hand still out. "The hardest part is just doing anything."

"I can’t do ‘anything’."

"Yes, you can. You can help your sister and father. You can rebuild our family the way it was meant to be. You can start being open again." She looked forward at the girl and boy. "You can even build a good future for children like those to grow up into."

He looked at them, the distance between him and them only confirming in his mind how far apart he and them were...but...maybe not.

Maybe….

"Happiness doesn’t measure your value. God does."

He just kept staring at them for awhile, thinking and wondering, but he eventually felt a pair of hands take a gentle hold of his wrists. It was enough to make him snap his head at her and see it was her hands.

"Wha--"

"It’s alright, Jon," she said, holding his hands in hers. She was sliding the gloves off.

"Stop it!"

"It’s alright." She kept sliding them off and he couldn’t find the strength to yank his hands away. Some internal conflict...some stranger paralyzed his thoughts and actions. Something other than the Sickness and the substances it hated, and something more than a stranger.

Soon, his gloves were off, and the snow christened them and their first true shedding in ten years with their purity. His hands weren’t anything like hers, however: dry...calloused...splintery...some knuckles abnormally large than others, as if they were once broken...and some fingers even a bit crooked. These unsightly features were those of his hands....

...But they were his hands.

"See?" she said.

He didn’t see. He couldn’t...the red was too busy blinding him and he was too busy shivering along with his hands, as if by leaving his hands naked, she had left his entire body naked in the cold, red snow.

The both of them...naked....

She took both of his hands in both of hers and clasped them together, as if they were both praying. "Calm down, son. It’s alright. They’re yours."

He couldn’t take it anymore: a tear started streaking down his arid face.

"I..." He paused at tasting a tear and sobbed. "I can’t cry, mom."

"Sure, you can. You’ve just been holding it back for such a long time. But you could've...you can...and now you are." She moved his hand and opened it, stretching it out below his face like a vast desert, and, eventually, his tear dripped on it, kissing his parched palm like a pair of wet lips, thawing in its thirsty valleys. "See?"

He looked down and he saw. Through his blurred, undulating watery vision, he saw it clearly...and it looked good to him.

"You can cry. There’s nothing wrong with that. Let it out."

And he did. He cried, and cried, and rained down on his palms with all the pent up emotions of the past ten years, and there wasn’t anything wrong with it. He even flashed the first genuine smile he had in a long time…a beam of hope.

"Now, you just gotta open up your heart," she put his wet hand to his chest and he felt his heart pumping. "When you open up your eyes, your hands, and your heart, you see how powerful you really are."

He wavered his soggy eyes around the field and saw that the browns were browner, the greens were greener, flowers were more flowery, and the sky was bluer than it ever appeared to be in his rusted eyes. And the children looked happier. They even looked more familiar. He looked at her and opened his mouth but, before any sound could sound...before he could sob his sorrows and hold the thoughts of his mind in his hand to give it to her, everything started collapsing into gradual, soft, solemn evanescence.

"Live," was the last thing she told him.

The Sickness released him.