Catharsis
by Damien Hunt

Two more hours until shift's end at five in the morning, the calm moment before the early rush. Time enough for a moment of rest after finishing the long list of station chores. Outside, under the soft glow of the canopy lamps, Donovan leans against the pumps and watches the warm summer rain pour down and pool across the black asphalt. It glitters as it shifts across the highway, reflecting the copperish streetlights and the rare beams of a passing vehicle.

The highway stretches on past the station, illuminated by a series of streetlights before disappearing into the distant darkness of the countryside. It is an illusion often entertained by the young man, the last fragments of light stretching like a diminishing pier until lost to the depths of nothingness. Eerie perhaps, but Donovan always found amusement in imagining himself at the edge of creation.

The sound of an approaching vehicle, slowing down, draws his attention back toward town. Behind the approaching car glows the lights of a slowly awakening Eden Falls, spread out over the valley in a blanket of luminescent dots. As the headlights sweep over him, he abandons the comfort of the night to enter the over air-conditioned station and man the cash.

Four guys, stumbling and sloshed from a night of partying, attempt to gas up their car. Donovan sighs in annoyance as he watches them from inside, wondering how much gas he will have to clean up after. They manage, miraculously, to keep the gas in their car, so Donovan buzzes them in when they finish. He wants them in and out so he can relax a bit more before the grumpy and depressing morning rush.

None of them approach him to pay for the $29.61 in premium. Instead they load up on snacks and skin mags and stumble for the door. As the last one passes by the counter, Donovan swears under his breath. Tired, irate and thinking only about the comfortable bed calling for him after the long graveyard shift, Donovan follows them outside.

"Hey," Donovan's tired voice hails, demanding and loud enough to be heard over the constant hiss of the rain, "which one of you was supposed to pay the tab?"

The crowbar hits him in the side with a loud crack, sounding like something in his torso has snapped apart. Knocking all the wind out of his lungs, the blow sends him to the pavement gasping for air. There is no pain, yet, but his body is struggling desperately to breathe and no matter how hard he struggles, he can't make himself inhale.

The first guy kneels down over him and rests the cold metal crowbar against his throat. The pain has finally come, flaring violently through his side and sending vomit surging to the back of his throat. Yet through his own shallow and choking gasps Donovan can hear the guy chuckle darkly. He makes no demands and Donovan has no chance to say anything before the other three begin to kick the life out of him.

* * *

It is an amazing church, in a morbid way. Built of heavy stone slabs, rough and weather darkened over the many years since it had been built. Soot stained windows reduce the colored glass to opaque shades of grey and have long erased all trace of their original murals. Saints and saviors reduced to shadows and phantoms.

Donovan stands outside, within the disheveled courtyard and stares at it for a long time. He finds himself wanting to sketch it and the desire to go back for his charcoal and pad hold him for a long moment. He gazes higher, reaching the pinnacle of the church's tower where an aged iron cross perches overlooking the holy ground and realizes the truth of his indecisiveness. He is afraid.

The clouds churn above the church, heavy and dark with the promise of more rain. For a moment, a moment only, a small break in the clouds above lets a shaft of golden light spear through the mists. It passes across the church, illuminating it briefly before once more fading to grey. It is only a moment, but it is the moment Donovan needs and as the rains begins again he rushes into the church.

Inside, candles burn and at the edges of their illumination the darkness is thick. Donovan leaves the murky shades of grey behind him as the heavy double doors close once more. Here everything is cast in light or darkness and the boundaries are clear. There is less light than he thought there would be and too much darkness.

Huddled in the pews, shrouded by the darkness, are several people. He can't see them, but he can hear them. The occasional cough, the shuffling of someone trying to warm up and the echoes of whispered prayer. As he walks down the aisle they quiet and he can feel their eyes on him, as well as their contempt for his intrusion. Donovan walks past, ignoring them as he looks for a priest.

