Churches (A Short Piece of Literature)
I've decided to add this here instead, and also start writing my stories here.
The skies were grey, almost no inch of it covered without clouds. That was how this town looked everyday. And out of sunlight, it was even darker. Quiet, every corner of the town, unless the church bells rang.
There was mass every Sunday, and everyone and their families were always present, it was a small community after all. Every day was the same, and it was all grey to Tom. Bleak, sad, but laughter in the distance gave no sunshine to shadows that lived here.
Every Monday to Friday Tom would work at his shop, the shop he took from his father after he had passed away, a natural death. It had only been a year, and in that year, nothing has changed, except the constant reminder that Tom's father was gone thanks to all the "useless condolences", something Tom would repeat when someone left the shop.
The shop was almost entirely composed of dark wood, and glass for the windows. It had a counter, filled with paper on the shopkeepers side, and old wine and drinks on the other for customers to see. It was an organized shop, but it wasn't holding together like Tom wanted. He had to nail a lot of shelves back in place when he had taken ownership of the shop. It smelled of old wood, and alcohol. There was a single light on top of the whole store, that would only provide a gloomy look to the place at night. At the bottom of the counter, there was Tom's protection. A shotgun, loaded, and the only thing in the shop that his father never abused.
On a breezy afternoon, with a cloudy sky, the bells of his shop door rang. An old scent had filled the air. As the door shut, the bells rang a little more, then turned into nothingness. The sound of the empty town had filled the air again, and the shop only had an old radio on, playing old Old jazz. Though not even the radio could overcome the dominating sound of the wind outside, and the nothingness of the town.
Tom got up from his chair in the shopkeepers side of the counter, stopped the radio walking slowly to the counter. "Have you come here to gloat?" Tom speaks, with a hint of anger.
"I didn't come here to gloat." This lady says, as she walks toward the counter with the squeaking of the old wooden boards on the floor rubbing together.
"You're a year late for the funeral."
"I haven't come for the funeral either."
"Then you have come for nothing, there is nothing here for you, and there will be nothing for you anymore."
Tom puts down the bottle, slowly, carefully. The air was full of fire, and albeit calm, it was still burning down the shop.
"Tom, it's been years. I wished you nothing but the best and I can only give you my condol-" In that second Tom had cut her off, angrily and fast.
"Don't you dare say that! I've heard enough of it."
"Tom! I'm sorry, what did you want me to do? I had to leave!"
"You left us! Dad needed you, I needed you, you were my mother and I was only fourteen, what the hell did I know?!"
"You were supposed to come live with me!"
"You left me with a drunk who beat me everyday! You took all the money! And you let me die here!"
Tom picked up the bottle and threw it at his mothers direction, intentionally missing, but having the urge to hit her anyway.
"Tom!" She screamed.
"With uncle Johnny?! Why the hell would I..." Stuttering, while anguish entered his mind. "...Even, want to live with the man you left dad for."
"Tom, you know I'm sorry. You know that I loved you all this time."
Tom got up, opened a bottle. Drank from it.
"Let's go to church Tom, like we did. Like we used to. We can fix this."
She went through the counter door. "I'm sorry Tom... I'm sorry." She started crying to him and holding him.
He pushed her away and she fell. "What the hell, Tom!" She screamed at him. "You know what, I was right to leave you and the filth you lived for." Before she could say another thing, Tom slapped her. Immediately after, she picked up a bottle and smashed it against his face.
"You're nothing but a drunk!" She screamed at him.
He got up, reached for his shotgun and pointed it at her with one hand. In her eyes, was the reflection of the monster she created. She screamed, she was begging and shouting for him to put the gun down, but Tom couldn't understand her. He paused for a moment, looking at her with great fury, with the devil in his ears, with his anger around his swollen heart, while the depth of his oceans drowned his thought.
In the next second, silence was the next thing screaming, and all Tom could hear was a high pitched ring in his ears.
Tom walked out of the store, in a hurry. It was Sunday, he was almost late for church. He walked fast paced, sweating like a monster. His reflections in glass windows talked to him. Shouting at him. He ran through the cold, hard wind, passing small shops. The sky was still grey. It wasn't raining, but the air was heavy.
He opened the church doors, everyone seemed to be waiting for him.
"Happy Birthday!" Everyone was shouting. But the expression of joy in their faces had changed to horror faster than Tom could pull the trigger.
