Justice Served

The view from up here is incredible. It makes me feel like justice is served. 21,369 days of hell, and now, to simply see the sky and breathe fresh air is heaven on earth.

I look up at the smog-filled skies the way others admire a stained glass windows in a great cathedral.

“Excuse me. Can we begin?” The petite reporter in the camel tweed suit shoves a microphone in my face.

“What do you want to know?” My voice is gravelly, deep and foreign to my ears.

“The AP reported you were the first soul ever released based on an error? How did that come about?”

“It was a computer error. My name is Carl A. Brightworth of Akron, OH. Someone recorded the deeds of Carl A. Brightworth of Acorn, OK in my file. So, when I appeared for judgment, it was a no brainer. I was sent, you know, there.” Even thinking the word turns my stomach.

“And ten days ago a clerk found the error?”

“Yes. It turns out everything was one big mistake. I wasn’t scheduled for termination for another seventy years. By all rights, I should be a great-grandpa now.”

And Kelly Maye Rebard should be my wife. That was the plan. It was six months and three days until our wedding day when everything went wrong.

“What was it like?” Asks the reporter; her nose wrinkles up as if she has caught the odor of something bad. She has no idea what bad is.

“It was everything you have ever heard—fire, brimstone, endless tortures, the screams of lost souls as their flesh is seared away to ash before your eyes.” I pause, unsure how much to say, how much this world is ready to hear. How do you describe everlasting damnation? Or the horrors that not even the most talented movie producer could capture on film?

“The worst of it was the dreams. They always started with life as it was meant to be. You know, blue skies, green hills, you and your lady making out on a blanket after a lazy day picnic. Only from there, things go crazy. The clouds roll in and the sky turns into a blood bath of destruction. Lightning destroys everything around you as you run for cover. But there is no cover. There is only more devastation and rotting carcasses; but the worst of it is the locusts, swarming down, beating at you with steel tipped wings, tearing at your flesh.” I feel the sweat building on my brow and upper lip. My voice grows hoarse with emotion. “And if that’s not enough, the molten hot brimstone pellets against you, searing your clothes, your back, and your hair is singed to the roots. You want to wake up, but waking up is no better because you are in hell. You are in the belly of the beast, and the smell and fire and pure evil is still with you.” I stop to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my face.

The reporter waits, quietly, looking everywhere except at me.

My voice, a whisper, my words meant more for me than the reporter and that confounded microphone she keeps pointed at me, accusing me of holding something back. “But it’s done now. Just a bad dream. Just a bad dream that I have to put behind me."

She clears her throat and looks to the cameraman for guidance. His shrug leaves her holding the bag. She looks down at her shoes and takes a deep breath. When she looks up, it is with a smile. She has already pushed aside the ugliness that is my life.

“So, what are your plans now? Return to your family?”

I look at her for the longest time, waiting for her to realize the idiocy of her question. When she fails to comprehend how ludicrous her statement, I feed it to her, “Lady, I was the only child of a couple who was in their forties when I was born. They would be 120 years old now. No. My folks are dead. Long dead. The woman I was engaged to marry is an old woman with a family of her own. My friends are gone.” I pace as I speak. She follows me with the microphone, determined to keep it in my face. My fury builds at the reporter’s stupidity, at the microphone pointing me out as a freak, at my predicament, at God for letting this happen.

“I have no home. No education, at least not one to prepare me for this world—today. I was an auto mechanic. They tell me cars don’t have carburetors now.” By now, I am yelling, arms flaying. The reporter gives up her quest to record my every word and backs away, cowering next to the cameraman.

“I am nothing more than a madman, scarred for life mentally, physically.” I hold my hands up in front of me, staring at the pink scar tissue and permanent black from hauling still cooling lava rock from one endless pile to the next. “All I am good for now is as a specimen for the likes of you and your cameraman. One after another, always wanting to know the same things. What is it like? How did this happen? Is it real? But the minute you find out the horrid truth that there is a hell and it isn’t a picnic, you shove it down deep inside you and pretend everything is the same. Well, it isn’t the same. It will never be the same. I will continue to live in hell, only this will be a different kind of a hell, a hell on earth, waiting for the dreams to come true.”

I stop and take a deep breath and remind myself it isn’t her fault. It is no person’s fault. It was just an error, and the error is now corrected. I am a freeman, free to breathe the fresh air the same as everyone else, free to make my own decisions.

Once again, I focus on the sky. A flock of birds pass overhead, destination unknown. For a moment, I envy the birds. Then I remember, I have no ties, no reason to stay here on the east edge of a great city filled with too many people, all waiting to hear my story so they have something to forget.

I motion the reporter to bring her microphone closer. With trepidation, she does. “You asked my plans. See that flock of birds?” I point to the birds now only specks in the distance. “I plan to follow those birds. I will find work as needed to feed myself. I will see places I have never seen before. I won’t forget the past, but I will use it to live every day as if it were my last. Because you never know when it will be your last day or the last day for the life of mankind. So, ask yourself, is this the way you want to spend your last day?”

She has no answer. She waits for me to continue. Instead, I pick up my backpack containing all my worldly possessions—a shirt, a pair of pants, two pairs of underwear, and a dozen socks. As I walk away, I hear her wrapping up her report in front of the camera. Tying up my story with a pretty little bow so the viewing public will accept it as real. I no longer care whether they believe. I have a second chance at life. I will follow the path of the birds, always looking skyward, always moving one step forward in a finite existence.