A dirty hand grasps his coat suddenly, startling him. A pitiful face, smudged from sleeping on newsprint or worse, looks up at him from the darkness. Donovan takes an involuntary step back in surprise, but the hand holds him securely in place and his still bruised body aches in response to the sudden jolt. Another dirty hand lifts and points. In following it, Donovan can see a confessional. Reluctantly, as the hushed whispers begin once more, he walks to the booth and enters.

* * *

When it was described to him, it had always been labeled a loft or studio. Someone had even used the term "quaint fixer-upper." It was all bull. The apartment is an unfinished attic and nothing more. It doesn't have any insulated walls, making it a scorcher in the summer and freezing during the winter. The floors are patchwork, a pile of planks and mismatched carpeting and the rooms are separated from each other by nothing more than thick sheets of hung tarping. Its cheap, but it is all Donovan needs and he enjoys the extraordinary view over the city.

The windows are open, letting the night air flow through the place so that it doesn't get too stale and hurt his lungs. Outside the open windows can be seen a large expanse of Eden Falls, but its lights are pale and blurred by the hot humid mist and sheets of rain that continue to fall. There is concern throughout the town that the lower ends, near the river, will flood if it doesn't let up soon, but Donovan likes the rain. It mutes everything like a field of soft static and helps block out the world and its harsh consistencies.

It doesn't block out Mrs. Appleby's rotten voice though, even through the rain he can hear her downstairs criticizing her miserable husband. Donovan knows it will only get worse as Mr. Appleby turns up the TV in a pathetic attempt to drown her out and only elevate her hysterics. Donovan slams the attic door in frustration and mutters curses as he walks across the attic to his work area. The noise indeed escalates from below as he sets up his drawing board, but he ignores it as best he can as he begins sketching.

The rain, as much as he enjoys it, is murder on his charcoal sketches so he slaves over the new drawing before the moisture ruins the paper. Sometime, not long after he starts, there is a persistent banging at the door accompanied by Mrs. Appleby's scathing tongue. His body tires quickly as well, still sore from the beating, but Donovan disregards it all and continues working. The image, once formed clearly in his mind, consumes his concentration until he can focus on nothing else.

* * *

His body is broken, shattered and beyond the agony of his injuries. A merciful numbness had set in long ago, spreading over his body. He can still hear them grunting with the labor of it all, his death. They laugh too, occasionally, but it all sounds far away. Strangely, though the pain is gone, he can still feel the warm rain. It feels thicker and his body is drenched in its stickiness. He can still feel the cold crowbar as well, pressing ever more into his throat, crushing and suffocating.

A voice reaches him across the expanse that is Donovan's diminishing consciousness. The same cruel whisper that chuckled in the beginning. It sparks off a series of memories, coming and going with his heartbeat, showing him the many times he has been defeated. Slight and somewhat sickly, Donovan has always been picked on. His wheezing asthma and withdrawal into shyness always singled him out as a target for ridicule. Each humiliation comes back to him, bringing with it the rage and frustration he has been left with after being harassed. Regrets of should have done, could have done, wanted to do, but didn't do.

The darkness deepens as his memories began to diminish. His battered body giving in, his heart giving up the struggle. Death settles upon him and is taking away his last opportunity. In this realization bitterness wells up like never before, flowing through him cold and liquid. He accepts it, embraces it and tries to make it his own.

No longer can he feel the warm rain against his skin, only the chill fluid of his resentment as it pours out from within and surrounds him like a viscous membrane. It is death, but not for him, instead answering to his spiteful will.

Everything is darkness, but he could see. Their voices, so faint a moment before, come rushing into clarity as he rises up effortlessly before his tormentors. They scream, high pitched and hysterical with terror and all he can do is laugh.

* * *

The booth is old wood, warped and dry with an interior of musty used air. He sits down in the darkness and fights the urge to cough, willing his lungs to relax. Only by the strained creak of a panel sliding open is Donovan made aware of the priest's presence. There is only silence then, as Donovan waits fearfully for the priest to speak and thinks about what he wants to say. And what he can say.

He blurts out suddenly, "Forgive me father, for I have sinned . . ." He trails off with a light cough, not really sure what else he should be saying and waiting for the priest to speak up.

There is a soft chuckle, amused but not mocking really, yet stirring Donovan's ire regardless. As if sensing the anger he has caused, the priest speaks quickly, "please, I do not mean to be rude, please, do sit."

Donovan sits back down, not realizing he has risen, and waits for the priest to continue. He is still annoyed, but the priest's friendly tone calms him enough so that any remaining misgivings he has have become overshadowed by the concerns that have brought him here.

"I am sorry, but we do not stand on rote or ritual here, I ask only that you speak freely and truthfully," he pauses then, letting Donovan absorb his words before continuing, "is this what you seek, my forgiveness?"

"No, I . . . ," he pauses in shock, realizing he doesn't truly know what he was expecting, "I don't know, I am scared father."

The priest asks then, for Donovan to tell him what scares him so and Donovan does. He reveals the beating, his hatred, the disappearance of the four assailants and his lack of memories of what happened. He speaks as well of his fear, fear of what he might have done, of what he might still do and of what he fears the most, what he wants to do. When he finishes there is silence once more for a time before the priest replies.

"There is darkness in us all," he speaks slowly, letting the full significance of his words impact with their seriousness, "since the beginning of humanity, from our first choice it was born and shall remain always within us."

* * *

Donovan does not know how much time has passed, nor does he care. It is finished, perfect. Even the moisture damaged paper has added to the sketch, blurring the shading into a more fluid form. On the top half of the page is a self portrait, his face caught between agony and elation, both eager and horrified. One arm is raised high, reaching for something or someone to help him, while the other dips low and is lost, along with the rest of his body below the waist, in a pool of darkness. The fluid spreads out wide across the paper and stretches upwards, grasping at what has not yet been consumed of Donovan. Below the pool, but formed of its same darkness, is a demonic vision. Flowing from the pool in an upside down reflection of Donovan's portrait, the demon is all liquid smoothness. It bares a cold featureless face, swept back into a monstrous crest about his head. It is Donovan's greatest creation and his most horrid.

* * *

Their screams and his laughter mix until they are one and the same.

He wakes, bolting upright instantly with the fading echo in his ears. Picking himself up from the ground, he grimaces and moves with care since his entire body hurts and he is covered in still-damp blood.

Though he remembers little, if anything, he feels a grim satisfaction. For the first time he doesn't feel like a victim. However, the lack of knowing what happened and the certainty that it was atrocious fills him with a cold dread. Even in the warmth of summer he trembles as he limps home.

* * *

Donovan is dumbfounded and, sensing his confusion, the priest continues, "you were expecting something different, punishment perhaps? I am no judge, merely a shepherd and I can offer only guidance."

His voice, when he replies, is shaky, "what do I do?"

"Deny it's dominion over your choices. You desire to inflict upon other, the suffering you have endured, you seek vengeance. In this you give yourself over to the darkness."

Donovan interrupts, his temper smoldering and reflected in his voice, "So turn a blind eye and love thy neighbor while he breaks your balls!?"

"No, of course not, defend yourself and others against the transgressor, but do not seek to punish. Turn away from vengeance and darkness will hold no mastery over your soul." The priest stops then, his calm certain voice fading to leave Donovan in contemplation.

* * *

Donovan gazes at the sketch for one long last moment, then drenches it in lighter fluid. With a snap of his wrist the wooden match flares and arcs through the air to land against the paper, igniting it instantly. The edges blacken first, curling into a burnt frame for the portrait and then consumes it. The last thing to go is the caption. As it turns to ash Donovan whispers to himself, "before the end I heard him say, goodbye."

0.1.5